Remembrance of Me

It was so much fun hiking with you all yesterday! The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for it, which I suppose is why we couldn’t get a parking space at Patapsco. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who noticed the sun shining.

The first daffodils are blooming, right next to the house by the fig tree. It’s a sheltered spot there, and they’re always the first of all the narcissus to bloom here, closely followed by the forsythia that are right across from them, and soon after, it’s everything all at once. Only two more weeks of Lent, next week is Palm Sunday, and the week after that’s Easter.

This week we’re going to read an account of the Last Supper from the Gospel of John. It’s substantially different from the other three accounts in the New Testament. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus eats bread and wine with the disciples and delivers a handful of prophecies over dinner. In the Gospel of Luke in particular, he says the words that we Christians all over the world now hear when we celebrate communion in church: “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’”

Celebrating communion in church is a way to remember what’s happening there through a ritual, but the ritual itself isn’t so much the point it is to remember Jesus. I like to take the instruction both a bit more literally and to interpret it a bit more broadly. I know those two approaches are in tension with one another, but bear with me. I like to think that every time we eat or drink, we should pause to remember, not just when we’re in church. When we sing our song before dinner, that’s what we’re doing, in remembrance.

It’s also a part of why Christians fast. Withholding it from ourselves helps us to remember why we eat and drink. The obvious response to that is “because we’re hungry or thirsty.” But fasting reminds us that it’s not actually quite that straightforward. It helps us remember that we also eat and drink because we decide to. And that others, in the worst of circumstances, lack food or drink because they are denied it.

Moving ahead to the story of the Last Supper from the Gospel of John, there is what first appears to be a completely different lesson for us here.

Here’s the pertinent part of the story:

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

Notably, just before this scene, John wrote, “the evening meal was in progress” and that’s the whole tale of the meal for John. There’s nothing about the cup and the bread, no new covenant in the blood, just this thing about the dirty feet.

There may be some esoteric meaning buried in it. “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me” sounds like it might be an oblique reference to ancient washing rituals from the book of Numbers, “To purify them, do this: Sprinkle the water of cleansing on them”, but there’s also the meaning that Jesus explains directly: if you can’t let me serve you, you’re not getting it.

In one sense, this telling of the Last Supper is different than the other three Gospels, because instead of eating and drinking together, Jesus is serving the apostles, and commanding them to serve others in the way he served them.

But in another sense, as we refer back to the accounts in the other three Gospels, Jesus is serving food to the disciples. I don’t know if that would have been the role of a host or of a servant in Jesus’ day, but that also brings up a good point: hosting and serving aren’t necessarily so different as I imagine them to be.

One more little tidbit to focus on about this story - last week, Jesus quoted the Psalms, “you are all children of the Most High.” In today’s story, he does it again.

Directly after washing everyone’s feet, Jesus quotes Psalm 41, by way of telling the disciples that one of them will betray him and one of them will deny him. That’s Judas and Peter, though to quote Monty Python, Peter got better.

We’re going to close meeting today with a stanza from this Psalm that’s an enduring lesson all by itself. One kind of neat point before I read this is that Jesus quoted the Psalms more than any other book of the Bible.

Here’s the two quote and the previous stanza for a little context:

All my enemies whisper together against me; they imagine the worst for me, saying,“A vile disease has afflicted him; he will never get up from the place where he lies.”

Even my close friend, someone I trusted,one who shared my bread, has turned against me.

“Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me.” King David felt it, Jesus felt it, sadly at some point I think every human being probably feels it. I will remind us all that Jesus’ response to this was to wash their feet. Pretty classy guy.

I love you all very much. Week after next, we’ll be celebrating with the sunrise. Tonight, let’s light our candles and remember Jesus as we serve one another.

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