John 13:1-17
Think about a time that somebody looking down at your
feet and could tell where you had been.
You may have had grass clippings from mowing the yard. You may have stepped in the mud. Maybe your shoes were soaked from stepping in
a puddle. Maybe they were iced over
after shoveling snow. Perhaps
they were dusty with that red clay-colored dust that’s impossible to brush
off.
Think about a time when you knew something from the way
it felt when you took a step. Have you
ever stepped on hot tar or on a piece of gum?
Maybe you weren’t paying the proper attention when you were walking
through a barn. You might have walked on
a freshly painted deck. Maybe there was
a reason for that sign that said, “Slippery when wet.” Have you ever had sand in your shoe, or a
piece of gravel?
Road dirt of whatever kind tells the story of where you
have been and what you have been through. It isn’t all just flip-flops and hightops that tell the
tale. Surely you have seen those
memorials that consist of a soldier’s boots and helmet. If you ever go to the Holocaust Memorial
Museum at the Smithsonian, there’s a room which is simply filled with leather
shoes that were collected from people headed into the gas chambers.
When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet at the start of the
Last Supper, he was offering the usual hospitality to travelers – the
difference being that it was the place of a servant, not the host, to do
that. It was more than that,
though. He insisted on doing it, even
though it was considered by others to have been beneath him. He even told Peter,
“Unless I wash you,
you have no share with me.” [John 13:8b]
Jesus
washes away – and wants to be sure we know it – the dirt and grime that we pick
up on our journey from birth to death. The
thing about road dirt, too, is that some of it is your own fault because of
where you’ve walked but some of it gets sort of splashed onto you by somebody
else.
One time I visited an older lady who had once been a
choir director and whose memory was still fresh among the singers. They called her, “Sarge.” I also knew somebody who had had the same
woman as a music teacher in school and who grimaced when I mentioned I had gone
to see her at a retirement community. I
asked about that and was told how she was known for barking at her students and
making them miserable for any mistakes they made. What none of them knew was that Sarge had,
according to her sister, once been a sweet and agreeable person who had fallen
deeply in love with a man who was a no-show on the day of their wedding. He just left her waiting there. Yes, that does sound like a novel, but in her
case it really happened and it changed her.
She walked around with the memory of that day like a stone in her shoe for
the rest of her life.
Another couple I knew were really terrific people. Their oldest son, however, was convicted and
sentenced under Megan’s Law. When he was
released from prison years later they found themselves taking him in, which
meant that their grandchildren, their other children’s children, could no
longer come to visit. The grandparents
would have to go to them, and they never, ever had contact of any sort with
their mysterious uncle. The sadness and
loss were sometimes visible on their faces when they thought nobody was
looking.
We don’t know an awful lot about the disciples who were
at the Last Supper, but we do know that they had walked their own roads when
Jesus called them to walk with him.
Peter, the fisherman, had a wife and her mother also
lived with them. The mother-in-law was
sick when he met Jesus, and Jesus healed her.
James and John also had a mother who followed them around when they went
traveling with Jesus. She apparently
also believed in him, so much so that she went to Jesus to ask that when he
would be seated in glory he would give her sons the places of honor. James and John were sometimes called the
“Sons of Thunder”, and it occurs to me that maybe this nickname referred to
her. Levi had been a tax collector,
which meant that he had been despised and hated by his fellow Jews. Simon had been a Zealot, which meant that he
had been encouraging others to despise people like Levi. Andrew’s name was Greek. What was that about? How did Thomas come to be so insistent on proof? Then there was Judas. What motivated him? People have been thinking about that question
for two thousand years.
“And during supper Jesus,
knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had
come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a
towel around himself. Then he
poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe
them with the towel that was tied around him.” [John 13:2b-5]
He
washed all their feet, even Judas’s.
Everyone has their story, their
background, their baggage. Everyone has
the dirt of the road on their feet. It’s
inevitable. Jesus still rises from the
meal where he meets his people, and wipes that stuff away. After the meal was over, even the part at the
very end where he shared the leftover bread and wine with them in a new way, he
had a few more things to tell them and at the heart of it were these words:
“Peace I
leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the
world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
[John 14:27]
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