"Remember This: A Single Nail"

Pastor Nagle
02/16/2005

“Remember This: A Single Nail” Micah 6:6-8 Psalm 36 Midweek Lenten Service February 16, 2005
Growing up, did you ever learn this piece of information: that “for want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost.” I have no idea what battle is recalled or if there’s even any truth to it. The point is that great things are determined by something simple.
In these weeks just before my retirement, I’m trying to think of things you need to know. Not things never before considered, but significant thoughts that surely color life. And that whole thing about a single nail causing a kingdom to be lost isn’t that much different from the scripture lesson tonight in which Jesus said to his disciples, Who’s the most important person in the world. And some said the pope and some said Bill Gates and some said Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. But Jesus shook his head. And then Jesus said to his disciples, What’s the most significant thing a person could do. And one of them said invent something the world really needs and someone said discover a cure for cancer and someone said make sure there will never be another war. But Jesus shook his head. And he took a basin of water and a towel, and he knelt in front of them and washed their feet. Yet even though the point seems obvious, scripture tells us that the disciples didn’t get it. You get it, don’t you?
Well, maybe you don’t, because if someone asks us who’s the most important person in the whole wide world, we wouldn’t automatically think of a kneeling-down servant. And if someone asks us what is the most important activity in the whole wide world, we wouldn’t automatically think of service. But then, if someone asked us why a kingdom was lost, we wouldn’t think of a simple nail either. But there is a theory—is it the butterfly effect—that says a single small action can cause great effects. That the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can cause an earthquake in China. Some people call that a theory of chaos. I prefer to call it a theory of life. That from a little can come a lot. Can come. Should come. Do you think it will come?
Perhaps it depends on whose feet we’re talking about. Does it seem to anyone else that we have lived such a privileged life that we’ve gotten used to thinking it’s all about us? That we think we have the right to poop in our pants whenever we want? Over the years, that’s an example I have used to illustrate original sin. Not that we talk about Adam and Eve, not that we refer to deep theological thoughts, but I say that original sin is selfishness. And that the emphasis is on self. That I believe I can do anything I want to do, whenever I want to do it, and that I don’t need to have any regard for anyone else. When I’m three weeks old, I can cry or spit up or poop as I wish and not have to think of anyone else, or even ask their forgiveness. And that when I talk in the movies or stay in the passing lane or let my cell-phone ring in church, it’s all about me. Which, if we emphasize “all,” that it’s “all” about me, then we exclude God. Or if not exclude him, then minimize him. Or if not minimize him, pay attention to him only in emergencies. Emergencies which, by the way, are always our own.
But what would life be like if we paid less attention to our own feet and more to the feet of those around us. Not necessarily washing others’ feet to make them clean, but washing others’ feet to give them comfort. Or not washing feet at all, but directing feet, to move people in a right direction. Or not being concerned with feet at all, but that we see ourselves connected with a whole world, both giving and receiving, as children of God. Jesus said to the disciples, What I have done to you, I want you to do to and for others. And yet, even knowing that a kingdom could be torn down or built up by a single nail lost or found, even basking in all the attention we ask for and get, we still insist that we ourselves are too insignificant to make a difference. And at that, Jesus still shakes his head.
The reading from the prophet Micah tells us what it is that God really wants from us: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. And we can do that, if we want to do that. But we don’t want to do that. And that’s called sin, even the original sin, choosing to do what we want instead of what we are called and asked and empowered to do. And it all points away from us. To do justice. To work for other people’s rights. To love kindness and not worry about repayment. You know, that doesn’t happen as often as it should. It doesn’t happen in the halls of Congress, it doesn’t happen in the PTA, it doesn’t happen in hospitals or churches or in our own hearts and minds, probably because we’re afraid that we won’t get ours. It’s not recorded in scripture, but when Jesus began to wash the disciples’ feet, some of them surely wondered why he started with Peter. Shouldn’t he have worked alphabetically? And some surely wondered why he spent longer with one disciple than the others. And one surely wondered why the first disciples got hot water and he did not. Or why the first towels were dry and the later ones were damp. No wonder Jesus shook his head, at an attitude that so clearly looks out for the self. Why do you and I worry that we won’t “get ours,” when we hear that Jesus asks all of us to be servants? For if we go and wash someone else’s feet, don’t we suppose others are waiting to wash our feet? No, we don’t suppose that at all, because we know how people think. After all, we ourselves think the same way. Let me get mine first, and then I’ll think about others. But since it happens that we don’t get ours first, we don’t think about others. And that butterfly effect is at work again. That what does or does not happen in a little does or does not happen with a lot. To do justice. To love kindness. To walk humbly with God.
Jesus said to his amazed disciples, If you don’t know what I’m doing with this foot- washing demonstration, how will you ever understand what I’m going to do with the cross. Which is a question still facing us today, only from the other end: if we don’t understand what Jesus did with the cross, why would we ever think of washing others’ feet? And which is the more difficult—washing someone else’s feet or dying on a cross? Who is the greater—someone who serves or someone who expects to be served? Which is the more significant—something huge and commented on or something small and unnoticed? Which is better—to look inward or to look outward? Is it not best of all to walk with God?
But be sure you hear the way the prophet spoke that. Don’t be so puffed up, so religious, so firm in your faith, that you smugly delight in the fact that God is walking with you. That of all the people in the whole world, he walks with you. That of everything that could fill his day, he walks with you. And that you set the pace and choose the direction. Instead, turn it around to say that you and I are to walk with God. And who knows where that will lead. Abraham set out to cross the desert, just because God said so. Noah built an ark, just because God said so. Prophets spoke the Word just because God said so. Mary was the mother of Jesus just because God said so. Could you walk with God? And with his other people? To walk with God’s other people?
That too may be a cause of our discontent. Do you remember when your mother made you take your little brother with you? Do you remember the time when you were asked to sit in the back row instead of the front? Do you remember the time when you had to share the honor of beauty queen or valedictorian or project leader? We crave attention, and delight in thinking it’s all about us. Single us, not plural us. Individual us, not crowd us. My feet. My bowl. My towel. My Jesus. And we are at comfortable ease until Jesus says that we should move our feet, in order to pick up our bowls and our towels and do something significant for others. Not something huge. Not something famous. Not something reportable. Maybe not something noticed. But something significant. Knowing that God is with me when I do it. Which is not a threat but a joy. Not a passing thing but an eternal promise. That he really does walk with us.
That when we say we don’t know where, he walks with us. And when we say we don’t know what, he walks with us. And when we say we don’t know how, he walks with us. But that when we insist we don’t know why, he stops walking and hugs us. And says, Remember this: It’s the little things. For want of a nail, a kingdom was lost. But because of some nails and an awful cross, a kingdom was won. So from a little can come a lot, any way you look at it.