Dionysus on a Bike

by Justin Marquis

[Given at Maundy Thursday Worship at Irving Park Lutheran Church on 4/17/20250]

Maundy Thursday is a special day for me. When I started working and worshiping here at Irving Park Lutheran Church, it was Holy Communion that drew me back to the church community. Food brings people together, and it is with food that we remember and celebrate the most important events in our lives. Our birthdays, our weddings, our funerals, our celebrations and holidays, all have meals associated with them. Even our toughest days, filled with anxiety and sadness, are made easier and happier with comfort food, and for me there is nothing better than coming home at the end of a long day to share food that we have cooked together with my companion, Zyzzy. The sharing of bread and wine together to remember Jesus and his humanity that he shares with us resonates deeply with me because of this centrality of shared food in our lives together. The tastes, textures and sensations of the meal draw us to feel the presence of the holy in our very bodies.

The Sacrament of Holy Communion is not the only ritual practice focused on our bodies that we remember tonight. On the evening of the Last Supper, the night Jesus was betrayed, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and told them that his washing of their feet, his service to them, was to be an example for them to follow. The disciples, Jesus commanded, were to wash each other’s feet as well.

Today in a feast that remembers Jesus’s body and blood, and in a ritual where we perform the humble service of washing each other’s dirty, smelly feet, we are reminded of the full humanity of Jesus. The most joyful and loving things we can do with our bodies are to eat food with one another and serve one another in love, humility, and generosity.

In Jesus’s time, the role of foot washer at a gathering such as this was typically reserved for the lowly servant or enslaved person. This is why Jesus’s washing of his disciples’ feet was so radical; the teacher and one the disciples called the Messiah was taking on the lowliest and dirtiest task. Today, we no longer live in a time when we are washed by servants or slaves. Instead we usually only wash one another’s bodies in the times of our most humble and intimate need, when we are infants, when we are recovering from debilitating illness or injury, and when we are near death. This evening, just as we are reminded of Jesus’s humanity in the joyful feast of the Sacrament, we are also reminded of Jesus’s humanity in the way he treated himself not only as an equal to the disciples, but even as their loving servant, performing the intimate, dirty, smelly task of washing their tired feet after a long and difficult journey.

We are soiled and wearied just as the disciples’ feet were by the world filled with oppression, greed, and people who use their power over others to destroy and harm. Sometimes we find ourselves unable even to care for ourselves, and in our weakness and need, we must rely on each other. In our finite, human embodiment, we are reminded, in washing one another’s feet that we need each other, that none of us is self-sufficient, and that true power and leadership consists in serving and being served by one another, by following the example of our embodied Savior, our human brother, Jesus.

All are welcome but none are required to participate in the rite of foot washing. It is a humbling experience both to wash and to be washed. If you choose, you may come up with another person and wash each other’s feet, or you may come forward and have your feet washed by the pastor or the lay leader. Whether you participate or simply observe, pay attention to your own body’s response to this ritual. Consider when you have needed another to wash you or when you have had to care for another by washing them when they were unable. It is my hope that we learn from Jesus’s example of humble service how to serve each other and how to radically love those who are crying out for justice and mercy, those who are most vulnerable, those who are most in need of love.