A teacher and his twelve favorite students gathered around a table one night to share a meal. The teacher knew that it would be their last meal together; the students strongly suspected it. They were hopeful, though, that if it was their last meal he would tell them everything they needed to know. They sat at full attention, ready to absorb his words and set them to memory, so that when he was gone, they would have words to remember him by.
But apparently, their beloved teacher didn’t want to just share words with them. Instead, he blessed bread and passed it around, then did the same with a goblet of wine. They ate and drank, but still they waited for what they thought would be the real lesson of the evening, the one the teacher presented, not with food and drink, but with words.
After dinner, they thought, surely then, he would tell them all they needed to know. But instead, the teacher stood up and walked to the side of the room, filled a basin with hot water, and picked up a towel. Then, one student at a time, he knelt down in front of them and dipped their feet in the water, washing off the dirt and grime, then drying the clean, calloused skin gently with a towel.
Finally, when he had washed all twenty-four feet in the room, Jesus offered the disciples the words they had been waiting for all evening. “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-15)
I suppose it would have been easier if Jesus had left his disciples -- and us -- with just words to remember him by. Instead, he gave us things to do that require us to use our bodies just as he used a human body to reveal the heart of God.
This story from John chapter 13 of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet shouldn’t surprise us if we have read John’s first chapter. The disciples, of course, didn’t have that opportunity; when Jesus washed their feet, they were still trying to figure out exactly who he was. But because of John’s first chapter, we know that Jesus is indeed God-in-human-flesh, using his human body to breathe life into God’s grace and truth.
At the very beginning of his gospel, John wants us to understand that Jesus was present with God from the beginning of time, present even before God spoke the words that breathed life and order into the chaos of the universe; before God breathed the breath of life into the first human beings; and that everything that God did from the beginning God did in and through and with Jesus.
But right from the beginning, John also wants to make clear that Jesus is more than just an undefined, mysterious element of the unknowable God; Jesus is God incarnate, God in the flesh. In Jesus Christ the one true God, the Creator of everything there is entered into creation and became one of the billions of animals to be born, grow, eat, drink, and die on earth. This is what the incarnation means, and according to one theologian, “It is untheological. It is unsophisticated. It is undignified. But according to Christianity, it is the way things are.” (1) As Eugene Peterson puts it in his translation of John 1, “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”
And when God “moved into the neighborhood,” when Jesus walked among us, he showed us what it looks like to be a human being totally in tune with God. Jesus showed us this with his body: by reaching out his hands to heal a blind man, stepping out from a boat onto the sea and walking on the water, sharing bread and wine with his friends, washing his disciples’ feet. Jesus didn’t simply tell people about God; Jesus embodied God; he showed us how God intended these bodies of ours to do God’s work and show God’s love.
*****
There is a children’s television show called “Word World,” whose motto is “where words come alive.” The point is to teach children how to read while they think they are just watching TV. In “Word World,” every object is formed by the letters that spell the object’s name. A tree, which looks like a cartoon tree, is actually, if you look closely, four stylized letters: a green, leafy T and R and two brown, tree-trunk E’s. A pig is made up of fat, pink, curvy letters a P that has a snout and pointy ears, a G with a curly tail coming out of it. The trick is, to see the words, you have to look closely. If you don’t, Word World looks pretty much like any other world, well, any other cartoon world, that is, where the trees and rocks and pigs and horses all talk. But if you look closely, you will see that it is the words that give the objects and animals their shape and form.If we look closely at the actions of Jesus, we see the many ways Jesus reveals God to us in a way that no one and nothing else does. In particular, the actions of Jesus give shape and form to two words that reveal the very heart of God: grace and truth. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us,” John writes, “and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
Grace and truth. These were words of God that Jesus embodied and the time we most clearly see these words wasn’t during his best sermon or his most amazing miracle; the best example of Jesus breathing life into God’s grace and truth is when he washed the disciples’ feet.
The truth: feet are dirty. Especially then, when people walked almost everywhere, on dusty roads, wearing sandals with thin soles and few straps. There was simply no denying the truth that, by the end of the day, feet were covered in dirt and grime. Jesus pointed to that truth when he picked up a basin of water, took off the disciples’ shoes and prepared to wash their feet. But then he put flesh on the word grace: having exposed the filth, he used his own hands -- the very hands of God -- to wash those feet clean.
And then Jesus told his followers that this incredible act of using their own bodies to reveal God to one another was what they were called to do too. He wants them to remember him, not with words, but with actions, by reaching out, one human being to another, and revealing God’s grace and truth and love by how they used their hands and feet and bodies to interact with others. As one commentator put it: “Jesus is not alone in this word-made-flesh business. He has brothers and sisters able to do the works that he does and more...” (2)
How can a bunch of flawed human beings -- the disciples, us -- how can we, like Jesus, put flesh on God’s words? Well, in chapter one, John tells us how: “to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God...born of God...From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.” Through the grace and faith we have received from Jesus, we have the power to bring God’s words to life as Jesus did.
And so, on this first Sunday of a new year and a new decade, it’s a good time to reflect on the words we embody, both as individuals and as a church. Chances are most of us have a particular word that, more often than not, others would use to describe us. What is the one word that someone who has met you once and someone who has known you for decades would use to describe you? If you can think of it, then that is your word. Is it compassion, justice, hospitality, generosity, patience? All of these are words our faith enables us to bring to life. Of course, there might also be words we bring to life that are not so pleasing to God, such as judgmental, self-absorbed, greedy, impatient. If you’re not sure what your word is, then ask someone, better yet, ask a few people, some who know you well and some who don’t. Even more than the words we speak, it is our actions that reveal the words that are important to us. In this New Year, as we emerge from this season of Christmas remembering that God’s Word lived among us, showing us God’s grace and truth, may we focus on the words within each of us that reveal God’s grace and truth to others.
*****
I heard this story the other day from a friend of mine. It is one of those horrible stories that takes your breath away, the story of a young girl diagnosed with inoperable, incurable brain cancer. When the parents of the girl’s classmates from school heard about her diagnosis, they quickly got themselves organized. No doubt there was flurry of phone calls and emails and texts -- a flurry of words -- but however it happened, just a few days after the diagnosis, those words turned into actions. They all showed up at the girl’s house with food and cookies. They sang carols and then they came inside and decorated the house for Christmas. And before they left, they handed the girl’s parents an envelope containing money they had collected, because they all knew that cancer is expensive and that if it was their kid they would spare no expense. The girl’s stunned parents opened the envelope and found several thousand dollars inside. (3)That community embodied the words compassion and generosity and kindness, and when they did, they brought God’s grace and truth, and perhaps most importantly, God’s presence, to a family that was feeling terrified and devastated and horribly alone.
Just as Jesus’ disciples hoped at that Last Supper so long ago, Jesus did leave us words to remember him by. But he calls us to do more than remember them, more than speak them; he calls us to bring those words to life. “Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words,” said St. Francis of Assisi. As we preach with our actions, we reveal that although Jesus is no longer with us in the flesh, God truly is with us still, in our flesh, in the hundreds of ways each day we use our bodies to breathe new life into the Word of God.
“The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Alleluia, and amen.
Endnotes:
1. Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words, p. 169.
2. Barbara Brown Taylor, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, p. 191.
3. This story was borrowed with permission from a sermon preached at Broad Street Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio by the Reverend Amy Miracle.
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