For several days last week, I was driving around with a kind of scary black garbage bag in the back of my car. And the bag got a bit scarier every day that it stayed there, because it was full of damp used towels. Towels that came from a service of footwashing. And the feet belonged to the 60 teenagers and young adults who took part in the Happening weekend retreat that St Stephen’s hosted earlier this month.
I’ve raised children through their teen years and am on intimate terms with the smell of adolescent feet, especially as manifested through the mountains of dirty socks that used to fill every nook and cranny of my home. So I knew perfectly well that just ignoring the towels would not make the problem go away. But I was in no way looking forward to opening that bag. When I finally got around to washing the towels, I made something of a ritual of it, filling the washing machine with steaming water and bleach. The smell of which was not quite strong enough to entirely overcome the smell of the towels, especially since they’d had a few days to ferment in my car. But I pinched my nose and opened the bag and did the dirty deed.
And of course the towels were fine after they were washed: fluffy and sweet as they emerged from the dryer. They didn’t look so great, however. Some were frayed, and there seemed to be random streaks of permanent marker color on them. I briefly contemplated tossing them out and getting some new ones. But these particular towels are not a fashion statement for the guest bathroom; they will only ever be used for footwashing at the high school retreats. And what is a towel for, really, except to become frayed from the repeated soaking up of liquids, and bearing the stains of the messiness it wipes away? A towel that doesn’t get messed up isn’t doing its job.
Tonight we were reminded that “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.”
The Gospel that was just proclaimed occurs during a suppertime gathering of Jesus and his disciples. It’s worth noting that John’s record of the Last Supper differs from Mark and Luke’s and Matthew’s, the latter of which we heard during dinner. Most significantly, John records no words of institution for the Lord’s Supper; the “take, eat, this is my body” language that is the heart of our Eucharistic prayers. So we might say that in John’s Gospel the food takes a backseat to the feet. Which is actually a source of ongoing inquiry among New Testament scholars, some of whom argue that footwashing, rather than Holy Communion, was the primary religious ritual of John’s community.
We can’t know this for sure, but the mandate in John’s Gospel: “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” is at least as clear as: “drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant.” So just this very evening, between the two different renditions of Jesus’ last meal with his friends, we have heard his disciples being told to do the work of feeding the body, and also of bathing and toweling the body. Both of which are models for religious ritual and also patterns of Christian service, and both of which make a claim on our practice of discipleship.
When Fr. Steve invited me to preach on Maundy Thursday, he reminded me that this service has often included some reflection on the ways in which St. Stephen’s serves. Sometimes there’s even a visit from a leader of one of the many outreach ministries St. Stephen’s supports. While we don’t have an outside guest with us tonight, I do want to highlight a congregation-wide act of service that you might not think of as such. The diocesan Happening high school retreat that I mentioned at the outset served a broad array of Episcopal teens, who came communities as diverse as Richmond, Palo Alto and Daly City. Several of the kids spoke English as their second language. One had mobility, speech and eating disabilities.
Over the course of the weekend, these kids became Christian community for each other. Friends, as Jesus called us all to be. And what made that manifestation of God’s reconciling grace possible was St. Stephen’s: this generous space, an army of congregational volunteers, and your willingness to put up with no small spatial inconvenience on Sunday morning. And—as is so often the case with acts of service—the end result was reconciliation, healing, hope, and… dirty towels.
Not only the ones that were fermenting in my car. I know that the kitchen crews here went through a mountain of dishtowels during the Happening weekend. In fact, towels might be the ubiquitous cross-cultural symbol of service. Where there is new life—babies being born and children being bathed—there are towels cleaning and comforting. Where people are sick, towels are soothing and cleansing. Where people are being fed and dishes washed, towels are wiping and drying. When homes and schools are cleaned, towels—and the people who handle them—are doing the messy work of service.
I confess that I myself don’t pay much attention to towels, except to bundle them into a plastic bag or laundry basket and hope they’ll wash themselves. But even though we don’t ritualize it in the same way as we do the taking, blessing and breaking of bread, how very different a movement was it when Jesus took, tied, and wiped with a towel? What tonight reminds is is that hand that holds the towel—the hand of a parent, of a nurse, of a janitor—may well be the hand of Jesus Christ himself, in one of his many humble disguises.
And now is our time to remember Jesus’ own greatest act of service. If you follow the stories of the Triduum—the great three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday—closely, you’ll notice that lot of things get taken up. Bread, wine, towels, crosses, thorns. Things were set aside, too. Power, security, family, life itself. So let me invite you to pay particular attention to what is picked up and what is left aside in our sacred stories. Which symbols of Christ’s humble obedience break your heart, and which ones mend it? How will your hands be his hands? Good Friday reminds us that all Christians will have to take up the cross in one way or another. But tonight, may we hear the call to take up our towels, and follow Jesus Christ.
