The Rev. Clare Fischer-Davies
St. Martin's Episcopal Church
May 6, 2007
Easter V C
"I
give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved
you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are
my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Jesus
speaks these words in the Gospel of John on the last night of his life, in a
context quite different from how that night is presented in the other three
gospels. In John, there is no "last supper" with bread and wine re-presented as
body and blood, and the solemn commandment "Do this in remembrance of me."
Instead, Jesus does something even more startling – he takes off his outer robe, and
puts on a servant's apron, takes up a basin and kneels before his disciples. Then
he does for each one of them the lowliest of servants' tasks – he takes their
dusty, calloused, travel–worn feet and washes them. And then he tells them "I
give you a new commandment – love one another."
Foot-washing
doesn't have any cultural meaning for us anymore – it's an esoteric rite that
shows up occasionally on Maundy Thursday and makes us vaguely uncomfortable. We
can't imagine a world where everyone except the very wealthy walked everywhere,
where the fortunate wore flimsy leather and rope sandals and everyone else went
barefoot. In that world, washing your guests' feet was an important part of the
culture of hospitality. It was how you made a guest feel welcome in your house –
it was an act of honor and respect.
Whatever the disciples might have expected Jesus to do that night, it certainly was not
to kneel before them like a servant and wash their feet. It makes them uneasy –
so uneasy that Peter rears back and cries, "Lord – you will never wash my
feet!" Like all good disciples, they expect to serve their master and teacher –
not the other way around. To have Jesus kneel at their feet, performing this
very ordinary, lowly act of service for them is not just a demonstration of
humility – it completely overturns the social order. And this, Jesus tells
them, is how they are to treat each other. They are to serve instead of seeking
service from others. They are to love instead of seeking love from others. They
are to behave in a way that runs contrary to cultural norms and expectations. "This
is how the world will know you are my disciples."
This
is the fifth Sunday of the Easter season – we're now closer to Pentecost than
we are to Easter day, and there's a kind of shift in the focus of our lessons
and prayers. Instead of hearing about Jesus' appearance to the disciples after
his resurrection, we are given instead Jesus' teaching about what our lives
will look like if we choose to be one of his disciples, if we choose to live in
the new reality of that resurrection. If the resurrection changes Jesus, then
of course – it changes us. We cannot live the same way we did before. And
learning to live the new life of the resurrection is really what it means to be
part of the Church. We are here to learn how to love one another.
Back at our retreat in February, the Vestry began a process of strategic planning –
a process of mapping out where we want to go and how we want to get there. A
church is an organization like any other – we may believe that we are inspired
and led by the Holy Spirit, but periodically we need to make sure the Holy
Spirit's inspiration hasn't been obscured by institutional clutter. We need to
refocus and re-energize at every level of our common life and get us all more
or less heading in the same direction.
And
to make that process clearer and more lucid, we need a straightforward
declaration of who we are and what our purpose is. In a simpler, more
homogeneous world – the world many of us grew up in – everyone knew what the
church was for, and who was welcome to participate. Churches were at least
partly the guardians and custodians of culture, a place where common social
values were emphasized and taught. In the small town Southern Presbyterian
church I grew up in, being a good citizen and a good Christian were pretty much
the same thing. We didn't need to think about things like identity and purpose
– we knew who we were and what we were supposed to do.
But
times have changed, and in a world that seems daily to be more deeply
enthralled by materialism, anxiety, selfishness and desolation, the church has
begun to detach itself from the dominant culture and to find an alternative
voice, another song to sing. We are here to learn how to love one another. We
are here to help each other learn to live the resurrection life – we are here
to help each other learn to proclaim unity, when we are driven toward
separation, forgiveness when we are driven toward retribution and joy when we
are driven toward despair.
And
so the declaration of our purpose, our statement of who we are and what we want
to offer each other and the world says simply: Come as you are. Grow with us in
faith. Go forth in peace.
"Come as you are. Grow with us in
faith. Go forth in peace."
The
first sentence is both an invitation to those beyond our walls and an
affirmation of what kind of community we want to be. Come as you are. We want
to be a place that offers hospitality and welcome to everyone who crosses our
threshold. We want to be a place that welcomes people, not just of diverse
backgrounds and situations, but people who may be at very different points in
very different spiritual journeys. "Come as you are" means more than we don't
have a dress code. "Come as you are" means you don't have to have it all
figured out. "Come as you are" means we welcome the person who has never been
in a church before just as heartily as we welcome the person who has been a
member of St. Martin's since birth. "Come as you are" means an open door, in
hearts and minds as well as an open door at the entrance.
"Grow
with us in faith" acknowledges that we are pilgrims on a journey. We are all
growing, all increasing in the knowledge and love of God, all still seeing
through a glass darkly. Faith is one of those words that have several different
meanings. Faith can be understood as doctrine, as articles of belief, the kinds
of things we affirm every time we say the Nicene Creed. But faith can also be
the whole experience of believing, the whole strange tangle of hope, trust and
conviction that allows us to say about anything "This I believe."
"Grow
with us in faith" declares that we don't expect to stay the same. The Christian
life is never complete, we are forever moving toward our full maturity, our
adulthood in Christ. We hope that even the most casual visitor will find something
here that nourishes, that builds up, encourages, refreshes or inspires –
something that helps that visitor grow in faith however briefly that visitor is
part of our community.
Go
forth in peace is the commission each one of us is given at the end of our
worship. The dismissal – the final words of the liturgy – sends us back out
into the world. And we are sent out with a charge, sent out to take something
of what we have found here back into a world that aches for peace, for shalom –
for the fulfillment of God's perfect vision of justice, mercy and grace for the
whole creation.
Is
"Come as you are. Grow with us in faith. Go forth in peace" just for newcomers?
By no means. Those three verbs – come, grow, go – are for all of us. They are
the eternal dynamic of the Christian faith and life. We come from all walks of
life, bringing ourselves as we are, to this holy place for refreshment and
renewal. And by God's grace, we grow – sometimes I feel like I grow as fast as
the dandelions in my yard and sometimes I feel like I grow as slow as a
Galapagos tortoise. Sometimes I know that I'm growing because it hurts so much,
and sometimes I'm surprised to suddenly discover that I have come to a new
place. By God's grace we grow – as individuals and as a community. And Sunday
after Sunday we are sent out in peace, to leaven the world a little more with
hope, humility and love.
We
are here to learn how to love one another – to learn how to live as disciples
that are willing to serve each other and to serve the world as Jesus serves us.
Such love and service didn't make sense in the ancient world any more than it
makes sense in our own. Kneeling to wash another's feet, as Jesus knelt to wash
the feet of those who loved him, is still a radical act of humility that
overturns expectations, reverses the social order and rebukes our culture.
A
second century Christian scholar named Tertullian said that surrounding Roman
culture identified followers of Jesus by the way they cared for each other.
Tertullian says of the pagans, "They say, see how they love one another, for
they themselves are animated by mutual hatred. See, they say about us, how they
are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves would sooner kill."
We
are here to learn how to love on another. And for now, "Come as you are. Grow
with us in faith. Go forth in peace." is the best way we know to invite others
to learn that love with us even as we ourselves learn better how to be
disciples.
"I
give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved
you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are
my disciples, if you have love for one another."
|
