Kneeling to serve

 This week's verses are John 13:3-17:

Because Jesus knew that the Father had handed all things over to him, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, he got up from the meal, removed his outer clothes, took a towel and tied it around himself. He poured water into the washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel he had wrapped around himself.

Then he came to Simon Peter. Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You do not understand what I am doing now, but you will understand after these things.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head!” Jesus replied, “The one who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not every one of you.” (For Jesus knew the one who was going to betray him. For this reason he said, “Not every one of you is clean.”)

So when Jesus had washed their feet and put his outer clothing back on, he took his place at the table again and said to them, “Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and do so correctly, for that is what I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example—you should do just as I have done for you. I tell you the solemn truth, the slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent as a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

  Jesus here is teaching people about ministry. Not just the classic "foot washing service" some churches traditionally have, but about life itself. To say it's just about washing feet is like saying the only food Christians should eat together is bread and wine, maybe with the occasional detour into fish.

There are three lessons in these verses, and for once I am going to be nice to you and tell you what they are right away.

1. We should be prepared to set things aside to serve each other.
2. Nobody is too low to be served.
3. Nobody is too great to do the tedious work of serving.

Jesus got up from his meal, took off his fancy shirt, put on work clothes, and did the least desirable job in the house. Washing the road dirt off of the guests' feet was what the house slave did. A gentleman would never do that sort of thing.

He set aside what he was doing, in order to serve the others by taking care of a need. Have we ever found our routine interrupted by a dirty or tedious favor someone needs from us? Have we ever noticed someone in need, while we were "off duty?" What Jesus is demonstrating is that we shouldn't ignore the need just because we're comfortable or busy.

Peter refuses Jesus' service. And then when Jesus presses the issue, he gets defensive and tries to ritualize it. "Oh we're being symbolic. In that case, I want to be ALL clean. Let's play that game." But Jesus sticks to his original mission.

Have you ever had someone offer you help, or to pay for your meal, and you argued with them? If we're all supposed to serve each other, how is that supposed to happen if we're all too proud to accept the help? If you'll say "Naw, I'm good" to the ride home, or the meal tab, or the guy offering to wash your feet, you'll probably say it to the cross too.

It's humbling to accept help from someone who is offering, especially if you see them as better than you. And it's embarrassing to accept it from someone when you don't want to admit that you need it. In the same way that doing the low thing helps us to learn to sacrifice, accepting the sacrifice teaches us to be humble.

Jesus was the disciples' lord and teacher. If you got to work and your boss with the doctorate, the corner office, and his name on his parking spot was emptying out your trash and vacuuming your office, you'd be a little shocked, right? We see the world as though power, authority, and success make us exempt from doing the little things. It's as if we graduate from having to get our hands dirty, and live in a special world of privilege.

But if our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was down on his knees doing a bit of slave work, what's our excuse for staying on the couch? He turns to us, his disciples, and says "you see what I'm doing here, right?" He was demonstrating to us that we don't get to graduate into a special "white collar" school of ministry where we accept a salary, do a bit of writing, or preaching, or donating, and leave all of the menial tasks to those lower than us on the ecclesiastical totem pole.

Finally, once it has all sunk in, Jesus says "the slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent as a messenger greater than the one who sent him." In other words, if he isn't exempt from getting his hands dirty, we definitely aren't. And yet we live as though we were. That's kind of scary. 

Jesus explicitly demonstrated to his disciples how we are supposed to live. He even stopped to make sure they understood what he was saying. And yet we're obedient to the easy surface things like donating money and showing up on a Sunday, but when it comes to humbling ourselves and sacrificing the "now" to see that our brothers and sisters are taken care of, we fail.

The worst thing we can do is turn it into a ritual. If we turn it into a symbolic game we can win, like Peter tried to do, we miss the whole point of service. Service is love personified, when it comes from the heart. When we serve others, we're giving the other person ourselves, in order to make their life a little bit better. Just like Jesus did.

So this is like that part of church where you snap out of your daydream to find that you're the only one not kneeling. It forces a bit of introspection, doesn't it? If Jesus was willing to drop the outer covering and get down on his knees to take care of others, maybe it's time we did too.