“I have given you a model.
What I have done for you,
you should also do for one another.”
The other night, I was out at a restaurant with a friend of mine.
We sat down but the waiter didn’t come by.
One of the kitchen staff came by.
And she said, “Hi, my name is Mary.
I’m going to be cleaning your pots and pans tonight.”
And then she walked away.
Another came by and said, “My name is Juan.
I’m going to be cleaning your dishes and your silverware tonight.”
And he walked back to the kitchen.
A third person came by and said, “Hi, my name is Mary.
I’m going to be cutting your vegetables tonight in the kitchen.”
I looked at my friend and said,
“What the heck? Where is the waiter?”
If that had actually happened, it didn’t happen,
but if it happened, we all be so surprised!
It is completely disorienting. Why?
Because those people never, ever come out.
We never see them. Ever.
We don’t know who they are.
We never know their names.
And yet, without them, the back-room people,
no restaurant would ever function without them.
Absolutely essential for every kitchen
of every restaurant in every place in the world.
Yet, we never tip them.
We never ask their name.
We barely acknowledge the waiter.
They may come over and introduce themselves
and we rarely remember their names.
And we give them a tip almost as if to say,
“You have to earn it first.”
It is that discombobulation or turning upside down
that Jesus does in tonight’s reading.
When he turned around and says
“I’m going to wash your feet,”
and he puts on the apron.
The disciples say, “Oh, no you can’t do that!”
And Peter, always the one who jumps forward says,
“You are not going to wash me are you?”
And Jesus says, “Yes. I am.”
He says, “No way. You are not washing me.”
And so the drama unfolds tonight.
Just to understand it, in ancient times
someone who washed the feet was not just a servant
but the lowest servant of the servants.
The servant who washed the feet would have been
the servant who was lowest on the totem pole of servants.
In a poor house, where there were no servants,
the women washed the feet;
and if you had no women in the house
then you washed your own feet!
But one would never, ever expect the host to wash your feet. Why?
Because that was too menial;
it was too subservient.
It would have been shocking.
That is the mindset that the disciples had;
they were deeply uncomfortable.
The question then is
“Why was Jesus trying to be so provocative
in this particular moment of the Last Supper?”
He knew what was going to happen
because he was giving us a model to follow.
The disciples were constantly getting confused
because they didn’t understand what Jesus would say.
He tells them, “Look, you don’t understand this yet.
You will understand it later.
What I am giving you is a model to follow.
I want you to serve others.
I want you to remember the ones who are unseen.
I want you to see the unseen.
I want you to remember those.
And serve them.”s
He didn’t just say it as he did it
He actually donned the apron and did it himself.
That is significant in John’s gospel.
He showed them what to do.
He did it and then explained it,
knowing that they wouldn’t fully understand it
but they would come to comprehend it later
and that is what we have done.
In John’s gospel, we do not have the institutional narrative,
we have a model of how to serve.
It is from this very place, this place,
that we are called to serve one another.
This is the model.
It is not enough that we just come to church.
It is wonderful that we are all here.
But that is not the model.
The model is to serve the smallest, the unseen,
the little ones, the ones who are never seen.
Let’s just take a look at this for tonight.
For example, the unseen members here tonight
are the ones who got this place ready.
They got all these flowers out.
Got everything ready and the environment complete,
spending endless hours to complete.
And the gymnasium is all set up with the altar of repose.
None of those names you will ever know.
You will never know any of those names;
you won’t see them and there will be another group who will clean up.
You see, they are the unseen.
Or the choir members, you may know them by name
but you do not know how many hours
they spent in preparation of these liturgies this week;
the 10s and 10s of hours over the last couple of weeks
when they have practiced all the different songs over the last weeks.
They are the ones, the little ones.
And that is just here.
And there are many other people who wrote the scripts,
got the church ready, cleaned the laundry,
cleaned the bathroom, cleaned benches.
All these people, you don’t know their names
and yet, without them, this would not have happened;
or at least not happened well.
And that is just here.
Just think about when we go to the grocery store
and all we see is the cashier
and sometimes we get irritated when there is a long line.
Do we know where all that food has come from?
The endless numbers of people;
first of all the people who planted
and grew the fresh fruit and vegetables for us;
and the people who cut it and worked long, long hours
and sometimes in difficult conditions.
And then the truckers arrive at night deliberately not to be seen
because we don’t want to see them.
They just deliver the food and are on their way.
And then all the people who stock the shelves at night
so that they are not seen.
And that is just at the grocery store.
When we go on a holiday for a vacation, we go to a hotel.
If we see the maids, they are going to get a reprimand.
We are not meant to see them come into our room.
They are meant to be unseen;
to clean our room, disappear
and many people do not even leave a tip.
They don’t exist just because they clean our room.
Then when we go home and look at our house:
Who does the garden care?
Who cleans the bathrooms?
And maybe it is your Mum or Dad;
or maybe you have somebody come in.
Again, endless lists of unseen, unnamed people.
And that is just the surface level.
There are so many that the Lord is trying to point out.
The Lord is trying to highlight that these are the ones
that we are called to wash their feet.
I understand, we don’t have them all here tonight
so we are not going to be able to wash their feet
but Jesus says, wash each other’s feet.
And so tonight, as we come forward,
and I’m encouraging everyone to come forward
to have your feet washed
and then to get down on your knees
and to wash the feet of the other person.
And, as you are waiting in line,
I want you to think about all the little people
from the church to your home, to your store,
to the library, to your own work.
Think about all the little people who have been serving you;
and you have never seen their name.
You have never once had the opportunity to thank them.
But tonight, we want to recognize them in our hearts,
in our minds, and the next time we see them, we will see them.
Look at them: The nurses, the doctors, the store clerks,
the person who you walk right by,
who puts all the stuff on the shelves.
Have a look at them and say thank you for doing that.
For the person, a truck driver, who is delivering your petroleum
into the gas tanks, thank him:
“Thank you for delivering that in the middle of the dark of night.”
The person who cleans your bathrooms.
The person who does your gardening.
Look at them and see them.
Know their name if you can.
And say “thank you” for your service.
Tonight, we come to change the angle through which we see.
And to do that, we have to get down and look up,
and stop looking down.
Get down and look up.
That is what we are called to do.
We are called to change our seat;
change our angle so that we look up
and recognize the unseen;
the people who make this world work;
the little ones, each and every one of them.
Tonight, we do it in a very uncomfortable way
by letting our feet be washed;
and then washing somebody else’s feet.
Yes. And so, we should
because it is the model that Jesus gave us.
“I have given you a model.
What I have done for you,
you should also do for one another.”
