1 Maundy Thursday B 2012; St. John 13:1-17, 31b-35 April 5, 2012 Cross and Crown Lutheran Church Trust Me About ten years ago, and about this time of year, I went to Targu-Neamt Romania. I bet you've never heard of the place. I hadn't either until my friend Carmen mentioned it. Carmen and I met at the University of KY. She was working towards her Masters in Social Work and I was still playing with bacteria for a living. Carmen had come to UK from Romania and was going to change the world or at least her corner of it, and I believed her. She just has one of those personalities. Anyway, she was also doing some field work for UNICEF and that's when I first heard of the town called Targu-Neamt. It was her hometown and one day she asked if I wanted to see it. So, being a little crazy myself I said sure, why not? I bet Romania is lovely in March. By the way, it isn't. The main reason she asked me if I would go with her is that she needed a token American and I would fit the bill nicely - tall, fair skinned and blue eyes. To a Romanian I was an American. By now you might be wondering, why would Carmen need a token American
2 in her own country? Well, as it turns out, Romania at least back then I have no idea what it's like now was a very socially rigid country and Carmen in order to do her field work for UNICEF needed to speak to some relatively important local people. The problem was, Carmen was a nobody in their eyes. They wouldn't even give her the time of day. An American however, this was a big deal. If Carmen could produce an American then she must be a big deal. I'm not joking this is how crazy this plan was and because I believed in the work she was doing I agreed to play along. The bizarre thing was - it worked. I didn't even have to open my mouth, nor did we have to make up some kind of cover story for me. I was a scientist from America and that was OK with them. Doors opened for Carmen and she was able to get the information she needed so that UNICEF could help the children get the educational resources they needed. So for a couple of weeks I played the "important American." Unfortunately bacteria don't really care whether you are important or not because by the third or fourth week - I don't really remember when, I started to get ill.
3 Not sort of queasy ill, but knock you down drag you out get me to a hospital - oh wait we're in Romania kind of ill. It began with diarrhea and then shifted over into bleeding. Don't worry I'll spare you the details, let s just say I was not a happy camper, and to put it in perspective, ten years ago I weighed about ten pounds less than I do now, and in just a week my weight had dropped by another ten pounds. Clearly, I had to go home and get some medical attention - or at least get myself to a Western country like Germany or Holland although heck I would ve been happy to make it to Poland at that point. There was no way I was staying in Romania especially after I'd given the medical students at the medical school a lecture on HIV/AIDS You see under Nicolae Ceauşescu s reign, he was the dictator of Romania, HIV/AIDS did not exist in Romania. Yeah right. I wanted to get the West fast. So Carmen put me on the express train from the city of Iasi to Bucharest where I could catch a plane to Amsterdam. In Bucharest,
4 a woman from the UN, a friend of Carmen s would meet me and help me find a flight. Obviously I was nervous. I didn't know this woman from Eve. How would I recognize her? Carmen laughed at me. She said, oh you'll be recognizable. My friend will find you. Carmen was right of course. I was the only blond haired, blue eyes, 5 foot nine inch woman on the entire platform who looked like death warmed over. Very quickly Carmen s friend found me and brought me to her apartment where her family lived. She could see that I was quite ill and she also thought I might be better off getting to Amsterdam than dealing with the local doctors; unfortunately my flight would not take off until the next evening. By this point I can't even tell you how much fluids and blood I'd lost but it was clear I was getting very weak. Carmen's friend sent her son out late that night to find me some medicineanything that might slow the bugs down until I got to Amsterdam. He returned about an hour later with a paper sack. She took the bag from him and seemed to be happy with what he'd picked up. She came over to me and handed me a packet of powder and a glass of water
5 and said in broken English that this would make me feel better. Frankly at that point I was thinking that only death might make me feel better. I looked at the packet and froze. It was in Russian. Everything on the packet was written in Russian. I don't read Russian. The only thing I could figure out looking at the packet was that this stuff was called "smecta" That's it. "Smecta" are you kidding me? I asked her what it was. She couldn't tell me. She just said it was medicine. Oh great I'm thinking, Russian medicine. What could possibly go wrong? Keep in mind, the Berlin wall had only recently fallen. We were not exactly cozy with the Russians and here I was sicker than a dog, thousands of miles from home, no flight until tomorrow, and all I have is the word of someone I've only met that afternoon that this Russian white powder wouldn t actually kill me. Even as sick as I was I stared at that powder for a good long time. Could I accept this gift that Carmen's friend was giving me? And even more, could I trust that her word was true? Keep in mind, being an American wasn't always
6 a good thing in Romania in those days. Before I'd gotten sick, I'd been threatened on more than one occasion while there; at one point I d even been strip searched by soldiers at the airport because I was an American - and so clearly was a spy. And now I had a glass of water in one hand, and a packet full of smecta in the other hand. Do I trust or not? Heck do I even accept her gift? I had much rather have had something I could ve read for Pete s sake. It was so hard to feel so out of control. In tonight's gospel, Peter is faced with a very similar trust dilemma although in true Peter fashion, I'm not so sure he realized it at the time. He along with the other disciples have just been stunned, absolutely stunned by Jesus behavior. Like a household slave, Jesus has just stooped down to do the task that no self-respecting Jewish man no less a teacher would ever do in public. He s tied an apron around his waist, filled a basin of water and got down on his hands and feet to wash the scum and smell
7 from the feet of other men. And as we just heard, Peter, the one who I think nearly always stands-in for us all, is shocked and more than a little put off as soon as he realizes what is going on. No, he says, I can t go along with this. How can I accept this gift from you, my teacher? It s not right! I won t stand, I mean, sit for this! But Jesus tells him, look, if you don t accept this simple gesture from me, you won t have me at all. Hearing this, Peter who is even more shocked by the possibility of somehow losing Jesus -- and of course he has no idea that the crucifixion is right around the corner -- is then compelled to try and take control of the situation. Whoa, no Jesus, I didn t mean it that way. Wash all of me, wash-wash-wash and then wash me some more so that I m good and yours. I love Peter- in for a penny, in for a pound. I m half surprised that he didn t tear his clothes off at that point. Jesus however cools Peter s jets and says Slow down Peter, what I m doing for you for now is enough. Basically, Peter, you are going to have to trust me on this one.
8 You don t need to be in control. I know you don t understand it. I know that I might as well be speaking in Russian to you, but it will be OK, trust me and stop trying to do things your way, because remember I love you. So please, accept my gift and even more than that trust my gift for now for greater things are coming. Take this moment for what it is the sign of my love. Tonight, this night, we have been brought together not just to remember this very important meal, but because that sign is for us as well. As sin-sick as we are, Jesus has set a place for each of us here at this table and now it is our turn to be served by Jesus, our Lord. Kind of a disturbing thought, isn t it? Jesus -- the One through whom all things are made is the one who kneels before us now. That s part of the mystery of tonight. Jesus is holding out his hand to you and me with our dirty feet and our trust issues. And he s offering us this simple gift of love even if we don t always understand what he puts before us. Even if we can t always read the writing and recognize right away what s going on. Take for example tonight.
9 Look around, you may have thought you came tonight because we scheduled this service but in truth it was Jesus who brought you and me here together tonight in this time to this place, to this meal. And he gathered us, because just like for his first disciples, he s worried about our well being and our lives together -- even though his next journey will be to the cross, amazing, absolutely amazing. That s an amazing gift. That s some truly amazing medicine. May it be that as we draw closer to the Cross in the next few days that all of us, trust the gift that Jesus is holding out to us by bringing us together from different backgrounds and different places in our lives to be at the foot of his cross. Oh and by the way, about my story. Yes, I did take the smecta. It tasted awful. When I finally got back to the states, my doctor told me doing so probably saved my life; Hmm a moment of trust saved my life. Go figure. Amen.