The Reverend Elizabeth C. Knowlton
Cathedral of St. Philip
Maundy Thursday 7:00 p.m.
April 13, 2006
John 13: 1-17, 31b-35
The Extravagant Love of Christ
Even though my daughter Rebecca is now ten years old, I still vividly recall my experience of that first pregnancy. I remember my surprise that as my belly expanded, complete strangers would reach out and touch me. Ask me how I was, when I was due and all manner of things.
It was also a time when I received more advice than I could ever possibly use. People would stop and insist I consider natural childbirth. Was I aware that my baby should be listening to Mozart? What diet was I following? Some of it was welcome, some of it was not.
I started to realize that life would never be the same during my baby shower. I became genuinely nervous when other parents would laugh about lack of sleep. There was a manic quality to their laughter that seemed to cover up a tortuous reality I didn’t really want to know about.
The area I had the most anxiety about was the length of my maternity leave. I didn’t know whether I would return to my job. I was given many answers to that question, and read more articles than I could count. But, there was one answer that clearly emerged as the wisest. Two women on separate occasions said, “I wouldn’t even try to make a decision until after the baby is here. There is no way to prepare in advance for the transformation you are about to experience.”
As I reflect on those words, they seem more true to me now ten years later than they did when I first heard them. The mystery of becoming a mother and giving birth to two children has released energy and change in my life that I could never have anticipated. My vocation as a priest is inextricably linked to the changes that came from first assenting to the mystery of motherhood. I had no previous experience that could even begin to prepare me for the intimacy that motherhood has wrought.
As any new parent can tell you, intimacy is not always pretty. I found myself pushed to my limits in those first early months. I was physically exhausted from lack of sleep and spiritually terrified of making a mistake. I would love to say my best self was always present. Some days she was. But the sheer force of this transition had days where I wept on the couch and doubt won out. Fear about the size of the task was there and my limits were all I knew.
Strangely in retrospect, the most grace filled moments were often in the middle of the night. I would hear Rebecca cry and in a stupefied haze rise from the bed. Stumbling the few yards between my bed and hers I would reach down to pick her up. I’d make my way to the glider and we’d settle in for her feeding.
Somehow in those dark hours, through the haze of my tiredness I would often be flooded with an outpouring of love for her. I remember looking into her wise eyes and literally weeping at their beauty. As she would drift off to sleep on my breast with her tiny hands clasping me, we were part of a much larger story. The connection between the two of us flooded over into the transcendent. No matter what was to come, an unbreakable bond was particularly present in the most ordinary act of feeding my child. It was intimate, it was raw, and it was holy.
Tonight, Maundy Thursday is about that same kind of intimacy. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” There is a fullness and duration to this love that Jesus offers us in the raw, intimate act of washing the disciples’ feet.
You sense the intimacy immediately in Peter’s discomfort. He cannot at first glance allow Jesus to kneel in the dust as a servant and wash him. The extravagant outpouring of love is shocking, so he first rejects it.
He’d rather skip over the discomfort of the intimacy being offered and move straight to service. Now service is important. It is in fact the mandate of this passage and our Christian life. But it is not the first step. We are only able to embody the extraordinary service of Christ after we have allowed our own feet to be washed. If we move to serve first and as a way to avoid intimacy, we are likely to only serve the status quo. And the servants and masters will all assume their typical place, instead of the radical displacement Christ calls us to imitate.
But this text would be fairly straightforward if all we had to grapple with was the presence of Peter. We can relate to his cocker spaniel like enthusiasm. He doesn’t always get it, we know he will deny Christ, but we also know he becomes the rock of the church. He is the disciple that gives us hope. Good intentions do in fact win out in the end. He has human limits, but they are the limits we can comfortably accept in ourselves and work to bring into the light.
If only he could fully symbolize the gathered disciples. If only it was just his feet that were washed, then we might be able to contain this offer of extravagant love Christ is giving. But we all know there is someone else in the room too. The person perhaps we think shouldn’t have had his feet washed. The one we wish had run out to do his dirty work before Jesus offered him a share of his love.
But if we are true to this text we have to deal with Judas. We have to look betrayal in the face, name it in ourselves and surrender it over to Christ to be loved.
You may have heard or read about the Gnostic text, the Gospel of Judas in the past week. It is an ancient text that gives us a different look at the betrayer. It claims that Judas was told ahead of time that he needed to play this role to bring about the fulfillment of Christ’s destiny. He is a secret hero that has gotten a bad rap.
Now tonight is not the venue for a full conversation about this text, its validity, or the process of canonization of the scripture. But, I do think it important to sound a note of caution before we rush to embrace this prettied up version of Judas. Because the minute he is all good or not really a betrayer, then maybe I dismiss that part of myself that can and does betray Christ.
And that is a dangerous road to start down. If Jesus only loves the good parts of ourselves, we might be tempted to hide those parts we fear are not up to snuff. We drive them underground rather than bringing them into his saving light. We become caricatures of discipleship who sell the light fluffy side of the good, and ignore the potential for real destruction, denial, and betrayal.
We might then narrow our notion of discipleship and service so that it becomes not much to try and imitate. We start to love the niceness in ourselves and in others and that starts to sound a lot more like good manners than radical love.
That is not the radical displacement of having the Master at our feet. That is not accepting the share he is trying to offer. And it is not having the courage to accept that love and the offer it to others.
No, Jesus is offering something a little messier. It is sloppy, extravagant, and full of saving grace. It is the invitation to bring every piece of ourselves forward. It is to dare intimacy and allow all of our feet to be washed. We can invite the mess and trust our brothers and sisters to handle the towels.
The parts of us that betray, deny, and fear, are given a share in Christ’s love. All of that is redeemed on the cross and raised up on Easter morning. It is that kind of extravagant love that can sustain the pain of the agony in the garden and the climb to Golgotha. It is that love that explodes with unbridled energy when we shout our joy in the Resurrection. It is the hope and peace which the world cannot give that Christ gives to us. It is not the promise of an easy, safe, or constrained life. But one that in fact contains our salvation.
If we begin to open ourselves to that kind of love, we don’t need to worry about whether we will serve and love Christ as we are called to. It will overflow from us and from our community. It will not be reserved, it will not be the status quo, and it may take place in the most ordinary of our actions. It will likely be messy, require extra sleep, and a large stack of towels. But it will be graced with holy love and true discipleship.
Amen
Comments? Contact Beth Knowlton at: BKnowlton@stphilipscathedral.org