Maundy Thursday: A Reminder in the Towel
Last weekend, we celebrated something really joyful. We celebrated the ordination of a new deacon. It was a good day for the Kingdom and a good day for the Church. It was one of those moments where you could really feel it: the sense of calling, of a new beginning, of the Spirit at work in a person’s life. I am confident that Marc will be a wonderful deacon with an impactful ministry.
And his ordination is important, because the Church does gain something in that moment. We gain someone set apart in a particular way to serve, to lead, to remind us of who we are. But if we stop there, if we think ordination is mostly about that person, we miss something really important.
Because ordination is also meant to point back at the rest of us.
It is a reminder: a reminder of something we all share: our baptism.
Everything in the Church flows from our baptism. Not just some things. Not just the obvious things. Everything. Our worship, our sacraments, our ministries, our life together. All of it flows from those promises we have made, or that were made for us, and that we keep returning to.
Ordination does not sit above baptism. It flows out of it. So, when someone is ordained, yes, they are called into a particular role. But more than anything, they become a kind of living reminder of the life that belongs to all of us. A life shaped by service. A life shaped by love.
And then tonight, we hear this Gospel, and Jesus makes it about as clear what that actually looks like. He gets up from the table. Takes off his outer robe. Wraps a towel around himself. Pours water into a basin. And then he kneels down and starts washing feet.
It is such a familiar scene that we can almost skip past it. But it is strange. It is uncomfortable. It is not what one would expect. This is not the kind of thing a teacher does. It is not what a leader does. This is servant work. The kind of work you would give to the lowest person in the room. And Jesus does not just talk about it. He does it. He kneels down in front of them.
And I think one of the things this reminds us of is that servanthood is not necessary pretty. It is not neat. It is not always convenient. It does not keep its distance. It gets close. Really close, and it can be quite messy.
It gets right into the middle of things, into the parts of life we might rather avoid.
Because washing someone’s feet, that is not symbolic in a neat and tidy way. That is real. That is personal. That is a little awkward. And I think that is the point.
Following Jesus means being willing to step into the fullness of other people’s lives, not just the parts that are easy, but the parts that are messy or complicated or uncomfortable. We are called to climb right into the humanity around us and be a servant, to be a witness to God’s presence right in the messiest places. It means being present in those places and not pulling back.
And that connects to something deeper that runs through Scripture. There is this long thread throughout Scripture about what is clean and what is not clean. About what belongs and what does not belong. About what is holy and what is not. And those distinctions mattered. They shaped how people lived.
But Jesus adjusts our lens so that we see that it really wasn’t about clean vs not clean after all. And later, Peter has that vision in Acts, you may remember it, where he is told, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” And suddenly the lines we have drawn start to fall apart.
Because if God is the creator of all things, if God is present in all of creation, then there really is not a place at all that is outside of God’s reach. There is not a person who is not held within God’s life, within God’s hands.
Which means the places we might be tempted to avoid, the hard moments, the messy situations, the ordinary, unremarkable parts of life,
Those are not places where God is absent. They are often the very places where God is most clearly found. That is why some of the most sacred moments we can have, why some of the moments in which we experience God the most profoundly are exactly those simple regular moments in which we find ourselves.
In the laughter of a friend. In holding a newborn. In sitting quietly with someone who is sick. In the strain of a relationship that is not easy.
In those moments where you do not quite know what to say, but you stay anyway. God is there. And if God is there, then those are exactly the places we are called to go. Not to fix everything. Not to have all the right words. But to be present. To serve. To love.
And that is where Jesus takes us at the end of this passage. He said, “I have set you an example That you love one another.” Not in the abstract.
Not just as an idea we agree with. But in the way he has just shown them.
A love that kneels. A love that serves. A love that acknowledges that love and life is messy. A love that does not screen or filter or decide ahead of time who is worth it. Just whoever is in front of you.
That is where the commandment lands.
Whoever is in front of you.
And that is how people will know who we are. Not by what we say about ourselves. But by how we love.
So yes, we had an ordination last weekend. And it was something to celebrate. And it was also a reminder. A reminder that the life of servanthood is not reserved for a few. It is the calling of all of us who have been baptized into Christ.
A reminder that we are called to love one another, whoever is in front of us. A reminder that we are called to step into the messiness of life, trusting that God is already there.
And a reminder that the mark of those who follow Jesus is this: That we are willing to kneel. Willing to take up the towel. And to serve.