John 13:3-15 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4 got up from the table,[a] took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5 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. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet,[b] but is entirely clean. And you[c] are clean, though not all of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

As I explained three weeks ago, over these seven summer sermons, I feel called to take us away from the Revised Common Lectionary Scripture readings to explore seven insights that Francis of Assisi was lead to by God to transform a church that was stuck in inaction, that was mired in decline, that had lost its vision. While Stratham Church is healthy, the wider church across North America is floundering in a downward cycle of decline and we need to allow God to help us address this downward cycle. Francis, who lived more than 800 years ago, also lived through one of these periods of church decline. He was a medieval wisdom preacher who used everyday life, sayings, stories, and scripture to show us how we can allow God to transform our lives and our congregations by changing how we live.

As we continue our Franciscan summer, today’s scripture reading is taking us out of the box again. This powerful passage from the Gospel of John is normally only read and explored on Maundy Thursday, but this passage has so much to teach us on this summer Sunday morning. Our pilgrimage over the last two weeks has taken us to the manager in Bethlehem to consider the message of practicing the Incarnation and to Jesus commissioning the apostles to go and share the good news without any financial resources to help us reflect upon the paradox of evangelical poverty. And now today’s reading takes us to the Upper Room on the evening before the Crucifixion.

One of the amazing insights that God used to transform Francis is that between the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and the empty tomb, the Easter miracle, between these two mountain top miracles, Jesus lived out the good news through his earthly ministry. So often, Christians, even ones who attend on a regular basis, are only Christmas and Easter people, we focus all our church time and energy on these important anniversaries, on those big days, but in doing so can lose sight of the marrow, the heart of the gospel message from Jesus’ three years of ministry. The birth of Christ as well as his death and resurrection are huge important miracles with tremendous theological meaning and insights for us, but we can’t forget those three years of vital ministry when Jesus lived out of the gospel as a call and as a model for us.

Franciscan Murray Bodo argues that between the manger and the cross is the heart of the gospel, the marrow of the message, the center of it all. We spend so much time looking at the beginning and the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry that we often skip over what it means to live the gospel. He explains that “the gospel itself will show us not only how to discern the truth, but how the truth leads to the action we call love.”[i] Bodo argues that the work of living out the gospel is the work of love. He writes “Francis is seen as a gentle saint who shows us that the way to peace and justice is the way Christ has shown us in the Gospels, namely, the way of love of God, which is THE way; and its companion is the way of love of our neighbors as ourselves.”[ii] This is the third pillar that God taught Francis: live the gospel, live by the law of love. As Jesus tells his disciples at the end of our reading today, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Theologian Robert Cathey argues that this passage of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet can sum up the entire Gospel of John. He writes, “this entire Gospel can be summed up in the hospitable acts of friendship where an extraordinary master takes the place of servant to his own servants.”[iii] This moving passage speaks to both our heads and to our hearts. In this passage, Jesus unpacks an act of radical love with concrete action. Jesus’ action in this passage where extreme. Even a Jewish person held as a slave would not be required to wash the feet of his master. This gives us an idea, of how big of a social barrier that Jesus was breaking with this act. Love breaks all boundaries, all social expectations, all societal norms, custom and protocol are out the window, loves trumps all. And then Jesus tells the disciples, “for I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

There are so many takeaways that we can learn from Jesus in this passage. But I want us to consider three major insights for this week ahead. First, I want us to consider that to be part of this radical love that we have to allow ourselves to be loved. Jesus has to overcome Simeon Peter’s refusal. Peter didn’t want to allow Jesus to wash his feet. It was too intimate, too personal, too out of the box, too contrary to custom and expectations. Through this act, Jesus is taking their relationship to a whole new level and Peter is terrified. To allow ourselves to be loved means making ourselves vulnerable; it means becoming emotionally invested; it requires us to open ourselves to deep personal honesty. That’s hard; really hard. Years ago, I sat with a couple to start planning their wedding and realized that after five years of living together they still didn’t know each other, at least not at a deep personal level. So, I gave them a list of question to talk about. They went on a Friday night for a date night with that list of questions and on Saturday morning she moved out. I referred them to a marriage counselor and after a year of heavy lifting work, they finally knew each other well enough to start planning their wedding. My friends, it is hard, but we must allow ourselves to be loved and that isn’t always easy and that is being vulnerable and open in intimidating and terrifying ways.

The second takeaway that I want us to consider this morning is that living out this radical gospel message of love requires a spirit of gentle, peaceful, faithful healing. They will know us by our love…or at least they should. I worry about our culture becoming so angry. That our first reaction seems to be to beat the drums of wars and violence from road rage on up. Jesus’ example to us in this passage and throughout the gospels is a spirit of gentle, peaceful, faithful healing. And in the gospels healing means to save someone, to return them back to wholeness, in right relationship with their community. Jesus doesn’t only wash Simeon Peter’s feet; he also washes Judas’ feet. He knows that Judas will betray him, but Jesus washes his feet anyway that is a spirit of gentle, peaceful, faithful healing. Just because Judas was going against everything he said he believed, didn’t mean that Jesus would do the same. He practiced what he preached.

Francis learned this and he learned to practice this. Franciscan Jack Wintz recounts the story that “Francis had a fear and abhorrence of lepers. One day, however, he met a man afflicted with leprosy while riding his horse near Assisi. Though the sight of the leper filled him with horror and disgust, Francis got off his horse and kissed the leper. Then the leper put out his hand, hoping to receive something. Out of compassion, Francis gave money to the leper. But when Francis mounted his horse again and looked all around, he could not see the leper anywhere. It dawned on him that it was Jesus whom he had just kissed. Francis’ embrace of the leper was not an isolated instance. No, his ministry to lepers would only expand. Francis would go down to the colony of lepers two miles below Assisi, outside the city walls. Francis and other friars continued to minister to the lepers, feeding them, while also caring for and kissing their wounds. This became an ongoing ministry for Francis and the friars.”[iv]

And this leads us to final takeaway, living the gospel leads us to work of mercy and compassion that are grounded in concrete actions. We can talk about it all we want, but it all comes down to us doing it. Living the gospel means more than just talking about it. It means getting our hands dirty; it means doing things that make us uncomfortable; it means breaking barriers and risking it all. This is the new evangelization. Telling people about Jesus is great, but what is greater is showing them Jesus. To paraphrase a quote attributed to Francis, “always preach Jesus and if necessary, use words.” It is the concrete actions that preach louder than anything we say. It is what Jesus did in this passage. The act of washing the feet of the disciples showed the love. Telling someone you love them is important; showing them that you love them…that is the real center of it.

As we bring this message on living the gospel to a close, I want to remind us that the radical love shown by Jesus and by Francis is not just something of a bygone era, there are still hundreds and thousands of followers of Jesus living this out today. About a month ago on May 9th, one of the most amazing examples of living the gospel passed away. His name was Jean Vanier. He preached the gospel of Jesus always and sometimes he even used words. Jean Vanier was born in 1928 in Switzerland where his father was serving as a Canadian diplomatic. During World War II, he and his family fled Paris just before the Nazi occupation and starting at the age of 13 he began training for a career as a Navy officer. In 1945, he went with his mother to assist the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps and was profoundly impacted.

Five years later, he resigned from the Royal Canadian Navy to follow his spiritual calling from God to do “something else.” As he was seeking God’s call to live out his call, he visited asylums throughout France and was overwhelmed by the brokenness he found. People walking around in circles, violence, pain. People locked away, hidden from society, separated without family or friends. So, he asked his family and friends to give him enough money to buy a run-down house in Trosley-Breuil, France and he invited two men with intellectual disabilities to move in with him and become a community. At the suggestion of his friend, Jacqueline, they named the experiment, L’Arche, which in French means “the ark” as in Noah’s ark. It was refuge, a place of radical love, a boat of salvation where the gospel would be lived out day by day. Over the decades, Jean established 147 L’Arche communities in 37 different nations from France to Japan to Uganda and the West Bank. But he always said that L’Arch wasn’t his project, it was God’s. And for the next 55 years until his death at the age of 90 just last month, he lived this incredible ministry. He lived the gospel as Pope Francis said of Jean, “he has given us a magnificent vision of who Jesus is, and he is not only saying it, he’s living it.”[v]

For your homework this week, I want as many of us as possible to watch the documentary from 2017 called “Summer in the Forest” about the L’Arche. You can rent it online through Amazon or through other online sources. The openness to loving God and neighbor, the gentleness, the compassion, the foot washing should move us in our heads and our hearts. So, to paraphrase Francis of Assisi,

Where there is shouting, let us practice gentle listening;

Where there is pain, let us be comfort and healing;

Where there is exclusion, let us surround all with solidarity;

Where there are tears; let us bring tissues and hope;

Where there is anger; let us allow God to act through us;

Where there is hate; let us bring God’s and our love.

Let us live the gospel!

[i] Murray Bodo, “Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis,” Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2018. P. 29.

[ii] Murray Bodo, “Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis,” Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2018. P. 33.

[iii] Robert Cathey. “John 13:1-17, 13v-35.” In “Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2.” Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. Pp. 274-279.

[iv] Jack Wintz. “Saint Francis Meets the Leper” Available at: https://blog.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit/saint-francis-meets-the-leper

[v] Bethany McKinney fox. “Jean Vanier Made us All More Human” Christianity Today. Available at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/april-web-only/jean-vanier-died-larche-community-tribute.html. Cikkeb Dulle. “Jean Vanier, ‘Living Saint’ who Ministered to People with Disabilities, Dies at 90” Available at: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/05/07/jean-vanier-living-saint-who-ministered-people-disabilities-dies-90. “Jean Vanier and the Gift of L’Arche” Available at: https://www.christiancentury.org/article/people/jean-vanier-and-gift-l-arche.