Maundy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; Psalm 116:1, 10-17

1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

The Rev. Stephen Siptroth

April 17, 2025

We don’t know a whole lot about the conversation that happened around the dinner table that night.  If it was anything like meals when people in the same line of work get together, my imagination paints a picture of the group talking a lot of shop!  I have to imagine that their conversation around the table focused on their ministry together, what they had seen and done, what they planned to do, and I suspect that, during the course of the meal whatever the disciples were saying about what was actually going on probably didn’t match what Jesus intended.  I suspect something was a bit off – that they weren’t fully understanding what Jesus was trying to teach them; they may not have been fully understanding the kind of love and embrace that Jesus extended to them and that he extended to all of God’s people.

  When I preached on Palm Sunday, at Grace, in Martinez, one of the things I emphasized, and I’d like to invite you to consider, is that everything Jesus did in the days leading up to his crucifixion was incredibly intentional and focused.  Jesus was extremely intentional about his entry into Jerusalem; he was intentional in his confrontation at the temple marketplace – his flipping of the tables – he was intentional about the ways he responded to those who were trying to entrap him.  And he was intentional about the ways he gathered his friends for a shared meal – and intentional about what he did and taught in that encounter. 

  Thanks to the accounts from the other Gospels, we often associate Eucharist with Maundy Thursday.  We have three accounts in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Like that tell us this version.  And when we turn to John’s Gospel, we kind of bring that in with us, thinking this is just another narrative of the same event.  In reality, in John’s Gospel, we do not have the same meal described in the other Gospels; there are no words spoken about bread broken and wine poured, or the command to eat and drink in remembrance of Jesus.  John gives us something else that is just as intimate and just as compelling.  The account from John gives us another command infused with extreme intentionality.

  John’s account of this meal, and the foot washing that accompanies it, reflect a different way of teaching about who Jesus was, what following Jesus means, and what the cost of discipleship would be going forward.

  Foot washing in this time and region was a known practice of hospitality offered to guests when they arrived at a place.  It was customary for the guests to have their feet washed before a meal.  But something uncustomary is happening at this meal.  In John’s telling of this meal experience, the foot-washing didn’t precede the meal as it normally would have had it been an act of hospitality as Jesus welcomed guests.  Rather, Jesus gets up from the table where they were already seated – he gets up from the table in the middle of the meal – and begins to wash his disciples’ feet.  This was a radical departure from the custom of the time, because, first, it was Jesus and not a lesser household member that does the washing, and it happens in the middle of the meal, not as the disciples arrive. 

  This foot washing was radical, symbolizing more than just hospitality, and offered far more than mere bodily cleanliness.  Jesus washes his disciples’ feet out of love and service, yes, but more-so as a sign of the incorporation into the body of Christ.  He places them in the position of receiving love poured out on them by God, and, in a mysterious way, it points the way to the Cross, the ultimate display of love. 

  Though Peter resists having his feet washed by Jesus, in response, Jesus says: “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand”; “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me”; and “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean.”  In his responses to Peter, Jesus points to a deeper meaning of having one’s feet washed – that, by having their feet washed, the disciples would have a share with Jesus’ future – namely, his passion, death, and resurrection.  That by allowing Jesus to wash their feet, the disciples would have a share in him until the end and beyond it.

  The beauty of the foot-washing is in the reciprocal actions taking place, too.  In the original Greek, the Johannine community would have heard this as a call to regularly participate in a ritual that includes both washing the feet of others, as well as submitting to having one’s feet washed.  But there also are deeper layers and meanings at work in the Gospel, including that the foot washing Jesus shows that agape love comes in the form of humble service, rooted in radical equality between the one washing and the one being washed, and a command that the disciples follow Jesus’ example by going and doing likewise.  It was completely decentering, a reversal of roles, expressing a radical inclusivity born of radical agape love.  And just as Jesus has washed their feet out of radical agape love, so are they to go and do likewise, not through charity, but through a change of mind and heart that inverts and disrupts all hierarchies: through the reversal of conventional norms and roles, and by moving the margins as kindred are brought together.  Not through charity, but through a spirit of solidarity by becoming bound up in and to one another, just as we are bound up in and to Jesus.

  When I think about the radical love shown in the foot washing and what that love is calling us to do, I think it is right in line with what you have explored through Vital and Thriving and the discernment you have done leading to your capital campaign and community kitchen.  The church as the place of worship, the traditional notions of what a church is, are being decentered and you are recentering the needs of the community, showing that God sets the table before us, incorporates us, and calls us to welcome all to other tables that feed and nourish.  The work you are doing is not charity; it is a reflection of the reality that we are bound to one another; it is the building of the kingdom where we listen to Jesus and go and do likewise.  So: go and do likewise.  Through this ministry, you will, with God’s help.  Amen.