Just Last Week
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Just last week was Holy Week, and another reminder of how deep is the love of God and how current remains its message. Thursday, for me, was one of the highlights of the week.
In liturgical church traditions, Holy Week Thursday is known as Maundy Thursday. It commemorates a scene before the Last Supper when Jesus powerfully teaches with an illustration never to be forgotten and lays out a new command that headlines everything a follower of Jesus does.
John 13 sets the stage for the moment. The small crew huddled in the upper room to celebrate Passover. They gathered for a quiet hour at the end of a crowded and drama-filled week for the Seder meal of Passover. Jesus, knowing what was coming, had one last shot with his inner circle to get across the heart of his message. Read, again, just parts of the chapter.
Now, before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world to the father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end….Jesus…rose from supper and laid aside his cloak; and taking a towel, he wrapped it around his waist. Then he poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel around his waist….”Do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord; and you are right for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you should do as I did to you….A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this will all people know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Maundy Thursday stands in the church calendar as the remembrance of this event of feet washing. Humble work. The lowest job. But interestingly, “maundy” is best translated as “command.” In the passage, the humble act of Jesus is interpreted by the new command. The point seems less that the church ought to plan and hold foot washing ceremonies, than to show the extent of the command at the end of the chapter. No job is too small, too mundane, too yucky for any believer to take on. No one is above doing the least of the jobs needing to be done.
I saw this in action last week. An older couple in our faith community, who face growing health challenges, had decided it was best to move closer to family out of state. They needed to pack up a lifetime of stuff and were not physically able to embrace the task, and there was much, much to be done. Not easy work, nor glamorous, certainly not fun, but just as certainly back-pain-producing, and at times seemingly overwhelming. Like an old western movie plot, just when the chips were down, the cavalry came charging over the hill and to the rescue. But this cavalry was a crew of almost all older folks who did not bat an eye at the size of the job, but waded right in.
The team sorted and boxed and tossed and re-homed several loads of stuff to the ReStore and to folks who might use the items. It was clearly hard for the couple to both not be able to help much and to see some of their things needing to be culled so as to fit in their new, much smaller home. I watched foot-washing at its finest. Women and men doing whatever the moment called for and doing it all with tenderness and love. Inside and outside, the larger home looks quite different than it did just days before, all because this crew took the Maundy command seriously. They washed feet.
Sometimes I make the stuff Jesus teaches much harder than it is. In this case, sometimes foot washing looks like packing a house full of memories, other times it resembles sitting and patiently hearing a friend work through the knots in their rope, or giving money generously when a need arises, or any number of chances to serve. Maundy Thursday says that if my Teacher and Lord does the lowest of tasks in the name of love, how am I to act any differently?
So, one way to view all this is to imagine every day being Maundy Thursday. Every day we can pray for eyes to see needs to be met and work to be done that will evidence our obedience to the command of Jesus that we love one another. This action of Jesus with his disciples sets fire to the notion that "loving one another" can be accomplished with only emotion or "thoughts and prayers" or even a commitment without some amount of kneeling with a towel and bowl.
That is what I saw last week when the saints showed up and lived out the "maundy" of Jesus. Let's take a page from this story from Jesus' last night with his followers and commit to loving service as often as it shows up.