Homily for the Mass of the Lord's Supper

            Today, we honor three important events in the life of the church: the institution of the Eucharist as our Paschal mystery, the inauguration of the priesthood in imitation of Christ, and the great mandate to care for one another by washing their feet. The whole life of the church is honored by Jesus as he leaves his legacy with us to carry out the goodness he brought to the world. These gifts of God put the life of Christ very squarely in the midst of our day’s activities.

            We relive the moments of the Last Supper tonight with its beauty and heartbreak. Jesus shares a meal with his friends that emphasizes God’s steadfast presence to the Israelites and God’s choice to pass over anyone who is marked by the blood of the Lamb, but as we know, the Lamb is not spared. Jesus goes to the Garden where he is arrested and his Passion begins.

            We hear the story of the Disciples, particularly Peter and Judas, who respectively deny and betray the Lord. We know from experience how denial, rejection, and betrayal feel, and we can identify with Peter and Judas for the ways we have let loved ones down. The world is broken and the depth of our chaos surrounds us each day, but Jesus gives us a way forward, one that is beautiful, but one that we often cannot do.

            The question that we face as Jesus washes our feet is: Do we have faith in forgiveness? Perhaps it is a qualified answer because we have not wrestled with or fully understood the processes needed to forgive or to be forgiven. That is O.K. It is life’s most difficult work. Sometimes we have tried too many times and our goodness has been refused or we have let others take advantage of us. We have no control over the process and we wait for a reciprocal response to our initiatives. It is this oddly mysterious dance of relationships where we cannot find the right rhythm or the flowing steps without stepping on another’s toes and causing further harm. Sometimes we no longer desire to step onto the dance floor.

            Jesus washed the feet of Peter and Judas and went into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray for them. “I don’t know what he prayed for but I think it might go something like this: Peter, Judas, disciples: Don’t lose faith in forgiveness. Keep in mind that the mercy of God will find its way to touch your lives. You may not be able to do all I ask you, but you can turn back to me, stay in my friendship, return to your community, and learn to do this for others. You may feel awful, but nothing that you do will ever take you apart from the love I have for you. You can come back to me. I am your friend.”

            Peter turned back. After he wept bitterly and was confronted with his words and actions, he had to face a choice: live in the misery of regret or to step back into relationship with Jesus that Peter himself fractured. We know what he chose. Wounded, vulnerable, ashamed, he returned to Jesus and the community of his friends, and he found healing acceptance through forgiveness.

            Judas chose to live in the misery of regret. Judas never returned. He could not put himself in front of Jesus to receive forgiveness. He could not forgive himself, he did not even try to return to the community that loved him, and he could not place himself before his God, who he knew to be steadfast, kind, rich in mercy, and slow to anger. Judas went at it alone and never returned.

            My friends, today we are faced with those same choices. Can we allow ourselves to be forgiven? We often try to forgive others, but we need to think about being forgiven first. We need to get our feet washed and we need to feel the power of Christ’s forgiveness because the world remains broken without it. We cannot minister unless we first realized we are a loved, forgiven sinner, with an emphasis on the adjectives. Loved. Forgiven.

            The beauty of the liturgical action of washing the feet of others is to be translated into our spontaneous response to daily life’s activities in a broken, incomplete world. Our heart wants to wash the feet of others who are in pain or who suffer, but the lessen of the Gospel is not that we wash the feet of those who are closest to us, it is that we wash the feet of those who have hurt us, will deny us or ostracize us, or will betray us and work to cause us harm. We are given the mandate to love as God loves; not as we choose to love.

            Ironically, when we begin to wash the feet of many, we discover that there are too many feet to wash and it becomes overwhelming. Then, through some mysterious grace, we realize there simply are not enough feet to wash. At that moment, love of Christ is perfected.