Washing
Feet
John
1.1-17
A sermon preached by Malcolm Jollie, Alex Munday, Emily Munday,
Dave Shull, Kay Sneed, and John Stoppels
University
Congregational United
Dave Shull: On Saturday, June 26, at 6:30 a.m., 14 youth and three adults drove out of Parking Lot A to begin an eight-day adventure together. We picnicked overlooking Lake Coeur d’Alene, endured a 20-minute hail and thunderstorm as we neared Montana, and camped overnight at a KOA Kampground in Butte. Sunday morning brought a stunning drive through the Tetons. We stopped outside Jackson simply to stand in awe of the beauty of this corner of God’s creation. By 5 p.m. we arrived at St. Stephens, Wyoming, in the heart of the Wind River Reservation. This reservation is unique, in that two native tribes – the Arapahoe and the Shoshone – live in it together.
St. Stephens is a Roman Catholic mission, and it the Mission’s Sunday School room was our home for five nights. As we have done for our mission trips the past two years, our trip was organized by a company called Youth Works. Youth Works is a non-denominational Christian organization that sponsors youth mission trips all over the United States and in several other countries as well. During our week, we were joined by a Methodist youth group from Auburn, Alabama, and a Lutheran youth group from Rochester, Minnesota.
Each day had a similar rhythm: breakfast preparers
reported to the kitchen at 6:45 a.m.; we all ate at 7:15. From 8:15-8:45 a.m. we did individual
devotions, which you’ll hear more about in a few minutes. We then reported to one of two work projects. All of us spent two full days painting homes
on the reservation, and two afternoons running a day-camp for Native children
called ‘Kid’s Club’. We also spent one
morning doing various tasks at a nursing home.
Late in the afternoon we’d come home for showers and some down time
before dinner and whatever evening activity was scheduled. These activities included a hike along a
waterfall, dinner with a Native American couple, an evening at a Christian
coffee house, and swimming in a sulphur spring
pool. Then we’d have group worship,
followed by a time for individual church groups to gather and talk together
about whatever we wanted to. Lights out
hovered around
We were blessed with a variety of experiences and emotions during our 8 days together. Here are some of them.
Kay Sneed:
Our days were full –
Full of building community,
Making new friends,
Working together,
Playing and praying
in an attempt to weave a tapestry of understanding.
What was it, in this setting,
that somehow set us free to play with young children
with an uncanny desire to connect and bring them joy?
What was it that made the morning we spent at the nursing home
pass so quickly,
with each of us wanting to spend more time there?
Why were our eyes more able to see the ‘other’ as kin?
To notice our similarities
and how our lives diverge?
Yet somehow believing that we are indeed family,
That reconciliation is possible –
Knowing that we want to be a part of the healing of this fractured kinship.
The realization of the faith, hope, and caring of our youth
was made undeniably clear in our evening circle.
This time of check-in and sharing each evening
amongst our youth and leaders was the most powerful part
of the mission trip experience for me.
The willingness to share their stories and the amazing
perceptive ways they saw and related details was incredible!
Although this community time was the most powerful of the mission trip experiences for me, it was the 30 minutes of individual devotion time each morning that grounded me.
This was the time each day that seemed to fly by and continues to beg to be honored. This devotional time so satisfied a hunger. The way I found myself grappling with the scripture and interacting with Jesus so fed a longing for the ‘more’ of life, the rich, connected interplay of senses and realities and possibilities . . . .
The land of the Wind River Reservation is dry and mostly barren desert. When a short downpour came after a five-year drought, the rivers were beginning to rise beyond their banks.
Thus, I began to relate to this parched land.
But we live in a lush green area
with much vegetation that needs consistent gentle watering.
And I can take 30 minutes of each day to grapple with the scripture,
interact with Jesus,
taste the water that satisfied,
and experience the ‘more’ of life.
Alex Munday: The
purpose of the mission trip is to teach us how to serve others.
At the same time, the trip served to teach me a lot. It taught me a lot about how others come before yourself.
In Wyoming, one of the activities that we participated in organizing was kids club. During kids club we would play games, do arts and crafts projects, and sing with 5 to 10 year old kids on the Arapahoe School grounds. I hope the time spent together showed the kids that white people aren’t that different from them, and we are nothing to hate. It was good to get away from our normal city routines, and do something totally different. I know that my mind was opened up to the lifestyle of Native Americans living in the Wyoming wilderness.
Sometimes those we serve don’t really think they need our help, or may not necessarily like us. When we were driving in the van, dropping off the kids at their houses, one of the children said she didn’t like white people. I asked her ‘Why?”, and she said, “because they are rich and stupid”. I told her that I’m smart, and she told me to multiply a billion times a trillion times a jillion. I told her the answer was “a jillion to the 10th power”. She said that I was smart after all, and that’s probably because I looked like I was part Indian.
On the final day of the trip we had the foot washing ceremony to bring to reality the scripture of where Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. First the Youth Works staff washed the feet of the adult leaders from the 3 churches, and then the adult leaders washed the feet of the youth. This was no small job, since our feet had been through a lot that week. The foot washing was actually a symbol for the entire trip. We had been ‘washing their feet’, by serving the needs of those less fortunate, by our helping on the reservation. I am beginning to realize the value in serving the needs of others. In this case, the helping out was appreciated by some, and not by others.
Overall I had a great experience in Wyoming on this mission trip, and I am grateful that I was able to go. I thank all of you who contributed to our fund raising efforts that made the trip possible. I also was glad for Dave and Kay’s efforts to keep everything organized, and for all the fun that they planned.
Malcolm Jollie: Every night after dinner and after a
worship service all of the different churches would split apart into their own
youth groups for a time of reflection on what we were doing in Wyoming. This was a time where we could share how
things were going for us in the privacy of our own youth group. WE shared some laughs, and everyone both
spoke, and listened. Each night we were
asked different questions by our adult leaders, and every night there were some
amazing answers from the group. We talked about the kids at kids club, the
families of the houses that we were painting and we talked about what we were
doing. One of the stories that I
remember was one morning I went to pick up the kids for kids club. When we got out of the van and walked up to
the houses to get the kids, I really got to see where they came from. Their yards were scattered with toys, and
each door had kids’ writing on it with permanent marker. The kids usually answered the door, and on
that morning didn’t want to come. The
blaring rap music and violent language coming from the kitchen gave me an
understanding of why they talked to us the way they did. I was sad that some of the kids didn’t want
to come with us and wondered what they would do during the day. In church groups we also talked about the
other groups with us, our reactions to some of the questions that were raised
by the leaders and also how we felt about youth works style of worship. We were usually the last group to finish
thanks to our abilities to listen and to support one another.
Emily Munday: Whenever I go somewhere new, I try to imagine what it will be like.
Especially before going on the week long trip to Wyoming, I thought about what
the place would look like, if I would make new friends, and if I would really
learn anything spiritually. I told myself, don’t worry about it; you had a
great time last year. So I hopped in that impossible huge white twelve-seater van, and slept for most of beautiful Washington,
Idaho, and Montana.
Fast
forward some bad chilly, bad melodies, and bad
When we rolled up to the Arapaho School on
that first day, the school looked really nice and new, better than Roosevelt in
some ways. There was a huge field and playground with a lot of swings (it
seemed to me there were never enough when I was a kid).When the kids finally
came, they were just as anxious as last year’s kids to play with us. But,
instead of choosing a buddy for the entire day, most choose a youth who was
willing to carry them on their shoulders or back. When the sweltering heat of
the sun, or the weight of someone a bit to old for piggy back rides made you
put the kid down, they wouldn’t stay to play with you, but run off to find
someone whose back hadn’t given in yet.
But no worries, in arts and crafts I really
got to know the kids. I learned the names of the kids that would steal water
bottles and hats. I got to know what some kids thought about me, just because
of my skin color, in some choice words. I saw a lack of love in their lives, and
hatred installed in them by years of poverty. I didn’t feel like I made a
difference in their lives at all. By my paying to be there, and planning what
activities to do with them, making conversation, I obviously wanted to be
there, and a few kids even asked me if I was getting paid to do this. In two
days, maybe three hours each day, it would be easy to get to know someone who
wanted to make friends. But I’ve never had a harder more frustrating experience
with new people, of any age. Sure I thought about last year, and the good times
I had, but I came with an open mind that day. And one little girl tried so hard
to close it, I almost let her. I never really caught her name, but she was one
of the older kids. While making Popsicle stick picture frames with her, we
started talking. She was so naïve, and expressed multiple views of racism not
only towards white people, but to people of any race other than her own. The
conversation got heated, and I realized the only thing I could do was joke
around with her, and switch the subject. If I had let that little girl close my
mind into a ball of anger, instead of love, it would have ruined my whole week.
I wouldn’t have made the great friends I did, learned
anything about myself and God, or basically take anything from the
whole week.
In my eyes, this girl was living proof of God. I don’t think God ever gives us a challenge we can’t handle, and especially one we don’t need. All this girl wanted was some love and attention she obviously hadn’t been getting at home. And I needed something to open my eyes, about these kids, about not giving up, and loving someone completely, just as God does. I don’t know how much I taught that girl, but she sure taught me a lot.
John Stoppels:
During our time on the Wind River
reservation, we stayed at the old St. Stephens’s Mission, a sprawling compound
of classic reservation architecture—possibly some of the ugliest, utilitarian
buildings ever designed, but made beautiful by age and history, and their
location in an oasis of irrigated lawns and shady willows, with vistas of
grazing horses, distant mountains and the vast, bright skies of wide and windy
Wyoming.
This was our
‘home’—the place we came back to with paint-spattered, sweat-soaked clothes, or
with souls colored and bruised from a day of playing and wrestling with Indian
children. Here we ate and slept, worshiped and played. We shared
this home with two other youth groups—along with their adult leaders, plus the
four young adults of the Youth Works staff. We made an interesting mix of
geographical and cultural diversity.
The
Lutherans from
Still, our
little ad-hock Christian community often seemed more culturally challenging
than our encounters with Native Americans. Some of us struggled with
worship that seemed a bit overly charismatic and a theology of the feel-good-God-is-in-charge
variety. Politics and issues of sexual orientation remained, thankfully,
off-limits. Us three adult leaders could not help but hold these and
other tensions in our consciousness, even while “living into” them as
faithfully as we could.
Personally , the idea of spending a week in an intentional,
structured community was a challenging prospect. I’m used to planning my
own road trips, often happily traveling solo to favorite backpacking
destinations, and being free to improvise. So when Kay told me that Youth
Works is a highly programmed program, I imagined a kind of indentured
servitude, with the constant challenge of herding youth through a busy
schedule.
But I
discovered something interesting: teenagers like schedules. And,
apparently, so do I. The structure of our
workdays, the challenges of being in community, and the responsibilities of
leadership—these provided a different kind of personal freedom and
empowerment. The challenge—and the joy—was to
continue to live into the experience with as much integrity, love, and grace as
I could find. A few anecdotes will suffice:
Ray: a
hulking, gnarly-muscled, dirt bike-riding Alabamian—kind of scary at first, but
who turned out to be a gentle, guitar-playing soul, whom I eventually bonded
with deeply as a colleague and friend.
I’d never
washed someone’s feet or laid hands on and prayed for people. Who am I to
presume such an honor? And yet by the end of our time together, I’d
gained such a love and respect for these youth, that I
could honestly name them as God’s children and really mean it.
Imagine: Driving that big van through a
vast Western landscape while being serenaded by clear girls’ voices, raised in a five-part round of Amazing Grace. I was
pleased that I’d gotten a good sleep the night before, content that I’d checked
that doors were closed and locked and seatbelts fastened. What a precious
cargo, I pondered. What an honor to have responsibility for these young
people’s lives and souls. And what a privilege to share in their
adventure.
Dave Shull: The Gospel of John is the story of a group of early Christians who were trying to build a community of faith based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They faced some of the same challenges John Stoppels just talked about. Some of the same challenges we addressed at our Seabeck Camp this past week. Today’s scripture reading about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet calls us back to a fundamental truth about Christian community. Jesus Christ wants to build a living, honest relationships with each one of us. Through this intimate relationship, Jesus loves us and leads us as faithful disciples who heal God’s world.
Footwashing is an act of incredible intimacy. “Which of us would not be embarrassed to have someone we respect and admire bend over and treat us in this way? Palestinian feet were certainly crustier and filthier than our own relatively pampered toes and heels. . . . In addition, to allow someone to wash our feet is to open ourselves to an intimacy beyond the scope of most relationships. . . . To be close enough to wash a foot is to ‘know’ its nooks and crannies, its callouses, cracks, and curves. For Peter to allow Jesus into this most personal space was beyond his ability to be vulnerable at that moment” (Wes Howard-Brook, Becoming Children of God, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994).
Yet this kind of intimacy and vulnerability is exactly what Jesus demands of his disciples. Let me wash your feet, Jesus says. Which means, let me know you that intimately, let me get that close to you. Don’t be embarrassed or ashamed of anything, Jesus says. For I see you as children of my God. And if you let me into your life, if you receive the love of God I have come to give, then you will see yourself the way I see you. Then you will see one another as I see you. If you open yourself to intimacy with me, you will see and know and believe yourselves to be the beloved children of God.
A couple of chapters after the footwashing story, Jesus is talking about being the vine to which all Christians are intimately connected. At one point he says to his disciples, “Make yourselves at home in my love” (John 15.9, Eugene Peterson translation). That is the invitation and call I kept hearing during our 8 days together. I kept hearing Jesus say, “Make yourselves at home in my love. My love is God’s love.
“If your home is my love, then you will see the world the way I see it. You will see the beauty in the faces of everyone you meet – even if they don’t look beautiful, even if they don’t act lovingly. And seeing that person’s beauty will lead you to treat her in a way that will help her heal.
I kept hearing Jesus say, “If your home is my love, then you will see the world the way I see it. You will see the poverty on a reservation where 65% of the adults are unemployed, and you will feel the rage and anguish I feel over the ways white governments have treated Native Americans. And that rage and anguish will lead you to act in a way that will help our nation heal.”
During our mission trip, I kept hearing Jesus say, “If your home is my love, then you will see the world the way I see it. You will walk through this world certain that the arms of God hold you. And if you are certain the arms of God hold you, then what is there to be afraid of? You walk through this world carried by Love, seeing with the eyes of Love, knowing the forgiveness of Love. Living in the love of Jesus Christ, held in the arms of God, you will believe in your heart that the amazing grace of God is for you and for this broken and beautiful work God calls you to heal.”
Intimacy with Jesus Christ. Letting ourselves be known by him so that we can see the world as he sees it. And love the world into wholeness. That is the invitation I heard on this trip.
And it is the
invitation I heard every morning during devotions. Every morning a song could be heard from
somewhere on the