"Serve" | Reflection by Lilian Revel, Pastoral Care Associate

In some countries in South America (where the weather is really hot) it could happen that when you visit someone in their home, they’ll offer you a shower as you arrive. The intention is to allow you to come out of the intense heat (especially where no A/C is available) and make yourself comfortable. Through the Gospel stories, we see that similar customs existed in Jesus’ times. The roads were dusty, sandals seem to have been the only type of shoes worn, and so the feet got very sandy and dirty, and consequently when entering a home one would first get one’s feet washed. Of course not by the homeowner, but by a servant or the wife of the homeowner in keeping with social norms.

On the eve of his death, Jesus taught the disciples by example that what we really need is a turning away (metanoia) from a paradigm of dominance to a paradigm of communion. Jesus becomes the servant who washes the disciples’ feet. In that action he becomes one with us; there is no longer master and servant, but just one body in which everyone is master and servant simultaneously, or better yet, there is no longer a concept of master and servant. We become one body in Christ. The day we truly achieve this kind of oneness, we will feel the pain and the joy of the “other” in oneself. We will serve and rejoice with the “other” as ourselves. We will have arrived in the Kingdom/Queendom of God.

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

Words in the Wilderness - Walk through the season of Lent with Trinity, one word at a time. Every day (except on Sundays) we will post a photo and a brief refection written by someone in our Trinity community. https://www.trinitynewhaven.org/words-in-the-wilderness