The first thing to reach for is … the bowl and towel.
Today’s story begins at a dinner party. The Master is there with some of the more snooty, well-to-do, entitled folk. It’s all going swimmingly well with the swilling of expensive wine and canapés that are more designed to be a work of art than a source of nutrition.
Somehow a ‘working girl’ slips the security net and is at The Master’s feet, weeping. To inflame the sense of indignation and inappropriateness, she kisses his feet and wipes them with her hair. If Jesus only knew what she did for a living…
Fast forward a couple of years and The Master is keeping the Passover with bread and wine and herbs and lamb. Nonchalantly he picks up the bowl and towel and washes his disciple's feet. This is a grungy job, always done by one of the underlings.
When the last foot has been washed and the silence of be-puzzlement has descended upon Jesus’ buddies he will ask them a piercing question. “Do you understand what I have done? This is how you are to behave towards one another.” Whenever you want to know how to treat another, instinctively reach for the bowl and towel. Pick them up and do not put them down. Remember the lass who wiped the feet of the elite? This is to be your modus operandi. Your way of being, your way of living.
While this attitude is true for all people, it is something the ordained clergy should lead with… if that makes sense. Never put down the bowl and towel. They are the foundation of all ministry.
These are the tools of trade that are indispensable and that we must come to love and use more than anything else. The first thing we reach for. It is who we are.
There in the earth of my hands
I saw life itself,
life like silent breath
emerging from the sands of death,
life like a stark red flower
crying amid the white limestone fields,
life like a single blue wren
skating across black granite boulders,
life so precious
the pain of holding it was unbearable.
In that child I saw
the flesh of every child,
warm flesh that bleeds, enfolds,
and quivers at the hope
of being man or woman,
yet true to that same flesh
as sun and wind and Outback dust
toughen skin and soul alike.
This child was my flesh,
my flower, my son,
mine.
I was ready to defy God
and make that child mine
forever mine
against all thieves
who sought to possess him.
Later, in the house of God,
I gave my child back to God
and with my flesh I gave
two birds to celebrate the day,
two birds to fly,
two birds to die
and redeem my child for life.