Passing Judgment

John 13:31-35; Exodus 12:11-14

March 24, 2016 (Maundy Thursday) • Mount Pleasant UMC

It doesn’t take much work to notice that, over the last few years, faith and people of faith have been marginalized in our culture. Or, at least, we’ve become those who are selectively ignored. Now, I’m not an alarmist or one to “cry wolf,” but it does seem to force us to have to choose: either speak up for our faith and be shunned or ignored, or keep quiet about our faith and be accepted. Maybe there are choices in between those two extremes, but those seem to be the main options for us. Our culture has forgotten that we began as a people of faith, and we seem to have forgotten what one of our founding fathers said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (John Adams, 1798). When we ignore faith, we lose a big part of who we are as a people. When we assume we can get along without God, we face huge challenges because there is no basis on which to stand. You see, the way we live is based on what we believe, and what god we choose to worship.

That’s been true throughout history, and not just in our culture. What god we worship largely determines our worldview, guides the way we live. The Hebrew people found themselves living in a land—ancient Egypt—where there were many gods in many different forms. There were river gods, who were worshipped because the water provided life and sustenance to the land. There were frog-headed gods and cow-headed gods, which made frogs and cows scared animals, worthy of worship themselves. There was Ra, the sun god, who was represented on earth by Pharaoh. Pharaoh was believed to be the son of Ra, the son of god. There were gods of crops and agriculture, who controlled the harvest and, by doing so, controlled the livelihood and the life of the people. And there were gods of fertility and procreation, who gave or took away children from the Egyptian people. People spent their lives trying to please these gods so that they could get what they wanted; it was an obsession. And when things went well, it meant the gods were happy. When things went bad, it meant the gods were angry. That was a well-established belief system, and into this kind of a culture come the Hebrew people, with their belief in one God. They lived for hundreds of years in the midst of this Egyptian belief system, and the people began to wonder if maybe this idea of pleasing the gods in order to get what you want might just be the way to go.

Over time, the Hebrews found their status changed from residents to slaves, and they cried out—not necessarily to anyone or any god in particular. I’m guessing that, at this point, they had no idea who to cry out to. They’ve forgotten who they are and where their faith should be placed. So they cried out, they complained, and even though it wasn’t directed at anyone in particular, God—the God of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—heard their cry and answered. He sent Moses to deliver them, to bring them out of slavery, to make them a nation by themselves, and to give them a new home. God sent Moses to save the people. And more than that, Exodus says, God set out to “pass judgment” on the gods of Egypt (12:12).

God sent ten plagues. Each increasing in severity. Each showing the powerlessness of Egypt’s gods. The Nile River—source of life in Egypt—turned to blood; the fish gods and the river gods had no power. Frogs all over the land. People couldn’t avoid stepping on the sacred frogs. And they were all dead the next morning; the frog gods had no power. Lice, flies, cattle, boils, locusts; the gods of agriculture and cattle have no power. Darkness; the sun god, the greatest god, has no power. And finally, the worst plague of all—the death of the firstborn. The death of every firstborn child in every house. Pharaoh, the son of god, could not stop it, and he had no power (http://goo.gl/Zv2Ybs). God, however, provided a way out of that terrible final plague for the Hebrews. All they had to do was to kill a lamb, paint its blood over the doorposts of their home, and the angel of death would pass over their home, sparing the firstborn (12:13). All they had to do was offer a sacrifice for their freedom. That night, every god was judged; every power Egypt thought they could trust fell before the power of the God of the Hebrews, the God who came to set his people free.

Fourteen hundred years or so later, a Jewish rabbi gathers with his followers in an upper room in the city of Jerusalem. The mood is festive, as it always is with Passover, because Passover celebrates the God who saves, and in particular, it celebrates God’s salvation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. Fourteen hundred years after the first Passover, Jesus and his disciples are celebrating that same freedom, even while they as a nation are not free, while they as a nation are marginalized in the larger Roman Empire. No matter, Passover is always festive. And yet, this night, Jesus is rather somber.

John tells us that the disciples had come to the meal and, though the tradition was that someone would wash everyone’s feet, none of them wanted to take that role. They likely walked in, saw the basin and the towel, and walked right on by, expecting someone else to do the hard work of washing feet. Luke then tells us that, as they ate dinner, they got into an argument (Luke 22:23; cf. Card, The Parable of Joy, pg. 166), and do you remember what they are fighting about? On this night when they remember how they were once slaves, how as a people they were once nobody, they spend time arguing about who is the greatest. Can you imagine what Jesus is thinking and feeling? This is his last night with his closest friends, and they’re busy arguing about who is the greatest disciple. “No, I’m better than you because…” “Well, remember when I did that one thing? That makes me the best disciple.” “Jesus likes me best!” Maybe one of them was wearing the t-shirt I saw once: “Jesus loves you but I’m his favorite.” And, as I envision it, in the midst of that argument, Jesus gets up from the table, probably unnoticed, picks up the basin and the towel, and begins to wash their feet. Now, don’t you know that the conversation must have ended rather quickly. Don’t you imagine that they got quiet in utter astonishment? What was Jesus doing? Why was he washing their feet? That wasn’t his job!

When Jesus returns to his place at the table, he explains to them why he did what he did. “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (13:15). I’m modeling for you the life I intend for my servants to live. Your life, disciples, is not about power and privilege. It’s about service and love. It’s about washing feet. A bit later, he again expands on what he means. “My children,” he calls them. Literally, he calls them “little children.” Well, they had certainly been acting like children this night, but I don’t think he’s using that term to put them down (Card 174). Rather, that term was often a term of endearment between teachers and their disciples, and these disciples, Jesus knows, still have much to learn. Even after all this time, they have “learnt so little, understood so little, grasped so little of what their wonderful master has been doing in their midst” (Wright, John for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 55). He knows they have much to learn, and it will have to be on the job training from here on out, so he takes this moment, these last moments, and gives them the bottom line, one I’ve reminded you of often in this season of Lent: “A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (13:34). A new command? Well, it’s not like love was something new. Love is central to many parts of the Old Testament, with which these disciples would have been familiar. Leviticus told the Hebrews to love their neighbors as themselves (19:18), a command which Jesus had repeated and reinforced. No, it’s not so much that they’d never heard the words, but the mode of love, the depth and type of love are new. Jesus says they are to love others just as he has loved them. They are to copy him. As Tom Wright says, “They are to look back at his whole life, his whole way and manner of life, and to find in it a pattern, an example, a power” (55). Their life is to be defined by the one who just washed their feet.

And that brings us back to the original Passover, to that time when God passed judgment on the gods of Egypt and proved them powerless. Jesus is doing the same thing here in the Upper Room. The disciples, despite the three years they have spent at Jesus’ feet, are still worshipping false gods. Oh, not the idols or the animal-headed gods that the Hebrews were tempted to worship in Egypt. No, these gods are much more subtle. They are the gods of power, of influence, of prestige, of control. They are the gods of religion and law and legalism. Oddly enough, they sound like the gods we still worship today. We like to have power, to have influence, to have people do what we say without question. We will do almost anything and sacrifice nearly anyone if we can be in charge, if we can have power. And, many times, it doesn’t matter who we have to hurt or step on in order to get our own way. Power is a influential god we often worship because we, like the disciples around that table, want to be seen as the greatest. And there are also the gods of religion—the god of legalism that demands everyone do it my way. The god of law that lives off of fear, judgment, guilt and punishment. The god of law that issues commandments and expects blind obedience. We still worship these gods.

But the problem is these gods cannot save us. Like the gods of Egypt, these gods have no saving power. For a while, when we’re in control, we might feel good, but ultimately, these gods enslave us—to our own desires, to our own self-worth, to the reality that we can never have enough power, prestige, or greatness to be satisfied. That’s why Jesus issues a new command on this last night, because he, like his father centuries before him, is passing judgment on all our false gods, on all the things we worship that cannot bring life. “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you—” What? If you keep all the rules perfectly? If you show the world how powerful you are? If you are in charge? No, Jesus says they will know we are his disciples by the way we love one another (13:35). Jesus has passed judgment on the gods of our world, and they all fall down and fail in the face of his love. It is only his love that can save us from our sin.

Two thousand years later or so, we gather here on this night, to enter into the story by coming to the table and remembering. We gather here tonight, aware of the all the gods that call for and demand our attention. The god of pleasure. The god of success. The god of wealth. The god of status. The gods of the media. The god of politics. And on and on we could go. We know their names; we often bow down at their altars. But we have gathered here on this night, in this place, because we want to be shaped by a different God, by the only God who can save us, by the God who sent his son to die for our sins in order to rescue us. This meal, this bread and cup, reminds us, each time we take it, that our God has already passed judgment on all the other gods of this world and declared them powerless. Only what Jesus has done, only what Jesus offers has any power, and it’s all tied up in what he taught the disciples on this last night. Only the power of love, as ultimately seen on the cross, has the power to overcome all the things that demand our attention. Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper—this moment, this meal ought to shape us into loving people, people who aren’t too proud to wash feet, people who aren’t afraid to serve rather than be served. And it shapes us by reminding us of what Jesus did to love us. He came, he lived, he washed feet, and he gave his life away to show the depth of his love for us. He passed judgment on all the gods we worship by showing that there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do to save us.

Several years ago, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and I remember getting the initial news. It hit me hard. Immediately, I began to think about what all I could do to help my mom and my dad, could I do anything to take it away, and on and on. My love for my father made me want to do anything, absolutely anything, so that he wouldn’t have to go through this. I made plans to fly down to Florida to be with my parents during his surgery, and thankfully he came through great. He’s doing well and has had a clean bill of health now for several years in a row. But I remember that first reaction, and I also remember how the Spirit whispered to my heart in the midst of that moment to remind me that as much as I love my dad, as much as I would do anything to save my dad, God loves me more. There isn’t any length to which God wouldn’t go to save me, but just from disease, but from death itself. That’s why Jesus came, to take away the sin that entangles us, to offer us a better way of living. He came to pass judgment on all the things we think are worth worshipping, and to turn our eyes toward the only God who can save us. And he called us to then turn and show that same saving love toward others.

A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you—by washing feet, by offering healing, by allowing nails to be pounded into my body—as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciple, if you love—not just in word, but in deed, in laying down your life for the other—if you love one another…for love alone will save.