Before I came to Saint James, I served as the chaplain to Washington Episcopal School, which is about the same size as our own Academy. I had the privilege of being the only teacher in the school to teach every single student, from preschool through eighth grade, each week. Each week, I would push my BibleKart™ from classroom to classroom. In addition to Bibles, it held the various props I would use to tell my lessons-flannelboards and storybooks-that sort of thing.

The curriculum was designed so that I taught the same story to each grade level, using different methods and gearing my teaching style to each developmental level. On Thursdays, I taught two sections of kindergarten, followed immediately by two sections of sixth grade. It was sometimes quite a challenge to shift gears so suddenly from flannelboard to Socratic method. My usual M.O. went like this: If I were teaching Noah's Ark, for instance, I would bring along a little model of Noah's Ark with the animals, and sit on the rug in the kindergarten classroom, with the children gathered around me. If you've ever seen how "Godly Play" is done, you know basically what I'm talking about-I'd tell the stories, then ask "wondering" questions: "I wonder how Noah got all those animals on board?" "I wonder whether all the animals got along?" Then I'd pack up and take the BibleKart™ up the elevator to the sixth grade, where I'd distribute the Bibles and have each student take a turn reading a different verse. To keep it fun, they were encouraged to read in different voices, using various accents. Then we'd get serious and talk about the passage. I'd write things out on the chalkboard and make compare-contrast lists, assign homework, and answer questions.

But one Thursday, I decided to follow the same lesson plan for both kindergarten and sixth grade, just to see what each group would get out of the lesson. For that Thursday happened to be Maundy Thursday. I loaded the BibleKart™ with a large metal basin, a pitcher filled with warm water, and towels, and I rolled it into the kindergarten classroom. Silently, I laid out the basin on the rug and poured a little water into the bowl.

"What are we going to do?" one five year-old asked.
"What do you think we're going to do?" I replied.
"Are we going to have baptisms?" one precocious kindergartener asked.
"No. If you've been baptized, we don't do it more than once. But what we're going to do you can do over and over again."
"Are we going to take a bath?" chimed in a little girl.
"Close."
"I know! You're going to wash our feet!"
"That's right. I'm going to wash your feet."
"Why?"

And so it went. We talked about how Jesus said, "You call me Teacher and Lord-and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you." I pointed out that another meaning of the word "disciple" was "student," and that they called Jesus "rabbi," which means "teacher." So if Jesus the Teacher washed his students' feet, shouldn't I wash my students' feet?

They were very joyful during our time together, but they also took what we were doing quite seriously. Several of the kindergarteners asked to take a turn washing their classmates' feet or to help dry them off. Once I had washed all of their feet, and we had helped each other put our shoes and socks back on (those who already knew how to tie their shoes helped those who didn't), one of the kindergarteners looked up and ask, "But what about your feet? Who will wash yours?" I said, "Oh, you don't need to do that, do you?" But they all gathered around and insisted that if Jesus told them to follow his example, that I shouldn't leave the room until I'd had my feet washed, too.

So I sat down in a chair and they untied my shoes. I took my shoes and socks off, and one kindergartener washed my right foot while another washed my left, and then they shared in drying my feet off and handing me my shoes. In other lessons, when the class participated in group activities, some would jockey for position and argue about who got to do what, but strangely, they didn't argue on Maundy Thursday. They all cooperated, quietly, solemnly, and joyfully.

I thanked them and left, profoundly grateful for those students. Then I changed the water, got a fresh towel, and went upstairs. There, it was a different story. As soon as my sixth grade students saw the bowl and water, they said:

"You're not going to wash our feet, are you?"
"Yup. That's exactly what I'm going to do."
"Ewww! You better wash Ian's feet last. His are nasty!"
"The other chaplain before you never washed our feet. Do we have to?"
"Well, I'm not going to force you to have your feet washed, but I'd like you to wait until after we've read the story before you make up your mind."

Reluctantly, they all sat down and opened their Bibles. We read John chapter thirteen together, and then I asked for the first volunteer. They all gave each other nervous glances, and a couple of them giggled. John piped up: "Mary Louise will go first!" and Mary Louise said "Shut up, John."

"John! Thanks for volunteering. Come on up. You know, John, you have the same name as the only Evangelist who recounts this story. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have the Last Supper, but they only recount the first communion, not the foot-washing."

John rolled his eyes, took off his shoes and socks, and with great embarrassment submitted to the foot washing. The same thing happened with the next student, and then the third. But soon, the embarrassment lifted as the sixth graders got into the spirit of the thing. By the end, they were still a little awkward about it, a little self-conscious about their feet. But by the end, they too were engaged in Jesus' example with joy and solemnity intermixed.

Somewhere along the way, the kindergartener in them emerged. "Who will wash your feet, Mr. Humphrey?" I protested that it really wasn't necessary-just to see if they'd be relieved to be let off the hook-but they were eager now, and I would have to submit to being served, just as I had served.

In our gospel reading this evening, Peter is rather like one of my sixth graders. "You will never wash my feet," he protests. But when he gets the point, he becomes like one of my kindergarteners: "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" He goes a little overboard, as Peter is wont to do, but at least he gets the point.

It took my sixth graders longer to get the point than it did for my kindergarteners. Usually, when someone begins to act younger than his years, we say that person is "regressing." The classic example is when you go to your high school reunion and perfectly respectable adults begin behaving as if they're eighteen again-all the old cliques re-emerge, all the bankers turn into obnoxious jocks again…But the sixth graders, far from regressing to childish ways, managed to catch up to the kindergarteners. The kindergarteners had grasped the meaning of Jesus' example and put that example into practice faster than the sixth graders could. The kindergarteners were not weighed down by social awkwardness and fears of being too vulnerable in front of their peers. They were supremely unconcerned with all that.

What about us? In a few moments, we will emulate Jesus' example. Will you be ready to enter into it? It doesn't actually matter whether you're one of the people who will have his or her feet washed tonight, for the line between observer and participant disappears when our hearts and minds enter into the Spirit of the liturgy. I'm not going to go on at length in some sort of learned disquisition on the true meaning of Maundy Thursday, because all it takes to understand Jesus' example is to enter into it with the same immediacy, the same unembarrassed and unselfconscious faith that my kindergarteners entered into it. I suppose it's the difference between being childish and childlike.

Shortly before Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Luke recounts that "People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.'"

This evening, you have the opportunity to enter into the kingdom of God as a child-more specifically, as a kindergartener.

One last word, and then we'll move on to the foot washing. If we allow such moments to take root in our souls, we will carry them with us far beyond these walls. Just before I had to leave Washington Episcopal School for Saint James, Mrs. Kalavritinos, the mother of one of those kindergarteners, came up to me and handed me a little present. As you might be able to guess from the name, the Kalavritinos family was Greek Orthodox. Her son, Peter, had seen this ikon and chosen it as a good-bye gift for me. It's an ikon of Jesus washing the disciples' feet. She told me that my Maundy Thursday lesson had made a deep impression on Peter, and that she could think of no better farewell than to present me with this small reminder of that lesson. Whenever I see this ikon, I am reminded of Peter, and of my kindergarteners, and of the lesson I taught them. I am reminded, as well, of the lesson they taught me, a lesson I hope to pass along to you tonight.