Washed feet, washing feet
Maundy Thursday, 2021 Delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Based on John 3:1-17, 31b-35 Maundy Thursday is one of those nights I wish we could experience more than once a year. The closeness I feel toward my friends in the parish, the fellowship, and the sharing of a meal has an appealing intimacy of a shared holy experience. Then again, if we did have Maundy Thursday more than once a year, it would lose some of the mystique and rarity that makes it stand out as a particularly holy day of the year. When I consider the story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet and how we have memorialized it, there is a question in my mind about what we are doing here tonight. Is the service, specifically the foot washing, a ceremony, or a ritual? A ritual is defined as a transformative event, such as the Eucharist where bread and wine become sacraments of the body and blood of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Something changes during the service, and we too can be c