An Example of Humility

I have recently come across a poem by Christina Rossetti that speaks to Maundy Thursday. The poem is dense. But listen. The reading from Isaiah which was appointed for our worship yesterday, the Wednesday in Holy Week, reminded us of the importance in the life of the people of God of divinely inspired listening… listening guided by God’s inspiration. Listen…

The poem is entitled St. Peter.

It seems probably that it takes divine inspiration just to discern the sense of the poem, much less to find God’s voice for us within it. I would not pretend to explicate it to you line by line, but I find its images powerful and its commentary enlightening. It gives flesh and voice to the place where we are right now this Maundy Thursday.

John’s gospel is the only one to recount this story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. The opportunity, symbolically, to participate in a similar experience awaits us. What is its meaning?

Raymond Brown is probably one of, if not the, best known scholars of our day of what is called the Johanine literature of the Bible. In a commentary on John’s Gospel, Brown writes: "Prima facie it would seem that there could be no difficulty about the meaning of the scene with which John opens the account of the Last Supper. Verses 14-17 state explicitly that what Jesus did in washing the feet of his disciples was an example of self-sacrificing humility to be imitated by them." Jesus’ example of self-sacrificing humility to be imitated by Jesus’ followers. Jesus tells us what to do and why to do it. I wonder why so few Christians follow Jesus’ instructions? A vast minority of Christian communities reenact the foot washing once a year. Jesus’ instructions are so clear.

Yet Rossetti’s much less clear poem helps me more (than Jesus or Father Brown) to enter into this particular experience. It is St. Peter whom I much more often imitate in my own life… more often than I imitate Jesus. Peter is reluctant for the Lord to wash his feet. His voice is the first to speak in Rosetti’s poem (Lord, dost thou wash my feet?). And then the poet's own voice emerges, speaking of her own heart, cold and closed to the Lord’s touch. The image is of she and the Lord meeting there at her heart, in her heart, a heart more rugged than a rock, bolted and barred, unmeet to feel the Lord’s soft touch. Owls and satyrs dwell in her heart’s darkness, but it remains closed to the Lord’s touch.

Peter’s reluctance to be washed by Jesus stems, it seems, from his offense that Jesus, whom Peter sees as his teacher and master, should stoop to the role of servant. A very familiar, but odd form of snobbishness… that it is so important to us that the people whom we place on pedestals stay on those pedestals. But Jesus teaches that the role of a servant is a noble one. Jesus, by his own act of self-sacrificing humility, as Father Brown states, becomes an example to us to be servants to one another.  We are to imitate Jesus' humility.

Yet Rossetti’s poem brings out what might be another facet of Peter’s reluctance to have his feet washed… a facet that I know lies within me and perhaps some of you as well. If this passage is a call to us to take on humility, I wonder who is the more powerful example, Jesus or Peter? I wonder which takes more humility—to be a servant or to be served. Peter is an example of the humility required to be served.  And it takes a great deal of humility and openness to be served. That is a sort of humility I think we often find it very difficult to put on.

To be served we must put aside the rugged coldness of our hearts, hearts that are indifferent to Jesus’ touch. We must put aside the bolts and bars we have erected to keep one another and Jesus from seeing the dirtiness of our feet, the brokenness of our hearts, the imperfections of our soul. We must put aside our pride, the pride that prevents us from acknowledging our need for Jesus’ service. It takes humility to look to Jesus to guide and lead us as teacher and prophet, yes, but I think it takes even more humility to acknowledge how desperately we need Jesus to serve us. It is a great act of self-sacrificing humility to accept Jesus’ service.

Christians who do participate in ritual foot washing often speak of how it brings them closer to one another, enriching and strengthening the connections of the Christian community. Thank God if and when that happens. But the deeper hope is that we may be brought closer to Jesus, our Lord. In John’s Gospel, this scene precedes the Last Supper. It is preparation for Communion. Holy Communion. Only after we have humbly sacrificed our selves—sacrificed our pride, our indifference and personal preoccupations, sacrificed our coldness and pried open the dark recesses of our souls—only after we have opened ourselves to Jesus’ service can we truly, fully, intimately share communion with our Lord at his table. That is his aching desire.

And so the Lord says to Christina Rossetti and to us:

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