THE PATH OF BLESSINGReading: John 13: 1-17
The next little cameo comes in the upper room as the disciples are gathered together for the last time before his death. They don’t yet know it, but before another day has passed, he will be dead. Prior to sharing the Passover meal together, Jesus gets up from the table, takes off his outer robe, wraps a towel around his waist, takes a basin of water and begins to wash the disciples’ feet. They are all shocked. Once again Jesus has turned their little securities of how things should be upside down. This is no job for the Master! Rather it belongs to the lowest slave. They’re all too stunned to speak, all, that is, except Peter, who, of course, asks why. Jesus’ action has blown his mind. This is not the way it should be! Peter is on a steep learning curve in relation to what leadership is all about, and what the servant community is all about. He probably doesn’t grasp the full significance of what is happening then and there. In fact, Jesus says to him, “You don’t understand now why I am doing it; someday you will.” That understanding would come after years of reflecting and growing on his spiritual journey, but, nonetheless, this is still another important moment of recognition for him. His initial reaction is, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus responds immediately in what seems to be a very harsh way, “If I don’t, you won’t belong to me. You will have no place with me.”
It does seem sometimes, doesn’t it, as if Jesus is rather hard on Peter? We know it’s because he loves him and is in no way dismissing him, but rather seeking to teach, guide and encourage this impulsive, exasperating, loveable man who is to become one of the foremost leaders of the early Church. So, here’s another point of breaking. Peter probably wishes he had swallowed his tongue rather than say what evoked such a response from Jesus. And yet, as so often before, he’s probably voicing what the others are thinking.
Peter thought he had understood, but perhaps in this moment realises that he has hardly even started. He would much rather have been doing something for Jesus than receive this act of love and service from him. I suppose that we’re all a bit like that. We can be much happier when we’re giving than when we’re receiving. In fact, most givers find it very difficult to receive. When we’re giving we can usually remain in control of the situation. We don’t have to be vulnerable or show any sign of weakness, but when we receive we are in essence saying that we haven’t got it all together, that we have needs and fragilities, that in ourselves we are not whole and complete and that, yes, there is something within us that actually needs what the other person is offering.
Peter was a doer, a giver. He was impulsive, courageous, generous, but he didn’t like his weaknesses or vulnerabilities to be seen. In fact, he protested his strengths. But to have the tables turned and to have the One who was the most important person in his life perform for him such a lowly task just threw him. He had to learn the hard way and it wasn’t a lesson that was learnt overnight. Peter wasn’t very used to touch, to tenderness, to gentleness. It disarmed him. He didn’t know what to do with it. In fact, they were probably all disarmed. This would have been the last time before his death that Jesus would have intimate contact with the twelve. You can picture him moving from one to the other, washing their feet, looking up at each one, perhaps saying a silent goodbye. Certainly it would have been an act of love for these twelve people who had shared so much with him. John says, “He now showed the disciples the full extent of his love.” Isn’t it rather strange, if this is a demonstration of the full extent of Jesus’ love for humankind, that we, in the Christian Church, have pushed it to the edges and only perform a sanitized version of it once a year on Holy Thursday? John’s Gospel is the only one that doesn’t give an account of the Last Supper. Instead he powerfully recounts this awesome action. In a way, it is also a sacrament. And it’s not so much the particular action as the mind blowing image it represents. This washing of the feet was a powerful icon for the disciples. It was Jesus showing them a new model of leadership, seeking to reveal to them who he was, to let them in on the essence of his being, that he to whom the Father had given everything, who had come from God and was going back to God, he who was all powerful yet chose to exercise his leadership through the power of love. He becomes vulnerable before them. And then he says to them that this is the sort of leadership they have to offer also. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’ and you are right because it is true. And since I, the Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.” Then he says, “Do this and you will be blessed.” There are more beatitudes in the gospels than those we find in Matthew Chapter 5 or Luke Chapter 6 and this is one of them. “This is the path of blessing”, says Jesus, “Blessed are you when you wash one another’s feet!”
When we feel vulnerable the instinct is to self-protect. The way we do that is to seek to control situations and even people. There’s something quite frightening about simply being open and transparent, which is not to be confused with naivety or having no boundaries. It’s something to do with knowing oneself and knowing oneself in God, so that we are not primarily swayed by what other people think of us, or about being taken over if we show a side that others might interpret as weakness. It is, I suppose, a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity, a state that Peter had not yet reached and one that probably takes each of us a lifetime or more to reach, if we ever do. Christian leadership is modelled for us by the Servant King who willingly becomes lower than everyone else in order that he might raise them up into a knowledge of who they really are, beloved daughters and sons of God. I would venture to suggest that most of us, like Peter, are only at the very beginning stages of understanding what that really means. It is a journey, and the road we travel has a name. It is the path of blessing.