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Maundy Thursday ~Year C
Saint Paul's Episcopal Church
April 5, 2007
"Love One
Another "
Lessons
for the Day
X Exodus
12:1-14a
X
Psalm 78:14-20, 23-25
X
I Corinthians 11:23-26
(27-32)
X
John 13:1-15 or Luke 22:14-30
Homily
I greet you in the name of God our
Creator, Christ our Brother, and the Holy
Spirit who sustains and sanctifies us, empowering us
to love and to serve both God and Christ.
Amen.
A friend
of mine is quite an athlete, and has often used his skills
to coach the youth teams on which his children play. He
loves to tell the story of his youngest daughter -- coming
off the court during the first timeout of her first
basketball game. She wore a look of obvious distress, and
my friend gently asked her, "Molly, what's the matter?"
To which Molly replied,
"That girl on the other team is touching me
-- and she doesn’t even know me!"
Molly didn't mind playing -- she just
didn't want to be touched! I wonder how many of us feel
the same way
-- sitting here in church with the prospect of having our
feet washed. How many of us would join Peter in
refusal to Jesus:
"You will never wash my feet!"
John 13: 8a (NRSV)
There's something just a little
too-intimate about this whole foot-washing thing --
taking off our shoes, having someone in our personal space
splashing water on us, and then dealing with the whole
damp feet thing. Plus -- then we have to
reciprocate! We have to -- in obedience to Christ --
touch someone else and serve them in washing their feet.
The whole thing is not at all dignified.
Can't we just skip over this part and get on to the
resurrection? It's all so messy
and intimate.
And it is messy --
this washing others' feet and this having our feet washed,
this living like Jesus called us to live --
it is messy, indeed. And intimate beyond
description.
____________________
Here's a little piece of liturgical and
lectionary minutia for you:
in the Episcopal Church, we are guided in our readings
by the lectionary -- a set of lessons appointed for
each day of the church calendar. The readings are
appointed in a three-year cycle (A, then B, then C), so
that -- for instance -- the readings for the first Sunday
in Advent for year A are not the same as the readings for
the first Sunday in Advent for years B or C.
And here's the minutia; here's the
surprise:
the readings appointed for Maundy Thursday are the same
for all three years -- for year A and year B and year
C. Evidently these readings convey big, important
stuff. Perhaps we should pay attention . . .
Today's reading from Exodus reminds
us of the first Passover -- when the children of Israel
were delivered from death by the sacrifice of a pure lamb.
The Psalm appointed for today recounts God's
faithfulness in leading the children of Israel out
of captivity with a pillar of fire by night and a
pillar of cloud by day. (An event, incidentally, that
happened not long after the first Passover.)
Every Maundy Thursday we are called to read
these exact passages --
every Maundy Thursday we are reminded that our God is a
God who saves -- a God who delivered the children of
Israel in the Passover and then led them through the
wilderness with a pillar of fire and pillar of cloud.
And we are also called to the New
Testament lessons appointed for today -- an
alternate Gospel (Luke 22:14-30) reminds us of the
institution of the Lord's Supper in the Upper Room,
and our brief lesson from Paul's first letter to the
church at Corinth echoes that story.
But it is to this whole foot-washing thing
-- to this vexing passage from John -- that I want to
return . . .
"That girl's touching me, and she doesn’t
even know me!"
My friend's daughter didn't want to be touched by her
opponent -- someone she did not even know -- in her
basketball game.
Simon Peter didn't want to have
his feet washed by Jesus. He didn't want to be
touched in this intimate way. Peter did not want
to be served, to be cared-for, to be cleansed -- even
though he and Jesus had lived and worked together and knew
each other well. It just seemed too undignified, too
messy. Yet Jesus responds:
"Unless I wash you, you have no share
with me."
John 13: 8b (NRSV)
At this point Peter -- in his
characteristically bi-polar manner -- asks Jesus to
wash "not only my feet, but also my hands and my head!"
John
13: 9b (NRSV)
Jesus then goes on say that he is setting
us an example: if he, our Lord and Teacher, is willing
to assume a servant position, then we -- in imitation of
him -- should do the same. A few verses later in John
we find Jesus saying this:
"I give
you a new commandment, that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you should also love one
another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if
you have love for one another."
John
13: 34, 35 (NRSV)
What might it mean if we followed Jesus
command
-- if we were willing to serve as he modeled for us less
than twenty-four hours before he died? What might it look
like? My guess is it would be like foot-washing --
messy and intimate. And also holy -- and obedient.
Here's what might happen . . .
You might find yourself like a dozen of
your fellow church members --
sleeping on cots in barrack-like accommodations.
Bathing in communal showers and helping rebuild the
devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in southern
Mississippi. Intimate. Messy. Holy. Obedient.
Or you might find yourself -- as many of
you did some years ago -- turning out at Saint Paul's
to welcome the homeless as they slept on the floor of
the dining room. Messy. Intimate. Obedient. Holy.
You might find yourself assembling meals
in the Colhoun room -- meals that will help fight world
hunger. Or you might find yourself building a Habitat
house -- decent affordable housing for folks who had
none before. Obedient. Holy. Intimate.
You might find yourself volunteering for
the summer enrichment program, or Kid's Café,
or the Augustine Project. Face-to-face with people
we name as brothers and sisters, yet people we rarely
encounter. Intimate. Holy. Obedient.
Or you might find yourself over in the
Outreach Center -- working hand-in-hand with Mike
Bradshaw to interview and know and serve someone who has
swallowed their pride and asked for help. You might
look them in the eye, intimately, and care for them as no
one had in a while (or, perhaps, forever). Holy.
Obedient. Intimate.
You might even find yourself lying on a
table tomorrow at the Bloodmobile in Saint Paul's youth
room -- lying there while someone thoroughly scrubs not
your feet but your arm. Lying there while your lifeblood
pours into a bag -- a unit of blood that will someday save
the life of a sick or injured person. Messy, yes. And
oh-so-intimate. And Holy, too. And obedient.
If all this sounds just oh-so-exhausting
you might follow Jesus' example in other ways. You might
reach across the deep and broad divisions in American
(and Episcopal) political life to really get to know
someone with whom you disagree. To listen to them not
to frame your rebuttal, but simply to hear and to know and
to understand. Intimate, indeed. Holy -- very Holy. Messy,
too. And very obedient.
Perhaps there is someone -- in this church
or elsewhere -- that you just simply do not like. No sin
in that -- at least not so far. There is no command to
"like" one another.
There is a very clear command, however, to love one
another. So pray for that person. Pray for their health
and their soul and their family and their journey to God.
Pray as if your very life depended on it. For it well
might. Holy, indeed, this prayer. And intimate beyond
words. Obedient. And messy.
Every Maundy Thursday we read these very
same passages. There must be a reason. There is.
The word "Maundy" comes from the Latin
phrase mandatum novum -- a "new commandment". And
the new commandment -- as we read
earlier in John -- is for us as Christians to love one
another.
Yes, you'll have to touch others. And yes,
you'll get touched -- both physically and emotionally.
Yes, it is messy. And intimate beyond belief. But it's
also holy. And it's obedient, too -- you heard what the
man said:
"I give
you a new commandment, that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you should also love one
another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if
you have love for one another."
John 13: 34, 35 (NRSV)
Go in
peace to proclaim the love of Christ to a dark and hurting
world.
Amen.
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