Today, I speak to you from the depths of Holy Week. Maundy Thursday is nigh upon us, and I have entered this week in the way I do all Holy Weeks – scattered and a bit destroyed from the wiles of March. If you are like me and have found yourself worn out by Lent and by March on the prairies, it is my hope that this letter will find you in the joy of Eastertide and revelling in the thawing sun of April. In this interest, I beg your forgiveness as I pull us back into Lent (for a brief moment) to discuss what humility means.
When asked to contemplate humility, the first images which came to my mind were those of humble service performed by people in authority. One of the more prominent vignettes which entered my mind was the act of service performed annually on Maundy Thursday. As a young child attending church, I was always struck by the solemnity with which the priest would kneel and begin to wash parishioners’ feet. There was an odd vulnerability which hung in the air on that night. The parish I grew up in was centred around communing with God intellectually, and so the embodiment of this action also felt out of place and uncomfortable. As I grew up, this sensation lingered, and even when I left my home church and moved to another church, which was more Anglo-Catholic and required more bodily engagement in worship (in the form of genuflecting and making the sign of the cross), the awkward beauty of this event remained. I believe that this discomfort is a common experience among people who witness this ritual.
Thinking back on this practice, it seems to demonstrate humility in a different way than one would expect – not only as an act of giving but also as an act of receiving. The priest lowers themselves to the cold and silty floor while the parishioner sheepishly peels off the grubby socks of winter (undoubtedly a few specks of lint remain). The vulnerability of both priest and parishioner is laid bare in this action. It seems to be one of the great tragedies of our age that we are schooled away from this type of vulnerability, a vulnerability which is central to the embodied experience of Maundy Thursday.
The demand of this odd vulnerability is part of the reason why this ritual, from its very conception, has been shrouded in confusion, discomfort, and awe. John the Evangelist describes the moment, soon before Jesus is sent to be crucified, when He kneels to wash his disciples’ feet. He writes: “Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God… poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet.”[1] John continues on, describing the reaction of one of the disciples: “Then cometh He to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto Him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?”[2] Peter does not want his master and Lord to handle his dust-mottled feet. But then Jesus speaks to him and says, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter…If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.”[3]
In this scene, Jesus himself acknowledges the mystery inherent in this action by stating that the disciples will not be able to understand what He is doing until a later time. However, He also draws specific attention to the importance of it by directing his disciples to do likewise to each other and to those they serve.[4] In his explanation of this service, He repeats the word “receive.”[5] Although He is specifically stating that people who receive the teaching and service given by His disciples will receive the Love of Christ and thereby the Love of the Father, He is also highlighting the importance of receptivity.
In his book Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams writes on the humility of Christ, saying: “He is someone who is in a relationship of dependence on the one He prays to as Father. In Him there is divine purpose, power, and action; but there is also humility, responsiveness, receptivity.”[6] Williams goes on to describe what this means for us. He says, “We are no less in God’s image when we acknowledge our dependence or when we offer thanks than when we are making decisions or showing God’s love to another.”[7] Therefore, humility is not solely about offering oneself to the world in service and love (although this is important and necessary), it is also about receiving the world – about remaining permeable to its gifts as well as attentive to its pain.
In the chapter before the washing of feet, John describes (what I take to be) one of the most beautiful scenes in the whole Bible. In this chapter, a woman from Bethany washes Jesus’ feet with her hair. This woman, who is named in the Gospel of John as Mary, the sister of Lazarus, is also described in the Gospel of Luke as a woman of great sin.[8] In an act of profound love, she breaks open a jar of perfumed oil and pours it over Jesus’ feet – rinsing them with her tears. Although Judas Iscariot, the one who will betray Him, chides Jesus for accepting this expensive gift, which could have been given to the poor, He accepts her gift with deep humility.[9] Jesus shows himself, in these two sequences, to be full of great humility both in the position of generosity and in the position of receptivity.
So, how does this idea of humility interact with modern western culture? The excerpt taken from Rowan Williams, referenced above, concludes with the notion that Christ-like humility understood (in part) as receptivity isn’t “an easy message for a world… in love with the ideal of absolute self-sufficiency.”[10] It is my belief that this ideal comes from the over-prevalent fear in our culture of disappointment and rejection. People fear needing others precisely because they believe their desires to be impossible for them to live up to. More often than not, people are afraid to be in a position of receiving, not because of pride, but because they do not want to be a burden to those around them. They believe themselves to be too much and for others to be not enough. Humans are indeed too much, and no one will ever fully satisfy our desires or needs perfectly, save the One who satisfies all. However, I do not believe that we are called to stop desiring or needing things from others – to self-contain.
Jesus highlights what the call truly is at the end of John chapter thirteen. After the disciples’ feet have been cleaned, He delivers his last commandment. This commandment is the summation of all the commandments given prior: “That ye love one another as I have loved you.”[11] Within the context of these words, Christ reveals that in order to enter into His love, it is just as imperative to receive as it is to give. What is central to this commandment is the interaction between people. In this word, we are told three key things. Firstly, that we are called to relinquish ourselves to others – both in service and in need. Secondly, we are taught to practice imperfect love as a means of entering into the flow of His love. Thirdly, we are taught that if the word is Love, then the activity of self-containment is futile.
While contemplating our Christian task of humility, it is revealed that this practice of receptivity is absolutely crucial. Humanity, in its fallen state, will forever be unable to accept the immense gift of Love poured out on the cross. However, the work of our lives as Christians is to try to remain receptive to it. And so, with all of the events of Holy Week laid out for us, pouring forth into Spring like sweet perfume, let us endeavour daily to acknowledge the immense gift we have been given and to stand in awe of it. Let us enter into this Eastertide profoundly leaning on the Love which surrounds us.
[1] John 13:3-5 (KJV).
[2] John 13:6 (KJV).
[3] John 13:7-8 (KJV).
[4] John 13:14-15 (KJV).
[5] John 13:20 (KJV).
[6] Will McDavid, “Rowan Williams on the Power and the Weakness,” Mockingbird, February 12, 2013.
[7] McDavid, “Rowan Williams on the Power and the Weakness.”
[8] John 12:3; Luke 7:37.
[9] John 12:4-5; Luke 7:44-48.
[10] McDavid, “Rowan Williams on the Power and the Weakness.”
[11] John 13:34 (KJV).
