Maundy Thursday

My stomach clenched up, as it tends to do when I begin feeling nervous or uncomfortable, when I first heard that each of us would go around our circle having our feet washed and then washing the person next to us. Scripture reading, song, and sacrament were no surprise, but this feet-washing ritual has never been part of my Maundy Thursday service before. It was not the thought of washing another’s feet that bothered me, but the one of Tim, my old Sunday school mentor and esteemed friend, bending down to wash my own. But when the time came, my heart pounding, feelings of peace and joy replaced ones of discomfort. Then I took my turn, gently taking Olivia’s feet into my hands and wanting to extend the moment indefinitely. Kneeling before her, I did not feel any sense of inferiority or oppression. Instead I felt light.

Looking back, I think the lightness came from not being so occupied with my own thoughts and concerns. One of my favorite poems by Sir Thomas Browne describes God visiting seashells along the ocean floor. With the first one, he finds it already occupied, too replete with itself to have room for him. He moves on until he comes upon “a shell disinhabited” that he then fills with himself. Too often I felt “too replete with myself” that there is no room for God, but during that moment of washing Olivia’s feet, I only felt replete with a peaceful lightness.

Afterwards I thought about what my experience meant for what we were doing in Belize and the nature of charity. What Jesus did by washing the feet of his disciples was to upset notions of hierarchy by reversing roles. It seems the goal of our mission trip is our attempt to be like Jesus, to reverse, if only for a moment, our privileged position as American citizens by serving the people in Belize. But while last night suggested this idea to me, it raised other questions. What does our work feel like to the people of Belize? How do Ms. Leona and the children at the orphanage feel about foreign strangers always coming for short bursts of time to help before they return to the comfort and safety of their homes? While appreciative, do they feel an element of the same discomfort that I experienced last night? Or is it even greater for them, being constantly dependent on others for their survival? What made my experience of the feet washing ritual so powerful, though, was first being able to receive Tim’s gift, his act of service, graciously, but just as important was being able to serve another.

The next day at the orphanage as Jordan and I picked up rags and buckets of soapy water, I saw little four-year old Lucretia come up and point to them. Remembering my experience of Maundy Thursday and my desire to serve after receiving, I handed her a rag, lifted her up to the window, and together we washed the windows around the house. Soon Jackie came over and joined Jordan. Throughout the day more children continued to gladly give, helping us finish our paint job. Unable to open the door and reach the sink because of our ladder, we appreciated Alicia rinsing our paint-covered brush clean. Hot and tired at the end, I gladly accepted Carolyn and James’ offers to wash our supplies. With my arm tired from the paint roller, I willingly handed my mop over to Ezekiel, who cleaned our floor with the seemingly inexhaustible energy of a 12-year-old boy.

I will never know what Lucretia and the other children felt today, but it is my hope that they felt some of same divine lightness that I did. Leaving Belize, I do not know how much of our work here contributes to an overall reversal of the unfairness and injustice that divides the First World from the Third World, but today I worked side-by-side with orphaned children in Belize with all parties giving and receiving and depending on one another in a beautiful pattern of reciprocal charity.