Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

Psalm 116:1, 10-17

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

The Gospel of John is unique in its account of the Last Supper.  We have no account of the institution of what will evolve into our Eucharist.  We hear no parallels with the Exodus Passover meal.  We, instead, have two amazing acts that are hard for us to grasp.  The first thing is the washing of the Disciples feet.  The act of caring for feet is something that we have, for the most part, lost in our culture.  Many of us take our feet and the care or our feet for granted with modern sanitation, pavement and shoes.  It is only we our feet give us problems that many of us pay any real attention to them.  In our society it is the homeless and the elderly that seem to need help taking care of their feet.  For some it is the pedicure that is a symbol of self indulgence.  It is seen as a luxury.  In Jesus’ day things were different.  Walking in the dirt with sandals would require that your feet be washed to prevent abrasions and sores from developing.  The washing was either done by yourself or, better yet by a servant or slave if one was available.  The host of the party would not wash your feet. 

For me the washing of the disciples’ feet is the ultimate symbol of the servant ministry of Christ.  He is modeling the behavior so that the rag tag group of followers might, as we say, finally get it.  Jesus has tried again and again through his teaching and through the parables, to explain that this Messiah was not what they expected.  That God was not coming in flames and with a great armory to save the world but was coming in service and love.  God was giving us an example of how to model Godly behavior. 

Even with the extreme, and unexpected, and especially for Peter, uncomfortable act of the foot washing, it is the final piece of this Gospel reading that struck me and speaks to me today as the church wrestles with what it mans to be a church.  Jesus said “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

This new commandment is different than the “Great Commandment” to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  No.  This is a radical extension.  We are commanded to love each other as God loves us!  Can you imagine?  and even worse How can we, mere mortal flesh love as God?  Well.  We need to love as Jesus loved.  Its that easy.  or is it.  How did Jesus love his disciples?

First of all he called his disciples form a wide diversity of human conditions.  He called fisher people and tax collectors.  He gathered women around him and children, People clean and unclean.  To all of them he showed love.  Jerry Goebel of One Family Outreach said in a sermon for Maundy Thursday  “The distinguishing factor of Jesus Christ is not that he just tells us how to live but he models how we should live and it goes even further.  Our model of love is not held up to human standards; “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  It is held up to the highest standard: “Love as I loved!”

We cannot excuse any pettiness, self, righteousness, or pride with a wave of our hand and a statement; “Well, I am, after all, only human.”  Our love is not held against a human standard; it is measured against Jesus as the standard!

Do I love as Jesus would love?  Do I love sacrificially?  Do I love as the shepherd who seeks the lost?  Do I love with all humility and with a stomach-rending compassion?  That is how Jesus loved.  That is the standard by which I must measure my gift of love.  It matters not how anyone else would love, what matters is; “How would Jesus love?”

At the end of this day, how will I answer the question; “Did I love like Jesus loved?”

How do we know that he was the Christ?  Look at the evidence of his love.  Look at the lives changed by that one sacrificial life. 

That is how others will know whether I am a follower or not.  Not by what I say, but by how I have loved.  Not by my words, but by my deeds.  Do my deeds point out that I follow him? Do I go where Jesus would be?  This is what the Follower of Christ must pursue.”

How do we do this?  I believe that in order to show love we need the diversity of life around us.  Just a Jesus did we need to welcome and embrace a radically diverse mass of humanity.  We need to step out of that comfortable place where we surround ourselves with people just like us.  We need to look beyond the interesting people to the people that make us uncomfortable.  We need to listen to the people with whom we disagree for they may, after all be right, or at the very least, may, even inadvertently, help shine a light on what is right.  I believe that, in his new commandment, Jesus’ is calling us to practice a form of Radical Welcome to “The Other”

In her book “Radical Welcome, Embracing God, the Other and the Spirit of Transformation”  Stephanie Spellers writes, “Radical Welcome takes us to the root level, the Jesus-level.  It understands that a church needs to have a clear identity, mission and purpose, and it finds its raison d’etre in the gook news of liberation, justice and reconciliation for all of creation.  Thus rooted, radically welcoming communities can go forth in Christian mission and ask the hard question:  Who is a the table?  Who would never even come to the door because they are sure we will not receive them, because, historically, we have not?

These outsiders may be people of color, poor people, young adults, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.  They may be children, people with mental and physical disabilities, the homeless, addicts, ex-offenders, or the elderly.  They may actually be represented in the community, but have yet to engage significantly at the deepest levels of parish life and leadership”

Is Saint Paul ’s a Radically Welcome church?  I think some of us would like to believe so but I also think we are not quite there yet.  We are on the verge of opening ourselves up to the world around us but it is scary.  It is not possible to just flip a switch and change years of history and perception.  It takes time.

As the international and national Church makes headlines with some of the church’s leaders calling for exclusion of some of the “Others” from the full ministry and leadership of the church we will need to work even harder to get the news out that we at St. Paul’s really do believe that the “Episcopal Church Welcomes you”.  We need to examine who are the “others” that our in the community around us who won’t come in because they think they are not welcome and reach out to invite them in the doors.  And we need to do more than just invite them in the doors.  We need to take the radical step of loving them like Jesus would love them.  To reach out and include their values and soothe their fears even when we don’t understand them.  To recognize that the Other may well be a disciple of Christ!

I invite you this evening to consider how to follow Jesus new commandment to “love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." 

Amen