HOLY THURSDAY April 6, 2023 St. Austin Church

 HOMILY     HOLY THURSDAY      April 6, 2023   St. Austin Church

 Jesus, I think we can all agree, was a very good preacher.  Indeed, a great preacher.  He often attracted large crowds and would hold their attention, rapt on His words, for the better part of a day.  He gave people hope and a sense of God’s action in their lives.  He was a great preacher.

Jesus preached not only by words, but also by actions.  And that is what we see this evening.  Jesus washes the feet of His disciples.  This was a job regularly relegated to slaves and the lowliest servants.  It was a menial and indeed demeaning job; washing dirty, smelly feet.   No glamor in this job.

However, Jesus does not do this under duress, nor by compulsion.  Not forced to do it, not at all begrudgingly.  Rather Jesus does it freely, willingly, even we might surmise, gladly.  He does it out of compassion and love.  It is a sermon given, not in words, but in action. 

“Do you realize what I have done for you?”  What a question!  Jesus queries the Disciples when He had finished washing their feet.  And Jesus makes the point clearly in case the Apostles, or us, might be a little too spiritually dense to pick up on it right away.  “You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master’, and rightly so, for indeed I am.  If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet.  I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

We are to understand the point of this as serving each other, not as a lesson on good foot hygiene.  We wash each other’s feet not by literally washing feet, but rather by humble and grateful service. 

Let’s say you are driving around Austin in one of the many construction zones where several lanes of traffic are squeezed down to one, and you let the car on your right, which is not in the correct lane, pull ahead of you.   You have just washed their feet.

Or you call that aunt who you never much cared for, who was always kind of prissy and a pain, but who lives alone and doesn’t much interact with people, to see how she is doing.   Does she need anything?   You listen to her aches and her gossip for a while.  You tell her to call you if she gets stuck, and tell her it was good to talk with her.  And in that way you washed her feet.

Maybe you drive a neighbor who needs a ride to the doctor.  You pick up some groceries for a neighbor who is sick or incapacitated.  You go out of your way to compliment someone who is down or lonely.  Or you even help with the collection, or greet people coming to church and offer a worship aid, or sing in the choir, or let others get into the pew giving them a place to sit, then you wash feet. 

If you help out at St. Vincent de Paul, or Thursday Outreach, or you bake a casserole for the Martha Ministry funeral receptions, or you just stop and talk to a stranger who seems kind of lost and lonely, you wash feet. 

The opportunities to wash feet are all around us.  Washing feet is not about hygiene, but about service.  Jesus tells us: “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”  He is teaching us to serve each other, in any way that service presents itself.   In Him, we learn the beauty and the freedom of humble service. 

AMEN.