In my search for spiritual encouragement, I suggested to a friend and colleague that we meet regularly to offer mutual support and prayer. For the next five years, "Kevin and I took a lunch hour once a week to share our stresses, anxieties, joys, even doubts. ... We gave encouragement, prodded the other to new ways of thinking, and always prayed aloud for each other. Mostly we helped each other listen to what God was saying through the raw material of our lives' routines and milestones."¹

Sometimes we may have the mistaken idea that we can manage by ourselves, that the Christian life can sometimes work as a do-it-yourself project. This idea takes different forms. Some around us, for instance, fall prey to a kind of rugged individualism where they convince themselves that they should not need help for the important pursuits of life. I see this kind of thinking in the way people act embarrassed when they come to me for counseling or hesitate to ask a friend for a simple favor or think that it's somehow not right to turn to God in prayer in a jam. It's as if they're thinking, Shouldn't mature people always be able to figure stuff out on their own? I must admit that at times I have indulged in this type of thinking.

Some, on the other hand, want a life lived only in pursuit of personal ambitions and individual satisfactions. This is not so much individualism as isolationism. In this scenario, people wall themselves in and wall others out, insulating themselves from people's needs. I sometimes drift from God's ideal in this area as well.

Still others buy into the myth of solitariness by so filling their lives with distractions that they submerge a deep hunger for God. They surround themselves with entertainments and enjoyments that hide their deep need for a divine "Other." Jesus' life, however, blows apart our myth of self-sufficiency, the lie that says all we need is our own selves. As we look at his life (and his journey to a suffering death), we see something altogether more promising than our penchant for "do-it-yourselfism."

John 13 tells us how Jesus, on the eve of his crucifixion, gathered his disciples around him for a last supper. Death looms just hours away, yet Jesus does not isolate himself from his disciples. This suffering Messiah, standing on the eve of events in which most would think only of their personal needs or individual survival, reminds his followers of a very different response. He both declares and models the human need for relationship -- for others and Another. As Jesus washed their feet, the disciples' reactions to him seem mixed. Peter, one of the most outspoken, (and perhaps the most representative of us) protests, "You will never wash my feet." At first, he will not allow Jesus to serve him or care for him, nor allow Jesus to offer him the great grace he intends for Peter.

Jesus, though, insists. He knows that Peter -- that we -- are made for more than ourselves. On this hallowed evening, Jesus suggests what it means to give up the myth of individualism. It means, first of all, to receive what only others can give. That requires acknowledging that we don't have everything together, fitting perfectly. Despite Peter's blustering, as it turns out he had great needs. As do we. So we turn to others in the family of faith who can encourage us, or motivate us, or help us.

But there is more. We need others, but we also need God. And Jesus helps us here, too, sharing with his followers a meal that would, for centuries, in all its varied ways of commemoration, remind us of God's extravagant, costly grace. Jesus would give up his life so that we might have life. With the foot washing, Jesus reminds us how we need to be saved from ourselves by One above us and beyond us, by grace.

Some traditions encourage a practice of giving up something for Lent, the forty-day period leading up to Easter. I also admire those who add something -- not only a new spiritual discipline but perhaps also a project or commitment through which they reach out to others. As we give, too, especially if we do it in the company of others, we find ourselves sharing help we ourselves have graciously received. What a loving God and caring friends offer us becomes, in turn, our offering to others.

As you consider the reflection questions below, you may want to read again the meditations for March 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 17, 19, 24, 26, 28, and 30 and for April 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 19, 24, and 30.

Questions for Reflection:

1. When have you come face-to-face with the "myth of self-sufficiency," when you realized that you needed more than your own resources to get through? To whom did you reach out for help? What difference did it make?
2. How might this season of the year, in which we ponder the depth of God's sacrificial love for us, help us turn more earnestly to God in prayer? How might gratitude for God's costly gift in Jesus' life and death make our praying more heartfelt and more fervent?
3. Read John 13:1-16. As you reread and reflect on these verses, what stands out for you about our need for others? Our need for the kindness and mercy Jesus extends? How does Jesus demonstrate his profound love for his followers?
4. As you think about following Christ, and particularly the cost of discipleship, how can friends in the faith help your faith stay renewed and vibrant? What practical thing might you do today to reach out for the strengthening help of a family member, neighbor, friend, or church member?

- Timothy Jones

Timothy Jones is the author of The Art of Prayer and Finding a Spiritual Friend, as well as senior associate rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee.

¹ Timothy Jones, Finding a Spiritual Friend: How Friends and Mentors Can Make Your Faith Grow, Nashville: Upper Room Books, 1998, pp 19-20.

From The Upper Room® daily devotional guide, March/April 2008. Copyright © 2008 The Upper Room. All Rights Reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

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