Radical Inclusive Hospitality - Maundy Thursday 2024

When my sister messages that she’s on her way to our home, I’ll likely respond with something about putting the jug on to boil.  These days in our society perhaps the most common act of hospitality is offering one’s visitor a hot drink. Back in 1st century Palestine it would be “come in, come in - let me get you some water for those feet”. Most commonly the water would be for the visitors to wash their own feet, occasionally perhaps a slave might do it. But not the host, never the host. This action of Jesus is an act of hospitality - but not just any kind of hospitality it is an act of radical hospitality - going far above and beyond.  An act whereby His disciples are welcomed into His presence, into the home which Jesus shares with His Father. It was a place of love - this is made clear by that verse we didn’t read tonight which, in the King James, version speaks of the Beloved disciple “leaning on Jesus’ bosom” The Message version puts it like this “One of the disciples, the one Jesus loved dearly, was reclining against him, his head on his shoulder.” such a picture of love and intimacy - this was what they were being welcomed into. 

Our lectionary misses out some other key verses and perhaps when you leave here you might like to go home and read John 13 in its entirety.  Jesus washed all their feet - he washed the feet of His betrayer and His denier - not just the “nice disciples”. 

So this was a highly inclusive act of radical hospitality. 

Our epistle reading today spoke of the institution of the Lord’s supper, the OT reading of the institution of the Jewish Passover.  John of course does things differently - we can see there is a shared meal but it is there almost as background. For the other gospel writers it is the Eucharist that constitutes us as the body of Christ, for John - it is this act of Jesus shortly before his betrayal, arrest and execution that is the critical act, the thing which constitutes us as church. 

John’s gospel is written in a very different style to the other gospels, the ones we call the Synoptics. It is highly stylised. Some of the commentators break up the book into two main parts, the book of signs and the book of glory and for them this chapter is the beginning of the book of glory.  In the book of signs there are said to be seven signs each of which is followed by a discourse - a time of teaching. The signs include making water into wine at the wedding in Cana, various healings, the feeding of the 5000 and the final of these signs is the raising of Lazarus. The teaching associated with these signs is clearly connected with them, Following the feeding of the multitude Jesus says “I am the bread of life”, following the raising of Lazarus Jesus says “ I am the resurrection and the life”. 

But what if the raising of Lazarus wasn’t the last sign - what if we understood this act of radical inclusive hospitality as the next great sign that Jesus was showing us. What does that mean for the story and teaching which follows. 

 The final two of the seven great I am sayings of Jesus are found in the next two chapters “I am the way, the truth and the life” in cht 14 and “I am the true vine” in chapter 15. What does it mean to read those sayings and the teaching around them in light of Jesus’ sign of radical inclusive hospitality? The final two chapters of this section, before the story of the passion begins, are about the promise of and the work of the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ great high-priestly prayer for his disciples then and for his disciples now.  Again - what difference does Jesus’ sign of radical inclusive hospitality make to how we  hear these chapters? 

In the synoptic gospels we read the story of the institution of the Lord’s Supper where Jesus takes and blesses and breaks and shares. In John’s gospel we have the barest mention of a meal - in the beginning he says “during supper” and later in those missed verses we see Jesus dipping and sharing bread with Judas. This shared meal was first called a Love Feast by those early Christians. Perhaps further details were unnecessary for John - perhaps he was trying to help us to see that the Love Feast, the Lord’s Supper, the Communion, the Eucharist is a feast characterised by this sign Jesus showed us - of radical inclusive hospitality. God’s hospitality in inviting us to share the feast with him.  A line in the confession in our night prayer service is “We forget that we are your home” - so part of radical hospitality is us individually and collectively welcoming and being open to God’s presence within and among us - in life, in sacrament and in community. 

There is our hospitality to each other - welcoming, sharing, opening up our hearts and our homes, putting on the kettle and loving and serving; it is also an act of radical inclusive hospitality to the world around us as we welcome all comers and share with them the love we have received from God.  The final words of our gospel today seem to imply that - where Jesus gives the new commandment - to love as Jesus loves. 

        

This story of the foot-washing sign in John is detailed and deliberate and imbued with immense purpose. 

“The Word who was with God, the Word who was God, became flesh. He laid aside the clothes of glory, and put on our human nature, in order to wash our feet.”

“The foot-washing, and the crucifixion itself, to which it pointed, was Jesus’ way of showing who God was and is.” Tom Wright

To quote Gail O’Day “And the heart of what Jesus reveals of God is the way in which Jesus makes God’s love visible in and for the world. Jesus loves his disciples “to the utmost” This love is modelled in the foot washing and enacted fully in his death and resurrection, and his disciples are to love one another the same way. The commandment to love is not new what is new is the shaping of that love according to the life and death of Jesus.” 

This Maundy Thursday, this Easter and beyond may we continue to learn and practice love as radical inclusive hospitality, just as our Lord, whom we follow, modelled it for us.