How it's supposed to go

Daily Devotion - April 9

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays) while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Maundy Thursday

The English word "Maundy" comes from the Latin 'mandatum,' which means "commandment." As recorded in John's gospel, on his last night before his betrayal and arrest, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and then gave them a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them (John 13:34). This is why services on this night generally include the washing of feet or other acts of physical care as an integral part of the celebration.

Today Jesus gathers with his disciples for the Passover meal in the upper room. It's tense. Lazarus is a week out of the tomb. The palm parade is four days past and the fallout is real - the authorities are after Jesus.  Gathered in that room, their nerves must have been positively vibrating with anticipation and dread.

This meal they've come to share remembers God delivering the people out of slavery.  But instead of claiming his power and pronouncing his intention to do the same, this One they expect to overturn the order and lead the people to freedom stands from the table and strips down to his skivvies, ties a towel around himself, gets on his hands and knees like a slave, and washes the filth off their feet.

"This is not how this is supposed to go!" Peter protests.  

But Jesus insists it is. 

Then he tells them to do the same for each other.

Right now the world feels turned upside down. We are all filled with anticipation and dread. Our nerves are frayed.  Perhaps we're feeling annoyed at our increased dependence on others, eager to get back to our independent, self-sufficient kind of life. We're connected but cut off; isolated and helpless, unsure what any of this will come to mean. We'd like to be delivered from this ASAP.

Every fiber of us may be saying, "This is not how it's supposed to go!"  

But Jesus insists it is.

And now we are having our feet washed in ways we can't have anticipated.  And we are also washing each other's feet.  Kind words.  Forwarded messages of inspiration.  Holding those in our own homes when the tears come. Gifts, letters and phone calls. Offers to help. Checking in. Cheering on. Grieving together, apart. Laughing together, apart.  All over the world and in our own neighborhoods and homes, we are tenderly lifting the parts of one another that are bruised and tired and caring for each other.

We are ministers; this is ministry.

This is how it's supposed to go.

We have all our powerful, compelling idea of how our freedom ought to look, and then we have reality in front of us.  And we have a God who comes not to fulfill our ideas, but to share our reality.  Right inside this thing. Right alongside us.  Not judging, critiquing and instructing us how we should be acting or thinking, but getting down and washing the dirt and ache off of our feet. 

And telling us to do likewise.

God brings a different freedom than we think we should have.  

We are not made free from each other, but free for each other.

We are ministers; this is ministry.

This is how it's supposed to go.

How are your feet being washed this week?

Whose feet are you washing?

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps, tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might pause, reflect, and pray in this way, and so join our hearts:

May I receive the blessings you gave me this day
through the hands and words and acts of others,
blessings like...

May I receive the blessings you gave me this day
in the moments you used me to bless others,
moments like...

Thank you for the freedom I discover in giving.
Thank you for the freedom I embrace when I receive.
Thank you that in all things, and no matter what, I
belong to you, God, and to all others.
Amen.