Wash More Feet
I share today via video out of an abundance of caution and a respect for those in our community who are immunocompromised. I tested positive for COVID last Monday. By MCPS protocol, I was free to return to public life on Saturday. But I think it best for our community if I don’t breathe on or handle communion elements, if I don’t eat with you, and I know you can hear me better without a mask…so I’ve prerecorded this message. I am grateful to John and Bonnie Campbell for their service today as communion celebrants.
Will you pray with me as we prepare our hearts to be transformed today by worship?
I have a colleague and mentor, Rev. Ron Foster, who I admire as the master of the three-word mission statement. For many years, he was the senior pastor at Bethesda UMC, and while there, they focused their missional efforts around the simple charge, “wash more feet,” which they still use today.
When I think of our own website URL, “faith works here” I wonder if leadership at that time was hanging out in circles with Ron. Currently, at Severna Park where he serves, their tag line is love, serve, follow. Maybe that gives you some insight about my affection for our tagline: belong, become, believe, be love. (Just leave it to me to need more words and syllables.)
But wash more feet lands for me as a powerful simplification of the scripture passage you’ve heard today. In this passage, Jesus teaches his closest followers that he came to serve and that if they want to lead in the way Jesus has led, they must be prepared to serve the way he serves as well.
I think it is fair to say that the disciples did not fully understand what Jesus was doing yet in the big picture. They didn’t understand that his intention wasn’t market share or world domination by force or by will, but rather his work and impact was to pour out love and service alongside powerful teaching as an example of God’s own pouring out of love for all while demonstrating who God is.
Today, we continue our series on the work of the Spirit and gifts, exploring the spiritual gift of service as highlighted in Romans 12:
We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve…
That makes it sound so simple. If you have the gift, do it.
If service (or servanthood) is a spiritual gift, it dawned on me this week that this means not everyone has this gift. Even as scriptures like today’s passage set up an expectation of humble service as a requirement of discipleship and leadership, there is still a unique gifting that some people have to serve. And that means others do not have this gift.
The United Methodist Church’s spiritual gifts website describes the gift of servanthood this way:
Servanthood is the gift of doing for others, sometimes to the exclusion of meeting personal needs. Servants look for ways to do for others both within and beyond the congregation and community. Servants do not choose to serve, but serve from a sense of identity and call. Gifted servants never feel put-upon or taken advantage of, but see each opportunity to do for others as a way to be true to self.
So let me say it again to be clear - not everyone has this gift. It is unique. It is a GIFT. Granted by the Holy Spirit. And in the spirit of full transparency, this is not a gift on my top 6 list. I see that in myself.
And I know some of you here at Faith have this gift of service in abundance!
Some of you don’t need to know what the ask is before you say yes.
Some of you never question why someone else isn’t putting in the same effort you are.
Some of you don’t need anyone to notice the ways you humbly serve.
It’s really amazing.
And kind of rare. Because it is a gift.
So, thinking back on the scripture we read, service is a particular gift that seems really important to our journey, and we don’t all have the gift even as we are called to serve others.
That got me thinking about the story of Mary and Martha in Luke’s gospel. If we take seriously the idea that servanthood is a gift that not everyone has in equal measure, and we take seriously the description that folks who have the gift of service don’t feel “put upon” or taken advantage of, then there is some relevant and helpful teaching about gifts in that particular gospel story.
When Martha comes to Jesus to say, “do you not care that my sister (Mary) has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me,” Jesus redirects Martha – Martha, you are distracted by the wrong things. You might actually learn something from Mary here who is listening to her heart and not wallowing in resentment.
There is a kind of grace in Jesus’ response that allows us to lay aside those things that aren’t our gifting in favor of paying attention to what we CAN do or what we are actually gifted for.
It feels to me as if Jesus is offering some grace, acknowledging that we don’t all have all the gifts and that we don’t have to always be doing what we are not gifted to do.
And that takes me back to something I believe is vitally important to the church – a piece of our work is to support other’s gifts! How do we use the gift of discernment or wisdom to identify those who are gifted servants? How do we use the gift of encouragement to support and recognize those who are gifted servants? How do we use the gift of teaching to help folks know and understand their giftedness? How do we use the gift of giving or generosity to fuel someone’s inclination to serve with all of their heart and soul? There is work that we are compelled by our gifts to do even if we aren’t gifted with servanthood in particular.
Of course, this “grace” offered by Jesus for gifts we don’t necessarily have doesn’t eliminate the call to put ourselves in a position of servanthood as described in John’s 13th chapter.
That kind of intentional choice of servanthood is a discipline – a practice that helps us to be loyal and obedient to God. Practicing servanthood even when it doesn’t come naturally helps us to identify with, understand differently, and follow Jesus more closely.
Doing something that doesn’t necessarily come easily to us, something that exposes us to tasks and people and problems that we wouldn’t naturally be exposed to – all of that changes our hearts over time. I think that is a key piece of what Jesus is impressing upon his disciples in that upper room as he shockingly kneels at their feet to wash away the grit and grime of ancient Palestine.
Today, we gather at God’s table where we take Jesus into our bodies and spirit as nourishment and encouragement, as common food for the journey in spite of our different paths, our different gifts and of our different calls to serve.
My deep prayer as you receive is that you will recognize those serving you in this moment and see that service as an example we are called to even when it is not our gift. My prayer is that you will be listening for the Spirit’s guidance for how YOUR gifts might support those that serve.
As we continue to grow our Spirit-blessed garden, would you respond to this prompt on your beautiful flower or butterfly cut out?
What one small act will you perform this week, practicing the discipline or gift of service, to brighten someone’s life?
May we find ways to lean into our gifts, whatever they are, to share God’s love and light.
May it be so.
Amen.
Transition to hymn #580, Lead On King Eternal
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