“Do you know what I have done for you?”
I am sure that you were equally as disturbed as I was
over these last weeks of violence against
many of our Asian American & Pacific Islander brothers and sisters.
The one that took me by real horror was the latest one in New York.
I am not sure if you saw the video
but it was captured on a security camera inside a store.
It showed this Filipina woman, walking past the front of the store
when a man comes up and hits her with his feet on her chest
and knocks her to the ground.
When she is on the ground, he kicks her in her body and head.
It’s shocking to watch
and then he turns away and comes back
and kicks and stomps her head another time.
But that wasn’t the most disturbing to me;
what was most disturbing to me was
the camera caught the Security Guard on the inside, looking out,
not even flinching, not even looking to move one inch towards her.
Worse still, the Store Manager comes and closes the door.
This woman who has had her head stomped on and beaten
and they close the door.
It is not only what the man did, whoever this person was,
it is what these other people failed to do that was most shocking.
I know there is a temptation to not get involved
because we are afraid that we might get sucked into the violence
and they would turn on us and they might have a weapon.
I get it. So to protect our humanity, sometimes we do nothing.
But at what point do we lose our humanity by trying to protect it?
The very thing we claim to protect,
we lose because we become not even human.
If somebody did that to a dog,
we would immediately reach out and tell them to stop.
It is truly, truly shocking.
In today’s gospel, Jesus really turns the tables on his disciples.
They were just getting into their comfort zone,
just getting into the position where
they now were understanding that he was the Messiah.
They were in Jerusalem now
and they are expecting him to show his strength.
We are going to be with you to the end.
And he does something that is outrageous to them.
He washes their feet.
To understand the context of washing feet,
I know we do this every year,
but the context of washing the feet is important.
In ancient time they were walking around in sandals on dirt roads.
So wherever they walked, their feet would have been caked with clay.
Remember they lay down at the table to eat,
and not sitting like in chairs like us.
They would be lying at table so their feet
would have been right next to each other;
so the idea of cleaning their feet
was to keep everyone sort of, well, healthy at the meal.
Because it was such a dirty job
it was the lowest servant on the totem pole that would do that work.
It wasn’t just a servant’s role, it was the lowest servant’s role.
Jesus takes this role and then he shows them
that this is what he wants to do, to be the lowest servant.
Peter is having none of his.
Peter is frustrated.
He says, “Look, you are my Master!
You are not going to do this to me!
You cannot do this.
You are the Messiah.”
We can see him outraged.
And he gets the table turned on him by Jesus.
Then Peter in his typical blustery self says,
“Oh, not just my feet Lord then my hands and my head too.”
He goes overboard to compensate for his impulsive response.
The Lord has given us the model to follow;
that we should care for one another.
That we should wash each other’s feet.
We should do the lowliest things for one another.
We need to, if you would, step into our humanity.
And recognize the humanity of each other.
So what does it mean for us today
when we are separated by distance and
how does this connect with our world in which
we seem to have so much violence, so much hatred,
and so much discord.
What are we to do?
I do think we need to find our voice.
I do think that we need to be willing
to stand up for our Asian American Pacific Islander brothers and sisters;
or black, or anyone who gets their humanity stomped on.
We need to use our voice and be willing to have our voice be heard,
“That is not right. That is not right.”
And we need to use our body and
go to people and not leave them on the street.
I also think there are people in our own homes and in our own families
that we also need to reach out to.
There are those who are suffering
that they may not be being kicked but they may be down.
They may be depressed and they may need our helping hand.
But what it is going require of us to do this is
to pause and see who are those people in our lives?
They may be closer to us than we think.
We need to look at what can we do inside our own,
if you would, bubbles right now and serve.
And we need to allow those who are trying to serve us to serve us.
I think one of the hardest things, and
we do this every year, is washing the feet
and we are not going to be able to do that this year and it is a heartbreak.
I get that.
One of the hardest things to do is to allow somebody else to wash your feet.
It is easier to wash somebody else’s feet;
it is harder to let your feet be washed
because you become very aware of your vulnerability
and maybe your toes are not all shaped the same
and they aren’t as beautiful as we might like.
You know what I’m talking about, right?
You’ve done this before.
It gets a little weird because you say,
“Oh, I didn’t know my toes were like that.”
My point is that is exactly where we need to be;
we should reach out to each other in our awkwardness,
in our own weirdness.
For children, who are here,
is there something you can do for your mother and your father
that they have been doing for you all this whole year?
Can you do the lowliest job?
And I don’t mean just taking out the trash.
I mean cleaning the toilet.
I mean doing something that you would never dream of doing.
Is there something that you can do to express your willingness to serve?
And those of us who have elderly parents, who are in need,
you know how hard it is for them;
how this time of isolation has been brutal;
and what can we do for them?
Can we go and spend some time with them?
Can we be a servant to them?
Whatever way it is today, it is not meant to be comfortable.
If you think of something like
“Oh, I’ll just do that.” then you have not thought hard enough.
It isn’t meant to be comfortable to step up and speak out
for somebody who is getting torn down.
If we have to do something for somebody in our family,
and it is comfortable, then we just have not gone far enough.
Today, the Lord challenges what it means to serve.
It is to get down on our hands and our knees
and to wash another person’s feet,
to love them the way Christ has loved us.
Do we realize what he has done for us?
He who is our Servant.
He who is our Master and our Messiah, Teacher
and he has showed us a different way.
Let us do what he has done for us and love one another.
