To The End -- Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

April 17, 2025

 

            “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.”

            Even as early as elementary school, I understood the intricate workings of school cafeteria dynamics. These dynamics indicated power or the lack of it. Often the tables where a class had to sit were already designated, but where you sat at those tables and with whom mattered. There was some anxiety about this in the early grades, but it was not until Junior High that the lunchroom table power structure really became important. You had to have the right place at the table. You wanted to sit with the popular girls, because the popular girls had all the power. They had the power to make your life miserable or not. They could make life miserable either by not letting you sit with them or by letting you sit with them and finding ways to mock you. And you were terrified to sit next to or even near a boy you liked, because someone, probably one of the popular girls, would figure out that you liked him, and then you would be teased about that, and teased loudly, which would ruin any chance you might have had to get the boy to like you back.  

            That’s just the seating arrangements. What you ate for lunch was a whole other source of anxiety. If you brought your lunch from home, it couldn’t include anything that might be considered weird or icky. No leftovers. No strange sandwich choices. It should be basic, simple, and unremarkable. If you’ve ever seen the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you may remember the scene where the young Tulla brings her Greek lunch to school. While the other girls brought peanut butter sandwiches on white bread, she had moussaka; an eggplant delicacy and very different. The other girls immediately pounced on that difference and teased her for it. Sometimes it was less risky to buy your lunch. The quality of the school lunch was iffy at best, but at least it leveled the playing field when it came to the power dynamics of the junior high cafeteria.

            But these lunchroom table power plays didn’t begin with school children. They have existed since people began to sit at tables for meals. I read one commentator who told the story of the Roman emperor, Domitian. Domitian was most likely the emperor when the gospel of John was being written. He hosted what was known as the “Black Banquet.” The room and the all the serving people were draped in black. The meal was food typically served at funerals, dyed black, and each guest was seated next to their own personalized tombstone. As the commentator wrote, each person seated at that table must have been scared stiff, awaiting what would surely be a summons to be executed. Instead, it was an elaborate prank. Each guest was sent home with gifts, that included enslaved human beings.

            That is not a practical joke that I would have found funny, and I imagine the guests didn’t either. While they may have laughed on the outside, the laughter didn’t reach the inside. It didn’t reach their eyes. This strange and ghoulish meal may have been pronounced a prank, but in reality it was a highly crafted display of power. Domitian was making sure that everyone at that table knew that he held all the power, including the power to decide if they lived or died, in his hands.

            Then we come to our gospel reading for tonight; John’s recounting of the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples. If the table was and is a venue for displays of power, then Jesus turned that idea of power upside down. As the supper was underway, Jesus stood up and took a towel, then kneeling he began to wash the feet of his disciples. As I understand it, foot washing was a common display of hospitality. With foot coverings that were like our open sandals and roads that were more dust than road, a person’s feet would be constantly dirty and grimy. So, when you arrived at someone’s home, it was customary to have your feet washed as a way of being welcomed.

            However, the foot washing was not done by the host. The foot washing was done by a servant, and it would have happened upon arrival, not after everyone was at the table with the meal before them. We don’t wash our hands midway through supper. We wash them before we eat. Yet Jesus does not call upon a servant to wash the feet of his disciples, which would have been the custom. He washes them. He does what a servant would do. And he does this during the meal, at the time reserved for entertainment or a planned program. Jesus takes on the role of service and he makes it, as one commentator described, the main event.

            If the disciples expected a power hierarchy at this meal, they didn’t get it. If they expected their teacher, their rabbi, their messiah to act as a guest of honor would have acted, they were doubly surprised and maybe disappointed. Jesus turned the power dynamics of table fellowship upside down. He did not flip this table over as he did with the tables and booths in the temple, but in many ways his actions at this last meal accomplished the same thing. He disrupted the powers and principalities. He overturned social mores that dictated who was in and who was out, and he taught his disciples that if they want to follow him, to truly live into the kingdom of God, then they must serve others. If they want to have a share with him, abide in him, then they must be willing to do the work of a servant. They must be willing to wash the feet of others.

            After he washed their feet, he reclined with them at the table once more and told them that he had set them an example. They should do for each other and for others what he has done for them. The old understanding of hierarchy and power structure is now gone. To follow Jesus is to serve.

            To follow Jesus is to love. Jesus follows his example of serving others with a new commandment. “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

            These are beautiful words, but what did Jesus mean when he told them to love one another? Was he talking about feelings? Was he talking about performative actions that resembled love but really didn’t reveal love or were grounded in love? Or was he connecting this new commandment to the act of service that he did for them? Was he teaching them that to love is to serve and to serve is to love? It makes me think that when Jesus knelt and washed their feet, it was far more than an object lesson. It truly was an act of love. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

            And included in that was Judas who would betray him, and Peter who would deny him, and all the others who would misunderstand and hide in fear and question what they had witnessed, and what Jesus told them. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

            Jesus sat at table with them and loved them. He loved them even though they would break his heart. He loved them even though they would deny and abandon him. He loved them, even knowing all that lay ahead. He loved them.

            If I were seated at a table with people I knew would turn against me, hurt me, abandon me, betray me, would I be able to love them? Would I be able to kneel and wash their feet? Would I be able to sit with them and break bread with them and not want revenge, not want to berate them or accuse them or hurt them before they could hurt me? Could I sit at table with them and love them as Jesus loved the disciples, as Jesus loves you and me and all of us? Even with my best intentions I doubt that I could. Yet that is what Jesus did and that is what we are called, no, commanded to do.

            “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” And this love that he commanded is love that puts its work boots on and goes out into the world. This love that Jesus commanded is love that takes the lowest seat at the table and washes the feet of others and upends expectations about class and hierarchy. This love that Jesus commanded is love that reveals that true power comes from giving power away and true strength comes from being vulnerable. This love that Jesus commanded is love that does not seek to harm but to heal, that does not distinguish between friend and enemy, that does not seek revenge but forgiveness.

            Jesus sat at table with those closest to him, with the ones who had been with him since the beginning, with the ones who would betray and deny him, and he loved them to the end. May we love as Jesus loved. May we reveal ourselves to be his followers through our service which is love, and our love which is service.

            Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

            Thanks be to God. Amen.