Sermon for Maundy Thursday, Year C
 |
| Washing Feet by Leszek-Forczek |
St. Philips In The
Hills Parish, Tucson, AZ
The Rev. Vicki Hesse, March 28, 2013
For Readings,
click here ~ John 13:1-17,
31b-35
May the words of my
mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable to you,
o Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen
Recently,
I have been steeped in the work of Brene Brown.
Brene
Brown, a research professor at
the University Of Houston Graduate College
Of Social Work,
is
reviving the knowledge that our struggles make us who we are.
The UK paper The
Telegraph introduced her this way,
“Brene
Brown is a shame and vulnerability expert.
I know –
that was my reaction too.
I’m not
really hard-wired for this stuff but bear with me…”[1]
Brene
Brown says shame is,
“…that
kind of warm wash that we experience of not
good enough.”
And that
really struck me.
It’s a
kind of warm wash we experience.
She identifies
shame as a primary emotion. Shame drives
two kinds of mental tapes,
“not
good enough” and “who do you think you are?”
Shame
has a way of fueling us or paralyzing us in
helpful or not-so-helpful ways.
From social
scientific research(of over
10,000 interviews and 1,000 research sessions)
Brene
Brown found that despite experiencing shame,
certain people
respond by engaging the world from a
place of worthiness.
That is
to say, regardless of their vulnerability or struggle,
they still
recognized that they were worthy
of love and belonging.
This got
her thinking, how do they do that?
Why are
some people paralyzed, while others engage?
The
answer arose in her one day. Attending
an Episcopal church,
she heard
the prayer of confession, the part
that goes,
“we have
not loved you with our whole heart…”
She realized
that the people for whom
shame did not affect negatively
were
those who lived and loved with their whole heart.
Those
whole hearted people, expressed four patterns:
First,
they had courage.Courage
to tell their story, to be imperfect.
Second,
they had compassion; to be
kind to themselves first and then others.
Third,
they had connections because of being authentic. They
were willing to let go of who they
thought they should be in order to be themselves.
And
finally, they fully embraced vulnerability. In fact,
she discovered that vulnerability
was a
large part of wholeheartedness.
She concludes,
“Vulnerability
is the core, the heart, the center, of
meaningful human experience…
Vulnerability
is about the willingness to show
up and be seen in our lives.
The
moments when we show up are the
most powerful meaning-making moments
of our
lives even if they don’t go well. They
define who we are.”
In her
research, she asked people to define vulnerability.
Here are
a few of the answers:[2]
·
Sitting
with my wife who has Stage III breast cancer and trying to make plans for our
children
·
My
first date after my divorce
·
Saying
I Love You first
·
Asking
for a raise
·
Sending
my child to school being enthusiastic and
supportive of her and knowing how excited she is about
orchestra tryouts and how much she wants to make
first chair and encouraging her and supporting her and knowing that it’s not
going to happen.
·
If
Brene Brown had asked me, I would add washing feet.
I think
that today/tonight is about feeling vulnerable.
Today/Tonight,
the sacred night of Maundy Thursday,
we begin
the Triduum – the
three holy days of Christ’s passion,
beginning
at sundown on Thursday and concluding
at sundown on Easter Day.
It is
sacred and vulnerable because
on this evening our
extended family of faith
gathers
at table to remember the One whom we,
like the
disciples in John’s Gospel,
have
dearly loved – and are
about to lose to death.
We are
vulnerable because we are talking about death.[3]
Death of
someone we love.
Tonight
in the sanctuary, notice
the collection of objects at hand.
Check
out how uncertainty arises in our throat…
uncertainty
is a trigger for feeling vulnerable. Something
is about to happen.
Look
around:
Pitchers
of water. Wash basins. Towels. Tables. Buckets.
Extra
chairs. Communion setting. Bread and wine. Candles.
The foot
washing – it’s
awkward, it’s embarrassing and it, well,
sometimes
comes off badly.
Maybe it
is because we don’t do it often
enough to be good at it.
Maybe it
is not the actual foot washing
but the
small acts of humble service we offer one another
on a
daily basis that we don’t do often enough.
Maybe that
is why tonight we mark the “perpetual ordinance”
that
Jesus instituted, which we Episcopalians do every week,
as we
read from 1st Corinthians,
“…on the
night when he was betrayed,
Jesus took
a loaf of bread and a cup of wine,
gave
thanks, broke it and said
do this
in remembrance of me.”
In the
gospel we heard about the disciples’ feeling vulnerable.
They
were uncertain. They
gathered for supper and at some point,
Jesus
got up from the table, took off
his outer robe,
tied a
towel around himself, poured
water into a a basin and
began to
wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe
them with the towel.
Peter’s
responses – oh he is such a goof!
He says,
“you will never wash my feet” and
“Lord,
not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” These responses just highlight
his sense of shame that
warm washing over him.
His
vulnerability was palpable – first he
wanted to deny it and
then he
wanted to make a joke of it.
The
thing is, as Brene Brown researched and writes about,
people
who live whole-heartedly and fully
engage their vulnerability
do
not find that
way of living comfortable.
They
“lean into” the discomfort, they practice
being uncomfortable.
Wholehearted
people know that to feel
this vulnerable means I am alive!
There is
nothing flowery about becoming whole-hearted and
naming
the warm wash of shame when it happens.
Being
vulnerable requires being gritty and tenacious.
It means
daring to show up in your life. AND it
is contagious and powerful.
It makes
the people around you a little
bit braver.
It helps
you get clear on the ideals and values
that guide your life.
The
thing is, vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation,
creativity and change.[4]
This is
the place of God’s grace, the
source of life, the incarnate power of Jesus’ presence.
Knowing
this, Jesus responded to Peter.
“Unless
I wash you, you will have no share with me,
the one
who gives life and gives it abundantly…
if you
know these things, you are blessed if you do them…”
Foot
washing is a kind of eighth sacrament –
it is an
outward and visible sign of an
inward and spiritual grace –
that
blessing that Jesus promised to Peter.
As we
enter the foot washing this evening, I invite
you into your most vulnerable self.
As we
enter the foot washing, remember that
Jesus
also experienced that warm wash of shame and
blesses
your whole-hearted, vulnerable self.
Like
yoga practice, heighten your awareness of what
you are feeling and doing –
every bit of it.
If you
are one who tends to prefer washing instead
of being washed,
I invite
you to be curious about that.
Perhaps
you tend to prefer being washed instead
of washing? Notice that.
Perhaps
the most vulnerable act you can commit
is to
simply sit there and witness others holding
intimate, silent conversations
with
their hands and feet.
In these
places of vulnerability, Jesus is
filling you with blessing.
Tonight,
Jesus invites us to engage wholeheartedly.
It is Jesus
who washes our feet, cleansing
us from head to toe, loving every bit of us.
It is
the feet of all people (present or not) whose
feet we are washing,
those who
are broken and bruised and in
need of a healing bath.
It is
Grace. It is Love.
It is in
our vulnerability, in our
weakness, that God’s power is made known.
Jesus
meets us here and invites us, as
friends, to be mutually intimate.
Get to
know Jesus as he washes your feet.
Tonight,
we learn and engage in this new commandment –
this
near-sacrament – from our Lord and Teacher Jesus.
Just as
God, through Jesus, loved us first,
we are
to love one another.
Just as
God, through Jesus, saw us first,
we are
to let ourselves be seen – deeply seen – vulnerably seen.
Just as
God, through Jesus, loves our whole heart,
even the
ugly, dirty feet part of us,
we are
to love with our whole hearts,
even
though there is no guarantee.
Through
the cool waters of Jesus, know
that you are enough.
You are worthy
of love and belonging.
You are worthy
of love and belonging.
You are worthy
of love and belonging.
By this
everyone will know that you
are Jesus’ disciples, as you
love one another.
Amen
[1] Cited at http://bit.ly/Zyzdu8
on March 27, 2013. Included in interview by Krista Tippett of Brene Brown,
November 21, 2012. Transcript, found at http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/4932
.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Feasting
on the Word, Holy Thursday, p. 275
[4]
Interview
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