March 24, Maundy Thursday: Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14; John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Slaughtering animals, washing feet—I can smell the rooms in both Exodus and John.
As a teenager, I worked as a locker room attendant at a country club. The job paid handsomely, but only if you were willing to shine shoes—thousands of shoes. It wasn’t degrading—the old, usually white, men didn’t call me “boy” or anything—but it was menial. I’d shine their dress shoes while they golfed and clean their cleats while they got dressed. When there were job openings in the locker room I’d try to get my friends hired, which usually ended with them quitting within a week or two.
This was when I started to glean that people like jobs but don’t necessarily like to work.
Later, as a student at Morehouse College, I preached my first sermon. People came from out of town to support me, and a respectable chunk of the campus was abuzz to hear this freshman who had the nerve to preach. The sermon started well enough but soon turned into an unfocused, overlong, flimsy, self-important diatribe. Afterward the dean of King Chapel informed me that I would not be preaching again for quite some time. In his words: I had some listening to do.
