SABBATICAL 2: "Take, Eat"

The day begins with news of a missle launched by Houtis in Yemen and landing (without casualties) near the Tel Aviv airport.  In a post to X, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a response to Iran: “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”  Later, among Armenian Orthodox friends at the Cathedral of Saint Jacob, we're welcomed by the Patriarch who reminds us that American solidarity is critical to the cessation of genocide and beginning of repair. 

Sunday Afternoon

On that last day, Roman violence haunting his beloved community, Jesus sends Peter and John (Luke 22) to the market to prepare the Passover meal.  And later, at the appointed hour, they all gather, thirteen friends (who've committed their lives to his path of nonviolence, mercy and abundance), in a room upstairs, identified strangely by a woman bearing a jar of water home for others.  The room is already furnished, the food is prepared, and they all settle into an open circle, celebrating God's passion for liberation and their partnership, friendship and discipleship.

According to the customs of the day, they recline around this open space, where the feast is spread and candles set.  John sits to Jesus' right, as his dear confidant; Judas sits to Jesus' left, as the meal's provider.  Peter, the poorest of them all, sits at the far end opposite, again, according to custom.

Figure 1

Habit and decency require the washing of feet, before such a significant meal, and ordinarily it would be the poorest and last called upon to perform this duty (Figure 1).  But Jesus, always conscious of flipping customs upside down and revealing divine intention, takes off his outer robe, ties the servant's towel around his waist, pours water into a broad bowl and begins to wash their feet (John 13).  All of them.  Starting with John and Judas on his right and his left (Figure 2). 

Figure 1

Jesus knows what Judas is up to.  He knows that one of his own has tired of the routine, soured on the discipline of loving enemies, and redistributing meager resources again and again, and praying for the Kingdom on earth as in heaven.  He may even be tempted to pull Judas out of the circle; beg him to reconsider, repent; maybe even shame him for his cowardice.  In the fourth gospel, this moment is hidden, between the lines.  We're left to imagine, to wonder, to encounter the radical practice of Jesus on an evening of intense hope, and even deeper angst.  And in this wondering, often, lies the power of the sacred word.

What surely happens is this: Jesus kneels at Judas' side and with his own tired hands--the same hands that'll be nailed to a Roman cross within hours--his works the water into Judas' feet.  I imagine that this is not a routine splashing, a nervous and brief brushing of flesh on flesh.  I imagine Jesus lingers there, washing Judas' dusty feet, rubbing life into them, loving them--with his hands, with his heart, with his flesh.  Made in the image of God.  Both of them.

When at last he gets all the way around to Peter, Peter is equal parts humbled, embarrassed and verklempt.  "You will never wash my feet," he says.  And of course Jesus does--in the same steady, loving, gentle way he's done for all the others.  "You call me Teacher and Lord," he says to the whole group, "and you are right...So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's."

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We're standing in a quiet room just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City.  Our guide Rafi Ghattas is mapping this "last" supper--which may have been here, or a room like it, or just nearby.

Rafi notes that the thirteen of them were undoubtedly "reclining" in a way commonplace in that time and place: leaning on the left elbow, left hip on the floor, reaching with the right hand for food spread before them in the center of an open circle.  He notes, then, that their feet were extended behind them, toes like hands of a compass pointing to the many corners of the world.

And what he suggests--about Jesus and Judas, and Jesus' merciful care for Judas in a moment of disturbing betrayal--strikes me hard and tears something open within me.

The Bread: Cathedral of St. Jacob

Could it be that the sharing of the bread/body, the pouring out of wine, the remembering itself, is communion that evening (and since), and as much about the washing of their feet as anything else?  Could it be that it's not possible to grasp the eucharist, or its power and promise, apart from how it is that Jesus reaches--with his hands--into the bowl of water to wash and caress their feet?  Even Judas'.  Especially Judas'!

The body that is "broken" is first bravely offered--lovinging shared, even sacrificially shared, with friend and foe.  And with the foe is also a friend.  And communion then is no simple transaction--as if faith can be that simple, or God that calculating.  Instead it's the radical blessing of God's presence in our communities, in our lives--and Jesus' grace in inviting in us the kind of human, enfleshed transformation that moves to care (intimately, generously, justly) for one another.  And this includes the feared, the weaponized, the despised and the resented.  Especially them.

And receiving this bread, and offering it to another, is a way of consenting to the transforming intentions of Jesus, the transforming gifts of his gospel, even the transforming spirit of his sacrifice: that I might go from that sacramental moment to a sacrificial life--reconciling with my neighbor with hands of love, pursuing justice in coalitions with all kinds of friends and allies, and building beloved community where tenderness and mercy (not grievance and cruelty) are both sustenance and purpose.

Sunday Evening

Dalia Qumsieh, LLM

Yesterday, outside of Bethlehem, we met Dalia Qumsieh, LL M, Founder and Director of the Balasan Initative for Human Rights - Palestine.  She shared Balasan's work to protect Bethlehem and surrounding Palestinian land from annexation and the "annexation wall"--all of whiich carves apart that land and attaches more and more of it to Israel itself.   Interestingly, "Balasan" is the Arabic name for a native tree that has existed in Palestine for thousands of years, which leaves were used to extract a healing balm to cure wounds and illnesses. The name is inspired by the vision that respect for human rights and justice is the cure needed to end violence and suffering, and restore the humanity and dignity of all people in the region.

Dalia told us how quickly things are changing, how drastically they've changed, and how urgently we must all work together to protect Palestinian culture and community (and lives).  She noted that her Christian grandmother can remember a stunning kind of trust, a dense and generous kind of community with Jewish and Muslim friends: that included (maybe sixty years ago) breastfeeding one another's children!  Jews and Palestinians together!

There's no hint of that any longer, not in the West Bank, of course; and not really anywhere to be honest.  But isn't this the kind of community Jesus imagines at supper that "last" night?  Isn't it the kind of community transfigured by love and mercy--so transfigured that justice is not only their desire, not only their intention, but their joy?  Mothers gratefully nursing one another's children, Jewish friends and Palestinian friends building businesses and civic institutions and imagining shared schools and governments?  Muslims and Jews and Christians singing one another's songs and praying one another's prayers--and celebrating even the strange and puzzling differences between them?

As for us, as for those of us still moved to follow the Peacemaker from Nazareth--I think he lays down his life right there in the upper room.  In a way that's clearly and compellingly available to us--to every little congregation in every hamlet, to all the larger congregattions in all the cities--he says: "Take a deep breath, work up the nerve, and wash one another's feet."  And then he says: "Be sincere about it; be bold and boldly patient; and dare to imagine a world healed and redeemed by justice and love."  And then he says: "Put away your weapons and rage.  Tear down the walls that separate flesh from flesh.  Rewrite the apartheid laws that divide brother from brother and sister from sister."  And then he says: "Be reconciled to one another in peace."

This is my body.  Take, eat.