Maundy Thursday, 2022
1 CORINTHIANS 11:23-26; PSALM 116:1, 10-17; JOHN 13:1-17, 31B-35
you also ought to wash one another’s feet
I’d be the first to admit that I am not fond, at all actually, of footwashing. I don’t want to see your feet, and I don’t want you to see mine. Neither do I want to touch your feet, nor do I want you to touch mine.
But here’s the thing: despite my own distaste for the whole matter, I hesitate to admit that some of my most profound experiences in church have been during the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday. It’s why I typically insist on giving people the opportunity to either wash feet, have their feet washed, or to watch the whole process unfold.
Sadly this year we won’t do it, and there may be some advantage in that; I’ll come back to that in a moment.
I once had a bishop visit on Maundy Thursday, a bishop who, after I asked if I could wash their feet, said, very clearly, “no.” This is, of course, what Peter said to Jesus: “You will never wash my feet.” In retrospect, it would have been pretty cheeky had I said to said bishop, like Jesus says to Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” I didn’t, and I shouldn’t have, because that would have said more about who the bishop was: Peter the Difficult and Densest of the Disciples; and more about me: as if I were Lord Jesus—than the practice of footwashing should ever say. If we take were to take anything away from the footwashing episode in John’s Gospel, it’s that it upends these sorts of hierarchies; as Jesus the Lord takes the form of a slave, we are asked not quite to be like Jesus, or to be like Peter; but that we “ought to wash one another’s feet.”
So I figure that footwashing should be a free-for-all, the celebrant washing feet, the celebrant having their feet washed, congregants washing one another’s feet, and perhaps even someone washing the feet of the bishop.
Special things can happen in this free-for-all. I’ll tell you one brief story. I was socialized like most of the rest of you; having had my injury at 19, I often have the mind of an able-bodied person, but the body of a person with a disability. And so when I think of my feet, I think of my feet as strange things. I often inhabit a mental world that shares the same sort of internalized ideas about disabled feet as others do. Can he take off his own shoes and socks? Will his feet be weird-looking? Will I have to hold his feet out for him? Will they smell bad?
My sense of this gives me more anxiety than it probably should. But in one particular free-for-all footwashing in a suburban Anglican church in Winnipeg, when the footwashing was almost complete, and no one had washed nor offered to wash the Rector’s feet; it took a nine-year-old boy, innocent of my anxieties, innocent of many of the anxieties of others, to simply say, “Preston, can I wash your feet?” And so he did. And a nine-year-old boy served as Jesus does, innocently cutting through all those fears, all my anxieties, as he washed my feet.
We won’t be washing each other’s feet today, and this is appropriate, not just to the conditions of COVID life, but appropriate in its own way, as one appropriate posture—that of simply watching the drama of footwashing, or for us today to simply listen, as we’ve done, to the drama of footwashing.
And watching and listening is most appropriate, as we look to the figure of Judas, and what Jesus does for Judas. Two things seem clear with regards to Jesus and Judas. The first is that Jesus most certainly knows that Judas is about to betray him. The second is that Jesus nevertheless washes Judas’s feet.
And if we were to read the Bible as a set of instructions for being a better person, then we would take away from this that we should always do the same—that we, too, should serve those who are betraying our trust the way Jesus serves Judas.
But this idea that a victim should act in kindness to a victimizer is not appropriate in many cases. One of the first steps when someone is a victim of abuse is actually to have that person remove themselves from their relationship with the abuser. That’s all to say, if we read the Bible simply as a guide to being a better person, and if Jesus washes the feet of his victimizer, then we too should find a way to do the same, or encourage others to do the same, to their victimizers. But this is wrong.
The Bible isn’t a guide to being a better person. The Bible is, in the first place, a record of God’s saving acts, telling the story of a God who redeems his people. Especially in Holy Week, we are, in the first place, witnesses to God’s saving act in Christ. And if we jump in too quickly, hoping that we can do something, to do something that will make us better people, then we can quickly lose sight of this—that Holy Week, that the Christian life, is less about what we do, and more about what is done for us: that Jesus is crucified for our sake.
And so, it is entirely appropriate for us to be here not doing something, not jumping into footwashing, not learning how to be better people, but listening. Listening to the story of the mighty acts of God in Christ, well before we get to any ill-formed ideas about what we should do to and for those who betray our trust. We would listen and hear of a Jesus who is so keen not to lose even one of those the Father had given him, that he would even wash the feet of the disciple who betrays him; and to see in this act, first of all, that if Jesus’s desire is not to lose even the one of his own that betrays him, how much more would Jesus desire not to lose you. Not to lose me. Not to lose us.
And in this way, we would see Judas primarily as a player in a divine drama—a drama that isn’t about us being better people, but the drama of our redemption, the drama of our salvation, the drama of a ransoming wrought for us by God in Christ—a redemption, a salvation, and ransoming to which, this week, we would first be witnesses.
The Revd Dr Preston DS Parsons
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.