Comentario Jurisprudencial 

For all his complex analysis of ethics, Chauvet does not spend sufficient time articulating what the ‘sacraments’ of the liturgy of the neighbour might entail. As a result, there is a real temptation to reduce ethics to a horizon of sacramental extensity. That said, I would argue that this oversight does not mean his project would be hostile to such a proposition by definition. On the contrary, the internal trajectory of Chauvet’s argument is intrinsically oriented towards the possibility that certain modes of ethical praxis are sacramental in more definitive ways. Indeed, over the course of this chapter we have repeatedly detected various hints and intimations that all point towards the works of mercy as paradigmatic expressions of sacramental ethics.

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First, one can trace echoes of this connection in the theological terminology Chauvet uses to describe Christian ethics itself. In the broadest sense, ethics concerns moral action in the world. Yet Chauvet typically refers to this activity as ‘the practice of justice and mercy.’76 He also speaks

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Boff 1987, 5. One does wonder to what extent Boff’s text would have benefitted from a more careful distinction between sacrament in particular and metaphor or symbol more generally.

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Cavanaugh 2000, 13-14. Bernd Wannenwetsch (2009) also calls into question the pure extensity of Boff’s sacramental theology (44). For a critical response, see Tau 2011, 15-32.

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of ethics as ‘liberation,’77 ‘forgiveness,’ 78 ‘reconciliation’79 and ‘acts of kindness toward others.’80 The moral life is embodied in the concrete sharing of material goods with others81 and, specifically, in sharing with the poorest, the most destitute, and ‘those who have nothing.’82 Within the household of faith, ethics is described as a habitus of charity83 and agape84 – a living-in-

grace ‘between brothers and sisters.’85 The ethical acts Chauvet has in mind involve a costly ‘self- giving’ to others.86 And for Christians, this kenotic ‘ethic of service’ must always be understood as incorporating both individual and interpersonal dimensions of ‘moral praxis’ and the collective dimension of ‘social praxis.’87

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Second, one can also identify the subtle presence of the works of mercy in Chauvet’s exegesis of the Old and New Testaments. Nearly all of the passages he cites concerning the relationship between liturgy and ethics have a direct connection to the works of mercy. Hebrews 13:16, for example, does not speak about ‘ethics in general’ as a sacrifice holy and pleasing to God, but rather ‘good works’ defined in terms of mutual love, hospitality to strangers, and visiting prisoners. Whilst Chauvet does not often discuss such connections in detail, it is clear from contemporary biblical scholarship that one cannot understand ‘ethical sacrifice’ in Scripture without also discussing the works of mercy.

77 Chauvet 2001, 138. 78 Ibid., 138. 79 Chauvet 1995b, 260; Chauvet 2001, 138. 80 Ibid., 239. 81 _{Ibid., 165, 166, 285.} 82 Ibid., 236, 239, 260; Chauvet 2001, 149. 83 Ibid., 277. 84 Ibid., 177, 277; Chauvet 2001, 144. 85 _{Ibid., 277.} 86 Ibid., 277, 313.

87 _{Ibid., 177, 179; Chauvet 2001, 138. To what extent is ‘ethics’ ultimately a constrictive category for framing}

the discussion of the works of mercy? While undoubtedly moral acts, works of mercy are more akin to the manifestation and expression of the truthful way of life that is the form of Christ. Over-emphasising the category of ‘ethics’ risks clouding their epiphanic and symbolic character. I am indebted to Alistair Roberts for this insight.

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Third, Chauvet builds on these biblical foundations to develop a sacramental theology of ethical sacrifice in conversation with a wide range of patristic sources. Drawing primarily upon Irenaeus and Augustine, he proposes that the liturgy of the church and the liturgy of the neighbour together constitute two eucharistic dimensions of a single pattern of worship. ‘The grace of the Eucharist,’ he writes, ‘is finally our own becoming eucharistic people, that is, our becoming sons and daughters for God and brothers and sisters for others, in communion with the Son and Brother whose memory we celebrate here. […] The practice of the twofold commandment of love toward God and toward neighbour, with its socio-political implications, is the “true sacrifice,” the most important liturgy which we learn from the Eucharistic anti-sacrifice.’88 On the surface, Chauvet seems to be commending a fairly broad sacramental ethic. And yet, once again, a closer inspection of Chauvet’s sources reveals that the works of mercy belong at the core of this ‘Eucharistic anti-sacrifice’ as well.

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Fourth, even Chauvet’s attempt to locate the horizon of ethics under the sacramental symbol of the washing of feet (John 13:1-20) ultimately points in the direction of the works of mercy.89 When discussing this section of the Fourth Gospel, Chauvet suggests that John’s intentional substitution of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet for the institution narrative of the Last Supper reveals something significant about the sacramentality of Christian ethics.90

Returning to the table, Jesus concludes his deeply symbolical act of service with the exhortation: ‘I have set you an example that you should do as (kathos) I have done for you’ (John 13:15).91 Drawing on the work of Léon-Dufour, Chauvet shows that kathos is a particularly strong term that implies more than simply a process of imitation. It is ‘causal rather than exemplary’ and thus

88

Ibid., 314-315.

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For a general discussion of the washing of feet in biblical theology see Dunn 1970, 247-252; Segovia 1982, 31-51; Moloney 1998, 370-381; Bauckham 1999, 411-430; Lincoln 2005, 367-375; Elowsky 2007. For an assessment of the sacramentality of the foot washing, see Richter 1990, 120-123; Thomas 1991; Duke 1995, 398–400, 402; Vanier 1998; Old 2002; Thompson 2003, 258-276; Nation 2004, 441-452.

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Luke 22:27 may also hint at this event. See Bauckham 1999, 424-425.

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According to Tillard (2001), this washing of feet attests to the ‘connection between Eucharist and service of the poor.’ He writes, ‘Disciples must make their own Christ’s service of “washing the feet,” a diakonia (service) which belongs with the leitourgia (ministry) of the Father’s plan’ (87, 89).

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conveys the notion that ‘in acting this way, I give you the power to act in the same way.’92 This corresponds with the traditional interpretation of the washing of feet as both exemplum and

sacramentum.93

As a sacramentum, the exhortation to ‘do as I have done for you’ refers to the ritual washing of feet within the liturgy of the church. This physical washing was an important aspect of Christian worship from the beginning.94 Though it did not ultimately assume official status among the seven official sacraments, nonetheless this ritual practice is best understood as having been instituted by Christ.95 This washing, typically carried out on Maundy Thursday during Lent, symbolically enfolds the church into the identity of Jesus’ humble service, his kenosis.

As an exemplum, ‘do as I have done for you’ (13:15) does not refer simply to a physical, but also to the lived existential praxis of servant love: ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another’ (13:34b). This ethical ‘washing’ takes place not in the liturgy of the church, but in the

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Chauvet 1995b, 261. Andrew Lincoln (2005) demonstrates that kathos bears a particular theological significance in John’s gospel: just as Jesus lives because of the Father, so believers live because of Jesus (6:57); just as Jesus does not belong to this world, so believers do not belong to this world (17:14, 16); just as Jesus is one with the Father, so believers are to be one (17:11, 22); just as the Father has sent the Son, so Jesus sends the disciples into the world (cf. 17:18; 20:21). Likewise with John 13, just as Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, so they are to wash one another’s feet (372).

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According to Lincoln (2005), the disciples are charged with a ‘mandatory repetition’ of the pattern of Jesus’ life. However, he argues that ‘this will always be a non-identical repetition, which cannot have precisely the same significance for them as it had for him. The transformation of values enacted by Jesus in the footwashing and in the laying down of his life, to which this act points, is to distinguish the lives of his followers.’ The difference is that the disciples are to follow Jesus’ action of washing of feet in two modes: first through a literal ritual repetition, and second through a symbolic ethical repetition. He notes that, ‘imitation of the reversal of values symbolized in Jesus’ act is clearly not limited to washing the feet of another. For his disciples to treat the actual washing of feet as the only thing commanded by Jesus would be to miss the point, but for them to see that the instruction was about the overall pattern of humble service and then to neglect the specific demonstrations of this in footwashings would be equally uncomprehending’ (372. Emphasis added). These two liturgical modes – the ritual and the ethical – together constitute a coherent, non-identical repetition of Jesus’ act of loving service.

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See Thomas 1991.

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Chauvet (1995b) describes the sacraments as both ‘instituted’ and ‘instituting.’ He writes, ‘Sacraments as instituted are the instituting mediation of [Christian] identity’ (409). Elsewhere he adds, ‘Identity is the subject existentially; it touches on what is most “real” in the subject. This is why to say that the Church comes into its identity as Church of Christ in the act where it carries out the memorial of Jesus as its Lord, where it does so by involving itself completely in its visibility as an institutional and traditional body is to say that it is engaged in this act of accomplishing its very essence. And its essence is nothing else, primordially, than its communion with the Father through Christ in the Spirit. The sacraments institute the Church because they effect this relation of communion […]. Therefore the task at hand is to theologically think of the sacraments as events of grace’ (409).

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liturgy of the neighbour. Chauvet writes, ‘To wash one another’s feet is to live existentially the memory of Christ that the Eucharist makes us live ritually.’96

Jesus is not simply talking about washing each other’s feet in ritual performance. He is also pointing towards another mode of ethical action symbolised by his gesture in the upper room. What this washing also signifies is the enacted love between the disciples – the humble, mutual service in word and deed practised in everyday life.

In his book, To Act According to the Gospel, Léon-Dufour compares and contrasts the synoptic account of the Last Supper with its emphasis on the Eucharist with the Johannine focus on the footwashing. These two instituted sacramental acts each beckon the disciples to inhabit the dangerous memory of the risen Christ. For Léon-Dufour, the footwashing is not just one act among others. It signifies one of the essential modalities of symbolic-ethical action within the church. ‘If the Eucharist makes the church, the example of footwashing remains the foundational

act by which the church is constituted.’97 In light of this bold claim, the connection between the footwashing and the works of mercy in Christian theology becomes particularly significant. Chauvet is right to locate his sacramental ethics under the symbol of the footwashing. What he does not acknowledge, however, is the extent to which the footwashing already signifies the ethic of mercy in Christian tradition.

Augustine, for example, notes that the literal practice of footwashing is a common sign of humility and hospitality. In his Tractate on the Gospel of John, Augustine observes that in addition to the moral interpretation of the passage, we discover theological and sacramental dimensions as well. By washing the feet of the disciples who were already washed and clean, Jesus ‘instituted a sign’ to demonstrate that while all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Jesus himself ‘thereafter washes away [our iniquity] by interceding for us, when we pray the Father, who is in heaven, to forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ If Christ’s forgiveness is symbolised in the washing of feet, then conversely Christians practise what Jesus symbolised through acts of reconciliation and intercession – that is, through spiritual works of mercy:

For what else does the Lord apparently intimate in the profound significance of this sacramental sign […]? Let us therefore forgive one another his faults, and pray for one another’s faults, and thus in a manner be washing one another’s

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Chauvet 1995b, 261.

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feet. It is our part, by His grace, to be supplying the service of love and humility: it is His to hear us, and to cleanse us from all the pollution of our sins through Christ, and in Christ; so that what we forgive even to others, that is, loose on earth, maybe loosed in heaven.98

In other words, Augustine exhorts Christians to wash one another’s feet through reconciling acts of forgiveness and intercession.99

If Augustine makes a link between the spiritual works and the footwashing, Chrysostom does the same but with reference to the corporal works. In his Commentary on John, Chrysostom observes that Jesus’ precept to wash one another’s feet was ‘recorded not merely with reference to the washing of feet, but also with regard to all the other things in which he gave us His example.’ This includes especially welcoming a pitiable and wretched person. ‘[W]e are also commanded, if we make a banquet, to welcome to it the lame and the halt; and if we do a work of mercy we have been enjoined to show mercy to the least important and most ordinary. “As long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren,” He said, “you did it for me.”’100

Similarly, Gregory Nazianzen develops this connection between the symbol of footwashing and the practise of mercy. Reflecting on the life his brother, Basil the Great, Gregory recalls a time of severe famine in Caesarea. As food supplies dwindled, the situation in the city grew increasingly desperate. In his capacity as bishop, Basil urgently set about to mobilise the wealthy to respond to the crisis by opening their storehouses so that the vulnerable poor would not starve to death. Gregory writes, ‘By his word and exhortations [Basil] opened up the storehouses of the rich and brought to realization the words of Scripture: he dealt bread to the hungry and he satisfied the poor with bread, and he fed them in famine and “he has filled the hungry with good things.”’ In addition to petitioning the wealthy, Basil himself participated in the relief work on the frontlines of the crisis.

He set before them caldrons of pea soup and our salted meats, the sustenance of the poor. Then, imitating the ministry of Christ, who, girded with a towel, did not

98

Augustine 1994, Tractate on the Gospel of John, 58.4-5.

99 _{In his Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love, Augustine (1996) clearly identifies forgiveness and prayer as}

kind of spiritual almsgiving. He writes, ‘Not only, then, the man who gives food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, hospitality to the stranger, shelter to the fugitive, who visits the sick and the imprisoned, ransoms the captive, assists the weak, leads the blind, comforts the sorrowful, heals the sick, puts the wanderer on the right path, gives advice to the perplexed, and supplies the wants of the needy — not this man only, but the man who pardons the sinner also gives alms’ (84-85).

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distain to wash the feet of His disciples, and employing his own servants or, rather, his fellow slaves and co-workers in this labour, [Basil] ministered to the bodies and the souls of the needy, combining marks of respect with the necessary refreshment, thus affording them relief in two ways.101

Basil’s works of mercy are afforded their sacramental connection with the ministry of Christ under the symbol of the footwashing.

It is Thomas Aquinas who ultimately draws the various threads of Christian tradition together into a more systematic reflection. In his Commentary on the Gospel of John, Aquinas addresses the gospel precept to wash one another’s feet. With Augustine he acknowledges that ‘everyone should wash the feet of others, either in a physical or a spiritual way’ – the former being preferable to the latter.102 In addition to these, Aquinas offers a third option: ‘We can also say that by this action our Lord pointed out all the works of mercy. For one who gives bread to the hungry washes his feet, as does one who practices hospitality or gives food to one in need; and so on for the other works. “Contribute to the needs of the saints” (Rom 12:13).’103 In this rather remarkable text, Aquinas shows beyond question the deep association between this image and the practice of mercy. As Frederick Bauerschmidt points out, ‘This action of washing feet is for Aquinas a kind of summing up of the total practice of Jesus that we are called to imitate.’ The church is ‘called to a comprehensive imitation of Jesus’ example in the upper room, obeying not only his command to receive him through sacramental eating, but also his command to “wash each other’s feet.” Or, to put it in terms that are more familiar to us but would probably puzzle Thomas himself (since for him worship is an act of justice), the visible markers of the community of disciples are not only ritual ones but also ethical ones.’104

In Symbol and Sacrament, Chauvet appeals to the washing of feet in order to demonstrate the profound connection between ‘ritual memory’ and ‘existential memory.’ This symbolic gesture illustrates that ‘the ritual memory of Jesus’ death and resurrection is not Christian unless it is veri- fied in an existential memory whose place is none other than the believers’ bodies.’105 Across the Christian tradition, however, the footwashing is not simply a placeholder for ‘ethics’ in general. It

101 _{Gregory Nazianzen 1953, 58.} 102

Aquinas 2010, 20.

103

Ibid., 20 (emphasis added).

104

Bauerschmidt 2005, 303-304.

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signifies the works of mercy in particular. The following diagram depicts the twofold sacramentality of the footwashing:

Liturgy of the Church > Sacramentum > Literal / Ritual > Washing of Feet

Liturgy of the Neighbour > Exemplum > Existential / Ethical > Works of Mercy

The practice of the footwashing bears within itself this double sacramental valance: (1) a ritual

mode that performs the sacramental symbolism of the physical washing as a sign of Christ’s

passion and a symbol of his sacrificial love; and (2) an existential mode that enacts in daily life what the ritual washing symbolises: namely, the kenotic compassion of Christ poured out in service to even the least among us (cf. Phil 2:1-5). In the Maundy Thursday liturgy of the Anglican tradition, the following prayer is given immediately after the conclusion of the footwashing:

Lord Jesus Christ, you have taught us

that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters we do also for you: [Matt 25:40]

give us the will to be the servant of others as you were the servant of all,

and gave up your life and died for us,

but are alive and reign, now and for ever. Amen.

When the ritual mode is held together with the ethical mode in a creative tension, then the washing of feet becomes a prophetic symbolic action, an ‘enacted parable.’ In the words of Megan McKenna, ‘Liturgy is a celebration of resurrection, of the presence of the risen Lord, and a hint of God’s coming in glory again. It is service, another way of washing feet, of bending before