on playfulness

 

Playfulness can unlock things that other approaches cannot.

The Gospel set for this Sunday, Luke 24.13-35, is playful. The story takes place on the third day after Jesus’ death by crucifixion. Two of his apprentices are walking together, and as they do so they are ‘talking with each other about all these things that had happened.’ These things that had happened can mean these things that coincided or walked alongside each other. This is playful language. The hopes and dreams of the Palm Sunday crowd, the repeated confrontations with the authorities over the following days, the rumour mills operating on overtime throughout the city, the sad awkwardness of the Last Supper, the terror of Gethsemane, the numbing disorientation of Calvary, the death of their Messiah, the emptiness of the Sabbath, and the incomprehensible insistence of the women; all these things have walked alongside each other over these days. And as the two apprentices walk alongside each other, throwing all these things that have walked alongside each other back and forth between them, Jesus came near, coincided, and walked alongside them.

Moreover, they will tell him about the apprentices who did not see Jesus. These two apprentices who do not see Jesus, walking right alongside them. Their friend and teacher, and the one at the very epicentre of the events they are discussing, is, in their eyes, a stranger; and, even among strangers, uniquely uninformed and unaware.

It’s playful.

Playfulness involves both the imagination and the body. The way the storyteller, Luke, describes the two apprentices discussing all these things that had happened draws on the imagery of tossing a ball back and forth between them. ‘The press of the crowds. Catch!’ ‘The Temple tension. Catch!’ ‘The taste of roast lamb and bitter herbs. Catch!’ ‘Um...Grief. catch!’ ‘Er...Total incomprehension. Catch!’ Luke doesn’t say that they were actually throwing a ball, but when we are wrestling with too many things—and too many emotions—at once, doing so might help.

They arrive at Emmaus towards the end of the day, as the day is bent and bowed, with age. They press upon the stranger to stay the night, and put together supper. And Jesus does something physical: reclines at the table, takes hold of the bread, acknowledges, with gratitude, its God-given goodness, tears it so it can be shared, offers it to his host companions (companion: literally, one with whom we share bread). Unhurried. And this is the moment their eyes are opened. The moment of recognition. Not in his exposition on the road—though that certainly did something—but in simple, and repeated, actions. Again, when we wrestle with disappointment and confusion, receiving bread and wine in Communion is an anchor, enabling us to see Jesus in circumstances where we are kept from seeing him.

It is at this point, too, that they realise that their hearts had burned within them as he spoke on the road. That something deep inside was reaching out to Jesus, even when they were unable to recognise him. The body does what the conscious, controlling, mind could not. Bypasses the intellect, which follows slowly behind like a dullard. Playfulness, again.

I wonder when you have been disappointed, in your faith? When you have lost someone you loved, or something that felt central to what you believed was taken away from you? Or when you found yourself simply and utterly confused by it all?

I wonder what stories you can tell of encountering Jesus in just these times? Or what stories you might one day tell? And I wonder what place playfulness had, or might have, in the process?

 

on metaphor

 

It is often said that autistic people can’t recognise metaphors. But that isn’t true. Some autistic people struggle to grasp metaphor, just as some allistic people (that is, people who aren’t autistic) struggle to grasp metaphor. Moreover, autistic struggle to grasp metaphor might be quite different from allistic difficulty.

An example. I am perfectly aware that, when the scientific community speaks of the cloud creating a platform that enables researchers located in different parts of the world to collaborate, ‘cloud' and ‘platform’ are metaphors.

But the reason we turn to metaphors is, surely, that they convey a superfluity of meaning. And whereas other people might be able to recognise the metaphor and filter out most of the meaning, as an autistic person I need to acknowledge all the possible meanings.

Cloud coverage varies dramatically from day to day. When we speak of ‘the cloud,’ do we mean that some days the information available to us is overwhelming, or that sometimes access is unreliable? Probably not—though both these things are true, and so, if this is not what we consciously intend by the metaphor then it is an unintended benefit. Or are we drawing on a biblical image, ‘the great cloud of witnesses,’ to convey the idea that the cloud connects us to the experience of generations who have gone before us, on whose work our work builds (a platform, if you will)? Again, this might be unlikely (biblical literacy is not as high as I would like) but it fits. Or perhaps we mean that digital information surrounds us, but is invisible. This would be an imprecise metaphor, as clouds are not invisible. And yet I suspect that this self-evidently imprecise use might come closer to the choice of metaphor. Here, each piece of data might be considered a water droplet, which coalesces with others; but if so, the clouds would make more sense than the cloud.

As an autistic person, metaphor doesn’t work, for me, as a shorthand; it works as a door (metaphor alert) into a bigger world, a world I have to stop to explore, each time I come across it. The issue isn’t that I can’t recognise a metaphor, but that I can’t skim read. As it is, when I read, my brain uses measurable time and energy recalling the meaning of each and every word (to use a metaphor, I don’t have a mental dictionary that stores words in alphabetical order [itself something that escapes me] and with their meaning; let alone a ‘frequently-used words’ filing cabinet at the front of my brain) and metaphor slows things down even further. Because I love language, and precision that ‘literal’ language cannot always get to without the help of ‘poetic’ language, I am perfectly happy to move slowly and appreciate the scenery (metaphor alert).

But, no, metaphor does not elude me.

What about you?

 

against Christian Nationalism

 

I want to offer some reflections on the Gospel reading set for Holy Communion today, John 3.31-36, in the light of serious misuse of biblical texts by political figures in recent days.

In this passage (which you can read in full below) Jesus makes several claims about the nature of God:

God is true;

he gives the Spirit without measure;

The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands; and

whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

God is true:

God is the ultimate reality, and measure of what is inherently good—in marked contrast to the provisionality of any human culture or empire, which reflects goodness partially and imperfectly. This reaching-beyond what we can see and touch around us—beyond what we can grasp—in search of deeper truth is inherently human, across cultures. It calls for fidelity to something that is more weighty, more permanent, than our brief moment. The belief that we possess—that we are—the pinnacle of truth and beauty, the measure against which all others are to be judged (and found wanting) is hubris.

he gives the Spirit without measure:

The Spirit is the Life of God, shared, sent out into the world, to animate everything that is, to draw it back into the Life of God, as breath is exhaled and inhaled again and again. Genesis describes human beings as the humus of the earth, animated by the breath of God. And God gives this Spirit—this Life—without measure. In contrast, Capitalism measures everything, assigning a value, and seeking to control, to hoard. As if it is possible to hoard breath, to breathe in and in and in without ever breathing out. A scarcity model, in which we must compete with one another for the necessary goods of life. Yet we are all alive, on this Earth we share; not one of us asked for this. The idea that we must earn the shelter and food needed to sustain life is the antithesis of divine love. God gives without measure, to all, not asking who is worthy, who is deserving, who has or has not earned the right. Those who have seen and heard, who testify that God is true, reject the idea that we must hoard what is needful for ourselves.

The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands:

God loves—is Love—and whatever lacks love is not of God. This love is all encompassing: Jesus calls us to love our neighbour and to love our enemy—for only love can transform enmity into friendship. Love is relational: hence, the Father and the Son. The Son is Jesus. Son language—Son of God, Son of David, Son of Mary, Son of Jospeh—reveals that God loves human beings so much that he resolved, from the beginning, to become one of us. One with us. God has a human ancestors, a human mother, a human kinsman redeemer. God, who is true, trusts humanness. This is stunning. And, in love, the Father has placed all things into Jesus’ hands. There is nothing that God has not entrusted to Jesus. To believe this is to not need to attempt to take anything into our own hands; and attempting to take control demonstrates the gulf between what we confess with our lips and believe in our heart.

whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath:

‘Earthly’ things are at odds with ‘heavenly’ things. Both are located within the heart. Earthly wrath looks like unbridled anger, raining fire on our enemies. But the wrath of God simply refers to God’s settled opposition to injustice. There is no violence in this resolute opposition, but a non-violent standing with all who suffer injustice. Jesus does not call down angel armies to destroy the Romans, but takes into himself our earthly wrath—our injustice; for the earthly, here, is the inverse of the heavenly—and neutralises it. Jesus reveals God to be non-violent. When we read of violence attributed to God in the Bible, we are not witness to the nature of God but we are witness to the reality that even those who know God can misunderstand, misheard, misrepresent God. These passages give us reason to doubt ourselves, not God’s goodness. Yet, we are addicted to violence. It cannot save us, cannot give life; but, rather, keeps us from the life God longs for us. We cannot know peace through killing our global neighbours, but inflict pain on ourselves as well as them. If we refuse to see this, God’s wrath—settled opposition to injustice—does not abandon us to our own self-destruction, but ensures. Indeed, Jesus claims, it abides with us: makes itself at home, testifying to our choosing death, testifying to the life God longs for us to choose instead. Truth that is deeper than the surface reality we see around us. Trusting that we can only endure this guest for so long before we are won round. Before we repent, turn around—see from a heavenly, not earthly, perspective—and give our lives to making amends.

Christian Nationalism has nothing to do with Jesus. Cannot see or hear him. Yet, Jesus remains. And in him, I hope.

John 3.31-36

“The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.”

 

on peace

 

‘When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’’

John 20.19

‘Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’’ John 20.21

‘A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’’ John 20.26

Twice, just three days after he was tortured and executed, and again seven days later, Jesus says to his apprentices, ‘Peace be with you.’

This would appear to be important, the heart of his message. The word ‘peace’ means wholeness, to be at one with (within) yourself. How can someone so recently and so thoroughly broken apart proclaim wholeness?

It has been said that trauma is not what happens to us, but what happens within us in the absence of empathetic witnesses. (This is why doctors’ bedside manner matters so much in emergency care.)

Jesus went through unimaginable pain, but—contrary to popular belief—was not alone. We know that several of his female apprentices and at least one of the men were at the foot of the cross. The others stood at a distance, looking on, as much as they could bear. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus will lower Jesus’ body from the cross, wash it and anoint it with spices, and lay it in a tomb. Several of the women saw where they laid him. When the women later return and find the tomb empty, Peter and another apprentice—traditionally identified as John but perhaps Lazarus, who himself had walked out of a tomb and would have a particular interest in witnessing that again—ran to the tomb to see for themselves. That they were not taken there by the women, but ran straight there, implies that they, too, had been participating witnesses in Jesus’ burial.

Most of all, it has been claimed that on the cross, God—the Father—could not bear to look. Songwriters have penned words, describing the Father turning his face away. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the text. When Jesus cries out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ he is not describing his experience but praying a psalm, Psalm 22, exploring the appearance of abandonment, precisely to reach out and hold fast to the God who is, in fact, there with us and for us. As he hangs from the executioners’ scaffold, the sky turns black. When God descends, as on mount Sinai, he cloaks himself in thick darkness, so that the people do not die of fright. The sky turns black because the Father has come to hold his Son’s outstretched hand and look upon his beautiful face.

Jesus does not suffer and die alone, but surrounded by empathetic witnesses. And he returns, showing his wounds, not simply to prove that it is he and not some other, but, in a safe space, to take his apprentices back to their own place of unbearable suffering, where each one of them felt abandoned and without empathic witness, and therefore experienced trauma.

Jesus takes them back, right into that place, so close, so real, that they can reach out and touch his wounds. And in revisiting that place, not alone but with the one who has died and been raised to life again, they, too, are empowered to let go. To lower the defences they have thrown up to protect themselves. To experience healing. To be brought back to a place of wholeness.

This is what Jesus does for them.

This is what Jesus wants to do for us, too.

To stand alongside us in the place of our deepest hurt, and speak the word we most need to hear, ‘Peace be with you.’

This is a process, not a one-off event. It is the process that Jesus’ apprentices, the Church, are called to participate in. To be a community that is becoming whole, moving from trauma to peace, as we see one another’s wounds—and his—with love.

 

John 20.19-31

‘When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

‘But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’

 

on the raising of the dead

 

If we accept, even hypothetically, that God can raise the dead, a question arises about timing. Why is Lazarus raised on the fourth day, and Jesus on the third day, after their respective deaths?

In the epic poem that opens the book of Genesis (and, therefore, the library we know as the Bible) the fourth day is the day on which God calls the sun, moon, and stars, conferring on them a vocation to mark night from day, and season from season. (To ask how there could be days before there was sun or moon is to miss the point: this is not creation, but vocation. A day is a day, and a night is a night, even when the sun, moon, and stars are totally obscured by cloud cover.) In his account of the good news of Jesus, or Gospel, John makes much of the symbolism of deeds done during the day and deeds done at night; between the things Jesus does to bring freedom to others, and the things his enemies plot to take him prisoner. In this, Lazarus is the moon to Jesus’ sun, marking the arrival of Jesus’ ‘Passion,’ of the time (night) where he is ‘done to’ (paschō) rather than ‘doing’ (poiō).

The third day is the day on which God draws land—the soil from which God will draw out the human being—from the flood of sea, which, in the poetic imagination of the Bible represents chaos and death. This is also the day on which God calls forth the first vegetation—the first fruits of the fruit-bearing plants. Jesus’ resurrection is presented as the return of human beings from death, not as a never-to-be-repeated event but as the first fruit of something that will, at some future point, become universal.

So not only raising from the dead, but also the specific timing of these events, is significant; makes a statement concerning the story in which we find ourselves.

 

Easter Sunday

 

This Easter Sunday at St Nicholas Church, we celebrated the resurrection with the ancient practice of baptising someone who has joined our church family since last Easter.

Whenever I speak at a baptism, I try to make a connection between the candidate’s name and the story of faith found in the Bible. And today, with Roxanne, it was easy. Roxanne means radiant, or bright (and she really does live into her name) and in our Gospel reading an angel descends from heaven, ‘His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.’ Radiant. Now, ‘angel’ means ‘messenger,’ sent by God, sometimes a heavenly being, sometimes a human being. Today we commissioned Roxanne to be a messenger sent by God.

The angel, and then Jesus himself, have the same message for the women: do not be afraid; go and tell.

Do not be afraid, or do not fear, is the most-repeated Instruction we are given in the Bible—which says something about being human. And I wonder who or what you are afraid of?

Some of you might be here today because you know and love Jesus, but you are afraid to tell others about him. I want to say to you that there are half a dozen or more adults who have become part of our church who weren’t part of any church a year ago. If you tell someone about Jesus, they might have been waiting for you to do just that. Even if they aren’t interested, what’s the worst that can happen? Easter tells us that the worst thing that can happen does not get the last word, and God will honour those who trust him with their fear.

It may be that you are afraid of God. Many people are. Many people have been taught that God is quick to disapprove, quick to get angry; that if we step out of line, he will strike us down with a lightning bolt. This is blasphemy. God reveals himself to Moses as full of loving-kindness, slow to anger—and even when he does get angry, he is not violent but moved to pity; faithful to his nature even when we are faithless.

In our first reading this morning we heard Jesus’ friend Peter proclaim, ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’ The point is not that if you want to be acceptable to God you must fear him; but that if you are afraid of God, you need to know that you are acceptable to him.

In the Wisdom section of the library we call the Bible, we learn that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Everything else described as ‘of the Lord’—the arm of the Lord, the mountain of the Lord, the angel of the Lord—belongs to God, not us. The fear of the Lord is giving what we are afraid of to God and saying, this is yours now. That is what Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane. Of all the things we might be afraid of—some with good reason—God isn’t meant to be one of them. Jesus comes into the world so that we might know that, in him, God is with us, and for us.

Finally, some of you might be afraid of death. We live in a society that is petrified of dying, that is in total denial of death. It is almost a civic duty to Botox, to not allow yourself to visibly age. But denial is never healthy. The will of the Father is that the Son should become human; should live, and die, as humans do. The Father glorifies the Son for this faithfulness by raising him from the dead. And so we can face our own mortality, because Jesus says to us: Do not be afraid; I have walked this way ahead of you, and I will walk this way again alongside you. I know what lies beyond.

Do not be afraid. That is the message of Easter. That doesn’t mean that we won’t ever be afraid of anything or anyone; it means that we are instructed, again, to place that fear in the hands of Jesus.

That is the message I want you to hear today. Do not be afraid. Go and tell.

Acts 10.34-43

‘Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ-he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’’

Matthew 28.1-10

‘After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is my message for you.’ So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’’

 

Maundy Thursday

 

In the Church calendar, we are in the days leading up to Easter. These are among the holiest—that is, set apart for a special purpose—days of the year (this is where we get our word ‘holiday,’ days set apart as special, different from everyday days). On Thursday evening, I will be speaking about Jesus with his apprentices on the night of his betrayal and arrest. You can read the text, from John’s biography of Jesus, below. My attention is caught by these words: ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean.’

I don’t know how often you have a bath, and for what purpose. I have a bath about twice a year, not to wash my body—I do that in the shower, and also have a basin in my bedroom—but as an act of self care, running the bath as deep and as hot as possible, and soaking in it.

In the Instructions of Moses, we find that there are certain states of being that cause a person to be ritually impure, and that their restoration to the wider community requires a ritual bath.

Being ritually impure has nothing to do with moral wrongdoing. It is, rather, a codified way of engaging with the reality of death. Certain states of being are, psychologically, rehearsals for death, including ejaculation and menstruation—not because these things are ‘dirty,’ or even shameful, but because in both instances, the person loses mastery of their bodily life-fluids. Contact with a corpse, and being a corpse, also result in ritual impurity. Ritual washing marks the restoration of purity, symbolising the limit to which death cuts us off from life.

Dying made a person ritually impure; but the community handled the corpse in such ways as to make the person ritually pure again, ready to meet their Maker. In Jewish tradition to this day, this begins with gently washing the body, removing anything that is not a natural part, such as jewellery or nail varnish, while saying certain prayers and psalms and other passages of Scripture (holy writing). Then the body is fully washed, either by submerging it in a mikvah (ritual bath) or by pouring a large amount of water (the equivalent of 48 pints) over the corpse. Finally, the body is dressed in linen, ready to return to the earth from which it came.

We should not assume that contemporary Jewish tradition is the same as first-century Common Era Judaism; but neither are they unrelated.

When Jesus says that Peter has had a bath—in fact, not washed himself but that he has been washed—he is referring to the washing of a body after death. Though this is not described, in relation to Jesus’ blood-streaked corpse, in the Gospels, it is implied. This practice is mentioned by the church historian Luke in his Acts of the Apostles, where he notes that the deceased Dorcas is washed by the women of her community, and also that Paul and Silas have their bloodied backs washed by the jailer in Philippi immediately before he himself is baptised.

Jesus is saying that his apprentices have been joined with him in his death. They have been washed, made ritually pure again, in preparation to stand before God—symbolising the real but temporary separation from God that death demands. Having been full-body washed, all that remains needful is to have their feet washed. In Genesis, God visits Abraham in human form (that is, in a form Abraham can see, and relate to) and Abraham welcomes God by washing his feet. An act of welcome and hospitality. The tradition later arose that Abraham welcomes the dead into Paradise (and Jesus tells a parable, or micro story that gets under the skin, where Abraham does exactly this). So, Peter is already made ready to enter Paradise, and Jesus now takes the Abrahamic posture of welcoming him.

This is what we enact in baptism, the candidate dying with Christ (Jesus, the One sent by God to rescue his people), united with him in his death and in his mighty and glorious resurrection.

This, then, is the drama of both our baptism—a one-off, unrepeatable event—and the Thursday of Holy Week—to which we return annually—that we rehearse our physical death, that, when it comes, we might die in the confidence that this parting is temporary; that the community of faith, and the God whose faithfulness we look to, will take us in their hands and hold us with dignity and love. As we, in turn, are to do for our brother's and sisters.

By such love, confident in the face of death, we shall be known.

John 13.1-17, 31b-35

‘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. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And 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. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ 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.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

‘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? You call me Teacher and Lord-and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

‘When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’’