UCC Church of Charlotte

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Do You Know What I Have Done to You?
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Grace and Peace to you this evening.  Grace and Peace.
    
Jesus washes his disciples’ feet.  This is the job of the servant of
the host.  When guests came into your house, you would have your
servants wash their feet, or at the very least have some water and a
towel ready for them.  It was a sign of hospitality, a gesture of
welcome, a way of helping those who had walked to your house start to
rest.
    
Our modern practice of taking someone’s coat for them is close.  The
host becomes the servant of the guest.

Jesus asks Peter and the disciples if they know what he has done to
them.  The guest of honor has taken the role of host.  The teacher and
master has taken the form of the servant and washed their feet.

Peter in his usual braggadocio either wants to wash Jesus’ feet (we
all know people who try to be the teacher’s pet), or have Jesus wash
all of him (to be more disciple than the rest of the disciples).
Peter has this sort of all or nothing way about himself.

But Jesus asks them if they know what he has done to them?

Not for them.  To them.

Jesus has changed them.  More than simply meeting their needs or doing
what they want done for them, he has made them into something new.

Do you know what I have done to you?  He is asking us the same
question.  And we have the whole of the Gospels to help us answer.

I have washed you.

You can stand and not be ashamed.

I have welcomed you.

No one can exclude you from God’s love.

I have fed you.

You need never fear not having enough.

I have clothed you.

Not with garments that fray and unravel and fade and shrink, but with
my blessings that never wear out.

I have heard you.

Your tears and your laughter are heard by the God who wipes away all
tears and turns our mourning into dancing, and our weeping into shouts
of joy.

I have lifted you up.

In healing and in hope and at the last with a resurrection.
    
I have given you a new name.

Child of God; brother and sister to Christ and to one another; bearer
of the Holy Spirit; custodian of the mysteries of the grace of God;
    
I have taken your burdens.

Worldly concerns of acquisition and position, constant fear of
security, these I will lift from you as you learn to trust in the
goodness of God, no matter what you face.
    
I have given you tasks that are out of this world:

Love your neighbor as I love you; be my hands, my feet, my light, my
salt in the world.  Forgive and be forgiven and ask forgiveness.  Take
what I give you and give it away.  Hope in all things, trust through
all things, love in all things.
    
I have called you to a new purpose.

Live for God and let God live through you.
    
I have given you rest.

I call you to Sabbath when the world and your own sense of importance
cry out “keep going.”
    
I have let you in on a secret.

That the love of God is small enough to sneak into the tiniest of
openings in the hardest of hearts; deep enough to hold all of our
hopes and fears of all the years; more powerful than the empires of
this world; large enough for the universe and personal enough for each
and every person to claim it for himself or herself.
    
Jesus asks, “Do you know what I have done to you?”
    
I have served you, so that you who are called by my name should serve
one another.

And if we listen carefully, we will hear that he isn’t done with us yet.
    
Thanks be to God.  Amen.