The Value of You
John 13:1-17, 31-35
A Meditation for Maundy Thursday, March 20, 2008
Thomas J. Boone, Ph.D.
Central Presbyterian Church, Mobile AL

A speaker began a seminar by holding up a twenty dollar bill. She asked everyone at the conference, "Who would like this new twenty dollar bill?" Hands went up all over the room. She said, "I’m going to give this twenty dollar bill to one of you, but first I need to crumple it." She wadded up the bill and asked, "Who still wants it?" Hands were quickly raised. The speaker dropped the bill and ground it into the floor with his shoe. She picked up the crumpled, dirty bill. "Now who wants it?" Everyone still lifted their hands. "Friends, you have all learned a valuable lesson” the speaker concluded. “No matter what I did to the money, you still want it because its value hasn’t changed. Even though the bill is crumpled and dirty, it’s still worth twenty dollars.” Although someone may have been misused and abused, he or she still has infinite worth. Every person’s precious in God’s sight, but do we give ourselves permission to see ourselves, and others, likewise?

Truth be told, it’s common to consider our value in ungodly terms. I was sitting in a dealership waiting for my car when I noticed a white board with several names on it. Next to the names were tick marks representing the number of cars each salesperson had sold that month. Beside one of the names were fifteen marks, and on the bottom of the list was a name with only two marks. Listen to the sales office and you’ll tick off your value according to your productivity...maybe that comes from more than just a sales office.

It seems cliché, but since it’s prevalent I’ll go ahead and say it. While all humans have dignity, we rush to use measuring sticks like rank, function, title, and contribution to society to determine a person’s value. It begins early with investment bankers contacting new parents about how to save up money for education at Harvard and who wouldn’t want that for their child? And if it doesn’t end up being Harvard then it’ll be an honors program somewhere else after having gone to a good private school. Value calculated in terms of the right school, which will get us to the right job and knowing the right people. It may not matter to all of us, but we’re each surrounded by it.

Not that I want to focus on grim realities, but when we attend a memorial service we appreciate it when the pastor remembers those we knew and loved with stories of our loved one’s value. How much did the person give to society? How much did she or he serve the country, the church, or the family? We value a person who lived more for others than she did for herself. Thus, Mother Theresa, Ghandi, and Pope John Paul II stand as epitomes of value next to whom any of us would’ve been honored to sit. Scales weighing out each person’s value based on external criteria: It’s ungodly, but most of us have fallen for it.

When we’re down we’re tempted to look at our value much like what we might find at a yard sale or on Ebay. I spotted an XBox 360 on EBay for about $50 the other day, and a couple for less than that. Two years ago when they first rolled off the shelves the same system was worth over $300. Or take a car, for example. When you drive it off the lot brand new it has one value. The instant the wheels leave the lot that value reduces enough to make a grown man cry. Wait five years and don’t even bother thinking about the value. We expect stuff to depreciate, there’s even a 1040 line for it, but we’ve got it all wrong when we think that’s what happens to us.

Whenever we think about our value it’s helpful to remember this Proverb: “The rich and the poor have one common bond: the Lord is the maker of them all” (Prov. 22:2). Whether we entered the sanctuary tonight feeling like a wrinkled and stepped on $20 bill, or Queen Elizabeth’s finest polished silver, neither should make a difference in the way we gauge our value, but unfortunately that’s not always the case. When it comes to knowing the value of you, there’s so much that gets in the way, be it warped and dysfunctional gauges from society or misguided self-perceptions.

But, that’s not at all the way Jesus sees your value. There’s a bunch of different ways to interpret what’s happening in the passage from John. Tonight, though, let’s look at it from the perspective of the value that Jesus assigns to each of us. Of course he’s not washing our feet, but we might as well place ourselves around that same table because we ought to know he’d also be washing ours.

Around the table were Jesus’ closest disciples, who had traveled with him for three years, heard his teachings, endured his hardships, learned the good news straight from his own mouth, and were friends in every sense of the word. Yet as we also know around that table were the very people who’d abandon Jesus at his moment of direst need. There sat one who would betray Jesus and give him up for barely enough money to buy a useless plot of land. Jesus washed his feet. There sat one who had boldly declared Jesus as Messiah and Son of God yet in the end his heart couldn’t keep stride his words. Jesus washed his feet. There sat one who led the disciples with these words, “Let us go to Jerusalem that we may die with him,” yet we don’t hear anything more from this disciple once they all fled at the sight of guards in Gethsemane. Jesus washed his feet.

Jesus washed the feet of those he knew wouldn’t stand with him. He washed the feet of people who’d let themselves down in a way that I think few of us can comprehend. Despite their betrayal on the last night of Jesus’ earthly life, Jesus washed their feet. If you’re not getting how this relates to what this says about how much Jesus valued them think about this. How do you think they felt on Friday night, or Saturday? How low do you think they felt? Judas felt low enough to kill himself; don’t think for one moment that the same thing wasn’t running through Peter’s mind, or the minds of those other so-called friends of Jesus.

Yet, Jesus washed their feet. He didn’t value them because they earned scholarships, prizes, titles, and honors. He didn’t value them because they were leaders in the community or presidents of organizations. He valued them because... well, why do you think he valued them? You may have a different answer than me, but let me share mine with you. I want you to think about your children right now, and if you don’t have children think about your dearest parent. We love that person unconditionally. There’s nothing that person can do to remove our love from him or her and all the ways we’ve poured ourselves out we’d do all over again. Each of us with bonds between children or parents know exactly what unconditional love is all about.

There’s the why of why Jesus values us. As Paul puts it, there’s nothing at all that can separate us from God’s love, nothing. No amount of failure, disappointment, sorrow, or fret that you’ve caused God will cause you to endure the pain of His neglect; He abandoned Jesus on the cross so we’ll never have to know that. You might as well think you can walk out of here a flying pink elephant, as think that you’ve done so much that would decrease your value in God’s eyes. Beloved of God, you are cherished, loved, adored, and entirely wrapped up by a God who values you so much that on this night many years ago he took the steps that would end his life in an excruciating way.

That’s really all there is to say about it. How much are you worth? Jesus opened his arms and said, “This much.” Amen.