During my Ministry in Context Field Placement at Pilgrim Lutheran Church and School, I was fortunate to speak to the Pilgrim School students during Holy Week on the Maundy Thursday text about Jesus washing the disciples' feet.
Slide 1
Feet. Dirty Feet.
You would think that in chapel during Holy Week, there would be a different scripture than one that describes Jesus Washing Dirty Feet! Something that sounds a little more sacred. OK, something a little cleaner and prettier. There’s four whole gospels to pick from, and today, our scripture is about Washing Dirty Feet!??
Actually, we talk about dirty feet, not because of the washing, but because of the person who does the washing. Jesus.
Slide 2
Get ready to imagine with me for a minute. This is the night that Pastor talks about every week in worship, during communion. He says, “In the night in which Jesus was betrayed.” This is THAT night, Holy Thursday, the night before Good Friday. Jesus is having dinner with his 12 disciples, all by themselves. No servants. Jesus knows this will be the last time he can eat and talk with them before he is arrested, then put to death on a cross. That’s why we sometimes call it “The Last Supper.”
Now, 2,000 years ago, people usually wore robes and sandals. And the roads and sidewalks in Jerusalem weren’t all paved like they are in Chicago. By evening, people’s feet were sweaty and dirty. And so, before dinner, they would take off their sandals, and get their feet washed.
Usually, there was someone around to do this: maybe a servant or a kid. But tonight it was just them, Jesus and the disciples. All of them were sitting near the table. No one went to fill the basin. Because whatever disciple did it was doing a dirty job. The other disciples would think less of that disciple. So no one moved.
Imagine you were Jesus, watching and waiting for a disciple to do the right thing. He had been teaching them for three years that love meant humbling yourself and serving others. And his disciples STILL didn’t get it. In his first teaching, he said Blessed are the poor, and the merciful, and the meek. Those who aren’t powerful are the ones who are blessed. And he kept on saying it. Just a little while back, Jesus had to set John and James straight about wanting to be the star disciples, the ones that sat next to him in heaven. He told them the LAST would be FIRST. And here they are, their last night with Jesus, and still, nobody had understood Jesus’ lesson about serving. I’m pretty sure Jesus was disappointed in them.
Slide 3
And so on his last night with his disciples, Jesus, the teacher, taught them one last time what love was like. He got up, filled the basin, grabbed a towel, and washed 12 mens’ sweaty, stinky, dirty, dusty FEET.
Imagine now that you were one of the disciples. You didn’t want to get the basin because you didn’t want to admit you were the least important of the disciples. And now your teacher, Jesus, is washing your feet. Do you feel bad that you didn’t get up sooner and do the job? Peter must have. He stops Jesus -- “Lord, are you going to wash MY feet? …You will never wash my feet.”
Jesus tells him he must. And Peter goes overboard – “Then wash my hands and my head too!” What was Peter asking? When in church do we wash someone’s head? That’s right – Peter wanted Jesus to baptize him! And Jesus had to tell him no – that wasn’t what this was about. He then told the disciples – I’ve washed your feet, from now on, wash each other’s feet.
Slide 4
Today, we don’t wash people’s feet when they come to dinner. (But that would be funny, wouldn’t it?) Can you think of a dirty job that needs to be done, maybe around your house? Something that needs to be done, but nobody likes doing it, because it’s a dirty job:
- Cleaning the toilet
- Taking out the trash
- Changing your baby brother or sister’s diaper
- Washing dishes or loading the dishwasher
- Mopping the floor
- Doing the laundry
- Cleaning the cat’s litter box
- Washing the dog when he goes out in the mud or rain?
Jesus said, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”
Slide 5
There are going to be dirty jobs to do in this world. Jesus was telling us that we aren’t supposed to consider ourselves as being too good – or sometimes we use the world “privileged” – we shouldn’t believe we’re too privileged to do the dirty work that needs to be done. We need to care for one another – our families, our classmates, our teachers, our neighbors – and do the dirty and hard jobs in this world, serving each other, to be the kind of people Jesus wants us to be. Loving and serving. That’s something we all can do.
And all God’s kids said: AMEN!
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