Readings of the day: Acts 13:13-25; Psalm 89:2-3, 21-22, 25, 27; John 13:16-20
Has anybody here ever been startled or
even upset by what another person have said or done? And then has the person
who has startled or upset us continued to speak and perhaps made a crucial
point, but what they said or did first has left us unable to focus on the rest
of their message?
This, I think, is what is happening in
our Gospel reading today from John. Jesus has just finished washing the feet of
his disciples. In Jesus’ time, to wash the feet of those gathered for a meal
was the task of a slave. It would have been unthinkable for the master of the
house to wash his guests’ feet and then eat a meal with them. What would the
reaction of Jesus’ disciples have been to this profound act of love and
vulnerability that they would never have experienced before? What would our
reaction have been?
We remember Jesus’ washing of his
disciples’ feet each year on Holy Thursday. I have both had my feet washed once
and have washed feet once at Holy Thursday Mass, and have been deeply moved by
both experiences. But have we lost the shock value of what was an unprecedented
act of love; the scandalous act of the master, Jesus, making himself a slave to
his disciples out of love at the Last Supper?
And how well do we hear the most
important part of Jesus message, which he speaks after washing his disciples’
feet? The strongest of Jesus’ disciples would have difficulty with these words
of our Lord that we hear today: “If you understand this, blessed are you if you
do it.”
May we not be saddened if we are
thinking now, “I am not sure if we ‘understand this’; if I understand the
implications of Jesus’ washing of the feet for us.” I do not believe that it is
possible for us to “understand this” all at once. Jesus only sets us on a
lifelong journey toward understanding what his washing of his disciples feet
means for us. With each small act of kindness; each act of mercy toward
somebody in need of it; each time we gather here to pray and worship and to
take in Christ in our Eucharist as a community of faith, we move in the
direction of understanding the depth of God’s love for us. We move in the
direction of understanding and acting by the love asked of us in response to
God’s love for us.
And Jesus offers us these words of
consolation when we, like his first disciples, did not completely understand:
“Blessed are you if you do it.” And Jesus also says to us, “I know those whom I
have chosen.” I know those I have invited to this journey with me; to grow in
my love that is so great as to startle or even upset us at times.
“Blessed are you” who do not yet
“understand this.” “Blessed are you” who are loved by God; by God Son, Jesus
Christ, more deeply than we can ever understand; all of us who have been
“chosen” by Christ. Take courage! If we let him, Christ will guide us to love
one another as he loves us. Christ will lead us to “understand this.”
“Blessed are you.”
No comments:
Post a Comment