Maundy Thursday sermon

Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg
Maundy Thursday
April 1, 2010

I wonder, What would you have felt like if I had stopped you at the door on your way into the church tonight and asked each one of you to remove your shoes and go through this church service barefooted? What emotions would you have experienced at my strange request? Would you have felt freedom, as if you had the abandon of childhood or as if you had come home? Or would you feel more negative emotions: Embarrassment? Discomfort? Even fear?
In tonight’s gospel, Jesus kneels before the bare feet of his disciples and he washes them, much as we will do for one another in a matter of moments. And the disciples are horrified. Peter is emphatic, “Lord, you will never wash my feet.” And as Jesus kneels before Peter, he looks up into Peter’s eyes and says, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Peter, Jesus says, with all compassion. I understand that this makes you feel uncomfortable, but it is because you do not understand. You must let me wash you, just as you must let me love you. You cannot be fully who God has created you to be, until you accept my love for you. You must let me love you.
So we carry out Jesus’ commandment tonight, his mandatum, to love one another as he has loved us. Tonight we come to be washed and we come to be fed. In both actions, we are the recipients of Jesus’s love, the recipients of the outpouring of his very self. But even as we prepare ourselves to receive that love, we may be frightened, embarrassed, uneasy.
Many of us don’t feel particularly comfortable being vulnerable, and that’s what we are-- sitting up in this chair with our bare feet, being open to others in a way that is radically different from what we are used to. Even kneeling at the altar, we are vulnerable. We come forward with our hands open and outstretched in supplication, asking, hoping, waiting to receive the tangible outpouring of Jesus Christ’s love for us. It is not something that we can win for ourselves. It’s not something we can achieve or accomplish. It is God’s free gift to each of us.
But I think it’s appropriate for us to be a little bit frightened, to be a little bit uncertain, to be a little bit humbled in the face of such a gift, such a love…just as long as we don’t let these feelings get in the way of our primary duty tonight—that is letting Jesus love us, each and every one of us. Your primary responsibility tonight is to let Jesus love you.
Even as Jesus calls us to receive his love, he is also calling us to be who we are. He calls us to sit before him and each other unashamedly with our naked feet. He calls us to be ourselves; he calls us to be real, to be authentic. Roman Catholic nun and writer Joan Chittister describes this as “walking through life with a barefooted soul.”
We will be given this chance, literally. In a moment, I will call you forward to wash and, more importantly, to be washed. I always find it much harder to let my feet be washed than to be the one to do the washing, but that is what tonight is all about. Tonight, we are called to follow Jesus’ example, to do as he has done and to love others. But before we can carry this out, on this night, in this moment, we are called to receive; we are called to receive Jesus’ love for us in the washing and in the Eucharist, and we are called to receive our neighbor’s love for us also. So we will take turns washing each other. First you will sit and be washed and then you will wash the next person’s feet. And as we wash each other, we model Christ’s love for each and every one of us.
After we are finished and you have returned to your seat, I offer you an invitation. Leave your shoes off for the rest of the service. See what it feels like to walk on these beautiful, beaten-up bricks, and come barefoot to the altar to receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Come with bare feet and a barefooted soul, knowing that Jesus accepts you just are you are, and receive his gift of love.