Scripture: Philippians 2: 1-11; John 13: 1-19

“I have given you an example, so that you may copy what I have done to you.”

-- John 13:15

John has consistently shown us the Glory of God in the work and words of Jesus, and today is no exception; it is no exception but it is a surprise. In Jesus John has shown us God the Lord of nature changing water into wine, multiplying bread and fishes, and walking on the sea; he has shown us God the Creator recreating his creatures by restoring strength to the crippled, sight to the blind, and life to the dead; but we have not yet seen God in the guise of a household slave washing our feet. That image is today’s surprise, God the slave of his creatures!

This image has been central to orthodox Christian faith from the beginning. In Philippians 2: 1-11 we hear a hymn of the earliest church praising Christ as God who laid aside his divine glory to be with us in the state of slavery to which our sin has brought us. “…He emptied himself of glory taking the role of a slave…” He humbled himself even further, went lower than a slave, right down to the role of a condemned felon suffering a humiliating and painful death, hanging naked in public till he died.  We celebrate that nadir of suffering next Sunday when in the festival of Christ the King we share John’s view of the Cross as the glorious victory of God over all the powers of death and hell, the standard raised like Moses’ staff in the wilderness to draw all the world to God, and to give them healing and life, the Cross as the throne of Christ the King!

I have said that this doctrine of divine self-abasement is central to orthodox Christianity. The movement of divine self-emptying is the doctrine of kenosis (the Greek word for emptying). God empties himself of heavenly power and status in order to enter every single human state right down to the most ignominious, so as to heal, recreate and glorify them, with the result that there is no conceivable human state that does not have the divine blessing in it. “O death where is thy sting, where death thy victory (1 Corinthians 15: 54-55)?” For this reason we might look for the blessing in every state we are in. There is nowhere we can go, no experience too wonderful or too horrible where God in Christ has not gone before to prepare our way and leave a blessing. There is nothing therefore to fear. That is the precious teaching the orthodox faith calls kenosis; it is the bedrock of my faith.

Today we take a significant first step on the ladder to heaven, a step that seems a step down to us, but is really a step up, we being unable for the most part to tell up from down, congenitally confused about where to go to find life. Our image of God for today is a household slave, washing the feet of the dinner guests. Fix that image in your mind and let it speak to you symbolically of the nature of God. That contemplation is a blessed experience, is it not, especially for those of us who live in fear of God, well disguised as the general anxiety about whether our lives are measuring up to God’s expectations, as they filter to us through our own unforgiving ambition? God wants to serve us not punish us, to make us clean not to blame us for being dirty. What a truly graceful thought! What a moving meditation!

Yes, we are possibly even euphoric at the thought, until we realize that it is not only a gift to be received but also a task to be performed, or as the Gospel has it, “I have given you an example, so that you may copy what I have done to you.” I must confess that I find this command very difficult to obey without giant hypocrisy. I am after all an American and my soul subsists in liberty. “Give me liberty or give me death!” I was also once British and used to sing, “Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, and Britons never, never, never, shall be slaves!” Let’s face it, there isn’t anyone here who has the faintest notion of what it means to be a slave, or even a servant, certainly not to be forced to wash dusty feet. Even those of us who are professionally in the “service” segment of the economy do not think of ourselves as servants. We are all masters, leaders, chiefs, not servants, followers, Indians. How can we hope to follow his example?

So we turn again to our story and we find Peter. Let’s stop identifying with Jesus for a moment and identify with Peter. He refuses to let Jesus wash him. Why? One reason is because Peter, like us, wants to be in control. He is in control and does not need help; in fact he would rather give help than take it, in fact, he is so relentlessly helpful that there is never an opportunity to help him. How many people do you know whom it is very difficult to help, who are so eager to help you that they prevent you helping them? Another reason is that our status depends on the status of our leader. The more glorious he is the more glorious we are. Peter does not want the glorious leader to embarrass us by being servile. That would mean that Peter is servile too. So Peter believes the line ‘that it is more blessed to give than to receive’ absolutely, and for good reason. The giver is in the driver’s seat, has control, while the receiver is controlled. This is the reason why receivers can be so surly, and “No good gift goes unpunished.” (I should not be speaking like this on pledge Sunday, but I trust your generosity and your sense of humor).

What Peter learns in our passage is that in this particular circumstance, that is when God offers to wash you, it is more blessed to receive than to give, and I think we may be permitted to generalize from this to common human insight that there is a graciousness in a receiving that temporarily gives the other person the upper hand, and that allows the receiver to be human, needy and vulnerable, as in fact we are.

This human insight is, of course, secondary to the theological truth that we must allow God to wash us because only he can cleanse us and we must allow him to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. On this point it is difficult to strike the balance between, on the one hand, the control position that says I can take care of my own spiritual needs and do not need to entrust myself to forces or persons outside myself. I am not going to let someone else wash me! On our trip to Tibet in 1996, our leader was an American Buddhist who recommended his practice to us because it did not entail belief in anyone other than oneself. It was a discipline of self-development that did not assume the existence or relevance of spiritual beings that might help us. That is the one side of the balance.

The other side is the person who accepts the work of Christ on his behalf so readily and easily that there is no discernible difference in his conduct. He is quite content to let God do all the work. I understand that just about every felon behind bars in this country has given his heart to Jesus, if only to get an evangelist to testify at his parole hearing. In the darkest days of the Civil Rights struggle, one of the men tried in Mississippi for the murder of three young workers from New York testified that he had been converted to Christ more than 20 times. Somewhere between, “ Don’t do anything for me, I can do it all myself,” and “Wash me again and again Lord because I cannot do anything for myself,” lies the position that says, “Wash me Lord, and I shall follow your example.”

We could leave the matter there, but I am fascinated by the presence of Judas in this story, and want to end with a meditation on him. The text wants us to pay attention to him. At the beginning it tells us that Judas had already decided to betray Jesus (vs.2) and at the end that Jesus knew this all along (vs. 11, 18). If Peter is chiefly a symbol of our response to God, then Judas is a symbol of God’s approach to us. Just imagine! Jesus washes the feet of one whom he knows will soon betray him. Furthermore, afterwards at the meal he gives Judas the portion of honor, the morsel that the host personally chooses and bestows on the guest of honor, and then Judas leaves to call the police (vs. 26-27). I find this stunning, especially given this Gospel’s view of Jesus as the incarnate God. God humiliates himself before Judas, washing his feet and making him the guest of honor, pleading with him to be reconciled. I have often said that I can live with what I call the “Judas factor” in life, that is, with the element of ill will and betrayal that we all have to endure in life, if only from a small minority. I can live with that, after all, as Jesus says (vs. 16), why should the disciple be above his teacher in this regard? I can endure Judas but I cannot wash Judas’ feet. This added abasement in the already startling story of the divine self-humiliation is beyond my spiritual means. Here I can only worship him; I cannot emulate him. Do you think Jesus wants us to wash even Judas’ feet when he says that he has given us an example to copy? I hope not, but he might! God help us!