(Preached at The Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion on Maundy Thursday, 2015, 6:30 pm)
A table. A robe. A towel. A
basin.
Water. A cup of wine. A loaf
of bread.
Blessing. Thanksgiving. Service.
Love.
These are the images that
flash before me tonight.
I picture myself in that
room. The dust from the triumphant march through the crowded festal streets of
Jerusalem still clings to the disciples’ feet, as we remembered on Palm Sunday.
As the disciples lean back,
they can probably still hear echoes of the crowd’s “Hosannas!” ricocheting off
the stone walls around Jerusalem.
And now they have shared a
meal with their teacher, their brother,
their Messiah. The disciples
are gathered around a table where everyone is loved. Where every one is loved.
Tonight is the night for a
love story.
The first sentence that
jumps out to me is this one: “Having
loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Jesus is
getting ready to leave his disciples—and he wants to show them what true love
is.
There is just one lesson
left to impart. There is just one commandment left to give.
The lesson is service. The
commandment is love.
Love is thanksgiving. Love is
sacrifice. Love sometimes includes heartbreak.
On this night we dwell
between the two poles of our existence- the agony of loss and the call of love.
Earlier this week I was sitting in class with Dr. Clint McCann, who is a
renowned scholar of the psalms. We were discussing psalms of lamentation, especially
the ones that are quoted in the Passion Narrative this week. Dr. McCann noted
that the gospel writers could not understand the story of Jesus during Holy
Week without the lamentation psalms, psalms in which the psalmist asks for help
when feeling abandoned, and laments being turned upon even by his closest
friends.
Yet Dr. McCann also pointed
out that every one of those lamentation psalms quoted in the story of Jesus’s
passion turns to praise at the end. And that’s often how it is in our lives,
too. Our lives are shot through with both sorrow and joy.
Yet it is love that remains
at the end.
The central act in our story
tonight is Jesus washing his apostles’ feet—even Judas’s, whose act of betrayal
gets omitted in the middle of our gospel reading. In the verses omitted here
tonight, Jesus quotes Psalm 41:9- “Even my dear friend in whom I
trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted his heel against me.”
I wish they had included the quote from psalm 41,
for, in our reading tonight, we see Jesus taking that same heel of his betrayer
and washing it. In washing Judas’s feet alongside the others’, Jesus declares
not just his love but his forgiveness for Judas’s betrayal. This is what Jesus
means by love. He loved his own until the end—even Judas.
Tonight is the night for a
love story.
What is the act Jesus
chooses to demonstrate his love for his disciples? Something so humbling that no
one would have expected it. Jesus kneels before each one of his disciples, and
takes their feet into his hands to wash them. Now, this was not just an act of
hospitality. Washing the feet of a guest was the job of a slave. Jesus kneels
down, and washes the dust from their victory march from their feet, because washing
feet is also a sign of welcome, a sign of thankfulness that our guests have
arrived to break bread with us.
In the other three gospels,
the Eucharist is the main point of the story of this night. John’s gospel, as
it so often does, tells that same story in a different way. John talks about
the details of the Eucharist much earlier. In John 6, Jesus states that “I am
the bread of life.” He reminds us that the way to life is through the gift of
love that Christ has for us.
John places words from the
Eucharist earlier because he wants to make clear that Holy Communion is
something Jesus does throughout his life on earth, rather than just at the end.
John’s gospel doesn’t highlight the Eucharist tonight—because John’s gospel is
shot through with Eucharistic imagery.
John is making an excellent
point here. By eating of the bread of life,
and drinking of the cup of
salvation, we share in all of Jesus’s life—and Jesus’s life is a life of love
for all.
We share in the living
reminder that we are to love one another—even in the face of difficulties,
differences, even in the face of anger. The word “love” appears six times in
this passage, and appears in the first sentence as well as the last. Love that
roots itself in our very being and transforms us.
And we are still in need of
that transformation, centuries later. Last week the governor of Indiana signed
a bill purporting to be about religious freedom. Its stated purpose is to grant
businesses the right to deny service to anyone—and in the name of “religious
liberty.”
Laws like this attempt to
draw lines and boundaries around not only who we think should be able to love
each other, but around whom WE ourselves will love and serve.
And let’s not kid ourselves-
laws similar to Indiana’s exist right here in our own state. Those who defend
this law rest their defense on the example of Jesus.
But our gospel insists
otherwise.
The commandment Jesus left
us with—not an easy commandment certainly—was to love one another through our
actions, and to serve each other, humbly and thankfully.
Laws like this attempt to
place exceptions to Jesus’s command to love each other. It ironically attempts
to allow people to refuse to serve others—and to refuse to serve others in the
name of that same Christ who calls us to serve each other tonight in the most
humble way possible. Jesus drew no lines. The love of Jesus doesn’t draw
lines—it permeates everyone and everything. Love literally surrounds the story
we hear in our gospel.
It is LOVE that marks us to
the world as followers and disciples of Jesus. Love for each other. Love that
is tied up in ACTION, not in sentiment or mere warm feelings, but love that
calls us to truly serve each other—love wrapped up in justice, in welcome, and in
forgiveness.
And that love extends to
everyone. Everyone.
It is not only Jesus’s love
for the disciples that glorifies God—it is by the disciples’ love for each
other that everyone in the world will know the name of Jesus.
That’s why we are going to
gather in a few minutes and wash each others’ feet. I know that makes many of
us anxious, and self-conscious.
How do I know that? I know
because my Facebook feed has been filled with pedicure pictures, including
mine, that’s how. And in the midst of those pictures there was a meme of a sign
that said “If you hate anyone because of your faith, you’re doing it wrong.”
Jesus reminds us that to
love and serve each other is a blessing, yes, but also that we bless others in
allowing them to serve us. That’s also a hard thing for many of us to do,
myself included. On this one night, we remember that service goes both ways,
and that both to serve and to be served are acts of love, and acts of faith.
And after the foot washing,
there will be the thanksgiving. We will remember and give thanks for the love
that binds us all together, when we are joined around the altar across age,
time, and circumstances to partake in Holy Communion. Our readings tonight tie
together Paul’s description of the institution of the Eucharist with John’s
story about the last hours Jesus spends with his apostles, and reminds us that
he spends those last few hours serving his followers and urging love-- all at a
time when war could all too easily erupt in our hearts.
This is when the movement
toward the cross becomes inexorable. And yet, this is the night we also
celebrate the institution of the Eucharist, for which our parish is named. This
is the night we are reminded that, no matter what happens, Jesus loves us, and
we are to love each other, serve each other, and give thanks. Now, I noticed,
and I hope you did too, that tonight’s psalm is NOT a lamentation psalm, but a
psalm of thanksgiving. Our psalm tonight asks, “How shall I repay the Lord for
all the good things done for me?” And the answer is this: “I will lift up the
cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. I will offer you the
sacrifice of thanksgiving.” And soon, we will do just that, in joy and love and
peace. In our church, all are welcome at the altar! If that’s not a source of
joy and blessing, I don’t know what is!
Tonight, we bring together
the footwashing, and the forgiveness, and the thanksgiving, and most of all the
love. That’s what Holy Communion is all about.
As we consider over these
next days the paths that lead through the dark wilderness of betrayal and
sacrifice, how can our own hearts not break a little?
Yet, let our hearts break.
Let them crack open, so that
the light of Christ can shine through the cracks and illuminate our inmost
selves. Let that light in and illuminate all the hurts, all the betrayals, all
the losses we still hold within those broken hearts.
Let us bring our broken
hearts to the altar where we re-enact every time we gather the ongoing healing
and cleansing that washes over us through the love of our Savior and Lord,
Jesus Christ.
Let’s let our hearts break
open, for only when they are open can they be filled.
Then healed, renewed, let us
fill those same hearts with joy, and peace, and thanksgiving for Christ’s love
for each and every one of us, and for the love we have for each other.
As we raise our open hands
let us raise our open hearts, healed and renewed by the power of love, to
receive the Body and Blood of our Savior, who did not die to save us long ago,
but lives today in you and me and in all of us, who is with us at this altar
right now, loving everyone around this table.
Let us receive Jesus Christ,
who continues to save us and love us during every minute of our lives and
beyond, bringing us to new life filled with love and service and thanksgiving
for each other.
Tonight is the night for a
love story.
