Extravagant Love

“April Fools!” we shout after telling a little lie on this day. It is the one day each year we can get away with foolish pranks or fibs, though it’s probably not a good day to tell someone you’re pregnant or quitting your job. April Fools’ Day—celebrated on April 1 each year—has been celebrated for several centuries by different cultures, though its exact origins remain a mystery.

My neighbor and friend, Jen, loves celebrating this day in creative and wacky ways. She has three kids, about the same age as mine, and every year she goes to elaborate lengths to give them some April Fool’s Day surprises, not pranks, which she says can walk a fine line of being mean. In previous years she toilet papered their bedrooms while they slept, blocked their bedroom doors with streamers they had to break through in the morning, locked their phones with silly pictures of their parents, gift wrapped each item in their lunch box, and placed googly eyes on every photo in their home. But her all-time favorite, she said, was filling their entire entry hall with giant balloons, so that when the kids left for school, they opened the door to an avalanche of color. The pure joy of that moment is engraved in her memory forever.

For Jen, not only are these surprises fun to do, but I see in her actions extravagant love for her family. Playfulness is her love language. She showers them with such foolishness as an act of love, extravagant love.

To some, the liturgical traditions of this night may seem foolish. Washing feet? Too gross! Too intimate! You will never wash my feet! No way, no how!

Maundy Thursday just might be the original liturgy of social distancing. Even when we are able to gather everyone in person, many do not come to this liturgy and of those who do come, only some will take off their socks and shoes and place their feet in another’s hands. And I know those who get pedicures or do a pre-wash before coming to church. Foolishness.

When it comes to feet, we tend to keep our distance. But I don’t think our hesitancy and distancing around Maundy Thursday has anything to do with feet. I think it has to do with intimacy and vulnerability. It’s about opening ourselves up to receive the care and tenderness of another. It’s about entrusting and giving ourselves [even our bare feet] to another. That’s what this night is about, which may in fact seem like foolishness.

It felt foolish to Peter, after all. “You’ll never wash my feet,” he said. He knew it was backwards for the teacher to wash the student’s feet. Washing the dirty, tired feet of a guest was the household servant’s job. A gesture of hospitality toward the guest to be sure, but certainly not a task for someone at Jesus’ level and authority. But Jesus stoops down as a servant and pours out his love for them in this gesture of extravagance.

“If I, your Lord and teacher,” Jesus says, “have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” Substitute the word love where Jesus speaks about washing feet and you have this: “If I, your Lord and teacher have [loved you], you also should [love one another].”

Love one another as I have loved you—you Simon Peter, even though you will reject me, you James and John who argue about who is greater, even you Judas who will betray me. Love one another as I have loved you—extravagantly...foolishly...with a love that has no bounds.

Love those who persecute you. Love those with whom you disagree. Love those who are different from you. Love without boundaries, as Christ has loved you.

There are no feet to wash tonight, but there are numerous ways that extravagant, even foolish, love is shown, especially in these days when not only can we not touch each other’s feet, but we also refrain from hugs and handshakes.

So what does this love look like in these days?

· Wearing a mask to protect others, the ones you don’t know and those you know well. Seems foolish to some, but a gesture of love for our neighbor, nonetheless.

· Medical professionals and other frontline workers who continue to show up knowing they are putting themselves and their families at risk, and who work tirelessly to restore others to health and wholeness.

· Recipients of stimulus checks who are thankful for continued employment, who recognize they already have enough, so they find creative ways to share that gift with others in need.

· Youth helping older adults secure vaccination appointments on-line; buying groceries, delivering meals to strangers or volunteering at food distribution centers so people are adequately fed; and volunteer tutors helping kids and parents with on-line learning. These are all unexpected acts of love.

· Participating in protests to call attention to the injustices that people of color endure. Working for the rights of everyone to vote. Calling one another to action for a change in policies and practices that harm others. All necessary acts of love!

We may not gently hold each other’s feet tonight as we have in years past, but Maundy Thursday is not really about feet anyway, is it? In this act of foot washing what we see is love in a tangible, unexpected and surprising way. Jesus stoops down to wash the feet of the disciples who feel unworthy to be the recipients of such an honor from a respected guest. Jesus doesn’t pull back and shout, “April Fools! Just kidding, you don’t deserve my hospitality and love.” No, he says this is a new commandment, that you shower others with love in the same way that I love you, without boundaries, without expectation for reward or gratitude, even sometimes without receiving love in return. Just love others in delightful, surprising, playful, extravagant ways as I have loved you.