Tonight’s service reminds me of a movie that came out a while back. I’ve only seen the trailer, not the movie, but I know it received some pretty dreadful reviews. The movie is named “The Core,” and according to Wikipedia, in a poll of hundreds of scientists about bad science fiction films, “The Core” was voted the worst.1 It may have been an impressively bad movie, but in the context of Holy Week I find the premise of the movie quite interesting. The idea behind the film is that the hot liquid center of the earth has stopped spinning, and the only way to save the planet from complete destruction is for someone to go down there and jumpstart the core by exploding some nuclear warheads. The science may be ridiculous, but isn’t the premise interesting? Here’s what it’s saying: there is a problem at the center of things and the only way to solve it is to bring in massive weapons and blow something up. That can be a pretty satisfying fantasy. If something deep down is wrong, we’ll grab some weapons, unleash a few bombs, and – wham-o! – problem solved. We will have saved the day, saved the world.
In general, I like action movies, but this Hollywood flick is delivering far more than entertainment. It’s also delivering a worldview, one that’s familiar to everyone here. According to this paradigm, our deepest problems can be solved by force. Whatever is ailing us or the world can be fixed by violence. Domination, intimidation, fear – these are the weapons we must use every day if we want any kind of lasting security or peace. When push comes to shove, we’re gonna haul out our arsenal of weapons and let ‘em fly.
Altar prepared for Maundy Thursday service, St. John's, AshfieldI know what it’s like to jockey for position and to look out for number one. There are many ways to explode our own little power bombs – maybe by name-dropping or boasting or bullying, by spreading gossip or speaking harsh words of judgment, even contempt. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, right? That’s the worldview we learn to call “realistic,” and it’s reinforced every day. In a competitive marketplace, we’re taught that the bottom line is money, power, fame, and individual success. We learn to look at each other with wary eyes. What can I get from you? How can you be useful to me? In the words of Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel, we learn to suspect our neighbors as ourselves.2
Into this anxious and belligerent world comes the one who says, “I am among you as one who serves. My only weapon is love and my only desire is to set you free.” In Jesus, God comes among us as one who renounces worldly power and rejects the grasp for domination and control. Jesus offers a new paradigm and a new worldview: the only way to peace and security is to serve each other, to listen to each other, to make room for the stranger, to reach out to the marginalized and lost. The core of the world can’t be mended by violence. Force and fear will never save the world, much less save our souls. Only love can do that. Only love.
Now, more than ever, we must consider this second worldview and explore its creative possibilities, for evidently our federal government has been captured by the lust for domination and complete control. Under the thumb of domination, many of us – especially those directly targeted by the Administration – now live in fear. We have good reason to be afraid, but, to quote the Sufi poet Hafiz, “Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I’d like to see you in better living conditions.”
Jesus comes to show us the way out of fear, to give us a path to fullness of life. What does he do? “During supper, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him” (John 13:2b-5). This is a gesture of deep humility, the gesture of someone who seeks not to dominate but to serve, not to hoard power but to bless and serve and strengthen those around him. Jesus is living in occupied territory under the boot of the Roman Empire, but he refuses to react to these harsh conditions with fear or force. Instead, he embodies – and he releases among us – a different kind of power, the power of God’s love.
In a moment, we will be invited to re-enact what Jesus did. Anyone who wishes may come forward, take off your shoes, have your feet washed and wash someone else’s feet. For many of us this is a vulnerable moment, a moment, perhaps, of having our dependence on each other uncomfortably exposed. Peter speaks for many of us when he flinches and draws back. “Lord, are you going to wash my feet? You will never wash my feet.” It is hard to be vulnerable, even with people who love us and want to support us. It is especially hard to be vulnerable in a power-hungry world where people elbow each other out of the way in their rush for domination and control. We long for unconditional love, but so often we draw back in embarrassment or suspicion when it is freely offered to us. How much safer to keep other people at a polite distance, to do our best not to need anyone and to go it alone! But that’s what love is about: the willingness to lay aside our weapons and our shields, the willingness to disclose who we really are and to encounter each other with kindness and respect.
Crocuses. Photo by Rachelle Kritzer-FilipekIn a world so bewitched by the drug of force, so addicted to the thrill of domination, we gather tonight, as we do in every Eucharist, inside a different paradigm. Tonight, we proclaim the power of community, the power of service, the power of working for a world in which no one lives in fear. No one. Tonight, we say: This is what God is like. This is the power at the center of reality and the center of our being: the power of love. Fear is not the only force at work in the world today,3 nor will fear have the last word.
Jesus is with us tonight as we wash each other’s feet and as we share in the bread and wine. Tomorrow, he will give himself to us in his outpouring of love on the cross. “Take me,” says Jesus. “I am holding nothing back.” Will we accept his love? Will we follow where he leads? Which path, which paradigm, will we choose?
I’ll close with a poem by Michael Leunig4:
There are only two feelings. Love and fear.
There are only two languages. Love and fear.
There are only two activities. Love and fear.
There are only two motives, two procedures,
two frameworks, two results. Love and fear.
Love and fear.
2. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, quoted by Rabbi Michael Lerner, “Spiritual Politics and the Post-Iraq Realities of Global Discourse,” from a talk given on 3/31/03 and excerpted in an email from the Tikkun Community.
3. Slogan spotted years ago on a poster from United Methodist Church at the Amtrak train station in Stamford, CT.
4. Michael Leunig, A Common Prayer: A Cartoonist Talks to God.
