"Do You Know What I Have Done to You?" (John 13:1-17, 31b-35)

(Meditation for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on Mar 24, 2016, Maundy Thursday)

-----

Where We Normally Hear This Question

“Do you know what I have done for you?”[1] By itself, this question paints the scene of confrontation. We can easily imagine a parent uttering these words in response to a son or daughter’s flippant request for more money. Or we can hear these words coming from a long-suffering spouse who demands to be appreciated. “Do you know what I have done for you?” It calls to mind a friend who feels taken for granted. It conjures up a hard-working manager who feels from her employees only resentment, and not a trace of gratitude.

“Do you know what I have done for you?” It’s the kind of question that’s followed up with an appeal for recognition, if not reciprocation. “Do you know the sacrifices I’ve made?” “The least you could do is show some appreciation.”

“Do you know what I have done for you?” It’s the sort of exclamation that can stop a dinner in its tracks, that can leave forks suspended in midair, jaws hanging open.

John’s Memory:

Not the Last Supper, but Its Interruption

Which, apparently, is what it did on that last night—according to the scene that John paints us. Of the four gospels, John is the only one that passes over the poured cup and the broken bread. There’s no mention of holy communion in John. John’s memory is fixated not on the meal itself, but on the interruption of the meal, when Jesus stops it in its tracks.

According to John, “during supper, Jesus…got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself,” and began washing his disciples’ feet (13:2-4). One moment, he was their teacher, presumably sitting at the head of the table, and the next, he looked like a slave, moving about the table, kneeling before each disciple. Peter’s reaction registers how much of a surprise this was. In the Greek, he responds initially in stunned, fragmented phrases: “Lord, you? Me?” (13:6). We can almost imagine his fork suspended in midair, his jaw hanging open.

When Jesus finishes, he returns to his spot at the table and asks that pregnant question: “Do you know what I have done to you?” But when he asks it, he is not asking it the way we normally do. He’s not saying, “Do you know the sacrifices I’ve made? The sacrifice I’ll make?” He’s not saying, “Do you appreciate what I’ve done?” Or, “The least you could do is say, ‘Thanks.’”

Not a Demand for Recognition or Reciprocation or Reverence:

Love Without Why

What Jesus does on that last night is not a demand for recognition or reciprocation or reverence. What Jesus does is without why. It is completely contrary to our logic of give-and-take, of cost and benefit. He washes our feet not so that we, in return, wash his; not so that we fully appreciate just how much he has sacrificed for us. He washes our feet, according to John, because he loves us (cf. 13:1, 34).

Tonight is as simple and as mysterious as that: love. Tonight Jesus does not just tell us about love. He embodies love. He shows us love in bent knees and splashed water, in open hands and shared food, in a heart that beats for us right to the very end. Maundy Thursday is not simply a night to remember the same way that we might remember the famous last words of a great teacher or the compassionate last act of a leader. It is a night to plant deep within our hearts, to let grow within us, to let animate us. It is a night to turn over and over—for everything is in it. The shadow of death did not distort or darken the life of Christ. If anything, it enlivened it. He lived fully in the face of death, loving us to the end, loving us as he always had, as he always will.

Prayer

God who carries towel and basin,
Who kneels before us,
Who loves us even in the face of death,
Especially then—
May your love inspire us
To take up our own “towels and basins,”
To live for others,
To serve them with bent knees and open hands.
In the name of our hope, Jesus Christ. Amen.

-----

[1] In the Greek, the “you” is in the dative case, which allows for both the translations “to you” and “for you.” I make use of this variability, first imagining how the question sounds with “for you,” then reimagining how Jesus uses it in the sense of “to you” (which is also how the NRSV translates it).