We Are All Ugly

John 13:1-15

By John Roy

I could have entitled the sermon “We are all Dirty” or maybe “Washing our Ugliness.” These of course would have gotten the point across without being so . . . so politically incorrect. I suppose one of the worse things we can say about or to someone is “you are ugly.” It’s hurtful, downright mean. Next to being poor, people fear being labeled ugly. Anything but ugly.  We look at babies and say, “Aren’t they cute.” We look at teenagers and say “aren’t they pretty or handsome.” We look at brides and say “Isn’t she beautiful.” Truthfully, there are some brides who are not pretty, and teenagers are more awkward than they are pretty, and babies, well if bald is so cute then call a balding middle-age man “cute.”

I choose this title knowing it would get your attention but also knowing it would sting a little bit. When Jesus appears with his basin and water to wash feet you can bet he likewise got the disciples attention, and it was obviously a little tense and uncomfortable, so my hope was to duplicate the emotion Jesus received when he put on his apron.

Dirty is something we can wash off, ugly does not wash off with soap and water. Dirty doesn’t seem as permanent as ugly. While Jesus can wash off dirty feet with water, I’m afraid getting rid of our ugliness requires, a miracle, maybe even a resurrection.

So we find Jesus doing this most unusual act. Why do I call it unusual, Jesus had always been a model of humility so why does this act strike us odd? A Rabbi was expected to do certain things and Jesus stepped over the line. Yet this should not surprise us, Jesus healed on the Sabbath, ate with sinners and did all manner of unconventional things.

Feet of course were no more beautiful in that day than today. In that hot and dry land were people wore sandals, feet were dirty. So this job was the lowest of all jobs. What could we compare it today? Cleaning toilets? Being a telemarketer?

Peter refused, at least at first. They typical reason cited is, this was an offence to social respectability for the teacher to wash the disciples feet. After all how would the disciples feel to have a teacher who did not know his place?

Yet there may be more. Remember what the disciples had witnessed Jesus do with his hands. Jesus used his hands to touch lepers. Jesus used his hands to remove demons. Jesus had touched a woman who was bleeding. Jesus had broken bread with the less fortunate, tax collector, and prostitutes. Now Jesus was going to reach out and touch their own ugliness, their own dirtiness. It meant that Jesus had not been fooled by their pretense, Jesus knew who they were. Jesus was putting the disciples in the same redemption stew as the prostitutes, publicans, and every other want-a-be and has been Jesus had touched. Prior to this evening the disciples believed themselves to be the elect. Not like the sick and lame, a step above. Maybe they weren’t the healer but they were at least not sick. Now Jesus is saying, you are just as sick as anyone else and so are we.

Anne Lamont in Traveling Mercies writes about her own ugliness. For Anne her ugliness began in her childhood. She lived in a castle but her folks marriage was weak and troubled. She writes, “In the sixties there was too much alcohol, too much pot, and too much infidelity.”

As adult Anne suffered the untimely death of her rock, her dad. Her boyfriend started missing his first wife and returned to her. Anne herself underwent an abortion that put her into a deep depression.

On the inside Anne was dying but she refused to show this to the world. She continued her responsibilities and put on a good face each morning at her makeup table. Secretly she began to drink more, taking pain and sleeping pills and regularly purging herself of the food she ate.

Finally one Sunday morning, drunk and over medicated she stumbled into a multi-racial Presbyterian church in Marin County, California.  The singing was a soulful blend of Jesus hymns and Negro spirituals. This began a habit she continued for a few months. She would stand at the back listen to the hymns and sneak out before the preaching started.

Then it happened, one Sunday her feet would not move, Anne felt compelled to stay. She listened to the sermon and stayed through the final hymn. During the final hymn she began to weep, she ran out before the benediction. When she arrived at the dock she raced down the pier then opened the door to houseboat. Once inside, she slammed the door and hung her head then she said, “I quit,” and then right out loud she continued, “All right, you can come in.” This she writes “this was my beautiful moment of conversion.”

Like Anne we are living respectable lives, but we are ugly on the inside. Some here bear the scars of abuse, or the fear of abandonment, or work or live with people they tolerate on the outside but loath on the inside.

Others, in these pews are having a hard time forgiving themselves for their own failures. Previous bad choices, infidelities committed, money wasted, time misspent. There are others who secretly struggle with addiction or other self-destructive behaviors and are fearful that their ugliness may one day be revealed.

Others are haunted by demons or unrestrained passions, an unbridled temper, a mouth that speaks before it thinks, or unrestrained sexual appetites.

Whether our ugliness be our own doing or whether we bear scars inflicted by others or as is most likely the case the ugliness is a combination of the two, there is good news as we progress toward Easter. Jesus is not waiting to condemn us. Rather Jesus is ready with towel in hand and a bowl of clean water ready to face our ugliness and gently wash our feet.

It doesn’t matter if you are Peter, who soon denied Jesus with his clean feet, or Judas,  who will soon betray him, or Mary Magdalene still running from your demons, or Matthew who has deceived others through unethical business practices or James and John who don’t want to play if they can’t be first. Whoever you are, whatever you have done, Jesus loves you and welcomes you he is ready to clean, scrub, heal, and make you pretty. Jesus is the original day spa, come ready for the junk yard leave ready to be on a magazine cover.

I choose the image of ugly because unlike dirt, ugly takes more than soap and water. Dirty means a shower, ugly means surgery. Truthfully we can get rid of the dirt. Put on the right clothes, wash our hair, as they say, “we clean up pretty good.” Ugly, we can’t change but it can be changed.

I will fly to those royal birds,” he exclaimed, “and they will kill me, because I am so ugly, and dare to approach them; but it does not matter: better be killed by them than pecked by the ducks, beaten by the hens, pushed about by the maiden who feeds the poultry, or starved with hunger in the winter.”

Then he flew to the water, and swam towards the beautiful swans. The moment they espied the stranger, they rushed to meet him with outstretched wings.

“Kill me,” said the poor bird; and he bent his head down to the surface of the water, and awaited death.

But what did he see in the clear stream below? His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck’s nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan’s egg. He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him; for the great swans swam round the new-comer, and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome.

Into the garden presently came some little children, and threw bread and cake into the water.

“See,” cried the youngest, “there is a new one;” and the rest were delighted, and ran to their father and mother, dancing and clapping their hands, and shouting joyously, “There is another swan come; a new one has arrived.”

Then they threw more bread and cake into the water, and said, “The new one is the most beautiful of all; he is so young and pretty.” And the old swans bowed their heads before him.

Then he felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wing; for he did not know what to do, he was so happy, and yet not at all proud. He had been persecuted and despised for his ugliness, and now he heard them say he was the most beautiful of all the birds.[1]

Ugly can be changed but it takes the hands of a master. In fact God is the author of beauty and we get our genes from the Almighty so while we might be ugly we were born to be beautiful. Now Jesus can’t  force himself on us. He did not force himself on Peter. In the end we have to be ready to be beautiful? Are we ready to be beautiful?