If you drive to northern California through central Oregon,

you cross the state line on US 199,

also known as the Redwood Highway.

As you continue into California,

you reach a certain point where it feels like you’ve entered a fairytale.

It feels like your car has shrunk,

and now you’re driving a Hot Wheel,

because there are these massive, massive trees

stretching above you, over your head,

these ancient redwoods.

And if you get out of your car and walk around the groves of redwoods

you feel like you’re in God’s forest,

with these ancient, ancient trees towering above you

bigger than any trees you’ve ever seen.

It really does feel like God is there,

like God has somehow imprinted himself on the majesty of these trees.

The trees reveal just how great God is.

And if you get back in your and keep going on US 199

like Brenda and I did this summer with the girls

you eventually meet up with Highway 101.

And just a few miles down the road is the small town of Crescent City.

And if you get out of the car in Crescent City,

then you’re confronted with crashing of the Pacific Ocean

as it batters against the California coast.

You see the water as it stretches west seemingly forever.

And like the redwoods, the ocean bears the imprint of God:

in its majesty, in its power, it is an image of God.

We also drove to South Dakota this summer

to meet with my family at Mount Rushmore

and celebrate my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary.

And just as when you drive through the redwood forest

and just as when you see the Pacific Ocean in Crescent City,

when you drive over the Rocky Mountains

no matter how many times you do it,

you’re struck by the majesty of the mountains

and that beautiful big Montana sky.

Some people call Montana “God’s country”

with its big skies and the Rocky Mountains.

You have this impression that God has imprinted his image

in that sky and on those mountains.

In the gospel today, Jesus talks about an image,

an image on a Roman coin,

because the Pharisees and the Herodians

have come to trap him.

The Pharisees and the Herodians are rivals,

but they have come together this time

because they’re united in their desire to see Jesus fail.

So they ask Jesus if it is lawful to pay the taxes.

And that’s when Jesus asks to see the coin.

He says, “Look, who’s face is this? Who’s writing, who’s inscription?”

It’s Caesar’s, so obviously the coin belongs to him,

it’s ok to give it back to him, it’s not a big deal.

What is a big deal is the last phrase:

“Give to God what belongs to God.”

And just as we can know what belongs to Caesar

by the image on the coin,

we can know what belongs God by seeing God’s image imprinted on them.

And so we can see that the ocean belongs to God

because God’s power is imprinted on it.

We know that the sky belongs to God because of its size and its depth,

and its grandeur.

“The world is charged with grandeur of God,”

as the Jesuit poet Gerard Manely Hopkins puts it.

The ocean, the sky are images of God.

But the author Victor Hugo has this wonderful line

in his novel Les Miserables,

“There is one spectacle grander than the sea, and that is the sky.

There is one spectacle grander than the sky,

and that is the interior of the soul.”

If we can see the imprint of God on the ocean,

if we can see the imprint of God on the big sky of Montana,

or on the redwoods of northern California,

then how much more should we recognize the imprint of God

on our own souls?

Because our souls have a greater depth than the ocean,

than the redwoods,

than the stars in the sky above us.

Today is Catechetical Sunday,

a day we pray for and bless those who instruct our children in the faith.

Some of them do this for a living, as teachers at our parish school.

Some of them do this as volunteers in the religious education program,

giving up hours of their personal time each week.

We might ask ourselves, why would someone choose to do this?

Why do the school teachers work for less than they could make

in a public school?

Why do the volunteers spend their own time working as volunteers

when they could be doing something else with their time?

Let’s broaden the question:

Why would we choose to give up our personal time

to gather here today?

Why come to Andi’s book study every week?

Why come to a class on the Reformation or attend Theology on Tap?

Why is a member of the Good Samaritan Guild

spending hours each week

taking care of a fellow parishioner with a broken ankle?

Why do some of us help at the House of Charity?

Why are so many people signed up to give blood this weekend?

Let’s broaden the question even further:

Why does the Church in Spokane have a House of Charity?

Why is there a St. Margaret’s Shelter,

a St. Anne’s Children and Family Center?

Why do we spend money, time, and resources

on sending relief to other countries?

Why do we speak out

in support of immigration reform and the rights of unborn children?

Why do we do all of these things?

Well, it’s in Scripture, we might answer.

Isaiah tells us to seek the Lord while he may be found,

to call to him while he is near.

St. Paul tells us to conduct ourselves in a way worthy of the gospel.

But those readings tell us what we ought to do.

Why do we choose to listen to them and act on them?

What is our motivation for being a disciple?

To answer that question we need to turn to the gospel

and the Parable of the Good Employer.

This is a classic parable.

Like all good parables, it shocks us.

It makes us scratch our head.

In fact, whenever we come across something in Scripture

that is difficult or puzzling like this,

that’s usually a good sign to stop and spend some time on it,

rather than skipping over it.

So let’s spend some time with this parable.

The landowner who owns a vineyard.

In Scripture, a vineyard is often used to represent the people of God.

So God, the landowner, goes out at dawn to hire vineyard workers.

Then he comes back again at nine, then noon, then three,

and finally at five.

This is similar to how each of us receive the call

and respond to the gospel.

Each of us comes to discipleship in a different way

at different stages of life.

Maybe we’ve worked in the vineyard since dawn.

Maybe it was in Catholic grade school or religious education,

and something a teacher said or did struck us,

and the Holy Spirit began working on us.

Maybe it was something that happened

on a retreat in high school or college.

Maybe it was when we got married

and we saw the deep faith of our spouse.

Maybe it was when our children were born.

Maybe we felt the call when we were younger

and we kind of drifted away,

and the birth of our children brought us back to practicing our faith.

Maybe it was in middle age after a series of tragic events,

or after living a life that felt kind of empty.

Maybe it’s in old age and we’re starting to think about

what comes after this life.

There are even some people who embrace gospel on their death bed,

maybe even in a jail cell.

The Good Employer, the Landowner, calls us all at different times.

Now returning to the parable,

it’s the end of the day, and it’s time to be paid.

Some of you might remember radio personality Paul Harvey

who used to come on in the evenings and tell The Rest of the Story.

He once told the story of the last case

of the great French detective Henri Latour.

Latour was the Sherlock Holmes of France,

but unlike the famous English detective,

Latour was a real person, an actual police detective.

And he was a living legend when it came to tracking down criminals.

In his last case, a terrible crime had been committed:

an elderly couple had been robbed and brutally murdered.

The police already had a suspect in custody,

but Latour’s instincts told him that this wasn’t the right man.

There were certain pieces missing in the puzzle,

and Latour vowed to find the true criminal.

So he began what some described

as the most brilliant track-down in the history of France.

He put all of his deductive power to work

sifting through clues and investigating leads.

Days and weeks went by

until at last there was enough evidence to clear the initial suspect.

Latour claimed that the proof was positive,

that the man ought to be let go.

The police wanted to keep the suspect in custody,

just in case Latour was wrong.

But Latour insisted,

arguing that an innocent man

shouldn’t have to pay for the crimes of the guilty.

He continued his investigation

until finally all the clues fell into place and he found his man.

The trial was quick,

because Latour’s case was airtight,

and he himself presented the facts to the jury,

weaving a tapestry of evidence before their eyes.

The verdict came back: “guilty.”

Latour had done it again.

But after that case,

without any explanation,

Latour immediately retired

and lived the remaining twenty-five years of his life

as a hermit in a lonely little cottage in a remote French village.

It was only after his death

that the secret of his last case would be revealed.

The innocent stranger that Latour had released

was, in fact, an innocent stranger.

But when Latour had painstakingly collected all of the evidence,

he found that the facts had led him to a truth he could not avoid.

The evidence that he had so meticulously put together

had inevitably and unmistakably led him

to the arrest and conviction of his own son.

In his moment of triumph, the truth had led him to pain and suffering.

During the investigation,

as he had uncovered more and more evidence,

he had been faced with a choice:

Save his son and let an innocent man take the consequences,

or save the innocent man and let his son take the consequences.

Latour chose justice and truth over deception and lies.

He made the right choice,

but at a great cost.

He chose to deny himself.

Jesus tells Peter that to be a disciple

he must deny himself,

take up his cross,

and follow him.

Peter doesn’t want to hear it.

Last week we heard Peter declare confidently that Jesus is

“the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

He got it right.

Like Latour, the great detective,

Peter had found his man, the heir to the throne of David,

the Messiah that his people had been waiting for all these years.

It’s Peter’s big moment.

He’s been given a new name, and he’s to be the rock,

the leader of the Church.

But it’s immediately after this

that Peter finds out what that really means.

In fact, today’s reading leaves out a little transition phrase

that comes at the beginning of the verse.

This gospel passage actually begins,

“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples

that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly….”

From that time on.

This summer

Brenda and I did a lot of cleaning and reorganizing around the house.

Our two older boys have moved out,

we’ve done a shuffle of the girls’ bedrooms,

and we’re trying to get rid of all the unnecessary stuff

that we’ve accumulated over the years.

One thing that helps us to organize

is to put things into boxes and label them.

It makes it easier to remember where you’ve put things.

We’ve got boxes with the boys’ names on them,

we’ve got boxes labeled “Christmas,”

and we’ve got boxes labeled “winter clothes.”

What works with stuff around the house, though,

doesn’t work with people.

That’s the trouble the Canaanite woman has in today’s gospel.

She’s been put in a box labeled “Foreigner. Enemy of Israel. Dog.”

Jesus has withdrawn to the borders of Israel,

he’s near the territory of Tyre and Sidon, Gentile country.

He’s kind of taking a break

after having had a conflict with the Pharisees.

And while he’s resting,

this woman keeps calling out after him and his disciples

to heal her daughter.

In Mark’s gospel she’s simply called a Greek,

a Syro-phoenecian, a non-Jew.

That would make her outsider enough.

But in Matthew’s gospel she’s called a Canaanite.

It’s a label his audience would have understood immediately,

a box they were quite familiar with,

but not because they used the word all the time.

Nobody in Jesus’ time used the word Canaanite anymore.

Matthew’s using it to emphasize his point.

He’s writing to Jewish Christians

and some of those Jewish Christians weren’t too happy

about the Gentiles being accepted in the Church.

Some of those Jewish Christians were thinking,

“We’re the chosen people,

We’re the ones who have been waiting for centuries for the Messiah.

Jesus came to us.”

Matthew wants to help them understand

how radically universal Jesus’ embrace is.

so he uses the word “Canaanite.”

Not just a Gentile, but an enemy of Israel.

This outsider, this enemy of Israel,

dares to come forward to Jesus and ask for her daughter to be healed.

Jesus responds with silence.

“Yes,” Matthew’s audience thinks to themselves, “that’s right.”

“Ignore her, she shouldn’t be there.”

Next, the disciples ask Jesus to send her away.

“Right,” Matthew’s readers think,

and they would be nodding their heads in approval,

especially when Jesus says,

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

And finally,

they would have loved it when Jesus said,

“It’s not right to take the food of the children and give it to the dogs.”

That’s what the Israelites called foreign enemies: dogs, or even swine.

That was the label on the box. Dog.

And after all, Israel is God’s chosen people, his covenant children.

Jesus has come to them first and foremost.

But the Canaanite woman has a great comeback:

“Even the dogs get to eat the scraps that fall from the table.”

She acknowledges that Jesus has come to Israel first.

Yes, they are the ones who’ve been waiting.

They are the chosen people.

She acknowledges them as the children of the covenant.

“But surely there’s enough for me, too,” she says.

“Surely there’s enough

just in the table scraps

for my daughter who’s ill.

Can’t you spare even a little crumb?

A crumb is all I need.”

And that’s where Jesus breaks open the box and rips off the label.

This foreigner, with no knowledge of the Law or the Prophets,

knowing nothing of Temple worship or purity rituals,

unfamiliar with Abraham or Moses,

knows Jesus.

She knows Jesus so well

that she’s not put off by the silent treatment,

or by the disciples trying to send her away,

Today we’re asked to use our imaginations

and picture ourselves as wheat.

“The kingdom of heaven

may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field.”

Imagine us first as good seed, held in the hand of the Farmer.

As he runs us through his fingers,

he feels the potential for growth we carry within us.

Just at the right time of the year,

he carries us into the field,

then scoops us up with his hands

and scatters us onto the ground.

We lay there helpless, unable to move.

The sun comes up, the sun goes down.

It rains, and we soak in the cool, clear water.

Soon roots emerge, and we draw nutrients into ourselves.

We’ve sprouted, and we’re getting taller each day.

We’re doing exactly what wheat is supposed to do:

We’re basking in the sun, drinking in water, growing up toward the sky.

We’re growing.

This is what it means to be the Farmer’s good seed,

to be children of the kingdom.

The single defining characteristic of the kingdom of heaven

that we can see clearly in today’s three parables

is growth.

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that raises the whole loaf of bread.

In each parable,

growth is happening.

Love is always about growth, about fruitfulness.

Our vocation in this life is to grow,

to reach up to the sun.

Jesus came and planted divine life in each of us,

and like the field of wheat

we take in water—the water of grace at baptism.

We take in nourishment—the nourishment of the Eucharist.

We absorb the rays of the sun—the Son of God.

But then one night,

while everyone is sleeping,

the Farmer’s enemy sneaks into the field and sows weeds.

Soon stinkweed and thistle begin to grow,

and it becomes harder to get to the water,

and the nutrients, and the sunlight.

Jesus says the weeds

are all those who cause others to sin

and all evildoers.

Maybe we know a few stinkweeds or thistles,

and we’d like to pull them up and toss them away.

Maybe we’d like to get them out of our lives,

get rid of them, cast them aside.

But that’s not how the kingdom of heaven works.

“No,” the Farmer says,

“if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.”

“Let them grow together until harvest,” he says.

In other words,

we risk losing our lives

if the stinkweeds and thistles are simply pulled up and cast aside.

Our lives are intimately bound up with everyone we meet,

stinkweed or not.

What happens to one affects us all.

Who is it that we would cast away?

And who are we to recognize what’s a weed and what’s wheat?

Because the truth is, there’s a little stinkweed in each of us,

a little thistle, isn’t there?

So let’s not be so hasty to yank up the weeds, you know?

Jesus was patient and merciful with the weeds in his life.

He came across plenty of thistles in the wheat field of his ministry:

the woman caught in adultery,

Zacchaeus the tax collector,

the disciples who abandoned him in his darkest hour,

the centurions who executed him.

Jesus didn’t yank them up from the ground.

He showed patience and mercy:

“Go and sin no more.”

“Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

His ministry was not harvest time.

It wasn’t the time for weeding,

it was a time for sowing and growing.

Our time is not a time for weeding.

Our time is a time for sowing and growing.

The harvest will come some day,

but not today.

If the Farmer’s not worried about the weeds

then we don’t need to worry about them either.

We have kind of an unusual circumstance this year.

Instead of celebrating the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time,

we’re celebrating the Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul,

which always occurs on June 29.

Usually when a feast falls on a Sunday, the feast gets skipped.

It’s rare that a saint’s feast would take precedence over a Sunday.

And when a feast does supersede a Sunday

it’s usually a feast of Jesus, or Mary, or Joseph.

But today the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time gives way

to our remembrance of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

It’s also unusual that we celebrate two saints on the same day,

especially since those two saints already have other days during the year

on which they’re commemorated.

And so here we have two saints,

who already have other feast days,

being celebrated together,

and replacing the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

That says something.

By giving this feast such prominence

the Church is telling us something about these two people Peter and Paul

and their importance in our lives and in the lives of the entire Church.

The Scriptures give us an insight into what that importance is,

and they also help us to see how the lives of Peter and Paul

make a difference in our own lives.

First we see that Peter and Paul have several things in common.

They were both leaders in the early Church.

Peter was the leader in Jerusalem and ultimately the leader in Rome.

Paul was a leader among the different church communities he established throughout his travels:

Corinth, Galatia, Philippi, Ephesus,

and all of those places he established churches and then later wrote to.

Both Peter and Paul were so influential that they were arrested and jailed.

And so in many ways they led similar lives.

And yet there were some differences in their lives as well.

We can see this in the ways they are described.

Peter is called by Jesus in the gospel today as “the rock.”

“You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”

And Paul calls himself a libation, he says he’s being “poured out like a libation.”

So you could say that Peter is solid and Paul is liquid.

And I think that’s important.

I think that’s really the key to understanding the meaning

of these two men being celebrated on the same day.

Because they illustrate two important aspects of the Church

that we don’t want to lose sight of.

That the Church itself is at the same time solid and liquid.

Here’s what I mean:

First, Peter was solid, the firm foundation.

He was confident and bold.

He was the spokesperson for the apostles

and he’s the one who was bold enough to declare,

“You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

But this is also the same Peter who is going to say, just a few verses later,

“No, you’re not going to suffer and be killed, Lord.”

And at the Last Supper when Jesus was washing the disciples’ feet,

he is going to say,

“You’ll never wash my feet, Lord.”

And Peter is the one who said,

“I will never deny you.”

You know, Peter wasn’t always on target.

In all of those moments his confidence and passion were clearly visible,

and yet he occasionally misunderstood the message.

Jesus had to correct Peter.

He had to tell Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.

You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

“I will go to Jerusalem, I will suffer, I will be killed.”

And at the Last Supper Jesus had to say to Peter,

“Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”

And bold Peter says: “Then Lord, wash not only my feet, but my head and hands as well.”

And after Peter’s three-time denial he asks Peter three times,

“Do you love me?

In Scottish and English folklore,

people tell of the will-o’-the-wisp,

mischievous lights in the bogs and swamps

carried by fairies and goblins

that lead lost travelers to their doom.

As the travelers follow those elusive and fickle lights,

they leave the path behind,

and when the lights are extinguished

the travelers are even more lost than when they began.

On our journey of faith we sometimes lose our way,

following will-o’-the-wisps.

We get lost, like those travelers in the woods

who wander off the path, following the goblin lights.

We’re looking for fulfillment, for happiness, for peace.

But so many of the things we chase after only bring us

the illusion of fulfillment,

the illusion of happiness,

the illusion of peace.

And when the illusion fades we feel lost.

We open our eyes one day and wonder, Where am I?

What am I doing with my life?

How did I get myself into this situation?

We don’t know how we got here, and we don’t know how to get back.

We feel the panic rise in our throats, and our hearts beat faster.

Panic is starting to set in for the disciples in today’s gospel.

It’s the Last Supper and the meal has turned bleak.

First, the disciples have heard that there’s a traitor in their midst.

Next, Jesus tells them that he’s leaving and they can’t follow him.

And finally, he says that Peter will deny him three times.

Jesus sees the looks on their faces — the doubts, the fears, the panic.

He understands that the disciples are on the verge of losing their way.

He knows that when he’s arrested they will scatter.

In their panic and in our panic, Jesus speaks the words we need to hear.

Just as the forest seems to close in on us

when the lights of the will-o’-the-wisp vanish,

Just as our hearts begin to pound,

Jesus gives us words of consolation and strength.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says.

“You have faith in God; have faith also in me.”

“I’m going away, but I’m coming back for you. You know the way.”

But Thomas speaks aloud what’s on everyone’s mind:

“We don’t know where you’re going; how can we know the way?”

Like a lost traveler, we want a map, some sort of clue or hint.

Maybe if we had a compass, or a flashlight, or a GPS,

then we could find a way out ourselves.

But what is the first rule of being lost?

What does every parent tell their child to do if they get lost?

What does every experienced hiker, skier, hunter, and fisherman

know to do if they get separated from the group and lose their way?

Stop!

Stay put!

Call for help.

Stay where you are;

wait for Mom or Dad or the search party to come find you.

Whenever we went camping with the kids

we would remind them:

if you wander off and get lost

just stay where you are.

We will look for you and find you.

If you keep moving you’re harder to find,

and it will take us longer.

Stop, stay where you are, and call for help.

Don’t go chasing after things that aren’t there.

When we feel lost we often go chasing after will-o’-the-wisps.

We chase after illusions that seem to be real,

that seem to promise a way through life:

Pleasure, power, money, success.

Like the lights of the will-o’-the-wisp,

these seem to lead us toward home,

but they so often lead us deeper into the dark woods,

and then they disappear.

If we pause right now, I’m sure we can think of the will-o’-the-wisp

that’s been beckoning us on most recently.

When we find ourselves lost in the woods

of sin, doubt, confusion, or fear,

our best bet is stop and stay put.

But we stay put when we’re spiritually lost

“These signs have been written that you may believe.”

In today’s gospel, Thomas needs help in order to believe.

He needs a sign.

Who can blame him?

His friends were making a pretty far-fetched claim.

Jesus is risen from the dead?

Thomas had seen Jesus crucified.

“Prove it to me,” he says. “Show me the wounds.”

And Jesus does prove it to Thomas.

In his mercy, Jesus appears a week later.

Thomas sees the wounds.

He also sees the living Christ.

And he responds,

“My Lord and my God.”

Thomas needed to see both the wounds and the living Christ.

In our time, too, we look for signs.

We want to know that after the crucifixion comes the resurrection.

We’re all wounded in one way or another,

and we want to know that there is a life beyond our wounds.

All Thomas could think about were the wounds that Jesus had received.

Sometimes that’s all we can think about: our own wounds.

They’re so overwhelming

that we can’t see past them to new life.

If we want examples of the overwhelming power of woundedness

we only have to look at the lives of Angelo, Karl, and Amy.

Angelo was the son of a sharecropper in a small country village.

He lost his mother, a brother, and four sisters to cancer.

In fact, when his mother was close to death

his work duties prevented him from being there in her final hours.

Cancer was also to claim Angelo’s life–

stomach cancer.

It came in midst of a an monumental project he had started,

a project that he hoped would change the world.

He did not live to see that project completed.

Karl had his wounds to deal with too.

He once said,

“I was not at my mother’s death, I was not at my brother’s death,

I was not at my father’s death.

At twenty, I had already lost all the people I loved.”

Things got worse for Karl before they got better.

He had to hide from the Nazis,

He survived bullet wounds that perforated his colon and small intestines,

and in his old age he ended up struggling with Parkinson’s Disease.

And then there’s Amy.

Amy was only 19 years old when she was hospitalized with meningitis.

The meningitis affected her circulatory system, and within 24 hours,

the infection went into septic shock.

Doctors gave Amy less than a 2% chance of survival.

She lost both of her kidneys, her spleen, the hearing in her left ear,

and both of her legs had to be amputated below the knees.

Angelo, Karl, and Amy are signs of the woundedness of the world.

But we all walk through this life wounded.

Some of us are physically wounded,

others are emotionally or psychologically wounded,

and still others are spiritually wounded.

But in our woundedness

Jesus calls us to new life

so that we can be signs of faith to the world.

To be a Christian is to let our woundedness transform us.

That’s what Jesus shows Thomas, and that’s what he shows us.

“Put your finger here and see my hands,

and bring your hand and put it into my side,

and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

The wounded Body of Christ is all around us, here in this church.

But the resurrected Christ is here, too.

Through his wounds, through our wounds,

we come to belief.

Easter is a call to be a sign of faith,

to show the world that our wounds do not get the final say.

This is what the disciples did.

They, too, were wounded.

Jesus asks, “Do you realize what I have done for you?”

As we begin these holiest days of the year, it would be good for us to do just that: to realize what Jesus has done for us at the Last Supper.

The opening lines of the gospel set the scene.

First, Jesus knew that his hour had come, and second, he loved his own to the end.

He knew his hour had come, and he loved his own to the end.

In his darkest hour he did not abandon them.

Jesus is about to be betrayed.

He is about to be denied.

He is about to be crucified.

And faced with that coming reality, as that moment approaches when he is going to give the ultimate sacrifice, out of the love he has for his own, he answers with a gift.

He responds with the Eucharist.

He breaks the bread and says, “This is my body.”

He lifts the cup and says, “This is my blood.”

He offers himself to his disciples, to those who have given up everything to follow him.

Jesus is God. And he gives God to his followers.

And with the words, “Do this in remembrance of me,” he gives his apostles and their successors—bishops and priests—the mission to continually bring God to the world in this unique way.

So that no matter how weary we are, no matter how rejected we feel, no matter how lonely we might be, God is present.

We are nourished by Jesus’ Body and Blood. Because of Jesus, we can gather at this altar and receive Christ within us.

This is Jesus’ answer to his coming betrayal, denial, and crucifixion.

It’s an answer he’s been giving for his entire life, but it’s an answer so foreign to us that he has to keep explaining it and demonstrating it over and over again. That’s why we keep gathering Sunday after Sunday, year after year.

It’s not that the answer is terribly difficult or complex, but that it’s so hard for us to accept. We don’t think it can possibly be true.

What we receive when we accept the Body and Blood of Christ is total, unconditional love and acceptance.

In a world where we are so often evaluated, rated, and ranked, it is hard for us to conceive of a God who doesn’t care about status or levels or position.

That’s why Peter reacts the way he does when Jesus get up the middle of supper.

He watches as Jesus takes off his outer garment, wraps a towel around himself, and begins to wash feet.

And Peter is shocked.

This is his Lord, this is the Messiah. The Messiah doesn’t wash feet.

The feet of the disciples weren’t merely covered in a fine dust that had settled on them from the road.

Their feet were grimy and caked with mud and whatever else was to be found on the crowded streets of Jerusalem, where animals roamed freely, where food was openly displayed and sold in the marketplace.

Their feet were filthy, and it’s the job of the lowest of the servants to wash them.

And Peter, who had begun to understand Jesus as the Lord, Jesus as the Messiah, his Messiah, the great leader who was just welcomed with palm branches by the people of Jerusalem, this great descendent of David, this kingly, lordly man, stoops to do the work of the lowest servant.

And Peter won’t have it. The Messiah won’t wash his feet.

But Jesus insists.

My feet? Peter asks.

Yes, your feet, Jesus answers. This is what I’ve been telling you all along.

This is who I am. This is who God is. God stoops to serve.

In receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, Peter receives the same Messiah who lowers himself to wash his dirty feet.

We, too, receive the Eucharist.

And we, too, on this Holy Thursday night are approached by Jesus.

We see Jesus take off his outer garments, wrap the towel around himself, and approach us.

And Jesus says to us, I’m here to wash your feet.

My feet? we ask.

Yes, your feet.

When we receive the Body of Christ at communion,