Maundy Thursday

By the Reverend Martha Frances

Year A, Maundy Thursday

20 March 2008 

Text:  John 13: 1-17, 31b-35

Other Readings:  Exodus 12: 1-4, [5-10], 11-14; Psalm 116: 1, 10-17; I Corinthians 11: 23-26 

      As Moses confronts Pharoah to let the Hebrews in Egypt go, Yhwh prepares the people for travel.  They are to eat a substantial meal that has been prepared properly—joining with neighbors to share the lamb, making the first rudimentary community.  Their travel preparations include loins girded, feet shod, & staff in hand.  The blood on the doorposts was sign of God's protection.  Thus began Yhwh's forming Israel as the people of God.  Jewish people even today celebrate this Seder meal not hurriedly but with great ceremony at the beginning of their Passover week commemorating their deliverance from Egyptian slavery. 

      When Paul writes to the Corinthian church, he reminds that community of Jesus' commandments on the night of the first Last Supper, recalling for them the significance of Jesus' whole evening with his disciples in the context of the Passover meal.  Paul is going about the forming of a new Christian community at Corinth who would experience freedom in Christ just as Israel had been freed from pharaoh's slavery in Egypt.  Another community of people in formation.

      Tonight we recall Jesus' commandments given to his disciples—including us—at that final evening with them.  As Jesus journeys to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, he incorporates his own forming of community into the larger Jewish context of the Hebrews' formation as a people.  Notice that Jesus acts out his parables on this night & then teaches their significance.  As we do with our children, he shows his followers & then tells them what his actions signify.

      Jesus' first commandment according to John is to follow his example of service in washing his disciples' feet.  Just as our God comes as a servant, our basic stance toward each other & the rest of the world, is that of service—to give of ourselves freely.  Tonight I as your pastor will begin the ritual of footwashing, inviting any who desire to come forward, first to have your feet washed, & then to wash those of another Hope brother or sister, knowing that only in our servanthood can we fulfill the other of Jesus' commandments.

      From ancient times, sitting at table & sharing a meal with others has signified friendship & hospitality with them.  Jesus welcomes all his disciples to share the Eucharistic meal even though they will betray him.  Jesus commands us to bless, break, pour out, give fully, & share this meal we call the Eucharist & indeed all our lives with our community & beyond it.  We are invited tonight to recall that time of community-building & Eucharist—thanksgiving.

      Notice that Jesus gives us another commandment which we are using to guide us here at Hope:  to love one another as Jesus has loved us.  As we leave here tonight, we are called upon to do so in an attitude of servanthood & community as we build our parish.  Jesus shows himself as our guide, our model, our savior.

      On Maundy Thursday, there's good news & bad news.  The bad news is that—despite our better selves—we will all betray Christ.  Like Judas, we turn him over to others.  Like Peter, we betray our discipleship.  Like the three in the garden, we fall asleep when we should wait, watch, & pray.  Like all the disciples, we disappear & refuse to go the whole way to the cross with him.

      The good news is, however, that it's still all right because we are all under God's grace.  We don't have to earn it.  Jesus' resurrection promises us that God loves us enough to provide for us eternally—despite our denial.  And what is to be our response?  Gratitude.  Acceptance of that incredible love Jesus models for us.  Tonight we can choose to renew our willingness to live our lives in Christlike ways:  forgiving, accepting, building up community, choosing to love as Jesus loves despite all the excuses & reasons we have to be less than who we're created to be.

      Through the next several days, we're encouraged to meditate upon these scriptures & upon the incredible gift Christ gives us in the giving of himself so fully.  In closing, I'd like to share with you a poem by Andrew Morrison about tonight. 
 

      Maundy Thursday

      Andrew Morrison, Used by permission  

The service doesn't end. 

After taking communion

Twelve of us proceed

on washed feet

carrying candles

through the darkening church

to the altar in the north chapel,

following a muffled cross,

which is all the more present

for being implied and indistinct. 

Once again we hand over

what we have been given

and walk away enriched

by the loss as much as

by the earlier possession. 

The service doesn't end

with the usual alleluias

and a big hymn.

The choir fades slowly

and the anthems of light are                    stilled,

one solitary beam

singing its slow note

upon the altar, which the priest

strips and then scrubs

agonizingly clean, until it too

is worthy of darkness. 

The service doesn't end

even then.

A few would-be disembodied souls

stumble and clatter through the pews

into the north chapel

to sit or kneel or crouch

in the darkness which the candles emphasize.

There we wait not for passion

But for the darkness to become complete. 

People walk stiffly out in ones or twos.

There is less breathing, less light, less sound. 

My ribs are peeled back

like the shell of an easter egg,

like a house of twigs;

a small treasure still glows inside,

until a dark wind scatters its ashes

and I am empty. 

At the same moment I am full

with all the darkness of God,

with the silence of the not-me,

with the peace of the world. 

And then the understanding

that the death we wait for,

though it dazzles us,

solipsistically,

it is not the end.

It is merely a rest, a pause,

a preparation and a cleansing.

the work goes on. 

Quietly we rise,

humbly and without fanfare

walk back into life

hoping, knowing 

The service doesn't end.