2022 08 28 Sermon

Footwashing

Pentecost 12 C

Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

Luke 14:1, 7-14; John 13:3-8, 12-17

For almost 30 years I’ve been a fan of the rock band known as “Phish”, and their guitarist Trey Anastasio. Trey can play anything, from improvisational thrashing guitar solos, to complex, intricate, and fugue-like composed pieces. I actually saw Phish play a couple of weeks ago at Alpine Valley, and for decades the band has traveled the world, playing for tens of thousands of excited fans in one concert venue after another. But in the middle of their long career, there was a 5-year period when the band broke up and they each went their separate ways.

This is not uncommon among rock bands, and you can probably guess some of the reasons why. I recently read an interview with Trey Anastasio that delved into this (in GQ magazine) [https://www.gq.com/story/clean-musicians]. He talked about being pulled over and arrested in November 2006. At the time he was addicted to opiate pills, and had those and lots of other drugs in his car. He ended up in felony-drug-treatment court. For the next 14 months this big rock star did 250 hours of community service—things like cleaning bathrooms and toilets at the county fairgrounds, putting up fences, parking cars, along with random drug testing, outpatient treatment, and drug court meetings. Whenever he missed one of these meetings, he’d spend a few days in jail. What did this big star and talented musician have to say about such a humbling experience? He said, “This is the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”

He explained: “I had lost my band. I had issues with my family. I had been arrested. I was addicted to opiate pills… [I had lost] close to everything… I was so disgusted with what I had become [that when I was arrested] I was finally willing to give up, and that was kind of the key.” By humbling himself, and embracing the experience as a gift, he was eventually able to be given back the things he’d lost, but in a much healthier, satisfying, and more sustainable way.

Trey didn’t reveal in this particular interview whether he was influenced by faith or religious experience, but he has broached the topic of faith and his Catholic background at other times [https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2018/02/15/phishs-trey-anastasio-shared-acoustic-songs-and-stories-in-a-d-c-synagogue-on-valentines-day/]. And I know that, from a Christian perspective, his experience of dying to self and being reborn with a new way of being and seeing is a particularly dramatic example of the way God works—and of what Jesus taught in Luke 14: “Sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher,’ and you will be honored…For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Jesus teaches us to look at life from the bottom-up, instead of the top-down, because this is what Jesus himself did. God was not content to stay locked away in a far-off heaven—no; as the gospel says, “the Word became flesh and lived among us”. God came into the world in Jesus Christ, who always embraced the people whom society regarded as “lowest”, and by his word and deed he let them know that the Kingdom of God was with them.

Jesus not only embraced the “lowest” but he looked for ways to become “lowly” himself. Remember the story we hear in John 13. Jesus was the Teacher and Lord of the 12 disciples. They followed him around, learned from him, received power from him, looked up to him. And still, Jesus assumed the posture of a servant towards his disciples. He tied a towel around himself, poured water into a basin, and washed their feet. This was the job of a servant, not a master. Jesus taught by example and then interpreted his actions: he said “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. Very truly I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them”

Jesus taught the equality and dignity of each person, and how the hierarchies we as humans love to construct, putting some people on the top and others on the bottom, have really got it all mixed-up. When we each willingly join one another “on the bottom”, then we can each be on the same level to give one another a hand in getting up again, in the way that speaks to our own need. Footwashing is an example of this. With footwashing, Jesus is teaching (1) that I need to serve those in need with the help of God’s grace; and (2) I need to acknowledge that I am also a person in need in my own way, and that someone else who is “on the bottom” with me has the grace of God to share with me, if I will humble myself to accept it.

It’s like something else Trey Anastasio learned about living in sobriety that he shared in his interview. He said, “Is it more important to walk into a [concert] venue and say hi to the guy who works in the garage, or is it more important to be [a good guitarist]? Because being good got me into jail. It was a whole lot of nothing.”

In the Kingdom of God, the guy in the garage is just as important as the guitarist on the stage. Everybody has a piece of God’s grace to share that will lift someone else up. Everybody is in need of a piece of God’s grace that someone else can offer you.

You don’t need to be a rock star who’s dramatically lost it all. You don’t need to be a disciple who was privileged to sit at Jesus feet for three years. You don’t even need to be really religious. Because Jesus has already given everyone a way to experience rich and deep blessing in our everyday lives, by dying to self and being reborn as new people in Christ, through faith.

Through faith in Jesus, we are set free to look at things from the perspective of the bottom-up, instead of the top-down. The bottom-up. And the ritual of footwashing, which you will be invited to try in a few minutes, is one way to practice what Jesus taught, and how he lived. We can be confident that (counter-intuitive to what the world teaches) this humble posture will be life-giving—because Jesus already went to the bottom by going to the cross, in order to meet us there and bring us all up to God. Amen.