Maundy Thursday

By the Reverend Martha Frances

Year A, Maundy Thursday

9 April 2009 

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 

      Our liturgy this evening is like a toggle button as we move from the 40-day season of Lent into the 3-day Triduum, the period of time in which the Church commemorates the agony & the glory of Christ's passion:  last Passover meal with his disciples, his prayers in the Gethsemane garden, the journey leading up to Jesus' crucifixion on Golgotha, his death & burial, the excruciating waiting time, & the amazing events of Easter morning.  Tonight, we meditate on the first evening of the Triduum:  joining the other disciples in the upper room for their last Passover meal together/their first Lord's Supper.  Since liturgy means the work of the people, it is vital that we come together tonight to re-member, to experience the events again with the original disciples & invited to the table.

      Tonight is named Maundy Thursday because Jesus gives three commands for the disciples, and "Maundy" comes from a Latin word meaning "commandment."  Jesus doesn't say, "It'd be cool if you all do these things if you feel like it."  Jesus gives us 3 commandments:  to share in the ritual meal, to wash each other's feet, & to love one another as Jesus has loved us.  I invite you to enter as fully as you can into the actions of tonight's liturgy, & then meditate on this work as we move through the next 3 days.

      As Jesus & his disciples gather in the upper room, they, too, are re-enacting a centuries-old drama which our Hebrew scripture tonight describes.  The Passover story was & is the story which best identifies the Jewish people's covenant relationship with God who freed them from Egyptian slavery & molded them into the Hebrew nation.  Note that the Jewish people were admonished to celebrate this festival annually—a commandment tied to the Mosaic covenant with God.   Earlier scriptures tell us that the elements of this meal were carefully prepared, so the disciples suppose this to be another yearly celebration. 

      Since John does not include the institution of the Holy Eucharist in his gospel, we heard the description of this ritual this evening from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.  We Episcopalians are very good at fulfilling Jesus' command to perform this ritual regularly, but I would encourage us to pause as we celebrate it tonight to observe Jesus' gift of nourishment for the soul as he took the bread & wine, blessed them, broke the bread open just as his body would be broken & poured out the wine as his blood would be shed, & then offered these elements to those whom he loved & whom he commissioned to carry forward this community of love. This blood of Christ signals his new covenant just as the Mosaic covenant was sealed with the blood of the Passover Lamb.  Tonight we will be invited to share the bread & wine which become, mysteriously, Jesus' body & blood for our nurturance.  Let us not receive lightly but reverently, open to the incredible gift of love Jesus offers with himself at this holy table.

      The second commandment Jesus gives is seldom practiced in most church communities, yet once a year, we are invited to partake in the ritual footwashing.  Jesus calls us 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 to be one 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.  There's something very unsettling about this ritual, a fact that Peter represents for us in the scripture reading, for washing feet is not something we generally do except for the very young or those who are old or infirm.  Peter is first repelled by the whole idea of his master washing his feet, & then, when Jesus tells him this is the only way he is to continue as disciple, Peter over-compensates & wants a full body bath.  Jesus' point of humility & self-emptying is fulfilled simply by the washing of the feet as he turns the usual hierarchy upside down to forgive through his own self-giving, even to include his betrayer.  Although there is certain reluctance for many of you to come forward to have your feet washed, I invite you to avail yourselves of this experience to meditate on through the weekend, realizing that Jesus can wash our soles & our souls only when we are willing to bare our selves as we bare our feet. 

      Notice that Jesus gives us a third 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.  Many of us have participated in small Lenten study groups discussing The Shack for the past six weeks.  Although I've only received a few of the written evaluation forms back yet (& it's not too late to turn them in), I've heard in the various groups & from individuals of a variety of gifts gained from the honest & heart-felt sharing, ways in which one or more of the persons of the Trinity have become real to them, & an appreciation of each other which was not possible before.  At least one group has already chosen another book to begin almost immediately, & I am open to suggestions for other topics for small groups to explore.  Yes, it takes time & effort to commit to several weeks of study with others; most everything worth while does, & certainly our church community deserves our intellectual & emotional effort. 

      We have several opportunities for community-building in the next little while, not the least of which is our Bible study held at 9:00 each Sunday morning as well as our Christian formation offerings for our children & youth, so I invite you to plan to participate more fully in building God's family here at Hope.  Another way to grow in faith & community is to engage in outreach projects for those who are in great need.  I hope the Lenten meditation booklets have whetted your appetite for ways to respond in thanksgiving to the great love which Jesus lavishes on us by pouring out some of that love & some of our resources on others.  Dorothy Miller, our outreach coordinator, will be offering opportunities for us to reach beyond our own church community to give to others.  Our offering tonight & Saturday night at the Vigil will be sent to the work of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem, & tomorrow's offering goes to MANNA, our neighborhood assistance ministry.

      As we close our service tonight, we strip the altar bare, emptying all the liturgical elements from our sanctuary area in preparation for the starkness of the crucifixion on Good Friday.  As we leave this evening, I invite you to watch & pray with Jesus through the night until tomorrow's service, remembering that he asked his disciples to stay with him in the garden of Gethsemane, allowing the Spirit to reach you in whatever way it may.  May you be nourished by the commandments which Jesus continues to give us that we may find fulsome joy in Christ's resurrection.