Loving & Serving Others (Rev. Frazier) - Sermon Transcript

Thank y'all so much for kicking us off.

My name's Monica.

I'm one of the associate ministers here at First United Methodist Church of Dallas, and I want to welcome you to Modern Worship.

And for those of you who have been here for a while, and those of you that this might be your first Sunday, I want you to know that

 This is a place where you come as you are.

You get up and get coffee and water, kids run around.

It is a space where we just come as we are and we encounter God here in this community that just comes without a lot of pretension.

And we seek to be a place where you can find spiritual growth

 in a place that doesn't have a lot of barriers.

And so I hope that you find that this morning.

And I'm joined by Reverend Elizabeth Mosley, who's one of our senior associates, and she'll be helping us lead this well today.

And I'm really honored to get to offer a word this morning.

Our senior pastor Mitchell usually preaches, and he is on spring break with his kids, and he'll be back next week.

So I hope you'll come back next week to hear

 as we finish out this series.

We've been in Lent, this kind of period of time preparing for Easter, and focusing on our series theme, Simply Love.

And so we're spending some time on that.

And we just sang about a love that's reckless, right?

That goes after the one, that leaves the 99, that climbs mountains and tears down walls and doesn't stop.

 And I want to start by just sitting in that for a second, because the scripture we're going to be in today is what reckless love actually looks like when it puts on flesh and gets in the room with you.

It doesn't look necessarily like a mountain being climbed.

It looks like someone being on their knees with a towel, washing dirt off your feet.

 It's the same love with just a completely different posture than anyone expected.

So we're gonna be in John chapter 13, starting in verse one, and it'll be on the screen or if you wanna look at it on your phones.

Let's begin.

 Now before the festival of 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 forces of evil had already decided that Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, would betray Jesus.

 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 supper, 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, you are not going to wash my feet.'"

 Jesus answered, do you not know what I'm doing?

But later you will understand Jesus.

Peter said to him, you will never wash my feet.

Jesus answered, unless I wash you, you do not have a share with me.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, then not only my feet, 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 it is entirely clean and you are clean.

 though not all of you.

For Jesus 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 reclined again, Jesus said to them, do you know what I have done for 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, slaves 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.

For the word of God in scripture, for the word of God among us, for the word of God within us, thanks be to God.

 Jesus knew who he was.

That's where this starts.

John is really deliberate here.

He says before Jesus moves a muscle, before he gets up from the table, before one sandal is taken off, John gives us this whole setup.

 Jesus knew the Father had given all things into his hands.

He knew he had come from God and was going back to God.

In other words, Jesus didn't do this because he was confused about his identity.

He didn't wash feet because he was trying to prove something.

 or earn something or perform humility for the room.

Jesus does it from a completely full and settled place of knowing exactly who he is and who he belongs to.

 And I think that flips something for us because most of us think of foot washing and we kind of immediately think humility, self-sacrifice, making yourself less.

I mean, feet are gross, right?

But that's not what John is showing us.

John is showing us power held loosely, power held gently, power in service rather than in control.

 I think too often our service doesn't come from that place.

A lot of my service, if I'm really being honest, has come from obligation or from guilt or needing to be needed, right?

I'm an Enneagram too, if that means anything to you.

We really love being needed.

And that kind of service has a ceiling.

It burns out.

It keeps score.

 The foot washing posture is different.

It flows from overflow, from being so rooted in who you are and how fully you're loved that love just flows out of you.

 About 20 years ago or so, I was sitting in the balcony of an empty church in a little town called Grand Coteaux, Louisiana.

It was an old antebellum church, and I was in a bit of a hard season.

I was sensing God calling me to ordained ministry, but I was at the time in a denomination where that was impossible.

 because I'm a woman, because of who I love.

So I had sort of set that call aside, and I'd actually sort of walked away from all organized religion for a while, and I've talked about that with y'all before.

I was working for a nonprofit, and just kind of trying to do good in the world without church, without a church that had told me there were limits on what God could do through me.

 And so I'm sitting in this empty church, I'm up in the balcony that was built for enslaved people and it was so far away from the table where communion was held and all things sort of holy, quote unquote, right?

And I was just sort of overwhelmed with a sense of God's presence and the words that kind of came to me in that moment were God kind of saying, this is my table and you are welcome here.

 You may not be able to host the meal right now, but go and wash feet, and the rest will come.

 Go and wash people's feet.

Go and do that.

The rest will come.

And that was the call.

So for 20 years, that's what I did.

I served as a campus minister.

I worked in churches doing discipleship.

I lived and worked at a retreat center and taught and worked for the bishop and all kinds of random things and then filled in when pastors needed a break, I would go in and preach in their churches when they needed a day off.

 just serving in every way that I could in a church and in a denomination that just until two years ago wouldn't fully ordain me as an openly married queer woman.

And so here's what I learned in the process of that journey.

You can only serve that way for that long through that much that way if it's coming from overflow, if it's rooted in knowing who you are

 and whose you are.

Because if it's coming from obligation or need for approval, the institution withholding something from you will take you out.

You'll lead from bitterness, right?

But if it's coming from that settled place, a few weeks ago we talked about the baptism of Jesus and that voice that calls you the beloved.

If it comes from that settled, beloved place, the institution doesn't get to be the last word.

 on what love does.

And that's what John is showing us about Jesus.

He served knowing his hour had come, knowing what was ahead.

The cross was already on the horizon.

And knowing who was at the table.

And he picked up the towel anyway.

 Love serves not from obligation, but from overflow.

And I think the part that I can't really get past is there's this little detail that John drops in verse two, kind of quietly.

It's sort of the powers of darkness, evil.

Some translations say devil.

I don't really love a corporeal version of evil called the devil, but...

 Evil had already put it into Judas' heart to betray Jesus.

That's what it says in verse 2.

And then in verse 11, we're told Jesus knew.

He knew.

And he washed Judas' feet anyway.

The man who was about to hand him over to be killed, Jesus knelt in front of him too, took his feet in his hands and washed them.

Judas got the basin and towel too.

 This morning we sang about reckless love, love that goes to links that don't make sense.

And here it is, not just in a song lyric, but as an actual moment in a room where Jesus looks at a person who is about to destroy him and chooses to love him anyway.

That isn't weakness.

Jesus knew this is reckless love with volume all the way up, right?

 I'd be honest, you know, this part of the gospel is sort of what I kind of wrestle with the most.

I get really good at loving the people who are easy to love.

I can work hard for justice and inclusion and welcome and build the church that I think God wants us to build and then quietly draw a circle around the people that I think deserve it.

 But the institution that told me for decades that there were limits on my call, the church that was wrong about women, wrong about queer people, wrong about who gets to host a meal, Jesus is asking me to kneel in front of that too.

 And the biblical scholars who study this text kind of point to Jesus and his decision to include Judas, that it tells us something we can't avoid.

The love that Jesus commands for us doesn't get to pose limits on who receives it.

Love for enemies shows up with a pitcher and a towel too.

And that's a hard word for us, I think, especially in our world right now.

 So who is Judas in your story right now?

Who's the person that it would cost you something to love?

Can you picture kneeling in front of them, not excusing what they did, not pretending the harm wasn't real, but choosing from that rooted place to extend grace anyway?

 That's what reckless love looks like when it gets all the way onto the ground with a towel.

Love serves even when it costs something, even when it doesn't make sense.

And here's where I think it gets personal too, that Peter says no, right?

He says, you'll never wash my feet.

And we always kind of laugh at Peter.

He's always sort of the last one to figure it out, always kind of one step behind, sort of this lovable, bumbling character in the Gospels.

 But he, I think I want to slow down and actually pause here because I think Peter's kind of the most relatable person in the story.

He has this whole vision of what Jesus is supposed to be.

This falls right after Palm Sunday, and we're going to read that story next week.

But there's this parade of people coming in, you know, honoring Jesus, proclaiming him King of Kings, and then...

 He just says, he kind of has this vision of, okay, we're ready.

We're going into Jerusalem.

Jesus is going to overthrow the rulers.

He's going to be in power.

I'm going to get to be at his right hand.

That's going to be great.

He has this vision, right?

Everything's finally happening.

 And now, the one that Peter has given up everything to follow is here on the floor with a towel, doing the job that was for the lowest servants to do.

This just doesn't match the vision for Peter.

And I think there's also something in Peter's protest that I recognize, maybe something that most of us feel but never really say out loud,

 which is I don't know if I can let myself be loved like that.

Serving is one thing.

Most of us are fine with that side of the equation.

We'll show up, we'll bring the meal or door dash the food or we'll volunteer, we'll help.

What's harder is the other direction, being tended to, being seen in our need, letting someone else kneel in front of us with a towel.

 Think about what it means to actually have your feet washed.

Feet carry the dirt from wherever you've been.

It's intimate.

It's exposing.

To let someone wash them is to let them see you, to really see you.

Not your best self, not your curated Instagram version of yourself, but the version of you that doesn't necessarily have it all together.

Just you in your vulnerability.

And Jesus says, unless I wash you, you do not have a share with me.

 I think that lands a little differently for someone that's more comfortable giving than receiving.

Jesus is saying, this goes both ways.

You can't fully participate in this love if you won't let it reach you.

Love is on both sides of this vulnerability equation.

 Can I love someone enough to approach them in their most vulnerable state, to serve them without making them feel small?

And can I love myself enough to let someone else approach me in mine?

Some of you this morning have come in, I think, carrying something heavy.

You might be very practiced at carrying it alone.

The, I've got this, the not wanting to burden anyone, the making yourself fine.

 Jesus has a word for us too.

You have a share with him.

You belong to this.

Letting yourself be loved is not weakness.

It's where discipleship starts.

That same love that makes us capable of serving others without strings or keeping score, that love has to reach us first, to sit in that, to let it get all the way in.

 And watch what it does to the way you love other people.

Love serves but also lets itself be served and both take great courage.

So here's where Jesus lands it.

After the foot washing, he puts his robe back on, he returns to the table and he says, do you get it?

Do you know what I just did for you?

 And then he says, love one another just as I have loved you.

By this, everyone will know, not by your worship style, not by your theology, not by what you believe about all the right things, by whether you love each other, by whether people can look at this community and see something that looks like Jesus on his knees with a towel

 So what does that look like for you in your life?

Not in theory.

What does reckless love look like for you in your life right now?

Is it a coworker that sort of gets on your last nerve and you've been keeping a professional distance, but maybe this week love is asking you to actually ask how they're doing and mean it.

 Or if you've got a kid at home that is in a hard season and every conversation turns into a fight, love might look like putting the phone down, sitting on the floor of their room and just being present.

No agenda, no fixing, just presence.

Maybe it's a friend you've been meaning to check on for weeks.

 And you know who that is that comes to mind.

Love looks like sending that text today.

Get out your phone now, I don't care.

Send that text today.

And maybe it's your own body.

Maybe love looks like actually going to the doctor or sleeping, letting yourself get rest, letting someone else cook for you or just not insisting that you're fine.

 Maybe it's showing up for someone in your community that's going through something hard and you don't have the words to say, but sitting together in being present, whatever that looks like, that's the basin and towel on a random Tuesday.

For me, that moment in the balcony in Louisiana, God said, go wash feet.

The rest will come.

And 20 years later, I'm standing here.

 Right?

Finally getting to host the meal too, but the rest came not on my timeline, not the way I would have drawn it up, but God wasn't done in my story and God's not done in yours.

And what I know now that I don't think I fully understood then was that the washing and the hosting were really never separate.

 That 20 years of service weren't just a waiting room for the real thing.

They were the real thing.

Every person that I accompanied, every table set, every foot washed in whatever form it took, that was my call being lived, not deferred.

God didn't say go and wait until the institution catches up, until the church is ready for you.

God did not say that.

God said go and love.

The rest will come.

 So that's the invitation this morning for all of us.

You don't have to have the full picture.

You don't have to have arrived.

You don't have to just know all the ways that this is gonna unfold for you.

You just have to be willing to pick up a towel from that rooted, beloved, overflowing place.

Love serves and is served.

The world is watching to see if we mean it.

Amen.