Text: John 13: 12-17
Today, with the images of four of our nation’s greatest presidents before us, we turn in the gospels to a story of a biblical model of leadership.
Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, gets down on his hands and knees and washes the feet of his disciples.
As the words of Tom Colvin’s hymn, “Jesu, Jesu” remind us:
“Kneels at the feet of his friends, silently washes their feet, Master who acts as a slave to them.” (UMH #432)
Our Master humbles himself in service to others.
Our Master doesn’t demand praise and monuments and glory… but finds glory in loving and serving those who are lowly.
And calls us to do the same.
But even more than that… this act of love and hospitality and service was not just meant for those who were righteous and perfect and had it all together.
Simon Peter, who would soon deny Jesus three times was there.
Judas, who was about to betray Jesus was there.
Jesus knew them fully. Completely.
And Jesus loved them and asked them to do the same for the world.
What does it mean for us to live in this world not seeking our own glory, but seeking to humbly serve others?
What might it mean for us to know others fully, completely, and love them anyways?
Let’s pray: Gracious God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts and minds be holy and pleasing to you, O Lord, our Strength and Redeemer.
At the end of this spring when I put Mount Rushmore on the list, the location evoked nothing but nostalgia for me. Summer, vacations, grand vistas, and playing games in the car.
Remember that photo from the start of summer where my brother and I were handcuffed together?
Well, that same trip also included a stop at Mount Rushmore.
As we arrived, we noticed that my hair was a strange shade of green. Our campground the night before had a pool and my light blonde hair had turned green from the chlorine.
Then, when we got out of the car at the national monument, we were suddenly surprised to discover just a few cars away my childhood friend, Matt, and his family!
I was so embarrassed.
But I got over it and we all enjoyed the grand majestic views of these spectacular presidents.
As the summer has gone on, I must admit that those iconic men carved into a mountainside have taken on a different tone in our national discourse.
Our country is grappling in new ways with the systemic racism that underlies every institution.
We are questioning practices that currently exist and looking at our history with new lenses.
And that has not only included the monuments of Confederate generals, but also the full legacy of great American heroes like Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt and the land upon which this monument is built itself.
I have to admit… when President Trump scheduled a big celebration there for the Fourth of July, I thought nothing of it.
But all of a sudden there was controversy because someone from the DNC had tweeted that Mount Rushmore was connected with white supremacy.
What?! I thought.
That’s bonkers… it is divisive for the sake of being divisive…
It is a simple patriotic monument.
And then I took a breath.
I’ve made a commitment to myself that when I find myself outraged at something, I try to research instead of react.
My first impulse is not to repost it, but to google it.
Sometimes, the information is flat out wrong. Sometimes it is intentionally misleading.
But sometimes, there is truth to be discovered there.
Sometimes, my anger or outrage is a defense mechanism because the way I had always thought about something is being challenged.
Do you know what I learned early in July about Mount Rushmore?
It is a sacred site for our Lakota siblings.
This mountain is called Six Grandfathers, named for the Earth, Sky, and four directions that had been carved into the granite by the elements.
In 1868 this land was promised in a treaty to the Lakota people.
Yet the discovery of precious minerals like gold and tin brought miners and prospectors to the area in a breach of that treaty.
There was conflict and the U.S. sent in more calvary to defeat the Lakota and their allies. The Congressional Act of 1877 forced Native Americans onto reservations and our government took over the Black Hills.
In July of 1980, nearly 100 years later, the Supreme Court ruled that these lands were illegally taken from the Lakota people, but the land has still not been returned.
That rush of prospectors brought to the area a New York lawyer named Charles Rushmore.
In his own words, Mr. Rushmore explains how the land came to be named after him:
“I was deeply impressed with the Hills, and particularly with a mountain of granite rock that rose above the neighboring peaks. On one occasion while looking from near its base, with almost awe, at this majestic pile, I asked of the men who were with me for its name. They said it had no name, but one of them spoke up and said ‘We will name it now, and name it Rushmore Peak.’ That was the origin of the name it bears…” (https://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/historyculture/charles-e-rushmore.htm)
We ignored our treaties with indigenous people for the sake of our own prosperity.
We erased their legacy and names and stories from the land.
And then we gave this place our name and carved the faces of our leaders upon it.
It is a far cry from the humble service that Jesus calls us to embody with our neighbors.
But in the minds of those at the time, such acts could be justified because native people were seen as savages, less than, unequal to their white counterparts.
The only way our ancestors could rationalize genocide, enslavement, and colonization wasto believe that there are innate differences between the races and that non-white people were inferior.
That is white supremacy at its core.
The four men whose faces we now see carved upon this mountain were not perfect.
They were heroes and champions and they made our country what it is today, but they had faults as well and they lived and breathed and upheld systems that supported a belief that white people were somehow different and more worthy of this land than people of color.
George Washington led us to freedom from Great Britain, but that freedom was not extended to his own slaves. When his wife’s slave, Ona Judge escaped, Washington went to great effort to recover her, fearing she would inspire their other slaves to seek freedom as well.
Thomas Jefferson literally wrote our independence into existence and doubled the size of our nation. But, also, the sexual exploitation of his slaves is so well-known that there is an Ancestry.com spoof about it.
Abraham Lincoln helped to preserve our nation and abolished slavery. However, that freedom was not extended to Native peoples and during his administration, land was stolen and native people were executed and massacred.
Theodore Roosevelt was chosen for the monument to represent the growth and development of the United States through incredible social policies. Yet he also say Native people as an obstacle towards settlement and once said, “the only good Indians are dead Indians.”
You know, when Borglum began to carve the faces of these men into the face of the cliff, the design included the figures from head to waist.
He intended for a fuller image of these great American heroes to be portrayed. Not the full story of their legacy, but at least a greater rendering of their persona.
Borglam died, the country was at war, and the project ran out of money so this full realization was never completed.
Only their faces were ever finished.
I’ve been thinking a lot in the midst of the national debate about whether monuments or statues and the like should stand not about these figures… but about Jesus… kneeling at the feet of the disciples.
He knew them fully.
He knew them completely.
He knew their faults and their triumphs.
And he loved and had compassion and offered forgiveness to them anyways.
Here is the thing about not only Jesus, but the entire biblical witness.
Our scriptures don’t shy away from telling the full story of our leaders.
We know that Moses led the people out of Egypt, but we also know that he was a murderer and we know that his own grumbling with God prevented him from seeing the promised land.
We know that David was a man after God’s own heart and his line was chosen for the redemption of all of Israel, but we also know that David was a rapist and murderer and stood idly by while assault and division happened with his own family.
We know that before he was Paul, Saul persecuted Christians and oversaw their executions and that even later in life in the midst of his ministry, there was a thorn in his side, a temptation that never quite eluded him.
For so much of our national history, we have focused only on the parts of the story that we like. The parts that hold us up in a good light. The parts that demonstrate our worth and our glory and invite others to follow in our footsteps.
Just like Mount Rushmore remains unfinished… a partially completed rendering… the story we tell ourselves about our own history and these figures is incomplete. It is not the full picture.
And it has ignored and diminished other voices and stories and hurts for too long.
What we are experiencing in our nation right now is a lot of pain, and conflict, and tension… but in the midst of that woundedness, perhaps there is for the first time in a really long time we also have the possibility for healing and new steps forward.
When Jesus knelt at the feet of the disciples, he knew they would harm him and washed their feet anyways.
I think about how a wound often has to be cleaned out and debrided before it can properly heal.
That is what we are experiencing right now.
Systemic racism and white supremacy have wounded our nation and our people and our relationships with one another.
And there is a lot we have to clean away and bring to the surface, so that the wound can properly heal.
It is painful.
It is ugly.
But it is the only way healing can ever be possible.
Because you see, only when we allow God to see us fully – with all of our faults and all of our sins and all of our mistake and all of our faithful attempts to do the right thing – can we truly accept God’s grace and mercy into our lives and share it with others.
In 2004, Gerard Baker became the first Native American superintendent of Mount Rushmore and has worked to establish the Heritage Village there to share the history and customs of the land before Custer and Borglum left a mark on the area. Baker said:
“it’s not just a teepee here. We’re promoting all cultures of America. That’s what this place is. This is Mount Rushmore! It’s America! Everybody’s something different here; we’re all different. And just maybe that gets us talking again as human beings, as Americans.” (https://blog.nativehope.org/six-grandfathers-before-it-was-known-as-mount-rushmore)
Mount Rushmore is the story of America.
With all the things we have done right, and all the ways we have gotten it so wrong.
As we think back upon our history, our story, if we find a way to tell it in all of its fullness, with all of its diversity and triumph and tribulation, maybe… just maybe we can remember that we are all human beings.
That none of us are greater than our Master.
And that God calls us all to another way, a better way, of being in this world.
As we sang together in our opening hymn:
“Cure thy children’s warring madness, bend our pride to thy control; shame our wanton, selfish gladness, rich in things and poor in soul. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, lest we miss thy kingdom’s goal.” (Harry Emerson Fosdick, UMH #577)
As we engage in these tough national conversations, help us to be humble. Remind us of your call to serve our neighbors rather than promote ourselves. Give us wisdom and grace to speak the full story. And bless us with courage to do the right thing.