Holy Thursday Hospitality - John 13:1-8, 12-17, Luke 22:14-23

My brothers and sisters, you may not have realized it, but we've gathered here tonight for a night of hospitality.  That may cause some of us to pause thinking that Holy Week may be about a lot of things, but hospitality is not one of the things that would come to mind. Yet the events of that first Holy Thursday were all about hospitality.

Jesus had entered Jerusalem in an amazing triumphant procession.  However things quickly began to change.  The religious leaders who had already had a growing dislike of Jesus were appalled at his cleansing of the Temple from the money-changers and livestock-sellers and were determined more than ever that this man had to go.  They watched as Jesus taught and the people listened, he had a following and it was growing, that upset them even more.  Jesus even knew that some who had hailed his arrival were growing restless--they were waiting for a king, a warrior, a man who, filed with God's Spirit would give them victory over Rome, and keep all future powers at bay, making all subject to God’s chosen people—finally they would have their turn at the top, and it would last forevermore.  Jesus even knew that some who grew restless were among his friends, the ones he had called and chosen--and one of them, Judas, had already made arrangements to force His hand.

It was time...time for those closest to Him to finally grasp what He was doing and what it meant for them...and in a way, it all centered around hospitality.  Tonight we will remember and participate in remembrance of these acts of hospitality that Jesus shared with those who would follow Him.  It was night, the night of Jesus’ arrest.  However, prior to His arrest, Jesus was gathered with His followers in an upper room.  They gathered to share a common meal, and here is where the unexpected happened—and thanks to the gift of two Gospel readings tonight, we are able to reflect on both of these events.

The Gospel of John, as we have just heard, lifts to us the fact that Jesus and his disciples had gathered in the room and they were sharing a meal.  Suddenly, during the meal, and we are not sure whether this happened prior to, in the midst of, or after Jesus brings before them a new meal of remembrance, we do not know as this scene is exclusive to John, and John gives us no account of the Lord’s Supper, which we will turn to later.  What we know from John is that they were eating their meal when suddenly Jesus got up, went to the side of the room took off his outer robe and fasted a towel about his waist.  Jesus then took water and a basin and went about the table washing each of his followers’ feet.  Why would Jesus do this?  Peter wanted to know that too…but for a different reason than we do.

The idea of washing feet at someone’s house, much less during a meal, is foreign to us and our culture.  We wash our feet when we take a shower or a bath.  If we are an athlete or a dancer, or someone else very dependent on our feet we may wash them when we change shoes, but that is it.  We would never expect anyone else to be washing our feet.  However, things were different in the days of Jesus.  We have cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and buses to get us where we need to go.  Jesus and his followers had a horse, a camel, a donkey, or most likely ol’ “Pat and Charlie,” their feet.  Most often they walked where they went…and as they walked, they often did not have sidewalks or even paved roads, they walked along dirt roads or trails.  They did not have Timberland, Solomon, or Merrel Moab hiking boots.  They had sandals or bare feet.  This meant that as they walked from place to place, their feet became covered with dust, dirt, and mud.  If they were not careful about watching where they walked amongst all the livestock of the area, their feet were apt to be covered with other stuff as well.  Because of this aspect of their culture, when folks arrived at a person’s home, the host of the meal was expected to either have one of his servants wash the feet of his guests, or, if he did not have servants for that job, he was responsible at least providing water, a towel, and a basin for a person to wash their own feet.  It was unheard of for the host of the meal to wash the feet of his guests, which is what makes the scene so shocking.  Jesus, as the host of the meal, becomes the vehicle of hospitality, kneeling at each disciple and gently cradling their foot as he washes the grime and gunk from it.  Yet here was Jesus, not only the host of this meal, but the Messiah, taking on the role of a servant, a slave.  No wonder Peter objected.

After he had finished, Jesus explained to them—this, my friends, is what you are to do for one another.  This is how folks will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another…and that love must be displayed in this radical form of hospitality.  You are to serve one another, without hesitation, without reluctance, but wholly and completely out of love. 

This is why the church, through the last two thousand years has observed the rite of footwashing—in order to remember Jesus’ call for us to serve one another with radical hospitality.  However, as we move more and more away from the time of Jesus, the concept becomes foreign to us.  Our feet aren’t as dirty as were the disciples.  We drive or ride places.  If we travel by foot, we are most likely going to have socks and shoes on our feet to protect them and keep them clean.  We usually don’t worry about washing our feet when we go to someone’s house and prepare to have a meal with them.  So how do we take the concept of what Jesus did for the disciples, and bring it forward for us.  A colleague of mine suggested this part of tonight’s service, his congregation has begun observing a “handwashing service” on Holy Thursday.  Why?  Because many of us, especially when it comes to contact with another person’s hands worry about them being dirty and germy.  Think about our obsession with the cleanliness of someone’s hands.  How many of us shake our heads in disgust if we are in a public bathroom and someone leaves without washing their hands—reminding us why the doorknob or handle is dirtier than the toilet?  How closely do we watch someone preparing or serving our food to see if, we can, whether they are wearing gloves or whether they have washed their hands?  We worry about passing germs through handshakes and other hand contact that now, rather than covering your mouth with your hand when you cough, you are supposed to cough into the cradle of your elbow.  How often are we in a house with parents and children and we here, most often the mom, ask the child, “did you wash your hands,” or “go wash up for supper”?  Yet, every time it is about washing our own hands.

Tonight, we are being given the opportunity to do for another, what they might be able to do for themselves.  Tonight, we are invited to humble ourselves in the same way that Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, and with disregard for what may be on our neighbor’s hands, and wash their hands tonight.  You are invited to come to the table in pairs tonight.  You are invited to take the water and a towel and in an act of service, wash your neighbor’s hands in an act of pure servant hospitality, then allow them to offer you the same servant hospitality.  There are two stations available at our table.

The event of Jesus and his disciples on that Holy Thursday night that we most often remember, mainly because the other three Gospel writers each offer us this event, is the meal that Jesus shared with his disciples.  We talk hear discussion of how Jesus and his disciples had gathered for a Passover meal, and then Jesus did something a little different.  He took the bread, blessed it, and broke it, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  Toward the conclusion of the meal, Jesus took the cup, blessed it, and said to the disciples, “This cup that is poured out is the new covenant in my blood” and shared it with the disciples.  In doing this in conjunction with the Passover Meal in which the Jewish people remembered and celebrated the freedom that God brought them in taking them out of slavery in Egypt—a meal that was marked by the eating of lamb, and the using of the lamb’s blood to mark the doorposts so that the Angel of Death would pass over them—Jesus offered himself as the Passover Lamb—not that He was going to free the people from Rome (as so many had hoped) but that He was freeing them, and freeing us, from a far greater slavery, the slavery to sin.  For some of us, that idea may be new, but for many of us who have grown up in the faith, we have heard that aspect of this meal between Jesus and his disciples many times.

However, there is one thing that we often miss that is important to our understanding of this meal.  To understand this aspect of the meal we need to know something about the culture of Jesus’ time.  This takes us again to the area of hospitality.  In the time of Jesus, there was in place, at a gathered or communal meal, the understanding of a “covenant of hospitality.”  This understanding was that if you shared food with another, you were entering into a sacred covenant with that person.  If you shared food with another, you were expected to do everything in your power to protect that person from any kind of harm, and if you failed to do so, you were inviting curses down upon yourself.  Once you entered this covenant of hospitality, you were bound by it as long as the food remained in the person’s body.

This understanding of the covenant of hospitality gives new insight to the events that happened later that night.  It helps us understand why Peter, despite Jesus’ teachings of “love your enemy” pulled out his sword and struck Malchus’ when they came to arrest Jesus.  It also helps us understand even more of how devastating an act Peter’s later denial of knowing Jesus was—putting him in pretty much the same boat as Judas. The fact that Judas betrayed Jesus to the religious leaders, even if it was in hopes that it would force him to become the Warrior King Messiah that they had hoped for, was a violation of this covenant, and would help us understand how his remorse led him to commit suicide. It also suggests that all of those disciples who deserted Jesus and disappeared into the background were just as guilty of violating this covenant.  Yet, knowing that Peter would deny him, that Judas would betray him, and that the others would desert Him, Jesus served them all.  The only one who kept the covenant that night, was Jesus, who gave his very life to protect those who shared that meal with him, along with all who will ever take part in that meal, from the penalty of their sin, of our sin, which is eternal separation from God.

My brothers and sisters, we need to reclaim that aspect of this Holy and Sacred meal, that as we break the bread and share the cup, we remember that we enter into a covenant of hospitality with those whom we share the meal.  We are given the responsibility to do all that we can to protect those with whom we share this meal from any type of harm—whether it be physical, emotional, spiritual—inflicted from outside sources, or self-inflicted.  We are bound to one another, responsible for one another, through this hospitality covenant, we are our brothers’ (and sisters’) keeper.  It is serious business sharing this meal, and Jesus invites us into this serious relationship, where we very well may be called to lay down our life for another just as He did for each of us, as we are bound to Him through this sharing of this meal.  Because less we think this responsibility is just for the length of time that the bread and juice pass through our system, let’s remember that what we share is more than bread and juice…the Holy Spirit transforms it into the Body and Blood of Christ and as we receive it, through that same Spirit, through the grace of God, it becomes part of who we are, not just for twenty-four or forty-eight hours, but for eternity.

Since we need to remember, what we so often forget as we come down the aisle as individuals to receive the bread and juice, I am going to invite us to receive a different way tonight.  I am going to invite us to gather around the table in groups of ten tonight, with the help of our usher, so that we may remember that we share this meal of Christ’s hospitality, not just with Him, but with one another.  Come receive Christ’s Hospitality, and make it your own.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!  Amen.