“Jesus With a Towel” - John 13:1-17
April 5, 2007 (Maundy Thursday)
Dr. Michael C. Yarbrough

          Haiti is the only place in this hemisphere that you can visit to get a sense of Africa – without actually going to Africa.  Haiti looks different, smells different, feels different, and even tastes different.

          Some of the small Protestant churches of Haiti remind me of Bread of Life – but in some ways, they are very different.  Usually, the pastor (nearly always a man) is the founding pastor of the congregation.  Although (just like nearly every congregation everywhere) the women of the church are its backbone and muscle, Haitian churches are very patriarchal.  The men make the decisions.  The men do the teaching and the preaching.  The men are the ministers.

          Through the work of the seminary we have established in Port au Prince, that situation is slowly beginning to change.  A few women are taking the seminary classes, and they are encountering some of our own ordained women like Ruth Wallace, Sandra Gourdet, and Karen Yount.  And the Haitians are beginning to call them “Pastor.”  But still, the Haitian church is, for the most part, traditional and patriarchal.

          Near the end of that first trip, our group drove out of Port au Prince, and into the mountains.  The people of a remote village, high in the mountains, had been working on a dirt road for a year to make our visit to them possible.  We drove as far as we could until the road was nothing more than a footpath.  We got out of our vehicles, put packs loaded with supplies for the village on our backs, and continued the difficult journey into the high country.

          On top of the mountain we found the village of Belle Fountain.  We were the second group of white visitors that had ever come to them in the long memory of the people.  We walked to the church, as Charlie Wallace told us about the village.  Its social structure was similar to that of an African village.  Its “chief” was the pastor of the church.  He was the man with the most status and power and respect in the church and in the village.  Being pastor of the church was dynastic – passed down over the generations from father to son.

          We entered the church – a single room with no electricity – and sat down on the uneven wooden benches while someone went to find the minister.  That was a puzzling moment because the whole village knew we were coming and many had watched our slow progress up the mountain from above.  Sweat soaked our clothes as we sat and waited expectantly.

          At last, the pastor and the church elders entered the room.  One of the elders stepped forward holding a basin of water.  The pastor held a bar of soap and a towel.  That tall but humble pastor knelt in his Sunday suit in front of each of us.  As the elder held the basin, the pastor took our hands and gently washed them and dried them with the towel.  Then, he moved to the next.

          There was a powerful silence in the church.  The look on his church members’ faces let us know that they had never seen such an act of humility from their pastor, and didn’t know what to think.  Our own missionaries had never seen this done by any Haitian pastor before.  I was sitting next to Charlie Wallace as the pastor continued to wash the hands of our group.  We turned and looked at each other.  Charlie whispered to me.  “You know what we are seeing don’t you?”  I nodded and said, “Yes.  Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.”

          In a culture and a church where men are the head and women are the hands, a pastor showed them what a servant-leader is.  We had come to Belle Fountain to be the missionaries, the givers, the ministers, but one we came to serve humbled himself in front of his whole church to serve us.

          Tonight, we remember the last evening of Jesus’ life.  When Jesus washed the feet of his own disciples, he was the chief – the headman – who, in humility became the servant.  His action reminds us that God calls the greatest among us to become the servant – the first among to become the last.  God asks us to elevate and value the mundane.  God commands us to embrace what our culture calls the trivial.  God invites us to go about the ordinary work and routine actions that meet the needs of others – and God transforms them into witnesses of Christian love.

          God takes the standing and giving up of your seat – or the hammering of nails into a Habitat for Humanity house – or the serving of a meal at Micah Ministry or Lazarus’ Table – or the helping of someone load their groceries into a car – or the holding a door open for another – or the making of a phone call as a gesture of concern – or the bringing someone a drink of water – and makes each of them something extraordinary – something holy.

          Jesus once said, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant … even as the Son of man came not be served but to serve.” (Matthew 20:25-28)  This is the very teaching he then demonstrated as the disciples gathered in the upper room for Passover.  Service to others brings us closer to God because when we are servants, we are walking in Jesus’ shoes, mirroring the work and the humility of our Lord.

          The gospel of John makes it sound like Jesus only did the foot washing one time.  Jesus with a towel was a teaching model that shocked itself into the memory of the disciples.  At the Passover feast, in the upper room where he instituted the Lord’s Supper, Jesus became the servant and it embarrassed everybody.  The Master became the servant.  To follow Jesus is to be the servant.  And it is one way to God.

          I was not in the upper room when Jesus took a towel, knelt down, and washed the feet of the disciples.  But I went to a tiny village called Belle Fountain on a Haitian mountaintop.  Quite truthfully, in the heat, and the fatigue and the darkness, I wasn’t really thinking about meeting Jesus there.  But the Master of the people knelt before me, gently took my hands and slowly washed them with soapy water, and then dried them with a damp towel.  I looked into his eyes, and I saw Jesus there.  And suddenly, I remembered what kind of humble, obedient, and loving leader and teacher Jesus was.  I hope I can do his example justice in my own life.

          Let us pray:

          O God of mercy and God of love, the life of your Son, Jesus, showed us how big your heart is.  Teach us how to love Jesus.  Teach us how to love others the way Jesus does.  And as we serve those in need, may we serve with humility as Jesus did.  In the suffering servant leader’s name we pray.

Amen.