Growing up, my mother made a funny ritual of celebrating “Garbage Day,” which for our household was on Wednesdays. Presumably trying to get us to do the same thing, she would skip into each room to fetch the garbage singing a silly made-up song about “Here comes the Garbage Lady,”which I later developed into a full-fledged song (with Tom’s help) and it ended up on my children’s album. Because of this Garbage Day routine, we used to talk about how Holy Week had so many holidays we couldn’t even grasp it. I mean, wow, you’ve got Garbage Day followed by Maundy Thursday, followed by Good Friday, followed by Easter Vigil, followed by Easter. Whew! Do you see what I mean? This is a big-time week!
And this year, I have been musing about how we have a double holiday on Maundy Thursday. For, as you know, it is also April Fool’s Day, which you may have guessed was also a major holiday in my family. But as I began working on tonight’s sermon, I kept finding conflict with the fact that we’ve got a serious liturgical day in Maundy Thursday but yet it shares a date with the whimsical day of April Fools. Is there any meaning I can derive out of this? This is the questions preachers love to ask.
And so I probed and I pried into the story of Jesus’ last supper once again, this year with an eye for how it might tie in with foolishness. To begin with, it’s not hard to see how outsiders can view this story as a foolish and strange one.
When the early Christians met to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, they were called cannibals. What are you doing eating the “body and blood” of your Lord? That’s too weird. You can see how those outside of Christendom would find it horrifying.
It’s so normal to us. We’ve grown accustomed to this meal of his body and blood, which we understand to be a spiritual reality that inhabits ordinary bread and wine. We know we’re not cannibals. We don’t see the weirdness in it at all.
But that’s not all that seems foolish to the outsiders. Not only is this meal about the body and blood of their leader, it is rooted in all sorts of awful things: denial, betrayal, the suicide of a disciple, a Messiah’s arrest and subsequent death, and perhaps strangest of all: dirty feet. Oh the story has grown tame to us, but these things seem like a foolish way for the God of the Universe to save us.
In the Gospel lesson we’ve just heard, Jesus who been given all things from God into his hands, uses those hands to do the unthinkable: to wash the disciples feet. Yes, the disciples are shocked when Jesus strips off his robe and kneels down to wash each one’s feet. It is hard for us to understand just how outrageous this was. Not only were feet literally unclean—what with all the dirt and donkey droppings they’d have to endure in the course of a day—feet were also symbolically unclean according to their religious traditions. Of course feet needed to be washed, but religious people didn’t wash their own. They had slaves to do that for them, and not just any slave, but the lowest slave in the household. It was an embarrassing chore that nobody but nobody would have volunteered to do. So when Jesus decides to take on the task of foot washing, it causes an uproar. Foolish? You bet!
Why would he do such a thing? Is it April Fool’s Day? Is he joking around? No, Jesus is using his last night to provide a riveting example for us all.
“I give you a new commandment,” He says, “that you 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.”
Aha! What looks like pure foolishness turns out to be a profound lesson. He wants to make it absolutely clear that we are to be like him in his humility and his service. We may not do literal acts of foot-washing today, but we have ample opportunity to get our hands dirty doing acts of service. That’s the impact Jesus wants his action to have.
Not only is Jesus’ foot-washing stunt an example of humility and love for us, but it foreshadows his ultimate act of love: his self-sacrificial death on the cross. Indeed, Jesus stooped quite far down to join us in our human walk. And he made this choice for himself. He could have turned back at any moment, but he pushed forward to the cross because of his great love for each one of us.
Last year, my husband and I started a photographic project in which we create Biblical scenes in a modern context. We found a guy in McGregor who looks like all the European paintings of Jesus. He’s got the long, brown hair and beard and he’s about the right age to play the part. So we cast him as our Jesus. Sure enough, you put him in a robe and he’s easily identified as “Jesus.” In fact, it’s made for a lot of jokes. For example, one day we were walking up and down the street taking pictures of him wearing a robe. Some friends from out of town drove by. They were, in fact, looking for us. So when they saw us, one of them shouted, “Look! It’s the Gentrys! And they’re with Jesus!”
When they later told us this, we responded: “Why of course. You were looking for two ministers. Where else would you expect to find us except with Jesus?”
One of William’s members gave this Jesus model his used computer. Now he’s bragging that he’s gotten brownie points with God because of it. He proudly proclaims: “I gave my computer to Jesus!”
Well, one Sunday a few weeks ago, William and I decided we were going to stage the “Arrest of Jesus” scene. We had lined up our Judas model and our Roman soldier model (who is a woman because we are being modern). But ironically, when we went looking for the Jesus model, we found out he had actually been arrested—for real—the night before. It was on some old outstanding warrant he’d failed to deal with and now he was incarcerated at the Clayton County Jail. Now that’s relating to your part a bit too much, don’t you think?
So we decided to go and visit him. We joked about the story from Matthew 25 about the Sheep and the Goats in which Jesus says: “I was in prison and you came and visited me.” We thought we were definitely doing this by visiting “Jesus” in jail. But all the joking faded away when we stood behind the glass in the visiting room and looked at our friend who was sitting there in orange stripes talking about the pain of his present circumstance. Even seeing a fake Jesus in jail was uncomfortable and hard to take.
What was it like for the disciples to see their Lord arrested, tortured and put on the cross? We can only imagine how heart-wrenching it must have been for them. Seeing our friend behind bars gave us just a taste of this.
As we walk with Jesus through the events of Holy Week, we mustn’t let the story wash over us without impact. These are incredible events when you realize that the main character of the story is no ordinary guy—he is the very Son of God. And here he is, stooping to love and to wash feet and then to go all the way to the cross. It is, indeed, foolishness.
But how wonderful this foolishness is! How amazing that the Word became incarnate, and lived among us “full of grace and truth.” And this Word poured out his love on all of his disciples—including a denier like Peter and a betrayer like Judas. So yes, I think it really worked out this year that Maundy Thursday falls on April Fool’s Day. Oh glory, how foolish and wonderful it is that Jesus continues to pour out God’s incredible love on fools like you and me. Amen
© 2010 Laura Gentry
