He Loved Them to the End

Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Hi everyone, good morning. It's a little bit different morning today than it was one week ago when we had to cancel service, but it's good to be back together. I am Debbie Manning, one of the pastors here at The Table, and we are, as Justin has said, we're in the season of Lent. And so we continue on in our series "The Path to Palm Sunday." A path that's been about public witness, about powerful systems, about oppressive realities, but it's a path that leads us closer to one another. The path of service and humility that brings us to this oneness and this unity and an intimacy together.

On Friday, as God always seems to have it, timing things with our messages, I was at a service of one of our community members, Sara, her father had passed away, and they had a beautiful service celebrating his life. And the takeaway and the thread throughout his service was that this was a man who loved his people and he loved his God. The same thread was woven through our text today. So here we go, we're in John, the Gospel of John, chapter 13:1-9, 33-35:

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already decided that Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, would betray Jesus, and during supper, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from supper, took off his outer robe and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and he began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" And Jesus answered, "You do not know what I am doing, but later you'll understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." And Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands in my head."

Jesus then goes on to say, "Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me. As I had said to the Jews, so now I say to you, where I am going you cannot come. 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're my disciples if you have love for one another."

I would love for us to just take a moment picture the scene a little bit. It's evening time. The city is really tense. Jerusalem is full of people celebrating the Passover and everybody can feel that something big was gonna happen. The authorities that are watching Jesus carefully and the crowds continue to grow. Now remember just a few days earlier Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey with crowds waving palm branches shouting, "Hosanna! Hosanna!" Not the kind of kingship anyone expected because there were no war horses, there were no soldiers, there was no big displays of power, just humility.

And now Jesus is sharing a meal with the people closest to him. And what we can't do is we can't ignore this tension-filled text because think about it. John tells us that the hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. So he's signaling that Jesus's foreshadowed death, it is close, it is coming. We know that the devil has infiltrated is this close-knit group of friends, these disciples, entering into Judas's heart who will soon betray Jesus.

And then Jesus makes a complete break from custom and authoritarian structure of that day by washing the feet of the disciples. And on top of all of that Jesus reveals that not only does he know he's gonna be betrayed, he knows who the betrayer is gonna be. Picture that for a minute. That is quite a scenario for Jesus who knows that his inevitable and imminent death is near.

And here's what I think is an interesting question for us to think about. If you knew, if I knew, we only had hours left with the people we loved. What would we do with that time? In pastoral ministry, which has been a lot of my career and I've been at a lot of bedsides with people as they were getting ready to leave their earthly home and enter their heavenly home, we often talk about, "Hey, let's make sure you've forgiven everyone you've needed to forgive. Asked for forgiveness if you need it. You've told people you've loved them. Maybe you'd want to make sure you were saying something really important, sort of like those famous last words, or maybe some sage advice, some wisdom that you want to leave, or instructions." Jesus doesn't do any of that.

John simply says, "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." What a legacy. He loved them to the end. What Jesus did, though, must have completely stunned everyone in that room. He stands up from the table. He takes off his outer coat. He wraps the towel around his waist. He pours water into a basin, and then he kneels. He kneels down and he starts washing their feet. That story is familiar to a lot of us and when we hear that story now, it can feel a little symbolic or even ceremonial, but in that moment, more than 2,000 years ago, it had to have felt awkward and confusing even, because while foot washing was this common practice, it was the job of the servant. It was for the person who had the lowest status in the household to wash those dirty feet. Certainly not the host or the teacher or the one that people are starting to call Messiah.

And it makes me think that the room must have kind of gone quiet, because the one that they all call Lord is kneeling right before them with a towel and a bowl of water, because that's not how power usually works. That's not how leaders behave, but Jesus, like, always flipped everything upside down. Jesus changed that and he keeps on going one person at a time, washing dusty, dirty feet, and eventually he gets to Peter. Peter says what everyone was probably thinking in the moment, "Lord, are you gonna wash my feet?"

And when Jesus keeps moving toward him, Peter protests, "You will never wash my feet." Because Peter can't imagine a Messiah that's gonna kneel before him, but Jesus answers him, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." In other words, if you want to follow me, you have to understand something about how my kingdom works. In my kingdom, power bends down. It's called servant leadership.

And here's the part of the story that should really make us pause for a moment. Jesus knows exactly who's sitting at that table. He knows that Judas is about to betray him. Before the night is over, Judas will slip out into the darkness and he'll hand Jesus over to the authorities. Jesus also knows that Peter will deny him just a few hours later. Someone will look at Peter and they'll say, "Hey, aren't you one of his followers?" And Peter will say, "I don't even know him." Jesus knows all of this and yet he still kneels down and washes their feet. And it's not just the feet of the loyal, it's not just the feet of the faithful, he washes the feet of the betrayer, he washes the feet of the one who's gonna deny him, he washes everybody's feet.

And I don't know about you all but that feels like really good news to me because it tells us something really important about the way that Jesus loves. He doesn't hand out love as some sort of reward for good behavior. He doesn't wait and see who deserves his love. He loves people exactly when faithfulness is about to become its hardest. And in a world that often runs on payback and retribution and punishment, I think we could all relate to that as to what's going on in our federal government right now. Jesus does something completely different. He gives grace.

And what strikes me about this moment is how simple that is. And like my barre instructor Susan would say, "It's simple, not easy." But it is simple and it's practical because the Jesus moments usually are. They catch us by surprise. It's when they come when we least expect it. It shifts where we thought we were going in that day or that moment and it changes everything. And suddenly something pierces our heart with compassion. We notice someone's need that maybe we hadn't seen before. Our eyes open a little bit wider to the pain that someone else might be carrying.

And in that moment, and I love this, we realize that we're being invited in something far bigger than us. I love Jesus moments because a Jesus moment asks us to see another person and respond in love to whatever their needs might be. It doesn't matter who they are. It might be a Peter. It could be a Judas. It might be a neighbor. It might be a stranger. It might be the person sitting right next to you. We don't take the time to sit and analyze. Should we? Shouldn't we? How do we do this? We step into something because we feel like there's no other way to do it except to do it. And that's what happens in the room in that room that night.

Jesus doesn't give a long lecture. He doesn't explain like a complicated theory of love. Guess what he does friends? He picks up a towel. He picks up a towel and he finishes washing their feet. He sits back down at the table and he says something so simple and so profound. "I give you a new commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you." And then he adds, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples."

And I think what's interesting is what Jesus doesn't say here. He doesn't say people will recognize you because you have correct theology. He doesn't say that it will be their moral superiority or their influence. He says that the thing that will make a community recognizable is love.

I was thinking about this beautiful messy community that has come together by the grace of God and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And I think The Table is recognized by their love. I think you all do that really really well. The kind of love that notices dusty feet and kneels down and washes those feet. The kind of love that shows up when life is messy and complicated. And the beauty of this is these moments don't happen because we have everything figured out.

These Jesus moments aren't about answering. All the questions are eliminating doubt or judging what's right and wrong. These Jesus moments are about imagination and creativity and hope. They open up our life wider. They are an experience of love. And what I love is that love always leads us to intimacy. It calls us to this place of vulnerability, of risk, of openness. It brings us into relationship and oneness and unity with God, with each other, and even with ourselves. And it's in that place that we're changed, we're transformed, we're no longer the people that we were yesterday or the day before that or the week before that or the year before that. I love that.

And this kind of love happens in very ordinary ways. You all know it. You've been doing it. It's a ride. It's grocery shopping or grocery bagging or grocery delivery. It's a hug, a text, a note. It's showing up and just sitting with someone. It is a basin and a washcloth. Small things that carry a lot of love. Mother Teresa has a famous quote. We've used it over the years here, but it's perfect for this moment. Mother Teresa has said, "Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love." That is the call on our lives.

There's another truth here that we need to talk about, and that's that Jesus' moments are not as much about us as they are about the other person. Because for every moment when we're holding someone else's feet, there will be another moment when someone else is going to be holding our feet. For every time we serve someone, there will be a time when we need someone to serve and care for us. And it's that mutual giving and receiving. It's that back-and-forth love is exactly what Jesus says will make the community recognizable. It's that kind of love. To wash and be washed. To love as Jesus loved us.

Gosh, it'll be nine years ago this summer, the 4th of July week of 2017, that my sister who was dying of breast cancer, she'd been on that journey for about 12 years, my younger sister by five and a half years, I had always been the big sister. Always. It's just the way it was. I think a lot of my life I had that role, and when my sister got diagnosed at 40 with breast cancer, I stepped in fully into being the big sister, into showing up, washing her feet, holding her hand during chemo, being present with her in the midst of what was a really hard but holy journey. But her last hours, literally, and her last hours before she died, I snuck upstairs. She was at our home. She had driven there from Colorado with her husband and her 12 year old son, and everyone was downstairs. People had been saying their goodbyes and telling stories, and I snuck upstairs to say my goodbye. My sister was laying on her side. She would be dying in about eight hours from then.

It was the evening. I snuggled up behind her and I spooned her, and in that moment, the big sister became the little sister. The one who served was the one being served, because in that moment, through tears, I cried and cried and cried and said, "Leslie, don't leave me. Do not leave me." And in those moments, she reached behind me and she took my hand, and she said, she called me the only person who could, my nickname, Ed. That's a story for another time. She took my hand and she said, "Ed, you are gonna be okay. You will be okay."

It was a Jesus moment. A mutual exchange of love and comfort and care were that oneness, that unity, that intimacy between God and me and my sister and me, and even with myself. Jesus knows that hard days are coming. He knew it for his friends around that table, because soon there will be betrayal and fear and grief and violence. The powers of the world will do whatever they need to do when they feel threatened, but Jesus also knows something. The only thing that will hold this community together is love. It's love that will keep his disciples connected as fear tries to scatter them. It's love that will help survive betrayal.

It's love that will help keep them going when the world says love is foolish. But the truth is, is nothing can really be carried out without love. And following Jesus doesn't mean always doing something dramatic. Sometimes it just means noticing. Sometimes it means kneeling. Sometimes it means picking up a towel. And maybe it means letting someone else pick up that towel and wash your feet for Jesus moments. And trusting that even the smallest act of love carries the kingdom of God into the world.

So maybe the question for us is pretty simple. What's your legacy gonna be? God, I'll tell you one thing. As I was studying this text, reflecting on it, and praying, I thought, "Oh my gosh, if that could be my legacy at the end of my life, if the people I love could say having loved her own who were in the world, she loved them to the end. Gosh, what more do you want What more do you want?"

I'm gonna close with a charge, maybe something to aspire to as a church. One of the pastors, her name is Laura Loving, she wrote some of the, one of the commentaries I was studying, and she made this statement and I thought, "Wouldn't this be beautiful as this is who we continue to become?” Because I think we're on that path, so I'm closing with this: Church, garner a reputation for being a loving church. One that welcomes the stranger, opens the doors to the homeless, the outcast, the refugee, the least, the last, and the lost. We can reframe our church as a counter-cultural community that counts amongst our greatest assets the love of its people for one another. This fulfills the commandment. Love locally, love globally, love extravagantly. Amen.