The Basin and Towel

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Today’s passage comes from the 13^th Chapter of John. Scholars often divide the Gospel into two parts: the first 12 chapters are sometimes called the “Book of Signs,” as they focus on the signs performed by Jesus throughout his ministry. These 12 chapters tell the story of the three years of Jesus’ ministry, up until the Thursday afternoon of Holy Week. The next 7 chapters tell the story of the next 48 hours. Clearly it is a deep dive into these crucial hours. And the narrative lectionary takes several weeks to work through those 7 chapters, throughout the season of Lent. We’ll be exploring Jesus’ final words and actions with his disciples, the religious and political authorities, and his faithful few that remained by his side on the cross. Through this Lenten season, we will do what we don’t usually have the time to do in between Palm Sunday and Easter, we will walk with Jesus through the final days before his death, and ask what they might teach us today.

John 13.1-17

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ² The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper ³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, ⁴ got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. ⁵ 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. ⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” ⁷ Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” ⁸ Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” ⁹ Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” ¹⁰ Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

¹² After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Very truly, I tell you, servants^[d] are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. ¹⁷ If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

Peter glanced around the room nervously.

There was already plenty of emotion swirling already around the commemoration of the annual Passover meal—the shared remembering of that first Passover night long ago, the gratitude to God for saving their people, the story of death that hung in the air. But that emotion was heightened on that particular night—the talk of Jesus coming to his final hour, the jubilation of watching Lazarus walk out of that tomb, the threat of religious/political officials and their rage against their leader and friend Jesus. But none of that was why Peter glanced around the room nervously. No it was because of something much more pedantic. Peter was thinking about feet.

In particular, the thirteen pairs of dusty, grimy, stinky feet that belonged to the thirteen men currently sharing a meal in that upper room. Like every day for the last three years, those feet had been walking the dusty streets of Palestine, up and down the roads and through some unimaginable filth. By custom, if there was no servant or underling to wash the feet, then the responsibility fell to one who was lowest in social stature. And therein was the problem. The disciples had already had multiple conversations about who was the greatest of Jesus’ followers. They had jockeyed for position back and forth for three years, trying to outdo one another for the position of second in command to the Messiah and political king Jesus. Peter often believed himself to be one of the special few, chosen by Jesus to accompany him for special teaching. Behind his back, some of the other disciples thought he was the star pupil of the remedial class, needing some special attention in the midst of some spectacular failures. They had spent three years trying to figure out who was the greatest, but now it became painfully obvious that they had not figured out who was the least. Who would wash the feet. The grimy, gritty feeling between their unwashed toes made that painfully obvious.

Peter’s eyes glanced around the room. To the basin and towel in the corner. To the other eyes also nervously wondering whose job it was to wash the feet of the others. But most often, Peter found himself looking at his feet.

Peter’s darting eyes failed to notice it at first. The Master stood. To stretch his legs? To step outside for some air? No, before anyone could imagine what he was up to, Jesus had stood and removed his outer robe, walked to the basin and towel in the corner of the room, and began to wash their feet. Some began weeping. Others were horrified. Peter tried to stop the debacle. But by the time Jesus had made his way around the room, and returned the basin of water now stained dark by the dust of twelve pairs of feet, he cleared his voice and spoke quietly: “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.” The mandate was given. The Master had spoken. This was to be the way of the Kingdom that Jesus was establishing. Peter and the rest of the disciples were speechless.

I am Peter. As I read this story, I find myself connecting to the actions of the one who didn’t understand what Jesus was up to. Who resided in a place of social and cultural power that he couldn’t imagine giving up. Peter jumped up, a spokesman for the “ought to” of the world, explaining that a footwashing Jesus would look too vulnerable, wimpy, a picture of servitude instead of authoritarian Messiah leadership. But with a gentle hand on his shoulder, Jesus explained to Peter and to us that this was the expectation, the command, his “ought to” about how his alternative community must interact with the world. There is a reason that we call it Maundy Thursday, from the same root word as “mandate.” This is the clear “ought to.” A mandate of service and servitude. Jesus demonstrates his true authority—“the servant isn’t greater than the Master”—and uses that authority to dismantle the authoritarian power structures of his day. This Lenten season, I pause to ask what are the ways that I continue to worship the “ought to” of this world, the power structures and the misguided expectations of this culture. So today, I share a confession with you from my life. Not a prescription for how you should feel, but a confession of the things that get in my way of following a footwashing Jesus.

First, I confess my need to fix others. I have talked to you before about me being a recovering perfectionist. One of the ways my brain works is that I am always fighting the need to perfect myself and others. I perceive myself to be a universal expert and think everyone else needs to know it, too! How often I find myself, like Peter, pulling Jesus to the side and explaining what he needs to do to fix the world. But a week and a half ago, I sat here in our sanctuary on Ash Wednesday, quietly listening to Evelyn play, and contemplating the Lenten work of fasting, of giving something up for the season. And with an ash-stained thumb, contemplating my own brokenness and finitude, I realized that one of the things that I must keep working on giving up is the need to fix others. To confess that I don’t know it all, for myself or especially for others. This Lenten season, I am asking God to humbly listen to what others need, instead of what I think they need. Richard Foster writes about this passage and the discipline of service, suggesting that one of the key ways that we can serve others is that we can listen to them. To set aside what we assume are our right answers and begin to listen to the experience of another. To set aside our need to fix, and instead submit and learn from those who are different than us. I confess my inability to serve, tied to my need to fix.

Second, I confess my whiteness. Now, I don’t mean by that that I apologize for the color of my skin. That isn’t up to me. But I confess to my embrace of the white experience as the only valid experience. What I often see as “normal” or “universal,” is actually the particular lens of one who has grown up as the majority race in this country. I confess to times that I am blissfully unaware of the ways that that skin color has made my life different and easier than those whose skin is a different color than mine. As I begin to practice that listening that Foster talks about, I start to hear the experience of black, indigenous, and people of color who have not found themselves as comfortable or protected or welcomed by our culture. So when I say I confess my whiteness, I confess to my embrace of the hierarchical and established structures that make my life more comfortable than those who look different than me. That protect me in ways that they do not protect others. Rachel Sophia Baard writes that in the footwashing Jesus, “a new reality is announced…a reality in which human presuppositions about glory and power are turned on their head.” This season, I confess my need to have my presuppositions turned on their heads, as I hear and embrace the experience of others.

These are two of my confessions. Two of the ways that I, like Peter, I stand up to the footwashing Jesus and proclaim my allegiance to this world. Two of the ways Jesus mandates, “if you will follow me, this is how you must live.”

“Come on, preacher. Do we really need another mandate? Haven’t we had enough mandates the last two years?” Mask mandates. Vaccine mandates. Quarantine mandates. And even those of us who trust and agree with the doctors and public health officials who created these mandates, it doesn’t mean we like it. Peter didn’t like being dressed down by Jesus. I don’t like to stand up and offer a confession of the ways that I fall short. Do we have to talk about another mandate? Can’t we talk about good news? Like grace? And forgiveness? And hope? Where is the good news in a mandate to serve?

Perhaps a couple of metaphors would help.

Here in the next few weeks, in the final days of Winter and early days of Spring, some of you will celebrate another season: Pruning Season. You will dig out those pruning shears and carefully start to prune the bushes and vines and roses in your yard. Gardeners know that pruning plants helps them to grow stronger. Parts of the plant that are dead or weak need to be cut back, so that the plant doesn’t waste a lot of energy on those unhealthy parts. Cutting those parts away helps to increase health in the plant as a whole.

This is not new knowledge. Immediately after Jesus gives this mandate to serve in Chapter 13, he delivers this long sermon to his disciples. Scholars call it his Final Discourse. And as a part of that, we hear Jesus telling his disciples about the truth of Pruning Season:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

So where is the good news in a mandate to remove the parts of our lives that keep us from serving others? Because when we remove those parts…the arrogance and the assumptions and the racist tendencies, we begin to abide in Christ. We become healthier disciples. Like those bushes and plants, we have the diseased and unhealthy parts pruned out of our lives. A mandate feels like bad news at first, as Jesus with sharp shears cuts back parts of our history and our learned behavior, and our privileged defenses. It doesn’t always feel good to confess, to be corrected, to do that hard emotional work, to be mandated to a life of service and sacrifice. But when Jesus works in our life in this way, it is good news. It is grace. It is growth and health. May we find ourselves this season abiding in the footwashing Jesus.

One final metaphor that might be helpful.

Yesterday, the Blue Team ran a trail race. It took place up in North Lawrence, on the River Trail loop. Now, this trail is one that I have run…50…100…200 times? But the managers of the trail ask that the bikers travel one direction on that loop while the runners and hikers travel the other direction. It helps avoid accidents that way. So I have done this loop a bunch…in the same direction. Until yesterday. For the race, it was closed to bikes and the race required that runners go both directions…this way and then that way. And it was like I was transported to another world. This was the same trail I had seen in one direction over and over again, but when I saw it from the other direction, it was this amazing new experience. I saw the River from new directions. And part of the forest I had never noticed before. At one point I looked up and asked, “am I in a different state?” And all this simply by turning around.

This is what Jesus did for the disciples. Rooted and tied to a power structure and cultural system that demanded hierarchy and greatness based on control, they knew the rules of that system. Until Jesus…turned them around. Helped them to see the same world with new eyes. Helped them to learn what it meant to lead by serving. Helped them learn a new way to be.

Helps us learn a new way to be. The way of listening. The way of footwashing. The way of serving. The way of love. This season, may you allow the footwashing Jesus, the pruning Jesus, the new-perspective-giving Jesus, to give you the gift of a new way to be.