Journey's Weekly Homilies
Journey Catholic
Community
Holy Thursday
4/17/03
Homily:
Nancy
Ex.12:1-8, 11-14
I Cor. 11:23-26
John 13:1-15
Why is it, in our world, that we have stopped going barefoot? When I was five, or nine, or even 14 years old, I measured time by when I was allowed to go barefoot. When you grow up in northern Alabama, there are some foundational truths taught to you in the Springtime:
l.
The dogwood will bloom before Easter
2.
The daffodils will come up 3 inches before the last frost.
3.
The first rain in May will be warm, and you can play in it.
4.
You can go barefoot after Easter (even ON Easter, after
church)
Why is it, do you
suppose, that we have forgotten the joy of knowing the earth’s
feel against our skin? It
is overwhelmingly strange to me that I even see people wearing
shoes on the BEACH, for heaven’s sake!
Ours is a paved over civilization.
How will we stay in touch with the truth of creation, and
truth of our covenant of water and blood with our God, if we
don’t get outdoors and put our FEET (not our shoes) in service
to the earth?
There is story
after story in the history of the People of God, in which their
FEET, their bare feet, their wet feet, their beautiful feet became
signs from God and signs to God of the covenant.
God told Moses: “Put off your shoes from your feet, for
the place on which are you are standing is holy ground.”
Our ancestors in faith walked away from Pharoah, and
crossed the muddy basin of the Red Sea between walls of water.
And then they wandered (that means WALKED) in the desert
for 40 years. Isaiah
wrote, “How beautiful are the feet of the one who brings good
news.” In
exile at Patmos, our brother John’s revelation included a
vision: he saw the
feet of the heavenly Human One, and they were burnished as bronze!
The stories go on and on…
Friends on the
Journey, we are hanging on to the periphery of a world (and a
church) that has it’s shoes on. It has become a metaphor of our closed minds, of our fear of
truly embracing the way of life Jesus came to our world to teach
to us. With our shoes
on, as a people, we have walked so far from this truth of
scripture that the “Washing of the Feet” ritual in the
liturgy, even in open communities such as ours, has lost it’s
power. The story of
Jesus kneeling at the feet of his disciples is the clearest of
signs we have about how to live our lives.
How could the world be a different place if only George
Bush could kneel before Saddam Hussein and wash his feet, and then
take off his own shoes and allow Saddam to pour the water?
Tonight we hear
this story of Jesus’ TRUE ministry of service, Jesus’ TRUE
understanding of what was going to happen to him, Jesus’ TRUE
naming of how he wants us to live in his name…this story is
equally powerful to the eucharistic story. And
we are hearing both stories on the same night.
“DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME,” he said.
Tonight many of
us took off our shoes, and allowed someone else to take our feet
into their hands and wash them. I truly believe that in such an act, we begin something new.
The bare feet of our ministry announces that we, at last,
may understand. In
our Gospel story Jesus lays aside his garment, girds himself with
a towel, and gets down on his knees, empties himself, and pours
out SERVICE to the ones he loves.
As he made this clear sign, the call for us to follow him
is also clear! …As
clear as the instructions to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
which Timothy read to us tonight.
God gave Moses and Aaron their instructions, in
excrutiating detail…and their salvation depended on whether they
could do exactly as they had been told.
The “Passover” promise meant life and death to them.
Jesus promise to us means life and death to us.
God’s longing
for covenant with us was so great that Jesus entered our world,
walked our streets, felt our pain, washed our feet, and finally
died our death. He
was a Jewish man who gathered with community, as we do tonight, to
remember the deliverance, the Passover promise, of the covenant
with God. He gathered with his friends to remember the sprinkling of
the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, and how that
blood saved his people. He
shared a ritual that was centuries old, even then.
And on that same night, according to our stories, he
invited us to partake of him, to have a part in him and the life
he lived among us. As
Jessica read to us tonight, he invites us to take and eat the
bread and the cup, in his memory.
And if we truly
do this, take his body and blood and mix it with our own reality,
we create a radical equality among us.
We are agreeing to be broken and shared in the exact same
way as he was. We are
agreeing to turn in humble and loving service to everyone else in
our lives.
On this night we
can decide to take off the binding shoes of fear.
On this night we can decide to rid ourselves of the tight
leather of complacency,
of pretence. On this night we can begin to untie the laces of
procrastination from our faith.
On this night we can examine our own consciences, tell
ourselves and our God the truth, and hear the call to go barefoot
until we truly do understand.
Our brother, Jesus, was one of us. And he says to us, “For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done for you.”