And, they changed your diaper.
As you grew up, they cared for you. As you got older, they taught you to care for yourself. To be independent. And then, they taught you to care for others. Maybe you have become a parent yourself, and have fed, held, sang to, and changed the diapers of your own child.
One day, you may find yourself back on the receiving end of all this. Life goes that way sometimes. If you are fortunate to live long enough, old age might have you needing someone else to care for you.
Or, this might happen due to an illness or injury.
You might even need someone to change your diaper.
After a lifetime of learning to be independent, allowing someone to care for you can be hard. For some people, that would be the worst thing about getting old or becoming incapacitated: the need to have someone else care for them, to do for them what they were once able to do themselves, but are no longer able to do.
I think it was the book Tuesdays with Morrie that first got me thinking about all this. Thinking about what it would be like, if I ever get to the point that I would need someone else to care for me, to wipe my butt, or change my diaper.
Who would do that? How could I ever feel comfortable letting anyone do that for me?
Maybe I could hire someone. If I could hire someone, and they would get paid to do this, then maybe
I wouldn’t feel so bad about having them do this for me. After all, it would be their job.
I know this is a bit of an awkward way to start a sermon. It’s an awkward topic, and kind of gross. But there is a reason I’m telling you all this, and that reason is:
Feet. First-century feet…. Ew.
First-century people walked everywhere, of course. Most didn’t have a horse or even a donkey to ride, and if they did, the horse or donkey was more likely to carry cargo and supplies rather than people.
So they walked. In sandals. On dirt roads, the same roads travelled by livestock. In cities that had no sewage system...need I say more?
So when there were servants around, a servant’s tasks included washing feet.
Yuck. That’s as gross as wiping someone’s butt. Or changing a diaper. Or scrubbing a toilet.
Be glad you aren’t a first-century servant.
But, hey, it was their job, right? If you had travelled to a banquet, as a sign of hospitality the banquet’s host would have one of his hired servants or slaves wash your feet, to remove the filth and make you more comfortable.
Only a servant or slave would be forced to do this revolting task.
So imagine if you were at a banquet, with Jesus as host - Jesus! Your teacher, your rabbi, the one you call “Lord,” the one who you expect will be king of the new kingdom that is coming! - And suddenly, Jesus gets up, takes off his nice outer shirt because he doesn’t want to get it dirty… and he grabs an old apron that’s a bit tattered, a bit grimy, and puts it on over his undershirt… and he fills a basin with water and grabs a towel and walks toward you, looking less like a king and more like a hired slave...
What are you feeling?...
Peter was in shock. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Peter was strong, independent, and maybe he could allow a slave to wash his feet; but not Jesus. He couldn’t even imagine such a thing.
He said, “Lord! Are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “I know you don’t understand right now, but later, you will understand.”
But Peter says, “No, Lord! I can’t let you! You will never wash my feet!”
Would you object like Peter? Because a task like that isn’t the job of your teacher, your respected leader...
And maybe you have done everything you can to impress Jesus… you don’t want Jesus to see your icky, gross, disgusting feet, covered in filth, and to touch them with his clean, holy hands…
To what can we compare this? His holy hands touching your filthy feet would be like using our communion chalice to bail water out of a clogged toilet. No way would we do that! No way would we allow that!
So how could Peter allow Jesus’s holy hands to touch his filthy feet?
When Peter objects, Jesus says, “Unless I wash your feet, you can have no part in my kingdom…
Unless I wash your feet, you can’t join me…”
Well, Peter wants nothing more than to be a part of Jesus’s kingdom. So when Jesus says this, Peter completely changes his tune. He exclaims: “Oh! Then wash me. Wash me, Lord! Wash all of me!”
And, uh, I don’t know, maybe Jesus laughs at this. “Peter, I don’t need to wash all of you. Just your feet.”
And Peter says, “Oh. OK Lord. Wash my feet. Yes. That will be good.”
And Jesus, with the servant’s towel wrapped around him, looking very much like a hired servant or slave, takes his basin of water from one disciple to the next - I’m guessing he had to go out empty it and get clean water for each of them - and he gently takes hold of their feet in his hands, and washes all the dirt and filth off.
He cleaned under and around Andrew’s ingrown toenail. And he rubbed around Thaddeus’s bunion. And he was extra gentle with Bartholomew, because Bartholomew was extra ticklish on the bottoms of his feet, and even though Jesus was extra gentle, Bartholomew couldn’t help but giggle, which started all the disciples giggling and laughing - even Jesus was laughing.
And then Jesus came to Judas Iscariot. And just as he did with all the others, he proceeded to wash Judas’s feet. Even Judas. Even the one he knew would betray him.
How do you feel about that?
I still have a hard time with it, to be honest. Why should Jesus wash Judas’ feet? Why should Jesus humble himself before Judas, serve Judas, act as a slave toward Judas, and show such hospitality and compassion to Judas?
Few in history have done that. We read about Judas, and we boo, and hiss, and label him the bad guy, the traitor, the betrayer. We don’t talk about how Jesus loved even him, and humbled himself before him, and served him…
This is a hard story!
And yet it is the Bible story that will be our focus on the fourth day of camp at Loch Leven.
Each day at camp, we have our Bible scripture, and we also have a word of the day. The word of the day for the fourth day of camp is the word agape. Agape is the word for Christian love, the love we are show to neighbors and strangers.
Eros is the love we show to our romantic partners.
Philia is the love we show to our friends, our brothers and sisters…
And agape is the love we show to neighbors and to strangers, and even to our enemies.
Agape is the kind of love that we show not because we get something out of it. When we show eros love to our lover, and when we show phila love to our brothers and sisters and friends, we usually get something in return. It makes us feel good. We usually want to show these kinds of love.
But agape is different. We don’t show agape love because the person we are showing love to deserves it. We don’t show agape love because we expect the person to love us back.
We show agape love because that’s who we are. It’s who we are called to be. We are called to be people who love. People who serve.
We love not because they are worthy, but because of who we are.
Agape love is service to others. It is a sacrifice. We don’t do it because we want to. It is showing the love that we’d rather not show, but we do anyway, because it’s what God calls us to do.
Even after spending so much time with Jesus, the disciples were skeptical of this kind of love. Jesus washing their feet - well, they were his friends, but this was too much.
Yet Jesus said that what he does for them, they must do for others. They must humble themselves, and act like servants to others.
This is a huge challenge. It is so difficult.
Think about how hard it is just to walk down a sidewalk and pick up a piece of trash you see on the ground. Why should you pick it up? It’s not your trash. And it’s not your job to pick up trash.
Someone will see you picking up trash, and they might say, “What, is that your job now? What a pity. You should be doing more important things, yet there you are, picking up someone else’s trash. Pathetic.”
Now, maybe people aren’t really saying that, but in our heads, those are the voices we hear. And we’re embarrassed to be seen picking up someone else’s trash. We’re embarrassed to be doing this sort of degrading work. We’re above that - at least, that’s what we think.
But Jesus wasn’t embarrassed to be seen washing the disciples’ feet, serving them and humbling himself before them. Oh! Imagine what the high priests would say! Imagine what the kings of the
Roman Empire would say! Imagine a photo of Jesus making its way to the internet, a photo of the “high king of heaven,” bending over, looking like a slave, washing filth off of people’s feet. Don’t you think everyone would laugh at him if they saw him doing the work that servants should be doing?
But Jesus didn’t care. Because in his kingdom, this is how things are. How great you are doesn’t depend on how many servants you have doing things for you. Your greatness depends on what you do for others, how you serve others.
After Jesus had finished washing all the disciples’ feet, he took off the servant’s apron - I’m sure it was completely disgusting by this point - and he put his nice clothes back on, and he said to the disciples: “Do you know what I’ve done for you? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you speak correctly, because I am. If I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you too must wash each other’s feet. You must humble yourself, and seek out acts of service for others. No task is too low for you. You are not above showing love for any person.
“I have given you an example: Just as I have done, you also must do.”
