Sermon:  The Rev. Leah D. Schade
Reformation Lutheran Church, Media, PA
Maundy Thursday, 2007

     A group of devout Jews gather in a room on the Eve of Passover.  The group consists of a rabbi and his students who have followed him from town to town across the region of Galilee for the last three years.  They are preparing to engage in one of the most sacred rituals of their faith - the Passover meal that commemorates their release from slavery in Egypt over 2000 years ago. 
     The students know the importance of this high holy day.  They have participated in this ritual since they were babes-in-arms, mesmerized by the flickering candlelight making shadows on the walls. As they grew older, they were allowed to taste the food -- the bland, flat bread made without yeast; the tender meat of a lamb prepared with bitter herbs; the wine tart upon their tongues.  Each of them would have had the opportunity to ask the question posed by the youngest member of the family:  “Why is this night different from all other nights?”     And they will have heard the story repeated, echoing across countless generations. 
     The meal is a reminder that God would not have them be slaves of any nation.  Even now, as they chafe under the occupation of the foreign Roman army, they believe in their hearts they are free. Because they are children of Israel, and God will make good on his promise to send a Messiah to deliver them and restore the sacred land to them. 
     So tonight, these men are gathered in that room, making preparations for the Passover meal.  Tonight they are in their holy city of Jerusalem, having made the pilgrimage with their teacher.  The atmosphere is at once solemn and also strangely electrified, as if they can sense a current in the air suggesting powerful things may happen that night. 
     And as they are eating the meal, hurriedly, as tradition dictates, something happens that stops them all in mid-chew.  Their teacher gets up from the table, takes off his outer robe, ties a towel across himself and goes to the basin by the door to fill it with water.  They watch as he comes back, kneels down at the feet of one of the men, and begins washing his feet.  They all gasp and murmer - what is he doing?  This is not proper behavior for a rabbi. 
     Not only that, but it is not proper behavior for a Jew.  Isn’t this meal all about reminding themselves that they have been set free from slavery?  And yet here is their teacher acting like a slave, doing a slave’s work of washing their dirty, smelly feet.   It’s not only unseemly, it’s embarrassing.  It’s not just embarrassing, it’s almost sacriligious.  His actions fly in the face of everything this meal stands for, everything they are as the Chosen People.  
     They watch in horror as he makes his way around the circle of men, tenderly pouring water over each of their feet, gently drying them with the towel from his waist, until he reaches the last pupil, who finally has the courage to speak what they all are thinking.  “Lord, what are you doing?  You shouldn’t be doing this, washing my feet.”
     The Teacher looks up at him, and says quietly, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”  The man argues with him, “I will not allow you to wash my feet, Rabbi.”
     The Teacher sighs, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”  A flicker of understanding crosses the man’s face.  He remembers the story of how his teacher was cleansed in the River Jordan many years ago.  Perhaps this strange ritual is some bizarre act of purification?  Excited, he says, “Oh, I understand!  Okay, wash my hands and my head, too!  Yes, bathe me and make me clean all over!”
     But no, the poor man does not understand.  The Teacher, sighing again.  “This is not about purification.  You are missing the point.”  They wait and watch expectantly as he gets up and returns the basin to the table, removes the towel, and once again puts on his robe.  When he resumes his place at the table with them, he finally speaks.
     “Do you know what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord - and you are right, for that is what I am.  So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”
     They all exchange looks, and the man who argued with the Teacher blushes with embarrassment.  This strange washing was not about making them clean.  It wasn’t about their purity at all. 
     The Teacher continues.  “I have set an example for you, and I want you to do the same as I have done.  Listen, slaves are not greater than their master, and messengers are not greater than the one who sends them. You will be blessed if you understand this.”
     The men eye each other again, their quizzical looks asking, “Does anyone get what he’s trying to teach us?  It seems as if he’s contradicting himself.  This doesn’t make any sense.”
     Two thousand years later, I began to know that same feeling.  I experienced this same kind of confusion when I encountered a similar teaching in seminary.  It was in a class on the Lutheran Confessions taught by Professor Tim Wengert.  We were studying Martin Luther’s treatise, The Freedom of a Christian, written in 1520.  Luther’s treatise begins with the apparently contradictory statement, “A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.  A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all,” (ML, 277).  I remember my classmates and I sitting in small group looking at each other to see who among us could understand this teaching well enough to explain it to the professor.  The quizzical looks changed to panicky glances when we realized no one had the answer, and we were all assigned to write a paper with our explanation by the end of the week.

     Finally, Dr. Wengert sighed and directed us to the scripture to help us unravel this paradox.  As a result of being God’s first born son, and being filled with the Holy Spirit, Christ had all the power of the Divine king, and all the privilege of the highest priest (ML, 288).  Yet he did not abuse this position, nor did he “exalt himself above us and assume power over us,” (ML, 303).  Instead, he emptied himself of all these rights and privileges in order that he could serve us by his teaching, preaching, healing, suffering and death.  And he did this out of love.  This was a man who needed no works to justify himself before God, yet performed these works anyway.  The reason he was able to do this was because he had faith in the benevolence of God. 
     And how does that connect to us?  Believing in Christ frees us from the chains of sin, the bondage of the law, and any requirements to do good works dictated by any person or human institution (i.e., the church).  This makes the Christian a “perfectly free lord of all.”  At the same time, we are free to be “dutiful servants of all” because we can give of ourselves without fear of losing anything.
     It comes down to the new commandment that Jesus gives the disciples that night:  “Love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
     I got an grade? on that paper.  But I have often failed the real test of what I learned by thinking myself too important, too busy, or too overwhelmed by the sheer volume of need in the world to serve.   I am enslaved to my own pride, my own overpacked schedule, and my feelings of helplessness in the face of problems that seem to large to make a dent in.  

     The disciples failed, too.  When their faith was tested on that fateful night, they failed miserably.  And no one was more miserable than that eager student who wanted so much to please his teacher.  When those Roman soldiers came for their teacher,  they realized just how enslaved they were - to the military and political machine that surrounded them, to the religious hierarchy that kept the marginalized in their place and shut down any voices that tried to speak for them.  And they were enslaved to an interpretation of scripture that limited their openness to the working of God in the world through unexpected ways.  
     Only much, much later, would they come to understand the true meaning of freedom.  Only after they see the risen Lord and break bread with him do they realize a new, expanded meaning of that Passover meal.  Only after seeing him loosed from the bonds of death are their minds set free so that they can understand the meaning  of that bizarre washing ritual their Teacher performed in their presence. 
     I, too, am being set free.  It is a slow, halting process of connecting my intellectual knowledge to the actions of  faith.  And it happens not just in those rare moments when I can let go of my pride, my busy-ness, my helplessness and reach out to those in need.  More often it happens when someone further along the faith path than me stops turns back to stoop at my feet with a basin and wash - demonstrating for me the selfless, faithful love that they themselves have experienced in Christ.   It is in those moments that I am reminded that true freedom is gained only through faith in God.  This freedom leads to love which binds us to serve each other as children of God.