“I do need to go to church. I need specifically religious elements in my life. I find that if I just turn all of my spiritual impulses — if I let them be solitary, as I am comfortable in being — I’m comfortable sitting reading books and trying to pray and meditating. Inevitably, if that energy is not focused outward, it becomes despairing. It turns in on itself, and I will look up in a couple of months, and I find that I’m in despair. And so I think that one of the ways that we know that our spiritual inclinations are valid is that they lead us out of ourselves.”
On Being: Krista Tippett exerpt from interview with Christian Wiman January 4, 2018
“I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. By this shall the world know that you are my disciples: That you have love for one another.”
Book of Common Prayer Maundy Thursday liturgy p. 275
Often when I am driving in my car, I listen to podcasts. I enjoy hearing people way smarter than I articulate their thoughts and ideas, mostly about God and faith. Recently I have been listening over and over again to an On Being Krista Tippett podcast in which she interviews a poet by the name of Christian Wiman. His thoughts on spirituality and religion in this interview are beautifully and poetically articulated and have helped me crystalize why I need “religion” and “Church” in my own life. I understand more deeply what “incarnate” means and recognize that being a follower of Christ is anchored in my body and my senses and experiences with the world and each other.
This week we enter into the holiest of week in our Church year. As we walk through the final days of Jesus’ life, three ancient services encapsulate the essence of who we are as Christians. These services, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil, let us experience and participate in and with our community in a deeply incarnate way. These services are not spectator events but require us to wade in and participate, to become part of the story of Jesus.
Of the three, Maundy Thursday is my favorite. I love the theology of it, I love that it is on this night we participate in the story of the Last Supper, that it is the night the Jesus instituted the Eucharist, that it is that night that we hear again the command from Jesus to love one another and to serve one another, and that it is the night that Jesus demonstrated this love when he washed the disciples’ feet and we participate in this love by washing each other’s feet. The physical act of washing each other’s feet is a powerful way to open us to the vulnerability that is necessary to receive and give love.
So now I must confess. Up until last year, I have attended this service and never actually participated in the foot washing, I have only watched. I was afraid to. I was afraid that if I put myself in such a vulnerable place in front of everyone that I might not be in control of my emotions, it would be too embarrassing. So I continued to attend, to love the theology, to watch, and then read a lot about it.
Last year was different. A week beforehand, I talked about Maundy Thursday to a group of children in chapel. When I admitted to the children that I had never had my feet washed, my dear eight year old friend Sydney immediately yelled out, “I am going to go to the service and get my feet washed and you are coming up with me.”
I answered, “If you really do go up, I will too, Sydney,” not wanting to squelch her enthusiasm and figuring the odds of having to really fulfill my promise was slim. Well, she and her mom did show up that Thursday, and luckily Sydney was wearing stockings. I said, “Oh well, you won’t be able to do the foot washing with tights on!” I thought I was in the clear for another year, but as we were all processing down the hallway towards the church for the foot washing, the door to the restroom behind me burst open and out swaggered Sydney, waving her stockings, smiling and yelling to me, “OK, now we are getting our feet washed.” I was cornered with no way out.
So I went up when it was time and what followed was not what I had expected. For me, it was definitely a feeling of vulnerability and discomfort, but also intertwined were feelings of love and kindness received from others. We were all laughing together amongst the awkwardness. I felt the love that I had been reading about, I saw it in Sydney’s giggles, in the kind welcome of our host Marian and in Alicia’s, Sydney’s mom, smile. After feeling that love and connection, I felt like sharing it. I believe we all felt this love that night, it was God’s love, God’s incarnate love. I would never have gotten this from reading or watching. Thank you Sydney.
I plan on participating again this year! Please join me and we can look forward to what God is awakening in us together.
May you feel the presence of God’s love in these holy days. Love,
