Sermon
3/29/18
Maundy
Thursday
Mark
14:22-25, 32-42, John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Earlier
in Lent we talked about silence, and how difficult silence can be. As I was
writing my sermon that week, thinking about God speaking to Elijah from the
silence, I was remembering a moving performance I attended while I was in
college. Actors Roscoe Lee Browne and Anthony Zerbe shared a performance called
“Behind the Broken Words.” They shared poems and readings and conversation with
the audience. It was profound and moving. At one point, they spoke about
silence, and our discomfort with it, and then, sitting in their arm chairs on
the stage, they proceeded to be silent
for what seemed like perhaps three or four minutes. Three or four minutes of
total silence on a stage felt incredibly long. It was uncomfortable. And an
audience member in the front clearly couldn’t take it, loudly shuffling in
their seat and unwrapping some crinkly candy. The actors were visibly amused at
the patron who just could not handle sitting through that uncomfortable space,
that awkward quiet, proving the very point the actors were trying to make.
Tonight,
as we celebrate Maundy Thursday, we’re immersing ourselves in the story of
Jesus’ last time with his disciples before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion.
And it is a time fraught with tension. Throughout the events that unfold, the
disciples remind me of that uncomfortable theatre-goer. They’re awkward.
They’re confused. They don’t know what to do or say or how to respond. And yet,
Jesus invites them in to these sacred spaces. Jesus invites us in too. That’s
why we come here tonight. And we, too, might find the intensity of these
experiences with Jesus jarring and uncomfortable. Even still, I believe this is
exactly where we are supposed to be. In the Lenten devotional I’ve been reading
this season, Walter Brueggemann writes, “A quite remarkable feature of this
loss [the death of Jesus] is that Jesus invited his disciples to walk into that
loss with him. The Last Supper is an invitation to solidary with him in loss.”[1] Indeed, I think that on
Maundy Thursday, we are invited into solidary with Jesus, into sharing with
Jesus in three distinct acts: in the foot washing, in the supper, and in the
garden. Jesus invites us to join him, to come right alongside him in these
actions.
As
much as we want to be by Jesus’ side, though, when the moment of invitation
comes, I think we find it to be startlingly difficult. The disciples, who had
spent years following Jesus, certainly found it difficult! In John, we read
about Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, an incredibly intimate and humbling
action, one a slave would usually perform. Peter can hardly stand it, and he
begins to refuse Jesus. But Jesus insists: “If I don’t wash you, you don’t have
a share with me.” In our reading from Mark, we find Jesus sharing the Passover
meal with his disciples. Just before our text for tonight, though, Jesus tells
them that he will be betrayed. And now all they can focus on is asking,
“Surely, you don’t mean me, do you Jesus?” Jesus means Judas. But none of them,
it seems, are sure, are positive that they won’t somehow act to betray Jesus. I
wonder how much of meaning of the meal Jesus shares with them they can absorb,
distracted as they are by questioning their faithfulness as disciples. “This is
my body, this is my blood,” Jesus says, sharing bread and cup. No response is
recorded.
And
then, after telling Peter that everyone will desert Jesus, and that Peter
himself will deny Jesus three times, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to
Gethsemane while he spends the night in prayer. You’d think with these tellings
of betrayal, denial, and desertion so fresh, these three disciples would be
bending over backwards to prove themselves to Jesus. But what we find it much
different. Instead, while Jesus is distressed and agitated, even telling the
disciples that he is “deeply grieved, even to death,” three times he comes to speak with them only to find them asleep.
Finally, it is too late, and the moment of his arrest has arrived.
On
this Maundy Thursday, as we remember, as we share in these sacred rituals, can
we stay with Jesus? Can we accept the invitation to join him in his profound
grief? Even if a grieving Jesus makes us deeply uncomfortable, can we sit with
him anyway?
When
I was in seminary, I took a unit one summer of a program called Clinical Pastoral
Education. Basically, I worked as a chaplain at Crouse Hospital for the summer,
and along with spending time with patients, the six of us in the program also
had classes three times a week to reflect on our growing practice and theology
of pastoral care. Our instructor asked us each to choose a scripture passage,
over the course of the summer, that spoke to our understanding of what it means
to provide pastoral care for someone. And eventually, I chose the second part
of the passage from our reading from the gospel of Mark, where Jesus, filled
with grief and pain about his fast-approaching death repeatedly asks the
disciples to please, stay awake with him for just an hour. Mark tells us that
Peter and James and John fall back to sleep again and again, partly because
they are tired, sure, but also, Mark narrates, because “they did not know what
to say to him.” When I started my chaplaincy program, I was petrified. All day
long, every day, I would have to go into the rooms of patients I did not know.
I worked on the NICU, where tiny babies were struggling for their very lives,
and I felt presumptuous and out of place, showing up and pretending I had any
idea what to do or what to say. I certainly didn’t feel equipped to talk about
God with these people who were going through some of the hardest moments of
their lives. When I started, I would always introduce myself as a chaplaincy
intern who was there just for the summer. I couldn’t have made it more clear
that I was temporary, not the real chaplain, not really ready to be fully
present with them. But eventually, I started to really learn what I already
know, what we all already know from being on the other side of things, from
being on the side of grief: hurting people aren’t waiting for us to fix their
hurts. They’re hoping we will just sit with them, even in the midst of their
pain, for just a little bit. They’re not looking for our words. They’re looking
for our presence. Even Jesus, even the son of God, even God-in-the-flesh wants
just that: us. Our presence. Our lives. Our willingness to stay, to share, to
sit side-by-side. “Could you not keep awake one hour?”
On
this Maundy Thursday, this Good Friday, and even in the loneliness of Holy
Saturday, these holy sacred days of pain and sorrow before we share in the joy
of Easter: we may sometimes find these services a bit uncomfortable. A bit
overwhelming. A bit like we want to shift in our seats. Or like we really must
unwrap that candy right now. Or like
maybe we’ll just rest our eyes because we don’t know what else to say. Here’s
the blessing: You don’t need to say anything. Instead, let yourself feel the
water of cleansing and renewal pour out on you. Instead, taste the bread and
share in the cup. Instead, just come, and sit with Jesus, just for a while.
Amen.
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