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July 11, 2008
At Jesus’ kitchen table
Commandment to love requires hospitality, honor, humility, Green tells Montreat Youth Conference
The Rev. Bridgett Green MONTREAT, NC — When she was a kid, visitors to Bridgett Green’s house knew they were “family” if they were invited to eat at the kitchen table.
“Guests were entertained at our formal dining table,” Green told 1,300 high schoolers attending week three of the 2008 Montreat Youth Conferences in her Thursday evening (June 10) communion meditation. “But if you were invited to eat with us at the kitchen table, it meant you were one of us, in communion with us, deeply trusted and connected.”
That same spirit of love, trust, communion pervades the Lord’s Supper table, said Green, associate for Racial Ethnic Young Women Together in the Women’s Ministries program area of the General Assembly Council. On his last night with his disciples, she said, Jesus shared the intimacy of that last meal … and the equally intimate ritual of foot-washing.
And of all the questions the disciples must have had, Green said, “there was one answer to a question Jesus wanted to make sure that he answered before he died: How do we show the world what it means to be one of Jesus’ disciples?”
As John 13: 34-35 records it, Jesus told the disciples, “Love one another as I have loved you. By this all will know that you are my disciples.”
“There are two definitions of ‘disciple,’” Green continued. “Student and follower.” We are students, she said, “when we learn from him and about him as we read and study the Bible, participate in worship, as we spend time in small groups and as we look to the examples of others.”
We are followers of Jesus, she added. “It’s like when you are learning a math problem. The teacher gives you instructions about what to do to solve the problem, the basics.” In the same way, she said, Jesus gives his disciples the basics “and the most basic lesson Jesus gives us is to love.”
And then in the John passage, Green said, “Jesus teaches the lesson of love through washing their feet” and in that act “Jesus teaches us how to love powerfully and dramatically, to love with passion and authenticity.”
This new way of loving in Jesus’ way has three characteristics, Green said — hospitality, honor and humility.
“Foot-washing was an act of hospitality, an invitation to freshen up and be welcomed like family,” she said. “By washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus was welcoming them into his home with God. This act of hospitality is an act of deep trust and connection.”
By washing the disciples’ feet, Green said, “Jesus is showing them honor. Usually the person who washes the guests’ feet is a servant or slave.” By washing the disciples’ feet “Jesus is demonstrating that everyone is equal in this community… No one is superior or inferior. We may have different roles, but we are all equal.
And to love as Jesus loves is to live with humility, Green said. In the story in John, “Jesus removes his outer robe, ties a towel around his waist and kneels at their feet,” she said. “In other words, Jesus volunteers to strip away his glory to serve and even be sacrificed for those he loves.”
Such love, Green said, “has the potential to change someone’s life. By this kind of love everyone will know that we are followers of Jesus. By this kind of love everyone will know that we are a Christian community.”
And we are only able to love this powerfully and dramatically” Green said, “because Jesus loves us this powerfully and dramatically,” she said. “We learned this new commandment because in every way possible Jesus teaches us this new commandment.”
Green confessed that she doesn’t have all the answers. “But I can say that we can dare to try every day to love with hospitality … with honor … and with humility…. We live out this new commandment the best way that we can by constantly walking through the church doors, knowing that we are not perfect in how we love, but we serve the one who is and we serve the one who can help us to love well.”
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