Love is
the Means, No Matter the End
1 Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
When as a child I first heard the sermon on the mount, where Jesus says things like “Turn the other cheek” and “Love your enemies” and “Pray for those who persecute you,” I became genuinely perplexed about how people might follow Christ in a world that takes war for granted. I remember a Sunday School teacher patiently trying to explain that these teachings of nonviolence and love for the enemy were ideals toward which we should strive, but that sometimes the practical necessities of life called for less-than-ideal responses. I remember him explaining that violent force was sometimes a necessary tool in the service of love. Violence was a legitimate means toward the ends of love. He pointed out that killing others was ultimately about saving life, and that the enemies would more quickly meet with God’s justice. (I’ve since seen militaristic bumper stickers that express this theology: “God will judge; we’ll arrange the meeting.”)
I’m not sure I’ve ever been completely convinced by these rationalizations, but it was not until years later when I learned about the Anabaptists that I discovered words that could compellingly expose the difference between the way of Christ and the way of our world. I won’t turn this into a history lesson. For today, it suffices only to know that the Anabaptists noticed something: every time the church got involved with worldly power, the church lost its own way. They would come to articulate this waywardness by saying that the world prioritizes the ends, while Christ and his followers prioritize the means. The world is an ends-based people and Christ and his followers are a means-based people. They pointed out how obsessed our world is with the ends. The bottom line. The final product. When a candidate runs for office, their platform is not virtue but victory, not process but product, not how they will operate but what they will achieve. The problem with prioritizing the bottom line, however noble it is (and there are many very noble ends out there), is that invariably the ends come to justify the means. The best of ends (e.g., saving lives) comes to justify the worst of means (e.g., killing others).
When John introduces Jesus’ final words to his disciples, he plainly articulates Jesus’ countercultural way: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” In other words, whereas our world is obsessed with ends (and will do anything to get them), Jesus is focused squarely on love. For Jesus, love is the means, no matter the end. Love is the course, no matter the consequence. Love is the way, regardless of the result. A few centuries after Jesus, Constantine turned the cross into a symbol of conquest, parading it before the Roman army whenever it went out to battle—and I can’t help but notice that the cross still shows up in militaristic propaganda today. But originally the cross was a symbol not of death inflicted but death endured. It did not justify violence for the sake of love, a brutal means for the sake of a holy end. Rather it signified the greatness of God’s love for us, that he would love us nonviolently to the end—no matter how horrible that end was.
Living
out of God’s Care
2 The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4 got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5 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.
I remember a playground bully from my elementary school days. I learned years later that his home life was chaotic, to say the least. His father was absent. His mother was working multiple jobs. It’s not hard to put the pieces together. When there is an absence of care, there is a desperate quest for control. I don’t think it’s a stretch to see this elsewhere in our world. Not only does it play out on the playground but also in politics. When people are living from a sense of lack, of needing more, the impulse is to bully others and fight for control. The impulse is to secure whatever end one thinks will make one feel better.
How different is our Lord Jesus. Right before he washes his followers’ feet, John tells us what makes Jesus different. Jesus can get down on his knees and care for his followers because he knows “that he had come from God and was going to God” (John 13:3). He knows, in other words, that he belongs to God, that nothing can separate him from God’s care. When a person is secure in the knowledge that they are cared for, they become liberated to care for others.
Our ancestors in the faith regularly boiled things down to a simple choice between two things. Moses tells the people their choice is life or death. Jesus talks regularly in the gospel of John about light and dark. Paul talks about freedom and slavery. For me, it is helpful to understand the choice as one between care and control. Our world operates according to control. But God’s kingdom is cultivated by care.
“You
Have No Share with Me”
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
I’ve heard it said, “The truth will set you free—but not until it’s finished with you.” Perhaps that’s another way of saying the truth is a school of hard knocks. Peter is a living example of this hard truth. As a disciple, he repeatedly hits his head against a truth that looks very different from what he expects. He must unlearn the way of the world—and that is no easy task. Remember when Jesus tells his disciples that the Son of Man must suffer and die? Peter tells Jesus he must be mistaken. Surely the messiah is victorious, not vulnerable; surely he came to conquer, not to suffer. All of which prompts Jesus’ famous, “Get behind me, Satan.”
Similarly in today’s scripture Peter is so offended by the sight of Jesus on his knees that he refuses to be washed. Again he tries to tell Jesus that he’s got it wrong. According to Peter, it is far beneath the messiah to take on the role of a servant, to do the dirty work of a slave. Leaders stand over their followers, not under them. To put it in terms of our earlier reflections: the prerogative of leaders is control, not care. “Don’t you know how the world works, Jesus?” Peter effectively asks Jesus.
But Jesus rebukes Peter, telling him if he wants to have a share in God’s kingdom, he must leave behind the way of the world and live instead in this upside-down way of caring for others.
I’m reminded of a Desert Fathers and Mothers story, where a younger monk gets angry with several of his brothers and begins to judge them harshly and complain about how they do things. His teacher, or abba, playfully looks up to heaven and begins praying, “Dear Father, we no longer need you to care for us, since we know what is best and would like to control things ourselves.” It is a soft rebuke, a reminder that if we want to live in God’s care, we must let go of this need for control, this desire to be over others.
We
Become What We Worship
12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
“You also,” Jesus says…. Imitation is the foundation of how we learn and grow. We become what we worship. If we worship knowledge, we become investigators, thinkers, perhaps know-it-alls. If we worship beauty, we become actors or performers, seeking the attention and admiration of others. If we worship money, we become investors and accumulators. If we worship control, we become fighters struggling for power.
If we worship Christ, we become caregivers. We become servants. “You also,” he says, as he washes our feet. “You also,” he says. On the night before his crucifixion.
“Blessed
If You Do Them”
15 For I have set you an example—or this could also be translated as “pattern”—that you also should do as I have done to you. 16 Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
It’s not uncommon to see publicity stunts where a CEO or politician or famous actor goes to serve at a soup kitchen or some other charity. It is a token gesture, meant to show that they care. Soon enough, however, we might read about them in the headlines for other, more self-serving behavior. When Jesus says, “I have set you an example [or pattern],” he is not asking for token gestures. He is asking for a change in orientation and lifestyle. That’s why I like the translation “pattern.” Earlier in the gospel, John calls Jesus the logos, meaning word, but also meaning something like logic. That is, Jesus is the defining principle of the universe, the cosmic blueprint, the divine pattern for Life. And here, with a towel and basin in his hand, he tells his followers what that pattern is all about.
Alcoholics Anonymous began in the 1930s. One of its founding traditions is: “For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.” AA groups have since proliferated and generated countless other 12-Step groups, all based on the same tradition of service rather than governance, care rather than control. There are countless other similar communities across the world, founded not from a desire to grow or govern or convert others, but simply to serve. Divorce-recovery groups, grief-share groups, communities for the intellectually disabled, homeless ministries, ramp-building ministries, reading circles (including some Bible studies) and so on. (I’d wager you know one such group, if you have not yourself been a part of one.)
Jesus concludes his lesson by saying, “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” It’s not enough to “know” that God’s priority is care rather than control. Blessing results from aligning ourselves with this divine pattern, this cosmic blueprint. And that’s what I see in these countless little (sometimes anonymous) groups. They are all blessed. They all “do” the simple deeds of caring for one another. Free from the power struggles and fighting that plague our insecure world, they can get on with the work of caring for each other.
I’ve heard it said that following Jesus is simple. Not easy. But simple. The pattern for us is plain. Our “leader” does not lord it over others; he cares for them.
Prayer
Who comes not with a sword
But with a towel and basin,
May your deeds inspire us
…
Align our hearts
With God’s heart,
With the cosmic heartbeat
That gives us Life.
Amen.
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