Deacons Ordination 6 February 2016, St Paul s Cathedral, Melbourne

Transcription

1 Deacons Ordination 6 February 2016, St Paul s Cathedral, Melbourne Sermon by the Right Revd Genieve Blackwell, Bishop of the Marmingatha Area of Episcopal care in the Diocese of Melbourne John Today, Colleen, Paul, Samuel, Michael, Ruth, Mark, Louise, Amanda, Breeana, Elizabeth, Conrad, John, Matthew, Benjamin, Anthony and Duku are being made deacon in the church of God. You are here together with many of the people who have been part of your lives, part of your journey to this point, and those who will be part of your future vocation your family, friends and brothers and sisters in Christ here to express their support. Even if they don't fully understand the call you are responding to. It has been a privilege to lead your retreat leading up to this service: to reflect together with you on what Jesus said to his disciples in the Upper Room in the light of the promises you are about to make today. This morning s gospel is an opportunity to go back to where the evening began. Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It is not surprising that this passage is one of the suggested passages listed in the ordinal for ordination of deacons. As deacons you are to be ambassadors of Christ, (representing Jesus Christ in the world) serving God as you serve others in Jesus name.

2 The significance of the footwashing story can really pass us over as twenty first century Australian readers if we are not aware of the cultural differences. The Jews in Jesus time didn t use tables and chairs. The food was served on a very low table, like a coffee table. Everyone reclined around the table on couches. Their head resting on an elbow was closest to the table. Their feet were stuck out behind them away from the food. The feet needed to be. They were pretty revolting. It was even better if feet could be washed before the meal started. And this is the important point. Footwashing was a task normally reserved for the lowliest of menial servants. And no wonder feet were filthy from walking on dirt roads in open sandals or bare feet. We know how bad our feet can get from being in shoes all day! Feet then would have been much worse. Friends did not wash one another s feet except very rarely and as a mark of great love. It was really a job for servants or slaves and preferably non-jewish slaves at that. John, the writer of the gospel, could take that cultural information as read. But before he describes what Jesus does, John still wants to make sure first that we know the full significance of when it is happening and who is doing it. He wants to make sure we've got that clear in our heads. It is the time of the Passover. One of the big feasts on the religious calendar. Like our Christmas or Easter. It was when Jews celebrated how God saved them in the past. V 1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father

3 The hour refers to Jesus death. Jesus washes his disciples feet just before he is to die for them. V 2 tells us the devil and Judas Iscariot are already in conspiracy together. And yet Jesus will wash the feet of Judas as well as all the others. V 3 reminds us who Jesus is. To make sure we are clear it is not just anyone doing it. To make sure we are clear Jesus knew he wasn t just anyone doing it. Jesus washes his disciples feet knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God. It is Jesus, God s Son, washing the feet. He does it full well knowing the power and the status he has. Later Jesus will say to his disciples, If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. (John 13:14-15) But the first message of the footwashing story is it is an interpretation of the death of Jesus. When the Lord gets up from the table, puts on the loincloth of a slave, kneels at the feet of his disciples, he does it first and foremost to teach his disciples the meaning of his death. It is significant that, after he has finished washing their feet, he sits down with them again at the table and says, I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

4 I don t want to forget about that especially today as we come to ordain these women and men to the diaconate, called to serve God as they serve in others in the name of Christ. But an example to follow is the secondary, not the primary meaning of his action. The primary meaning is that the Son of God is stooping down from his heavenly throne to wash us clean from our transgressions. The primary meaning is that the Lord of the Universe is preparing to undergo utmost humiliation in order to purify us from the contamination of sin. The primary meaning is that the Eternal Word which was in the beginning with God has become flesh, not only to dwell among us, full of grace and truth (John 1:14), but also to love us and to serve us to the outermost limit, even to death on the Cross. Now we come to the conversation Jesus has with Peter. Peter always the first one to speak and the first one to regret it. He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand. (vv 6-7) We can see from this exchange that there is a lot more to the footwashing than Jesus just telling them to go and do likewise. If that was all he was doing, his disciples wouldn t have any trouble understanding it. The primary meaning of the action, however its relation to Jesus self-offering

5 will not become clear until after his death and Resurrection. So Peter, misunderstanding completely as usual, says, You shall never wash my feet. This is a very strong negation. Peter vehemently refuses the service of the Lord, just as you and I would probably do. Peter is not protesting because he is just wishing he had thought of it first. He s not feeling bad because he s been too lazy to offer to do it himself. He is protesting because what Jesus is doing is unthinkable. The disciples could not imagine washing one another s feet. Let alone Jesus, their master and teacher, washing theirs. Peter is not refusing because he is ashamed. He is refusing because his whole sense of what is the done thing is shattered. But Jesus answers him, If I do not wash you, you have no part in me. Here the symbolic significance of the action becomes more apparent. We are taken back to John the Baptist s name for Jesus: The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Peter, quickly realising he has made a mistake, says, Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head! (Peter never says anything by halves. He wants to build three booths on the Mount of Transfiguration; he says he would die before he would deny Jesus and then denies him three times; he wants to be washed all over even though he doesn t know what the washing is for.) Jesus says to Peter, He who has bathed [been cleansed by me] does not need to wash... he is clean all over.

6 So, brothers and sisters, ordinands in particular, before we start talking about the service we owe to one another, before you start talking about the service you want to give to the church, we need to enter more deeply into the meaning of the service that Jesus renders to us. The footwashing is an acted parable of the humiliation of the Son of God. The cleansing of the feet represents the cleansing by blood and water to come on Good Friday. Jesus glory is shown in his humiliation. The laying down of his garments foreshadows the laying down of his life. Washing another s feet was shameful. Being crucified was more shameful. It was dying the death of a criminal. In both, the revered and exalted Messiah takes on the role of the despised servant for the good of others. Remember, this is the very last action of Jesus toward his disciples in his earthly life. John says it is the demonstration that he loved them to the end (v 1) to the end of his earthly strength, to the end of his earthly capacity, to the end of his earthly life. But far more, to the end of the world, to the outermost boundaries of time, and beyond his own Second Coming into the time that is beyond time, he loves us to the end. Today, as we are gather around the Lord s table, just as the disciples were on that last night, here before us is the most precious of all opportunities: we are invited to participate in what Jesus has done for us. We can be stubborn, like Peter before he understood nobody s going to wash me, I don t want my leader down on his knees, if there s going to be any washing it s going to be on my terms. Or we can humbly receive the Lord into our hearts at Communion as he has humbly given himself for us.

7 Remembering how the Lord loved us to the end, loved us so much that he took our sin upon himself. My prayer for you about to be made deacon in the church if God is that you will open your hearts to his love for you, his service to you, his purifying grace so feely offered and his transforming power. Jesus entered the darkness in our place, and you will discover how that makes you more willing to enter other people s darkness, to do the unthinkable if necessary, not the done thing, to serve them as Jesus has taken the form of a servant the form of a slave to free us and purify us to follow his example. For most of you this ordination will be closely followed by another priesting. Louise is being ordained to the distinctive diaconate. But none of you, none of us in ordained ministry, stop being a deacon: what it means to be an ambassador of Christ, serving God as you serve others in Jesus name.