Maundy Thursday Sermon

Tonight by humbling himself before his disciples, Jesus gives a command to serve each other as we have seen him serve his disciples…but in doing this, Jesus, (the one who the next night is about to give his very existence for the salvation of the world) teaches us the ultimate lifestyle of grace.


He teaches us two main things and they are interwoven: service and being served, loving big and risking all as well as receiving the big love of others. He teaches us about humbling ourselves and being willing to get dirty as well as humbling ourselves to let our own dirt wiped off.


Yet, what is that about…that we feel that we shouldn’t come to church unless we are “fine, thank you.” Sometimes we believe that we are only allowed in church if we have had a spiritual pedicure…we’ve tidied ourselves up, clipped our toenails and put on our especially sweet smelling shoes.


Do you hear this? Jesus, who died for us while we were still sinners teaches us to get in there…to get our hands dirty with each other (imperfect, dirty, sinful people) and be the ultimate community of grace.


Lets set the scene…


On the night before He died, Jesus stripped down to just his undergarments, put a towel around his waist, found a servant’s basin of water and knelt down to wash the feet of his disciples commanding them to do the same for each other…


Washing feet in those days was not a pretty sight…beyond the dust and dirt of the roads, there were road apples and the entire lack of a true sewer system. Feet truly stank. There was nothing nice to be said about the way the disciples’ feet had entered the upper room after a journey from Bethany.


Jesus had brought into his inner circle 12 men who like us were wounded, imperfect, sinful, uncaring and a jumble of humanity, just waiting to explode. There were those who were trying to climb over each other’s shoulder to try to get ahead (who would be the greatest in heaven?) along with the marginalized, the hungry next to the betrayers. He had eaten with and taught with, traveled with and slept in the same room with a man who had been a tax collector, a collaborator with the roman oppressive government as well as one who had been a rebel and asked them to become church…to love one another.


They were asked to love one another with all their foibles and wounds, their imperfections and failures. Their only commonality? They were all made in the image of God…


My daughter came to me recently while I was reading to her brother and placed a Snow White sticker on my sweater, just where a name tag would be stuck and said, “Mommy, you are a princess of the Most High God.”


I wish we all could wear stickers like that in church…you, my friend are a daughter of the Most High God…and you, my friend, you are a son, a Prince of the Most High God, adopted, loved, and accepted entirely as you are with an inheritance from your Abba Father that is immense! You are covered with His righteousness and nothing surprises him about you. Nothing, not even your sins and failures shock him. He knows you and loves you. Through the work of Jesus Christ which you have accepted, You are complete through union with Christ and forgiven. We are all made in the image of God, not a mistake.


You, my friends are desired by the God of the Universe to be His children. Our adoption ceremony? A cross and the wounds of forgiveness and a baptism, a saying yes, I want all you have to give, God.


We are all made in the image of God and desired children of the Most High.
Yet, what is it about church that makes us afraid to take that next step of vulnerability?


We are called to be grace-filled…overflowing with grace and shaken up with the truth of God’s grace in our lives…that we are sinners but who know that there is more of the story…that because of the cross and resurrection…we have a hope and a future.


“for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord in Jeremiah, plans to give you a hope and a future.”


Washing each others feet is more than just a nice image of servanthood, it is Jesus way of teaching us to get real with eachother…vulnerable, authentic and to show love to one who may need hope, encouragement, a little cleaning up…a little healthy correction, big love, freedom to express the pain of daily existence in a world that is not heaven yet.
To do all this with or without words- being willing to risk offering not just what we have to give but listening to what God desires to give, to be His hands, his feet, His Voice in the world...to risk getting dirty in the muck of each others lives.


TRANSITION


the great tragedy of God’s heart..that I know just breaks His heart…Churches are notorious for making people who know they are sinners feel uncomfortable.


“I’m fine” actually hurts the community because we believe that we need to have it altogether to be in church…and when we believe that, we subconsciously are posting a sign above the door of our church, saying, “Only perfect people are welcome.”
What a crushing blow to our Christ, whose hands and feet we are supposed to be in this earth…The Jesus who died while we were still sinners
Jesus said that it was the sick that needed a doctor, and now, the dirty who need a foot washing…right before his death, he reminds the disciples that this humbling and this grace-living is their job.
The Pharisees were the ones in the Jewish community who pretended they were perfect…who had everything all figured out. It was that very self-righteous thought that they had it all figured out, thank you, that closed them off from the grace of God, because only the receptive …only the open and needy can receive the gift of grace.
So Jesus called them whitewashed tombs…filled with death on the inside, pretending with a pretty exterior that there was not a stench.
This my friends, in church, with our small groups, is where we need to be willing to show our warts and rough heels, our chipped toenails and imperfections.


“Confess your sins to each other and you will be healed.”


In Journey, we have been shocked at the amount of beautiful community that has been created. We’ve all been real with our stuff, supporting each other and listening and offering true life, while at the same time being extremely aware of our own utter need for Jesus, our own hunger to get out of our prisons of sin, our own failures. I came home last week and told Andrew that I believe everyone should do Journey before we are allowed to mix in the world…our early wounds need to be healed so they don’t geyser up into a painful life any longer, our lies need to be silenced by truth so that we don’t react by taking offense so easily when we get hurt.
Vulnerability has not hurt us, it has ushered in victory. The very command to wash each other’s feet tells us that we are going to have dirty feet and that they will need to be exposed in order to be washed.
The church was meant to be a place where we are washed, not given a new set of rules to live by, but a new relationship with Christ and with each other to be transformed by
The smoothest stones are the ones which have a chance to rub against other stones and get the rough edges rubbed off. But it hurts sometimes. There are wounds which can only be exposed with people who will not judge you and will not go anywhere when they see the real you. The church is a place where we should be willing to commit…to provide the best greenhouse for the Kingdom…a place where grace is the answer to heal our selfishness and utter need to self-protect.
This commitment was a huge revelation to me in college when we found a church that God was calling us to commit to but which included lots of people that rubbed me the wrong way…one guy was OCD and found in liturgy a type of bizarre shelter from the rest of the world and let us all know when we weren’t following the rules perfectly…another couple had so much immaturity that the man could barely hold an intelligent conversation. The rest of us were coming with emotional wounds, imperfect families and experiences of church where most of us bolted at discomfort, shoppers with our own agenda and that prevalent but normal…belief that the church served us. We prayed in each others’ homes, we ate at each others’ tables, we sinned and shared, failed each other and asked forgiveness and got back up again, we opened our hearts and truly learned to be church. It was a revelation. It was a picture that will forever stay in my heart. We were imperfect and that was ok, but we were church and there was grace. We were all working out our salvation with fear and trembling knowing we could not do it without the full body of Christ, fully engaged, without the hand across the aisle, the foot sitting up in the front, the mouth speaking truth at the altar…the wisdom of the Spirit moving through the whole church.


Acts says, “They committed themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…”

The early church ate together, prayed together, learned together and lifted up the wine and bread together, humbling themselves to love big, even when it meant risking getting dirty. This, my dear friends, is our calling too, to get our hands in there and risk loving big, to risk opening our arms to imperfect people just like ourselves.