Maundy Thursday
April 17, 2025
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

For three years during seminary, I lived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is a certain competitive spirit in D.C. Not that it’s necessarily bad, but it’s there. You learn to drive with one hand on the steering wheel, and one hand on the horn. You learn to jostle through a crowd in the subway. There’s just an intensity there, that you don’t feel down here on an island.

And granted, there are a lot of very high-powered people in D.C. Really, that’s how they got there. I could hardly believe the people who went to the little church where I worked. There was the guy who had his finger on the ballistic missile button on a nuclear submarine. There was the federal judge who had the Continental airlines bankruptcy case. There were still others, who couldn’t tell me what they did, which made me very nervous. For a little church in suburban D.C., there were plenty of high-powered people. 

And the priest, the rector of that church, taught me one of my greatest lessons about ministry. See, one day, the pipe that drained the church’s basement broke. And someone needed to dig a ditch for the new pipe. It wasn’t a big job, and they could have hired someone to do it. But, he wanted to teach a lesson. So one Saturday morning it was me, the rector, and the Senior Warden, digging a ditch. The lesson, as he so bluntly put it, was this – “half of a rector’s job is just moving furniture.” 

But the lesson wasn’t only for me. See, in that high-powered community, with the guy who could have literally ended the world with a touch of the button, with the judge who made decisions worth billions of dollars, with the people who did secret things in dark corners of the world; the priest was digging ditches. But it wasn’t about digging ditches. It was a lesson in humility. It was about a simple, but very public act. While those same high-powered parishioners were driving to their kids’ soccer games and going to get their Saturday morning coffee, there was the priest, the seminarian, and the Senior Warden, digging a ditch on the side of the road. It upended the whole dynamic. 

This is the Church’s mission. Not to be served, but to serve.  We take that call from the Lord Jesus himself. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). He wrapped a towel around himself, knelt at the feet of his friends, and washed their feet. Even Peter blanches at the thought – “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” (John 13:6). A very public act of service, upending the whole dynamic.

It’s a lesson about humility, certainly. A lesson about God’s humility. We tell ourselves all the time that we ought to be humble before God. And yet, here is the Lord Jesus, kneeling before us. It upends the whole dynamic. Because our humility does not begin with giving service; no, our humility begins with our willingness to receive service. Our humility begins with our willingness to receive service. 

I’ve heard this before, I’ve heard from some of you, I’ve said it myself – “I would rather give than receive.” “I’m so used to helping, I don’t like asking for help.” “I don’t want to be a burden.” That’s exactly what Peter said to Jesus. One of the lessons we learn tonight, is that receiving service, is part of our Christian discipleship. Receiving that goodness from God, as a pure gift from the Lord Jesus, is how we grow in humility, in grace, and in love.

For this simple act is the fulfillment of love. Jesus says, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” But that translation isn’t quite right. It’s not “to the end,” as in, this is the end of Jesus’ ministry. It’s, “he loved them to the utmost.” And the way, the very public way that our Lord Jesus shows that he loves his disciples, is by serving them.

So tonight, as you have you feet washed. As you hear the words of scripture. As you receive holy communion – take it all for what it is. God’s sheer, absolute gift of love to you, to the utmost. And by receiving it, you will be humbled. And do not be so self-sufficient that you don’t ask for help. Do not be so proud that you cannot be served. Because in fact, by asking for your help, you will learn more about who this God is. 

That, I think, was the other thing happening when me, the priest, and the Senior Warden were digging the ditch on the side of the road. Sure, it would have been easier to call a few parishioners, and get the money, and have somebody else dig the ditch. There were plenty of people in that congregation who could have afforded it. But that wasn’t the point. By that congregation receiving that service from the people “in charge,” it taught everyone just a bit of humility. That maybe they weren’t as important as their high-powered jobs made them think they were. That maybe true leadership, looks like putting on your boots and grabbing a shovel; that true love, looks like the Lord Jesus wrapping a towel around himself, and pouring water over his friends’ feet. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the utmost.”