Fr. Stu’s Views from April 7, 2013 Bulletin
As we gather together on this night of remembrance, healing, touching and caring are parts of our story. We recall that Last Supper night that Jesus spent with his companions before he went to the cross to free us and heal us. It was a night that reflected all the other ways he sat with us during his ministry, times of talking and learning and fellowship. When he took off his cloak, and dropped to his knees to cleanse the feet of his friends, he was undressing for service. He took off whatever hindered him from opening his hands and spreading his fingers so that the water could be poured over their toes, poured over their hearts. He was getting down to the basics of life, grasping the flesh and fears of those who needed his touch. It was like the time he made his way around the pool of Bethsaida, glancing at the blind and the lame and bringing new life to the man who was hurting, stirring the water near and within him. That time at the pool and the one around the table were scenes of human need, moments of flesh and blood, fears and questions. That Last Supper night pointed to the next day’s service on the cross, when Jesus would be stripped again, and spread out his arms, opening his hands and fingers towards the Father.
That’s why he spent his last night on earth teaching us to wash feet and share supper. He didn’t give his disciples things to think about when he was gone. Instead, he gave them concrete actions to do, gestures of connection so that they could be together in flesh and service. They were things they could do for each other, ways he would still be near them, helping them to understand that supper night and all the others that would follow when he was no longer there to teach them. He knew they would need something warm and near that they could bump into regularly so he gave them things they could get their hands on, that would require them to get close enough to touch one another. In the case of the meal, he gave them fragrant things to sip and chew that they could pass to each other around the table. In the case of feet, he gave them real dirt and calluses they could use to enter one another’s lives.
And it still happens now. When we wash feet and break bread we’re reminded of the Bethsaida places of our world, battlegrounds filled with wounded bodies, nursing homes overcrowded where the sick and hurting gaze outward. There’s the orphans in the slums of Calcutta or the abandoned in the streets of Sao Paulo. We see the last supper night as we hold the hands of our dying loved ones, we feel its embrace when we search for words to console the grieving. In all these places, the Lord is walking slowly and stepping carefully between us ready to wrap the towel around, to pour fresh water where we most need it, to teach us again and again how to part our hands and stretch our fingers and speak words that feed one another with Eucharist shared closely.
We still enter into that upper room of long ago, we continue to live out the story of washing and wiping, of eating and drinking and listening and sharing. Slowly we make our way around the table, bend down to pour and dry and give our lives meaning when it’s hard to do. And every time, the one who showed us how to serve is near us, leading us through the pools of human need, calling us to sit down to eat, to heal together. The one with the towel and basin, he’s still close by.