DO THESE THINGS IN MEMORY OF ME
What I have just done was to give you an example: as I have done, so you must do.
John 13:15
We
human beings have a long and interesting history of both helping and hurting
each other. In spite of all our wars and sophisticated weapons, we
fundamentally remain a social and cooperative species. We have survived all
these years mainly because we have helped each other along the way. Even our
prehistoric relatives exhibited tenderness toward each other. There is evidence
that they lined their children’s slippers with fur, cared for their cripples
and even buried their dead with flowers.
The creation stories of Genesis
remind us that God created us to be interdependent – to need each other. We are
told that even from the very beginning, we have denied our interdependence.
Adam and Eve denied they needed God. Cain and Abel denied their need for each
other. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The rest of history is just one episode
after another of vacillation between helping and hurting each other – between
accepting and denying our interdependence.
When Jesus comes to us in
history, he simply restates in a more dramatic way what was true from the very
beginning – that we must love God and our neighbors as ourselves. He did not
just, of course, talk about it. He lived it to the very last drop of his blood.
While we were still sinners and undeserving of being loved, he still loved us!
He would not let that connection of love between God and us be severed – not
matter what we did or did not do!
His life and death was one
great “show and tell” on how much we are loved and cared for! One of his great
final “show and tells” is recorded in tonight’s gospel. Remember, it was a
response to an argument among his followers over who was the greatest. After
telling them, again and again, that “it cannot be that way with you,” Jesus
gets down on his hands and feet and does what a slave would do – he washes
their feet!
The text is clear. This dramatic
gesture is only an “example!” Surely, Jesus wants more from us that a yearly
repeat of this “example!” Jesus certainly wants us to translate this “foot
washing” into our own language and culture. We must find our own ways to serve
each other, wait on each other, notice each other’s suffering, put each other’s
need first and be there for each other. In short, to be like Jesus, we need to
get over our need to be loved and learn to give love – to get
over our need to be getters and learn to be givers.
Again this year, the message of
this gospel story is loud and clear! Out happiness lies in cooperation, not
competition! Only cooperation will save us. Our competition is
actually killing us! The “sacred cow” of competition will not die
easily. We must kill it within ourselves first, or else collectively, it
will kill us in the end! We are created to be interdependent!
I would like to end this homily with a poem someone sent me
many years ago! It is called “The Cold Within”
'THE COLD WITHIN'
Six
humans trapped by happenstance
In
dark and bitter cold
Each
possessed a stick of wood--
Or
so the story's told.
Their
dying fire in need of logs,
But
the first one held hers back,
For,
of the faces around the fire,
She
noticed one was black.
The
next one looked cross the way
Saw
one not of his church,
And
could not bring himself to give
The
fire his stick of birch.
The
third one sat in tattered clothes
He
gave his coat a hitch,
Why
should his log be put to use
To
warm the idle rich?
The
rich man just sat back and thought
Of
wealth he had in store,
And
keeping all that he had earned
From
the lazy, shiftless poor.
The
black man's face bespoke revenge
As
the fire passed from his sight,
For
he saw in his stick of wood
A
chance to spite the white.
And
the last man of this forlorn group
Did
nought except for gain,
Giving
just to those who gave
Was
how he played the game,
Their
sticks held tight in death's stilled hands
Was
proof enough of sin;
They
did not die from cold without--
They
died from cold within.
