March 29, 2018 (Maundy Thursday) – John 13:1-17, 31b-35
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Maundy Thursday – March 29, 2018
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
When Jesus gets up and assumes the role of servant, the disciples are shocked.
Peter is so shocked he almost refuses to let Jesus wash his feet.
But Jesus assures him that if he doesn’t wash his feet, Peter will have no share in his life.
Because Jesus wants Peter to do the same for others.
To be served by Jesus, and serve others in turn:
that is what being part of a Christian community means.
It doesn’t mean talking about love.
It means actually serving and loving other human bodies.
It means making yourself vulnerable enough to wash another’s feet –
which is a hard thing to do in our culture.
Nevertheless, Jesus is intent on forming a community based on service.
And this is not a suggestion by Jesus – it is a commandment.
After he is gone, Jesus wants his disciples to carry on the work he has begun of
feeding healing forgiving and serving.
If we don’t we do not share in his life.
It is about as simple as that.
It is all about love.
It is all about being a community of love.
It is about receiving love, and it is about giving love in return:
concrete love that is of service to other people’s bodies in some way, shape or form.
I recently read about such a loving action.
A young, 18 year old waitress in a Waffle House restaurant in Texas was recently featured
in a Facebook post that went viral.
Her name is Evoni Williams.
She had no idea she was being photographed at the time.
In the photo, you see an elderly man at the counter.
He is on oxygen and struggling to breathe.
When his food was brought to him, he was overheard saying to the Evoni Williams,
“My hands don’t work too good.”
Without hesitation, the young waitress immediately started to cut up his ham for him.
The person who posted the picture wrote that she felt blessed to have witnessed this
act of kindness and caring at the start of her day.
“If we could all be like this waitress,” she wrote, “and offer a helping hand.”
Love one another, Jesus says, as I have loved you.
There are not many places in the world where have the opportunity to feed one another and
wash one another.
But church is one of those places.
Being a Christian means being different.
It seems crazy to me that a beautiful – but very simple – act of kindness such as a
waitress cutting up a customer’s ham is such an extraordinary thing.
But I guess in the world we live in, it is.
And so we should celebrate it – just as they have in LaMarque, Texas,
by naming March 18, 2018 Evoni Williams day.
But if anything, we should be reminded how beautiful and precious a thing it is to
be commanded by Jesus that we ought to wash one another’s feet,
care for one another, and mind the vulnerable.
We ought to not take for granted our weekly feeding each other in the meal of holy communion.
And we ought to take pride in the fact that this community of First Lutheran Church is
a community where people can expect to be loved and served –
not as a random act, but as a fact of our identity: this is who we are.
And that is something to celebrate every day.
For by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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