Love Anyways

On this day...when we remember the last night Jesus was with his friends...I am heavy-hearted. 

The story of this night is chilling to me because it reminds me of times when I and others are just going about things in a light-hearted, enjoying the day, kind of way...totally unaware of that something monumentally awful is about to occur. 

That's what September 11, 2001, was like for many of us...especially New Yorkers on their way to their jobs on a crisp fall morning. Or those many others who were pulling into that enormous parking lot at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Or those folks just going about their chores on the farm in Pennsylvania. 

Or...today...those students milling about on the Florida State campus by the student union center at noon time...when a political science major and son of a Leon County sheriff's deputy and the school resource officer of the year...decided to shoot people. Word is that he was quoted in the school newspaper in January mocking those who were demonstrating against the current presidential administration: 

"These people are usually pretty entertaining, usually not for good reasons." 

The shooter used his mom's gun to carry out the violence on campus. Two people are dead. At least four others are in the hospital. 

And the Florida House of Representatives have passed a bill to lower the age back to 18 for people to purchase a firearm. It had been raised to 2021 following the Parkland shooting on February 14, 2018....my 50th birthday...which was also Ash Wednesday. 

Now here we are...seven years later...with another mass shooting on Maundy Thursday, the day Jesus commands us to love. 

Don't give in to the temptation of violence. 

What a juxtaposition. 

See what you think.  

 

I want us to picture the scene of a large gathering of friends for a dinner.

The host has been cooking and cleaning and preparing to receive everyone.

And gradually they start to arrive…greeting each other warmly…some laughter…a little small talk to catch up on what’s been happening.

It’s just a free-flowing…happy gathering with the aroma of good food in the air.

The guests take their seats…they pass the plates around…maybe someone serves the people at the other end of the table.

More talk…and sharing…and being in community.

It’s just a good time with friends.

This is the scene that John wants us to have in mind.

This is an ordinary big gathering of friends.

Even more…this is an ordinary big gathering of friends who have been engaging in some activism in Jerusalem.

Nothing involving physical violence…but plenty of what the late John Lewis would call… “good trouble.”

And it all began with that triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

At one end of Jerusalem…Pontius Pilate…and all the power and might of the Roman Army…war horses and soldiers dressed for battle carrying their spears and swords…have marched into the city through the West Gate.

It was the custom of the Roman Empire to arrive in Jerusalem at the time of any Jewish festival to make sure that the Jews remembered that Caesar was in charge…so “stay in your lane.”

On the opposite end of the city…through the East Gate…here comes Jesus.

Riding on a donkey.

With a bunch of average Joes and Janes following behind…as the crowds waved palms and cheered, “Hosanna!”

Hosanna…by the way…means “Save us!”

Save us, Jesus!

Deliver us from this obnoxious…arrogant…heartless…and brutal regime.

Jesus’ entry was a non-violent…but powerful…tweaking of the nose of the ruling class of Jerusalem.

And like so many bullies and tyrants and their underlings…the rulers didn’t take well to being mocked.

Jesus didn’t stop.

He keeps speaking out.

He calls on the people of Jerusalem to believe in him…because if they believed in him…they would be believing in the one who sent him.

“I am not going to judge you if you don’t believe in me,” he told them. “I’m not about judging y’all; I’m here to save the world not judge it. And I’m doing this out of Love…from that eternal source of Love who sent me here.” (paraphrase of John 12:44-50)

So…back at this dinner party…the guests are recounting all that has been happening…how incredible it’s been…how Jesus really got ‘em good with that donkey ride.

But Jesus isn’t the one laughing…or carrying on.

He suddenly gets up from the table…takes off his outer garment…grabs a water basin and a towel and starts to wash the disciples’ feet.

The friends are now all looking around at each other.

“What’s he doing?”

I mean, Jesus’ timing is all wrong.

Foot washing was supposed to happen when everyone arrived at the house… not in the middle of dinner.

Peter is totally baffled.

Here he’d been joining in the revelry about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem…he was all about Jesus showing Pilate and Rome who was the real king around here….

But a king wouldn’t be washing feet?

We can get that sense that Peter’s protest is a little like…
“C’mon dude! Stop it! Don’t do this lowly stuff!”

This isn’t the vision of a Messiah…a King…that Peter had fashioned in his own head and heart.

Again…that’s not much different than our own tendency to want to bend and twist Jesus into a tiny pocket-sized God that we can carry with us or put away when Jesus demands too much of us.

There’s a line at the start of tonight’s Gospel reading that let’s us know that Jesus was sensing the walls were closing in on him.

“Now before the festival of the Passover Jesus knew his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.” (13:1a)

One of the things I’ve noticed when ministering to people who are dying is that they know that they’re beginning to die.

And when they’ve reached that point in this life…they have a need to share some of their most profound insights...and their experiences of what it means to have lived…as their body is preparing them for death.

Jesus is no different.

He’s keenly aware that trouble is brewing and that he’s going to pay the ultimate price because there are just too many committed to burying themselves alive in the Empire…instead of freeing themselves to live into the love and liberty he’s been preaching.

He knows that the next step in his earthly mission is going to be deadly.

And so he gives a concluding soliloquy to his friends…for the next five chapters in the Gospel of John.  

It’s known as his Farewell Discourse.

His message isn’t complicated: he wants his disciples…those with him then and now…to love one another.

Be willing to do as he has done and taught.

Know that there will be resistance to his brand of non-violent and non-judgmental love.

Love anyways.

Love the ones who are your kin.

Love the Marys who weep.

Love the Peters the who don’t live up to their promises.

Love even the Judas Iscariots…even when you know they aren’t gonna love you back.

Remember that this love is one that is not an emotion; it’s an action and an attitude.

And it is the countercultural response to those who peddle in fear…division…and dominance.

By washing their feet…Jesus was baptizing his friends into walking in his way…living into God’s commandment to love…by being true leaders.

Leading by serving people.

In a few moments…we’ll be setting up a station to wash each other’s feet.

As we do it…think about this idea that Jesus was modeling a new type of leadership…a different way of walking in the world.

No one is compelled to come up here and participate in this activity.

I know for some this is too hard…physically…to do this. But as I said on Sunday…there is power in witnessing this act.

What is it like to watch this type of servant leadership at work?

And then pray for a time when servant leadership isn’t seen as so weird…but would become more of the norm in the world.

That one day those who stand as leaders learn that true power comes in emptying themselves of their greed and their need to control.

And to lean more fully and completely into Love.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.