All of our words and images fall short of perfectly describing the ancient and difficult doctrine of the Trinity, which is at its heart a description of shared life, shared within the divine and shared with us. 

Vicar Lauren Mildahl
The Holy Trinity, year B
Texts: Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17 

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We start every sermon that way.

In the name of the Triune God.  Not just on Holy Trinity Sunday – every Sunday! And we end every sermon that way too.   But since it is Trinity Sunday, since this is the day that we devote to this ancient and sometimes difficult doctrine, it’s worth pausing a moment on that familiar formula.  

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It’s not perfect. This language has contributed to the unfortunate and inaccurate depiction of the Trinity as “two white guys and a bird.” 

And we could say it in other ways.  

We could try some gender-neutral language: In the name of the Parent, and the Child, and the Bond Between.

Or we could emphasize the different roles within the Trinity: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. 

Or we could give it an Augustinian flare: In the name of the Lover, the Beloved, and Love.

Or we could lean into the languages of the Bible: In the name of Abba, Christ, and the Paraclete.

Or we could go pure Metaphysical: In the name of the Source, the Word, the Spirit.

And I’m happy to lean in and explore these alternatives, they are all thought- provoking and helpful in their own way, but none of them really solve the problem that since ancient times, we’ve been searching and failing to find the right words to pin down an ineffable mystery.

And it is a mystery.

A mystery we often ignore or argue about or try to explain away.  You know, a significant number of the major heresies of the Christian Church have about the doctrine of the Trinity, as the church has, over the centuries, attempted to demystify it or remystify it, and created leagues of heretics along the way.  It makes a preacher nervous.

So what can I say?   How can I approach this mystery?!  It makes the question that Jesus asked Nicodemus hit a little too close for comfort: “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” Guilty!  It makes me want to throw up my hands like Isaiah in God’s throne room: “Woe is me! I am lost.”

But actually, I think Isaiah is a good place to start. 

Because there is something about his encounter which deeply resonates with me and which helps us get to something important about the Triune God. 

Isaiah sees God and despairs.  And it seems that that despair is fueled by an overwhelming feeling of apartness.  He witnessed God in God’s full glory in the community of celestial beings and all Isaiah can think is, “I don’t belong here. I’m just a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. There’s no way I could dream to be a part of this. I’m lost.”  He feels alone, separate, apart.

But all of those feelings – alone, separate, apart – those are impossible in a Trinity. 

As mysterious as the three-in-one and the one-in-three are, they point to a truth that divine life is inherently communal.  Connected.  Relational.  When we strip away the words upon words we have heaped upon the Trinity, when we abandon the paradoxes and the paracletes and everything that’s problematic about the formulations and the anathemas and the analogies: what we are left with is Relationship. That the life of God is a shared life.  And it is a shared life that wants to share even more. 

Isaiah despairs, until the burning coal touches his lips, until he is told that he doesn’t need to carry around his guilt and his sin and everything real or imagined thing that’s keeping him apart.  And I don’t think there is anything magical about that coal. I don’t think it really “did” anything at all.  Except that somehow, that experience, and the reassurance from the seraph, helped Isaiah realize that he already belonged. He always did.  He was always connected to God, he was always sharing life with the God that shares life. He was never lost.  

And that’s what gives Isiah the confidence to speak up, to throw his hand up when God asks for a volunteer.

“Here I am!” He says, “I belong here and I’m a part of this too. Send me!”

Isaiah joined the dance.  The dynamic dance of mutuality and shared life which we imperfectly call the Trinity based on the witness of countless ages, who experienced God in different ways and used different words to name those experiences, but which all pointed to the truth that the Divine is deeply connected to the Divine and deeply connected to us. 

Like Isaiah, we are already connected.  We already belong.  We are not lost.  

Like family, Father and Son–that imperfect language we borrow for the trinity–that’s the image that Paul uses: “The Holy Spirit is bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God!” Sharing life in the Holy Family. Adoption is the metaphor that Paul uses in Romans, but in the gospel reading Jesus chooses an even more intimate metaphor when he is speaking with Nicodemus: “You must be born from above,” Jesus says.

Birth. I mean, talk about shared life!

Nicodemus is often mocked for taking this image too seriously: “Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”  But I wonder if that’s why Jesus chose it, because he wanted us to take this metaphor seriously.  To understand the deep connection that exists within the life of God and between God and creation.  Like a mother sharing life in her womb.  Connected and distinct. Two persons, 1 being. 

Now, that analogy isn’t perfect.  No analogy of the Trinity is. Or can be.  I’ll concede that it is definitely missing an element of mutuality, not to mention the third person. But as an example of a life-giving relationship, a relationship of shared life – it’s hard to find one that is more on the nose. 

Nicodemus was afraid.  He was so afraid that he came by night, and yet he recognized the connection that Jesus had with God: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.”  And I hear in that statement an unspoken question, an echo of Isaiah’s despair, “How can I ever be connected to God like that? I am lost!”

And Jesus tries to show him.

You are already born of the Spirit, Nicodemus. You must be. You are already more connected, more intimately related to God than you could ever imagine. 

Jesus wanted Nicodemus to fully experience the God who so loved the world that she shared life.  Wanted Nicodemus to hear the Holy Spirit bearing witness to his spirit, groaning and murmuring to him, touching his lips with the hot coal of truth that he is a child of God.  Just like you are. 

You are a child of God.

You are a child of God, the creator, the author and source of all life, who makes room within herself to share that life with the universe.  

You are a child of God-With-Us, the Word made flesh, the God who entered into our finite lives, lived at our side and shared our life the way we share it.  

You are a child of God, the presence that is the bond of sharing.  Who produces life-giving fruit within you and shows you why life is worth living.  Who whispers in your soul that you are not lost. That you belong.  And who asks “whom shall I send?” and sends you. 

You are born from above, beloveds.  Children of God. 

You share life with the God who shares life.  

And you are sent to share life in the name of the triune God, however you name the name: the Source, the Word, the Spirit; Abba, Christ, Paraclete; Lover, Beloved, Love; Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; the Parent, the Child and the Bond Between…

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus left at the ascension, so that we could learn to look for Christ everywhere. 

Vicar Lauren Mildahl
The Ascension of Our Lord
Texts: Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

If you had stopped by here on Monday, April 8th at around 2pm, you would have seen something unusual: Jim Bargmann and I, standing out in the parking lot, staring up at the clouds.

No, we weren’t looking for Jesus. That, of course, was the day of the eclipse and though we knew we weren’t in the path of the totality, we were still hoping to see something. Anything.  But, as many of you probably remember, we couldn’t see it here at all.  In fact, the clouds were so thick and covered so much of the sky, we couldn’t even tell where the sun was!  We watched and we waited for a break in the clouds, and we shared photos from our friends and family who were seeing this amazing thing. But in the end, all we saw was clouds. And after a while we headed back inside, feeling disappointed. And a little bit empty. 

And I was thinking about that experience as I was imagining Jesus’s ascension. 

Now, we don’t know what the weather was like that day.  We aren’t given many details but we do know that there was at least one cloud. Because in the account in Acts, we are told that “as [the followers of Jesus] were watching, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” 

Now, we usually picture it as one of those huge, fluffy, white clouds that is just the perfect compliment to the gorgeous blue sky on a sunny afternoon. But what if it wasn’t?  What if it was more like the day of the eclipse, overcast and threatening rain, with gloomy gray clouds covering the sky?  

I know that’s statistically unlikely, given the arid climate of Jerusalem. But, imagining the Ascension happening under gray skies, helped me connect with the underlying melancholy of the event.  Of course that wasn’t the only emotion, and seems not even to have been the primary one.  After all Luke’s account in the gospel tells us that the followers returned to Jerusalem with great joy! And we’ll get to the joy. But I think we can safely imagine that the great joy was also at least tinged with a bit of sadness. 

That there was glory, yes, but something gloomy too. 

Jesus was leaving. The incarnation was over.  And that’s so hard because even death itself couldn’t end the incarnation! That’s what we’ve been celebrating for forty days now – that death wasn’t the end of the incarnation. But this was.  The Word made flesh, who dwelt among us, who died and rose again, was going away. 

The clouds covered up the sun, and we are left in gloomy gray, staring up at the sky.  

It’s a feeling we know well.  When someone important to us, important to our community, leaves, it can feel just like straining to see the sun on a cloudy day.  A feeling of missing something. A feeling of emptiness and longing. 

It’s easy to imagine the followers of Jesus feeling that emptiness, that longing as they stood there looking up at the sky.  As they realized that Easter really is over, and the long wait of Advent was beginning.  No wonder those two white-robed figures had to prompt them to quit their staring and get back to living.  They couldn’t tear their eyes away – they just wanted one more glimpse.  

But, of course, the sun is still there even when you can’t see it.

Jesus may have left, but he wasn’t gone.  And no clouds can cover up or take away Christ’s promise to abide with us, to be with us “always, to the end of the age.”  No matter how empty we feel, Christ fills us.  After all, Christ is fullness, as Paul reminds us in the letter to the Ephesians, the one “who fills all in all.”  Who fills our broken and empty hearts with abundant and everlasting life – who fills us with the gifts of the Holy Spirit – with love and peace and great joy.

And this fullness isn’t only within ourselves, but Christ is the fullness that is so full that it fills the whole universe.  Christ fills everything, is accessible everywhere! 

I apologize in advance for this cringey comparison – but one way to imagine it is that Christ being lifted up in a cloud is a little bit like Christ being uploaded to the cloud.  Okay, I know that’s a groaner, but go with it for a moment. I create a file on my device – and the only place I can access it is on that device, the place where it is saved.  But once I upload it to the cloud, then it’s saved to the network that connects the world and that means I can get to it from anywhere. Christ is the network that connects us to everything – to God, to creation, to one another, even to ourselves.  

And that’s part of what the Ascension, the end of the incarnation, the uploading to the cloud, helps us to understand. 

Because there is one drawback to incarnation.

It’s singular. It’s particular. It draws our focus to one person and time and place, and that’s amazing because it helps us see the Triune God who is beyond person, time and place.  But that focus on the one singular person of Jesus, can blur our peripheral vision, and blind us to the truth that Christ is everywhere, the fullness that fills all people and all things, present and accessible and living from one end of creation to the other. As long as Jesus was here, walking and talking and eating and healing and loving as one particular person, it was a little bit harder for us to see Christ anywhere else. 

Jesus left so that we would learn to look for Christ. 

So that we could learn to see Christ in everyone, in everything. So that we could experience the fullness of Christ.

And that doesn’t keep us from staring up at the clouds sometimes – desperate for a glimpse of the sun.

That doesn’t keep us from singing “Come, Lord Jesus” again and again until our throats are raw.  It doesn’t keep us from feeling empty, even as we are being filled by fullness.  In our longing, we are still clinging to the promise that Christ will return.  As those two robed figures said to the disciples: “This Jesus, this Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go.” Christ Jesus will come again. 

But what do we do in the meantime? We look for Christ, not just in the clouds, but in the dirt and in the mirror and in each other.  We learn to see Christ – especially in those places we least expect, and in those people who are the hardest to love.  We let ourselves be filled with the fullness of the one who fills all in all, so that we can be Christ’s eyes and hands and love in the world. 

We do what we always do in Advent. 

We watch and we wait for a break in the clouds. 

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus’s command to love one another invites us into unexpected friendships, including the friendship between God and creation.

Vicar Lauren Mildahl
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, year B
Texts: Acts 10:44-48, John 15:9-17

Dear friends, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus does something pretty unexpected in the gospel reading today. 

Here in his last hours with his followers, he says to them: “I do not call you servants any longer…but I have called you friends.”  Something has shifted in their relationship, and Jesus names it. “We care about each other. We’re close. I’ve trusted you with everything. We are friends.” 

But, it seems like an odd kind of friendship.  Not only because we know that these “friends” won’t really act like friends in the chapters to come, but also because of the way Jesus describes friendship: “you are my friends if you do what I command you” – which doesn’t sound like friendship.  Following commands, that sounds like what servants do! So which is it – friends or servants? Both? Somewhere in between? What’s going on?

I often feel, when I’m studying or preaching from the gospel of John, that you really need a PhD in Greek and in ancient philosophy to understand what the heck is going on.  In this case, it’s really important to understand what friendship meant to Jesus. And, I don’t have a PhD, but from what I understand, the simple version is this: people in the ancient world took friendship very seriously.  

Friendships came with serious expectations. 

It was sometimes even ritualized with a ceremony involving solemn vows and an exchange of symbolic gifts – basically a wedding, but to celebrate a friendship. Because, just like marriage, friendship meant a serious commitment: to help and give and speak and act in each other’s best interest for the rest of their lives. 

And what’s more, friends were expected to be patient and kind. They did not envy or boast. You see where I’m going with this? They weren’t arrogant or rude or irritable or resentful. Friendship bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, endured all things and never ended. 

Friendship was love.

Literally the Greek word for friendship is “philia,” which just means love.

I imagine that the people of the ancient world would be mystified at our modern dilution of the idea of friendship. You can become “friends” on Facebook by clicking a button? That’s it?  What do you mean you’re “just friends?”  What is “just” about committing yourself so deeply to one another, that you would even die for each other?

Because that’s how Jesus describes it: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Jesus isn’t so much imparting new spiritual wisdom here as much as he is quoting the common wisdom of his day. Aristotle wrote something very similar – almost word for word- about laying down one’s life for one’s friends almost three hundred years earlier.  For centuries, ancient philosophers had described the ideal, the truest friendship as love, self-sacrificial to the very point of death.

And that’s exactly what Jesus is preparing his friends for. He is about to lay down his life for them. For love. For friendship.

And he wants them to love in the same way. That’s the really unexpected part. 

Because, you know, the interesting thing about the word for “friend” in Greek is that it has both an active and a passive meaning. A friend is simultaneously the one who loves and the one who is loved, the lover and the beloved. There is an equality and a mutuality built into the very word. 

That’s what Jesus means when he says “I do not call you servants any longer.” Jesus is showing how friendship, how love, breaks down hierarchy. It started two chapters earlier when Jesus washed their feet, flipping the expected hierarchy of master and servant. And here, he destroys it completely. No servants. No masters.  Just friends. 

And not only in this inner circle, but on a cosmic scale as well. 

No longer is it going to be God up here and creation down here, with God the subject doing the loving and creation the object being loved. The truth revealed in Jesus, God-with-us, is that it’s both God and creation, both loving and being loved, both subjects and objects of the passion and pleasure and pain of love. Jesus reveals God’s desire for mutual love – deep and abiding and unexpected friendship.

And this unexpected friendship between God and creation keeps creating more unexpected friendships, keeps sowing love in places where love seemed impossible. 

We see it in Acts, with Peter and Cornelius. 

Friendship between them should have been impossible – a wealthy Roman military leader and a poor Jewish fisherman. Come on. How could they love each other?  How could they be vulnerable enough to allow themselves to be loved?  But the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them all. The love of God was bigger than every hierarchy and cultural barrier that separated them. Cornelius invited Peter. And Peter stayed with Cornelius and welcomed him, the very first Gentile to be baptized. They loved each other. And became friends.  An unexpected friendship that changed the course of Peter’s life. And changed the course of the church. 

And that’s exactly what Jesus wanted for Peter, when he called him his friend. And wants for all of us. 

He wants our joy to be complete – the joy of unexpected friendship.

I hope you have experienced this joy already. I hope you’ve had a  friendship that seemed to come out of nowhere–that overcame the barriers of our world that seeks to sort and divide. A friend who, as another ancient philosopher put it, doubled your joy and divided your grief.  

We believe that God’s friendship with creation, God’s love poured out for us and our love poured out in return, can create friendships – true friendships which otherwise would seem not just unexpected but impossible. Between those on opposite ends of the hierarchy. On opposite sides of borders. On opposite sides of front lines. 

And in our world, we are desperate for more unexpected friendships.

We need unexpected friendship – we need the mutual love of the Holy Spirit to break down the hierarchies that surround us – that never seem to change and keep us part.  To break down every way that we let gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, ability, religion, and politics keep us from loving each other. 

We need unexpected friendship – we need the love of God who became vulnerable, who invites us into mutual vulnerability. The love that risks being known and being hurt, that trust others with what is most tender in ourselves.  

We need unexpected friendship – we need the love of Jesus–who laid down his life.  The love that teaches us to lay down our own wants and desires and comforts out of care for each other. That trades happiness for joy.

That’s why Jesus commands us to love one another.

Not because we are servants to be commanded. After all, if friendship has broken down hierarchy, then commands aren’t really commands, are they?  And in case, love can’t be commanded. Love must be given freely or it isn’t love. 

Rather it is the will of God, the hope God has for humanity, that we love one another. And it becomes a self-fulfilling statement. When Jesus says, “You are my friends if you do what I command,” what he is saying is this: “If do what I’ve said, if you love one another, then you will be loved and loving – active and passive – beloved lovers – in a word, friends.”

Unexpected friends, let us love one another.   And our joy will be complete. 

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The story of Thomas invites us to believe, not in death, but in life through Jesus and to hold space for the unbelievable bigness of God’s love .

Vicar Lauren Mildahl
The Second Sunday of Easter, year B
Text: John 20:19-31

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The church has been a bit hard on Thomas.

The gospel writer says he already had a nickname – he was called “the Twin” – but we never call him that, do we? We call him “Doubting Thomas.” And, every year, when we hear this story on the second Sunday of Easter, I always feel a lot of sympathy for him. For one thing, it’s really not fair that he is the only one who gets the nickname “Doubting.”

Because every one of those disciples in that locked room were doubters.

They had all already heard from an eyewitness that Jesus had risen. Mary Magdalene had told them all, earlier that day, that she had seen the risen Christ. And there they still were, huddled in fear, with the doors locked, doubting. And it wasn’t until all of them saw the wounded hands and side of Jesus that they believed. Thomas wasn’t the only doubter. He was just the last doubter, at least among the inner circle, and only by chance.

And maybe doubt isn’t such a bad thing anyway.

The story that God would become human, that God would die, and that God would rise again from the dead–that story was and still is, a little bit unbelievable. I received some feedback from an earlier sermon that encouraged me to be careful about describing the love of God as unbelievable or incredible, inviting me to ponder if I really want to say that God’s love is not able to be believed – that we can’t believe it.

But I think I do. Maybe I don’t want to go all the way to say it can’t be believed, but it is difficult to believe–and we shouldn’t forget that. Because if we believe it too easily, I think we tame the wildness of God, we shrink the hugeness of God’s love. If we stop demanding to witness, to see and touch God’s goodness, if we stop being on the look out for Jesus’ scars, if we take all of it as a given, as obvious–then we are liable to forget how earth-shattering this story really is.

How ridiculous it is. How mind-boggling. How unbelievable.

That niggle of doubt keeps it in perspective. Keeps the extraordinary bigness of God’s love from becoming small and mundane.

So I think it is alright that Thomas doubted – that all of them doubted. And it’s good that we have this yearly reminder to believe the unbelievable.

But, of course, it’s also good to remember that believing has a shadow side.

In the tradition I grew up in, we rarely talked about Christians and non-Christians, we talked about believers and non-believers. But as I’ve grown older, it sometimes seems like a strange distinction to me. Because everyone believes in something. We’re all believers. Some believe in Christ, and others believe in different faiths, or they believe in humanity, or in a higher power or a greater purpose or the idea that life has meaning – or they believe equally that life has no meaning. But everyone believes in something.

And so that’s the other reason I don’t think it’s fair to call him “Doubting Thomas.” Because Thomas was a believer.

Before he met the risen Christ, he believed in death.

He believed, with good evidence, that death was final. He believed in death so much, that the idea of the resurrection, of life, was for him, unbelievable.

And it can be so easy to believe in death.

So easy to believe in the things that suck the life right out of us. To believe in lies and conspiracies and our own superiority, to embrace paranoia and pessimism and despair. To believe that nothing will ever change, or if it does, it will change for the worse. And to be mired in those beliefs so deeply that we can’t even see that they are killing us.

So I’m not sure that Thomas’ problem was doubting. I think he and the other disciples believed – but they didn’t believe in life.

And that’s what Jesus comes to change.

He shows them his hands and his sides, shows them his living, breathing body, and tells them to believe – believe in life! Believe that life is possible, even after death. Believe that wounds can turn into scars. He tells them to believe!

Jesus doesn’t want us to believe so that we get the right answers on some cosmic test. We don’t need to fret about believing the right things or believing them hard enough. Nor do we need to despair about the impossibility of believing the unbelievable. No, the gospel writer tells us: “These things are written that you may continue to believe…and that through believing you may have life in Jesus’ name!”

Believe in life – so that you can have life!

Life that is full and abundant, completely trusting the giver and sustainer of all life. That’s why believing is important. Not because having the right list of beliefs in your head is your ticket to heaven.

It’s important because believing how we get to trusting.

If I don’t believe that the chair will support me, I will not trust it with my weight. Belief and trust are bound up with one another, so bound together that in Greek they are the same word. And whereas we are tempted to separate them, because for us belief is individual and cognitive, while trust is relational and emotional, in this passage we are invited to both.

Because what Jesus really wants from Thomas – from all them – from us – is relationship. Jesus wants us to believe so that we can get to trust. So that we will lean in with all our weight and trust that we will be supported. But since it is so difficult to trust if you don’t believe, Jesus helps with that too – showing  us the evidence we needed to see to believe — to believe in life. To believe that life and hope and healing are possible. And to believe that love and joy and peace and all the other fruits of the Spirit cannot be permanently trampled by fear and despair and hatred. That life is not destroyed by death.

And when we believe in life through Jesus, when we trust Jesus with our lives, we experience life – we become fully and abundantly alive.

And that has a name – it’s called faith.

So, perhaps we should start calling him Faithful Thomas. Faith isn’t the opposite of doubt. The opposite of doubt is certainty. Certainty runs from doubt, tries to kill it, and never looks back. Faith reaches down to lift doubt up too.

There is room for doubt in faith. There is room for unbelievable in believing. There is room for needing to put your fingers in Jesus’ wounded hands so that our unshakeable belief in death may be overcome by belief in life, may be overcome by the enormity of God’s love, until we cry out with Thomas in awe and in trust: “My Lord and My God! We believe.”

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus kneels at our feet, inviting us to be part of the fierce and incredible love of God. All we have to do is receive it and pass it on. 

Vicar Lauren Mildahl 
Maundy Thursday, year B 
Texts: Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35 

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Jesus knew that his hour had come…”

He knew this was the Last Supper. His last hours with his disciples. And, though also he knew that God had “given all things into his hands,” Jesus still had so much to give. So much he wanted to pass on.

And what better time to do it than at Passover? When he and his disciples were themselves participating in a tradition that had been passed on through generation after generation – that is still observed faithfully by our Jewish siblings. The specific rituals of Passover, the foods that are eaten, the words that are spoken, even the way it’s eaten – loins girded, staff in hand, sandals on feet, all of these rituals were given by God as remembrances. And as long as they are passed down, the people remember.  They remember the fierceness of the love that God showed God’s people, doing whatever it took to rescue them from slavery in Egypt. 

And Jesus wanted his followers to remember. 

And so, at this very supper, already laden with memories passed down, he passed the bread and the cup and said: “Do this in remembrance of me.”  Remember the fierceness of my love for you.  Remember that I did what it took to rescue you from sin and death.  Remember this love. And pass it on.   

Ten years ago, at a Starbucks in Florida, someone, I don’t know who, started a pay-it-forward chain.

The idea is pretty simple – as you pay for your item, you tell the barista that you’d also like to pay for the next person in line.  A small, thoughtful gesture to put a little kindness in the world. And sometimes, the next person decides to do the same thing, passing it on, adding a link in the chain. And that day in 2014, not only did the next person decide to pass it on, but so did the next. And the next and the next and the next and the next and next  – and this went on, incredibly, for 10 hours. 457 people passed it on! 

They did it without knowing. Without knowing how much the person behind them was ordering. Without knowing whether the next person in line deserved it. Without knowing whether the next person would also pass it on.  But 457 people accepted a random act of love from a stranger and chose to pass love on to another stranger. And it’s kind of beautiful.

Now, I should say that there are a lot of people who don’t like pay-it-forward chains, including many baristas and food service workers because it does make their job more difficult and confusing and the generosity is often only directed at other customers and not at the employees who are actually doing a lot of the work to keep the chain going and who are often underpaid in first place.  So the point of this message is not to encourage you to start more pay-it-forward chains at coffee shops. 

The point is to invite you to ponder – what do you do with the fierce and incredible love of God when it is given to you? 

Do you accept it?  And do you pass it on?

As Simon Peter could tell you, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Jesus had barely begun to show them how deeply he loved his own who were in the world, loving them to “the very end” and had barely begun passing on this love by tenderly washing their feet – and the chain nearly ended right there and then. 

“Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Peter asked. He didn’t get it, couldn’t understand, and he tried to stop it. 

“You will never wash my feet!” he said.  You could also translate that “never” idiomatically as “not in a million years!”  He really didn’t want to accept the love that Jesus was offering.  Why? Well, maybe because he thought it was all wrong–Jesus was the most important person in the room, he shouldn’t be kneeling at anyone’s feet–Peter should be kneeling at Jesus’ feet!  Or maybe Peter thought the whole thing was just unnecessary and a waste of time–Peter could clean his own feet well enough, thank you. Or maybe he said it because Peter didn’t want to take off his sandals, didn’t want Jesus to come close enough to see how dirty his feet were, didn’t want him to have to bear the stench.  

You know, funnily enough, the 458th customer at that Florida Starbucks that day was also named Peter.¹  He had driven there because he had heard about the pay-it-forward chain. He had come there specifically to end it. To be fair to him, he did leave a very big tip for the baristas, $100!  But still, he came there on purpose and when asked to pass it on, he refused.  In an interview after the fact he gave lots of reasons: “it was unfair” and “it’s just a marketing ploy” and “they should have given money to people that needed it, like the homeless” and “I just don’t want to be forced into doing something.” 

We always have our reasons, don’t we? 

There are always reasons to break the chain, to refuse to accept love or to pass it on.  Especially when we are afraid that love will never win, never in a million years. 

But at the Last Supper, love does win. 

Because whatever the reason was that Simon Peter didn’t want to have his feet washed, Jesus isn’t having it. “Peter, unless I wash you, you have no share with me,” he says.  His response seems harsh – almost like Jesus is threatening to leave Peter out of the will, to take away his share.

And that seems to be how Peter takes it, because immediately, he goes full Peter:  “Oh then, of course Lord, if that’s the way it is, don’t stop at just my feet, wash my hands, wash my head – wash all of me!”  It sounds to me like desperation. Like Peter was so afraid that he was out, so afraid that he could lose it, that he started begging: “Whatever it takes to clean me, Jesus, please do it. Just don’t leave me with no share!” 

But Jesus wasn’t cutting Peter out, he was inviting Peter in. 

That word “share” in Greek, also means a “part.” Jesus was saying:  “Peter, unless I wash you, you won’t be part of what I’m doing. I want you to be a part of it.  And don’t worry, Peter, you are clean. It’s not about the water–it’s about the relationship.  Let me wash those beautiful feet so I can pass my love to you.  All you have to do is receive it. And pass it on.”

And finally, Peter accepts. Jesus washed his feet, and washed the next, and washed each and every one of them. Even though he did know.  He knew exactly what was about to happen. He knew that they didn’t deserve it. And he knew that one of them would never pass it on.  Even though he knew, he washed them all, even Judas, because he wanted them to be part of it. To be part of his love. 

Jesus wants us all to be part of this love.

“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 for you.”  These words are for you. Your invitation today, and every day, to get your feet wet!  Maybe literally in just a few minutes, but more importantly, figuratively, as you dip your toe in or take a running leap, feet first, to be part of the chain of love and kindness and service that our Lord and Teacher started for us. 

The first step is to remember and receive the fierce love of God that kneels at your feet and gently tends to the parts of you you’d rather keep hidden.  

All you have to do is receive it. And pass it on. 

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

^{1. “Meet the man who stopped the 11-hour Starbucks pay-it-forward: ‘I had to put an end to it,'” ABC News, Aug 22, 2104.  https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/meet-the-man-who-ended-the-10-hour-starbucks-pay-it-forward-i-had-to-put-an-end-to-it–106360}