Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Reading – Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17
From the Gospel, from the Good News, according to St. John, this reading is from the last hours of Jesus with his disciples in the upper room, immediately before his arrest, his flogging, his trial, his crucifixion, his death, and his burial. The other three gospels, according to St. Mark, St. Matthew, and St. Luke, focus on the last supper of bread and wine. Scholars believe that St. John knew those gospels in their earliest, formative forms.
St. John went a different route. The Holy Supper, the Holy Communion, was not his focusing moment of the last hours. Listen, you know this story, listen again to the Good News according to St. John (3:1, 3-5,12-15,17).
Now, before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour
had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having
loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end…
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands,
and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up
from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around
himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the
disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around
him. … After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and
had returned to the table, he said to them, Do you know what I have
done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for
that is what I am. So, if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your
feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you
an example, that you also should do as I have done to you… If you know
these things, you are blessed if you do them.
The primary image is Holy Foot Washing, rather than Holy Eating. It’s focus is service, rather than receiving.
Feet, think your feet are less than gorgeous? Think of first century feet, far more dirty, more bruised, more misshapen, more calloused, more damaged. Feet, not bread and wine.
For St. John the new covenant mentioned in the Letter to the Hebrews is the covenant of service. For St. John the Kingdom of God is the kingdom of service.
In today’s reading from the Gospel according to St. Luke, Jesus interrupted his teaching in the synagogue on the sabbath to reach out, to serve, a misshapen woman. She did not approach him, as was most often the situation. He reached out to her. Jesus pushed aside the routines; he pushed aside the proper boundaries. He set her straight, he straightened her back, twisted for 18 years. He pushed back the sabbath regulations to serve her and to set her free.
This Jesus, this man of service, pushed beyond himself to serve others until his dying breath. This is the one we have pledged, we have promised, day after day, after day, to follow. We are his disciples.
Now look around, many of us cannot serve in the same manner that we could serve five, ten, twenty, or ?? years ago. So, we need to be always ready to adjust, to evolve, our manner of service. Our prayer time could always include the opening line of the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…
Made us an instrument of your continuing ministry, of your continuing service, that evolves, as we age, as we adjust, as we change. Yet, no matter where we find ourselves there are always avenues of possible service to pursue.
Jesus washed dirty, ugly, misshapen, tired feet.
Jesus encouraged his disciples to follow his humble service.
Jesus encourages us, his current disciples, to discover and to pursue avenues of service, day by day by day.
Amen
