“Last Supper” – Leonardo DaVinci (1498)
And during supper, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself…..and began to wash the disciples’ feet.
Jesus had come from God.
And now he was going to God.
The great circle of his life, almost done.
A circle is an endless line, eternally flowing into itself.
When he washed the disciples’ feet, Jesus showed the disciples that they were an essential part of the great circle of God’s love.
When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, he was doing a menial task of hospitality, the work usually left for a slave in the household. In this foot washing, Jesus physically brought the disciples in a whole new way into the great circle that was his own life, physically pulling them into the eternal flow of love that went between him and his Father.
Jesus told the disciples that where he was going, they could not go. Physically, they could not go with Jesus as he returned to his Father.
But they didn’t need to go with him physically, because they were already part of this eternal circle of love, eternally flowing into itself.
On Palm Sunday, quoting Rowan Williams, I said that God made us to be “endless journeys into love.”
But this endless journey is not simply about me and my love for God. It’s also about how we human beings love one another and God’s creation.
To be an endless journey into love means that this love that God shares with us is constantly expanding and broadening out from us into the world, the circle becoming wider and wider, including more and more, until at last God’s deepest desire is complete–
That all that God has created through eternity will be only love, endlessly flowing into itself, an endlessly expanding love.
Jesus wanted the disciples to know that to be part of this endlessly expanding love of God was not through power, not through wealth, not through fame, but through humble service, loving service to one another, service as simple and as mundane as washing one another’s feet.
Because even the simplest services that we do for one another, when done with love, draw us ever more closely to one another and into God, who is endless love.
With the act of washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus challenges us to consider everything we do as actions that are part of the circle of God’s endless love, flowing around us, between us, through us—actions that make God’s love visible in the world when we are intentional about doing what we do out of love.
Think of something you do that has to be done that you don’t particularly enjoy doing, or that you even dread doing. Or that you put off doing, or that you resent doing, but that still must be done anyway.
Here’s a personal example. Dusting.
Dusting is a menial but necessary task that must be done in the spaces we inhabit. I have the tendency to put off dusting, considering it one of the less important things I need to get done—and yet, when dusting is undone, the dust attracts dirt, and becomes a dull gray skim on surfaces that gets to be visually depressing, and, as the situation worsens because the dusting is put off, that dust starts to interfere with breathing because now the dust is being drawn into the lungs.
And finally, begrudgingly, the dusting gets done.
But what if I thought of dusting as something I do because I am part of God’s endless circle of love? My dusting would become a sacramental act of love, the newly shining surfaces of the bookshelf or a particular piece of furniture reflecting light and God’s glory. Breathing in the cleaner air would be like breathing God’s love deep into the lungs. If I thought of dusting as an act of service to God, and an act of love for others who live in my house, I would do it more willingly and more often.
Here’s one more. Meetings.
We all go to meetings of one sort or another. Even sitting down together at a meal with someone else is a meeting of sorts.
But take some sort of scheduled meeting, that you might consider an act of service to a particular community, like a town council meeting, or a Vestry meeting, or an HOA meeting; a meeting with an agenda, and the need to get something accomplished on behalf of a group of people.
What would happen if the people who gathered for the meeting understood that their participation in that meeting was part of God’s endless circle of love, that their lovingkindness and service to one another in the meeting, a flow of love within the circle of that group, then produced love that flows out and widens the circle of God’s love in the world?
And if only one person in the meeting knows this and acts out of love, that love will percolate through the group.
I might be more willing to attend meetings and to participate in them if I thought of meetings as part of God’s circle of love rather than something that is going to steal another hour of my precious time. After all, my time is in God’s hands. Time spent in a meeting, no matter what the meeting is about, can be transformed if I remember that this too, is part of participating in God’s flow of love, a metaphorical foot washing—of loving one another.
Any time, and in doing anything, if we intentionally act in love, draws us closer to God, to one another, and to creation.
Jesus knew where he had come from. He had come from God.
Jesus knew where he was going. He was going to God.
Jesus knew why he was on this earth. To love. To love us. To show us how to love God and to love one another.
We Christians know where we come from. We come from God. We know where we are going. We are going to God.
And we know, when we are in the flow of God’s love, why we are here. To love God, and to love one another.
To be part of that great circle of God’s everlasting love, in all that we do, like dusting, or going to meetings.
For even in our simplest acts of service, when we do those things with love, God’s circle of love widens on this earth and we give glory to God.