Carly, do you know what our Bishop is about to do to you? People of God, do you know what the church as the body of Christ is about to do with Carly and, in fact, with all of us today?
These questions echo what we just heard in the gospel reading as Jesus asked his disciples after he had washed their feet: “Do you know what I have done to you?” Most of the time, actions speak louder than words. But sometimes actions require explanation and interpretation.
Jesus, as Rabbi, as Teacher, did something quite unusual, something counter-cultural and not at all in keeping with the behavior of religious leaders of his day. It was radical even. Jesus stripped himself of his outer garments, got down on his hands and knees and performed the work of a slave, a servant, in washing the disciples’ feet. That was so unusual that it required explanation. So, Jesus, the teacher, claimed a teaching moment.
Jesus said, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. So 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.”
This radical action on the part of Jesus is set in the wider context of the new commandment, the new mandate – hence Maundy Thursday – to love one another as Jesus loved his disciples, as Jesus loves us. This love was concretized in the humble act of serving others by washing their feet. Now the actions are speaking louder than words. This was no abstraction of love as a concept or an idea. Washing the disciples’ feet was love in action.
Carly, you chose this reading for your ordination as a Deacon. By this choice you are teaching us. (Your teaching me was a charming feature of the privilege I had in serving as your supervisor for your seminary internship. Yes, you taught me. I learned from you repeatedly. Formation for public ministry is always a two-way street and is life-long.)
Thus, Carly, you’re teaching us in your choices of readings for this celebration. Indeed, by the choice of each of the scriptural readings for today, you are telling us who you intend to be and what you intend to do as a Deacon in the church, the body of Christ. So now, permit me to elaborate on the ways I believe you are teaching us.
Jesus concluded his teaching moment with his disciples with these words: “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” In short, knowing involves doing, and blessing is a fruit of that combination of ideas and action.
If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. It’s crucial to ask, what things? Well, first off, the example of a teacher whose actions speak louder than words, a teacher who takes the form of a servant and makes love an act and not just a sentiment by washing dirty, sore, perhaps wounded feet.
“If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” What things? The things we heard in the reading from Colossians, another one of your choices of readings for today: “Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:12-14)
“If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” What things? That which we heard from the prophet Micah, yet another choice of yours: The Lord “has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with… God?”
Carly, you chose all of these readings. Again, by these choices, you are teaching us about who you are. But you are also teaching us about what the whole church is called to be and to do. As a deacon you will inspire us all to not just stand at the doors of the church looking in, but to also stand at those thresholds looking out to the world that God so desperately loves.
And you know what? All of this sounds so nice and lovey-dovey, warm and fuzzy, touchy feely. But in the nation and world we inhabit today, what you are teaching us, what you are knowing and what you will be doing as a deacon, who also inspires us to do the same, is nothing short of radical and revolutionary.
It was all radical and revolutionary in Jesus’ day, and it certainly is in our day, too. Stripping ourselves of the trappings of power and privilege, and kneeling before others is radical and revolutionary in an age that revels in hierarchies of power and privilege and domination by the elite.
Moreover, “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience; bearing with one another, forgiving each other” – these qualities are antithetical to the zeitgeist, the spirit of our age, the reverse of what we are forced to endure today. Isn’t that right?
Furthermore, doing justice, loving kindness, walking humbly with God – this is the exact opposite of so much of what we see, what we experience, in nation and world today with its arrogant ruling ethos of cruelty, corruption, domination, and lording it over others. In short, as Carly might put it – this is all quite “rad!” As in radical.
And the stances to which you and we are called are a threat to the powers that be. Again, it was true in Jesus’ day and in the time of the early church. It’s true in our day as well.
We might seek to flee in fear from what we are called to be and to do as a washing- others’-feet kind of church. As a threat to the powers and principalities, what we are called to be and to do as a diaconal church may well get us into a whole heap of trouble. We’re seeing this play itself out in our land with the courageous witness of those who have resisted the power and heavy-handedness of the state and who have found themselves on the receiving end of state-sanctioned violence and lethality.
So, where do we get the courage to be radical, came-to-serve-and-not-be-served revolutionaries? How do we summon what it takes to speak and to embody such a countercultural stance?
Psalm 23 tells us how – and this psalm is another one of Carly’s choices for readings, a portion of which served as her confirmation verse. Who knew then, Carly, that one day you would be ordained and revisit your confirmation day on the day of your ordination? This psalm has followed you for all these years. And here is what we learn from Psalm 23 about where we get what we need to serve courageously.
Note in the psalm who is doing the acting, who is taking the lead. The Lord shepherds us, that is to say, God leads us, guides us. We’re not left alone to our own devices. And there’s more: The Lord makes us lie down in green pastures. The Lord leads us beside still waters. The Lord restores our souls. The Lord leads us in right paths – and all of this even though we walk through the darkest valleys and the shadow of death. Christ, our Good Shepherd, is with us all the way; thus, we fear no evil. Christ’s rod and staff comfort us. A table is prepared for us, even now at this hour. And we’ve been anointed with oil as on the day of our baptism. And our cup of blessing at this table and in this church overflows with goodness and mercy and the grace we need to get the job done.
In short, you, Carly, will get what you need from the means of grace in our solemn and joyful assemblies as church, where the word of Christ dwells in us richly, where we teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, where with gratitude in our hearts we sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God, where whatever we do, in word and deed, we do it in Jesus’ name, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (cf. Colossians 3:16-17)
Same goes for you, people of God, as Deacon Carly will inspire us and maybe sometimes cajole us into being rad. In the word, at the place of the sacramental bath, at this table, which as deacon, Carly will spend her career helping to set, is everything we need to do God’s work with our hands, doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God.
And by your ministry, Carly, and the ministry in daily life you inspire in all of us, together we will brighten the corners where we are and are called to be, and we will be a goad in the flesh of the powers that be who trample on those vulnerable and marginalized ones whom Christ came to serve.
Carly, do you know what is about to happen to you? People of God, likewise? Hopefully by now we all have a better sense and understanding of what’s going on here today. And if we know these things, blessed are you, Carly, if you do them, and blessed are we as church when go and do likewise!
For in Christ, who calls us to serve as he served, and through his means of grace, “surely goodness and mercy shall follow you, Carly, and all of us, all the days of our lives, and together we shall dwell in the house of the Lord our whole lives long.” And to sum it all up: why and how does this happen? Because Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.
