On my knees

Holy Week reflection today, on Maundy Thursday, is about vulnerability, what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and what Jean Vanier calls 'the scandal of service'.

"So if I have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet".
John 13 v14

This is the only time that Jesus says, “I have done this as an example.” Why does Jesus wash our feet? And why does he ask us to wash each other’s feet? “If I cannot wash your feet, you cannot share in the Kingdom. The Kingdom will no longer be part of your heritage. You are no longer my disciple.”
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"So Jesus is saying something about communion — how to be with each other with words that our not flowing from our woundedness, our darkness, and our need for power and superiority, but from a desire for oneness. And oneness is not exclusion of difference. Oneness is not fusion. St. Paul says we are all different. It is the recognition of difference. But that doesn’t mean to say that we crush difference.

So we are called to be in communion, to forgive each other, to serve each other, and to discover that together we are all called to walk the downward path.

We are all called to be small. “The camel cannot go through the eye of the needle.” But we who carry authority and power, in some way we are called to be like little children. And we are called to serve each other in rectitude and in truth as Jesus. And as we become small, then maybe we can go through the eye of the needle.

And so this evening, that is what we are going to do. We do so in a witness of our desire to follow the humble Jesus, the broken Jesus, and the weeping Jesus — the Jesus who became little and humbled himself even more. In some way we want to follow Jesus on that downward path. This is the path which, as we go down, then with him we rise again to be a sign of resurrection in our world".

From a meditation offered by Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, Faith and Light Communities, on the ritual of the washing of the feet.

Vanier addressed the meditation to the bishops of the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion on July 30, 1998.
https://zenit.org/articles/jean-vanier-on-the-meaning-of-the-washing-of-feet/