Text: John 13:1-17

I was at a Singing Resistance gathering last Sunday. Lovely outdoor learning space were the rain stopped and there were even some cloud breaks that opened for the hundred or so of us who still, even with those kinds of numbers, managed to circle around a fire. 

As this gathering there were several leaders who took different parts of the leadership, including song-leading. In much the same way as I’ve taught a couple of the songs that have risen out of the singing movement that’s happening in Minneapolis, they used their hands and voices to teach the songs. 

The first person to lead admitted their nerves but took a second and first shared the words to the song and had us repeat them. That was great. Then they were ready to sing and started a little too low. They stopped, apologized, ready to start again a little higher and people were offering their support and encouragement and one person shouted out something like, “It’s okay, you’re modeling good leadership.” 

To which the song leader responded, doing a little model pose, “Ooh, yes, I’m available for modelling.” And the crowd chuckled a little and we were on our way and singing. 

It was a silly little joke, but it stayed with me. It was silly and funny because (at least for me) when I think of a model, what comes to mind is someone who meets a certain standard of beauty, is somewhat distant, serious, maybe even literally above, walking down a catwalk. These leader was none of those things. But they were a model of humility and humor and grace, responsiveness and collaboration and an imperfection that was in itself actually very beautiful.

That story of humility and care for community was especially meaningful as I spent time with the story of Jesus and his disciples. This is a story that we don’t usually encounter until Holy Week, on Maundy Thursday. A meal, which should not be conflated with the Passover meal or the Last Supper which we see in the other Gospels. That’s its own thing.

In fact, this story that we usually hear during Holy Week begins a whole series of Lenten stories that we usually only hear at Holy Week. We really spend most of Lent in the few days before Jesus’ death. And as he prepares for his death he’s especially attuned to how he wants to be and what he wants to share with his closest friends and disciples.

I have had several conversations in recent months with beloved elders – both within our community and in my family – who are also thinking about the end of their lives. Thinking about how they pass on their legacy to their loved ones and family members. Spending time with their most beloved ones. 

This story really emphasizes that in the use of the word teleos – which can mean both “the end” or “fullness” or “perfection”. Jesus loved his own and he loved them fully or he loved them perfectly or he loved them to the end. They are all true. (And they are still true – Jesus loves us in this way!)

Jesus is loving fully and to the end. And with his closest friends he is making himself available for modeling. Jesus can sometimes be cryptic with his storytelling or his actions but in this case he makes it plain: Do then as I’ve done for you, he says. And you will be blessed if you do this. 

Again, when we think of modeling, it’s most often putting on and showing off a set of clothes. And outfit. But here again Jesus is a model that flips the script. In all kinds of ways but first, by taking off his clothes.

He begins by removing his outer garment. Essentially, he takes off his shirt. And I was surprised when I was looking for images of this story how few depictions showed bare-chested Jesus. Because the story is pretty clear. Clear because it’s one of the things that makes this such a bonkers story.

Here are all the ways that Jesus is disrupting the norm and being straight up weird:

• removing his garments – it’s absolutely ludicrous that a respected rabbi, even a controversial one like Jesus, would take off his shirt at the table
• high status person washing feet – it would have been a normal practice for guests to wash their feet but it they would do so themselves or a household servant or slave would perform this menial task
• interrupting the meal – footwashing would usually happen as people arrive not in the middle of a meal already in progress where people are reclined around the table
• calling attention to himself – footwashing should be simple and unobtrusive. Jesus is here with no clothes and talking and calling attention to his actions and using this function of bodily care as an example for teaching

It is absolutely no wonder that Peter is put off. It is no wonder that Peter is weird out by Jesus and doesn’t understand what’s going on. Doesn’t understand that Jesus is trying to redefine the ideas of power, of what it means to be a leader and teacher, of what it means to be Lord. This would have been incomprehensible. 

Nowadays the idea of servant leadership is almost a buzzword and certainly I think Mennonites deserve some props for embracing the idea of service and a willingness to take on the yucky jobs. Any of you who have mucky out a muddy basement with MDS recently or worked in a hot camp kitchen and done so with joy (or even with grumbling) understand that Jesus calls us to serve our neighbors.

That kind of service does take seriously the inversion, not looking for power or status or recognition but gladly offering the work of our hands. Many of us have also taken Jesus words literally and washed each other’s feet in a ritual reenactment of what Jesus modeled.

In our best moments we also do this not just for our neighbors and beloved friends but also for our enemies. Remember, Jesus washed the feet of Peter, who he suspected would deny knowing him and Judas who he knew would betray him. When it comes down to it, can I serve or even serve beside the person who most annoys me? The one with whom I disagree? The person I think has it out for me? Jesus did. He modeled it and said, go and do likewise. 

That’s hard! And maybe what’s even harder – for us service minded Mennos – is to let yourself be served. 

I think we sometimes forget that this is part of the story too. Peter did not want Jesus to wash his feet. To intimate? Too upside-down? Maybe both. He needed to let Jesus take care of him. 

I was a volunteer coordinator for a few years and I don’t think I was very good at it because I hate calling and asking people to do things for me. I hate the idea that I’m inconveniencing someone, that they need to clean up my mess. I have a mother who taught us to clean up before the housekeeper came over.

Let yourself be served and cared for. This is especially important for women and other folks usually assigned care-giving or whose identity means that they have less social status. Release the expectation that you are always the one that needs to step into that role. Jesus also created a situation where the student – his disciple Peter – needed to model receiving care.

When our family lived in Korea I used to go to the bathhouse at least once a week. In a gender-segregated setting you’d strip down naked, soak in one of several pools of different temperatures, maybe with some kind of herbal tonic, and then give yourself a thorough scrub with a rough scrub. Get rid of all that gross dead skin and emerge shiny and new.

Now I pay someone to do this for me once or twice a year and it’s heaven. But in Korea it would be much more common for a mother and daughter or a couple of friends to go to the spa together and hang out and soak and scrub and drink tea and gossip or whatever. (If you’ve seen K-pop Demon Hunters you may be able to picture it.) Occasionally I’d do that but in this instance I was on my own. 

I was happily going about my ablutions (a very good word) but struggling a little to scrub my back. Easy when you come with a friend; you scrub my back, I scrub yours. Or when you’re paying, as I do now. But I was twisting and reaching and also trying not to draw too much attention to myself because I’m the pink, curly-headed foreigner in the room full of Koreans. 

And as I struggle, a young women comes over and indicates that she’ll scrub my back for me. And I of course demure, with my limited Korean. She doesn’t know me. She has no obligation. I’m certainly not paying her. But before I know it, she’s scrubbing away and I’m all clean. But when I offer the same in return she refuses and I can’t even reciprocate.

This happened 15 years ago and I still think about it every time I read this story. Of course I have no problem paying someone to give me a scrub or a pedicure. In that way I maintain the power. It is much more vulnerable and to simply be cared for, to let someone offer you a service not because you are paying them but because they are offering love or care or support. It’s not just making soup for someone when they’re sick or they’ve had surgery, it’s being able to receive it – or even ask for it!

What Jesus was doing with his friends and disciples, out of love and a hope that they would continue to be models, was to challenge the way they thought about leadership and love and power. He keeps inviting us into that dissonant space: wash the feet of your friend and of your enemy, let your feet be washed. We are in this together. We lead and model to each other. May it be so.

—