Sermon for Maundy Thursday, Year A, "Staying or Leaving," Matthew 26:20-29, 36-46

 Sermon 4/6/23

Matthew 26:20-29, Matthew 26:36-46

Staying or Leaving

You’ve probably heard that when animals feel like they are on high alert, under stress, or under attack, they have a “fight or flight” response. Some animals, when in danger, will do everything they can to get away as fast as possible. Some, when cornered, will lash out, ready to fight, ready to harm in order to get free. There’s actually another option - “freeze” - some animals freeze, like the proverbial deer caught in the glare of headlights, immobilized with fear. Of course, we are animals too, we humans, and we sometimes find ourselves deeply driven by fight, flight, and freeze responses too.  Sometimes we are in genuine danger - and we must figure out if we need to flee or fight or freeze in response to a threat, to abuse, to something or someone that can do harm to us. 

But sometimes, we react like we’re responding to a threat, to danger, but our minds are confusing danger and discomfort. Here’s what I mean: Those of you who’ve known me for some time now might remember that I will admit that my default mode is to be a conflict-avoider. I think that mostly falls into the “flight” response category to stress, but I also manage to try to pretend a conflict just isn’t happening sometimes too. I do not like conflict. I don’t like it when people are arguing, when people are being unkind and hurtful. I don’t like it when people’s feelings are hurt - the emotional pain of others really bothers me. And when I see that happening as a result of conflict, my impulse is to try to fix, to smooth things over, to do anything I can to suppress the sense of conflict. 

My conflict-avoidant response is something I’ve had to work on a lot over the years, particularly because leadership roles and the flight response or the “pretend this isn’t happening” response don’t work so well together! In fact, a lot of leadership guidebooks will tell you that a good technique for leaders is knowing when to “turn up the heat” on tense, conflict-ridden situations. Conflict, when handled thoughtfully, can actually be an ingredient for new life in an organization, in a community, in a congregation. Staying committed and attentive and ready to work through things during a conflict in healthy relationships can lead to meaningful transformation. One of my favorite scholars, Donna Haraway, calls this “staying with the trouble.” If you can work past the fight, flight, and freeze responses of conflict, if you can “stay with the trouble,” stay committed to the work, something really transformative might happen. 

I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday that the events of Palm Sunday are the start of this pressure-cooker intensity where Jesus is pretty consistently confrontational, taking actions and making statements that require a response. Jesus is “turning up the heat.” And all of those who have been following Jesus - the crowds, the women who supported his ministry with time and money, the disciples - they are all confronted with a decision in response to the increasing pressure: fight, flight, freeze. Or… or, another way. Staying with the trouble. Staying with Jesus. A path that might lead to transformation. 

I’ve read the gospel accounts of the passion narrative, the last days of Jesus’ pre-resurrection life, so many times, preached on them, taught about them so many times. And yet somehow I never noticed until this week that in Matthew’s account - our focus today - and in Mark’s account, Jesus, while dining with the disciples at what we call The Last Supper, brings up Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial before he says the words that have become our sacrament of communion. In other words, Jesus says: I know that among you, my closest followers who I have spent years with, one of you will deny ever knowing me, and one of you will betray me into the hands of those who want to execute me - and then he shares with them the bread and cup, signs of his body, his blood, his life given for those very disciples. In Luke’s account, it’s the other way around - Jesus shares the new covenant of communion, and then, as things are wrapping up, talks about Peter’s pending denial. So Jesus is sitting with the knowledge of what will unfold, but the disciples are (mostly) blissfully ignorant. But here in Matthew, everyone has to stay at the table together with this painful, awful truth Jesus has just lobbed into their midst. Denial and betrayal are about to unfold - but right now they have to sit together still. Right now, they have to accept the unfathomable grace of God poured out literally and figuratively by Jesus, as he breaks the bread, as he passes the wine. Jesus turns up the pressure - and they just have to sit there. 

Somehow, they made it through that meal, a meal that I can only imagine was so fraught with unspoken questions, accusations, explanations. But eventually, the pressure, the confrontation, the truth Jesus speaks to them - the disciples fall away. Judas departs, returning only to see Jesus handed over to the authorities. Peter will deny Jesus, just as Jesus said. But even before that, he and James and John escape into sleep, finding a way, perhaps like my technique, of pretending the conflict around them just isn’t happening. Maybe they can just sleep through it, and Jesus - and his words - will be easier to take the next day. The next day, though, only has more heartache in store. 

I said on Sunday that we need to stay close to Jesus - but staying with Jesus is pretty hard on a night like this, isn’t it? Jesus always stays close to us. But can we stay close to Jesus? On this holy night, I wonder: how have we - how are we putting distance between ourselves and Jesus? When the path of discipleship gets to be too much, how do we try to turn down the heat, avoid the conflict, deflect the responsibility and work and risk and sacrifice that discipleship entails? And on this holy night, I wonder: how can we draw closer to Jesus? How can we stay? Stay with the trouble. Stay through the crisis. Stay through our doubts and fears. Stay through our failures. Stay through the discomfort. Stay even when staying means Jesus shining a light on everything we don’t want to examine in our lives and world. Jesus asks us: Will we stay? 

Let’s linger, a little, in the garden, in the dark, in the midst of heartache, in the grieving. Even though we want to get to Easter, where it’s bright and sunny and pastel and joyful, let’s stay. Because our task, our purpose, the very meaning of discipleship is to be where Jesus is. We have to stay with him. And tonight, Jesus is at his most vulnerable, and asking if we can stay, if we can share with him and in him even though it is so hard, and so uncomfortable, and so demanding, and so full of grief and pain. Let’s stay. Amen.  

Sermon for Maundy Thursday, "Do You Know What I Have Done for You?," John 13:1-17, 34-35

Sermon 4/18/19 - Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-17, 34-35

Do You Know What I Have Done for You?

I think the footwashing, Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, is one of the most compelling stories in the gospels. It only appears in the gospel of John, and John seems to include it in the stead of Jesus celebrating the Last Supper with the disciples. Well, they eat a last meal together, but John doesn’t record Jesus imbuing the symbols of bread and cup with the meaning that they hold for us today when we celebrate communion. We don’t know why this is, when certainly, by the time John wrote his gospel, the last of the four gospels to be written, celebrating communion had already become a central focus of worship in the early church. We can’t know the answer. But what we have instead from John is a precious gift, not included elsewhere. When Jesus and the disciples get ready to share their last meal together, Jesus gets up from the table, and readys himself with a towel and basin, and starts washing the feet of the disciples. Footwashing was common In Jesus’ day, but it was almost exclusively something a person of lower status did for a person of higher status, or something you did for yourself. Usually the slaves of a household would perform the task for their master’s guests. A rabbi’s pupils - disciples - might wash a rabbi’s feet.

For a rabbi to wash the feet of the pupils instead - for Jesus to wash the feet of his disciples instead - the reversal is shocking. And indeed, Peter, at least, is shocked. We don’t hear how the other disciples feel about what happens, but Peter insists to Jesus, “You will never wash my feet!” Peter can’t stand to see Jesus lower himself in this way.

Jesus uses Peter’s outburst as an opportunity to teach about why he is doing what he’s doing. Jesus tells Peter that washing his feet in this way is a sign that Peter has a part in the life and work of Jesus. After Jesus finishes the footwashing, he asks the disciples, “Do you know what I have done for you?” He continues, “You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” Jesus tells them he is giving a new commandment, although it is not really new at all - just demonstrated to them in a new way that they won’t forget, “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I keep stopping on Jesus’ question to the disciples: “Do you know what I have done for you?” I think, even with his explanations to his disciples, it is sometimes hard for us to get the weight of what Jesus does in the footwashing, and the weight, the import of what he asks us to do in response. In the Lenten devotional book I’ve been using this season, All Shall Be Well, Jesuit priest Greg Boyle writes,

“St. Francis of Assisi admonishes us with this: ‘Don’t imitate Jesus. Follow in his footsteps.’ Jesus doesn’t want a fan club (‘I have all your records. I go to every concert.’) You won’t find a single ‘worship me’ in the Gospel. But you’ll find a ton of ‘Follow me.’ ...‘Do you understand what I’ve just done for you?’ We either simply imitate the action - (12 male feet), or we domesticate the message: ‘Serve others.’ Don’t get me wrong. I like BOTH service AND clean feet. But what Jesus does is more than service and deeper than mimicry. In washing all the dirt-covered [feet] of his friends, Jesus achieves this remarkable and intimate connection with his followers. With a humility that erases the daylight separating them, Jesus draw them into a tenderness - ‘loving them to the end’ - so that they can follow in his footsteps.” (“Following in His Footsteps,” 233-234, emphasis mine)

Don’t imitate Jesus, but follow Jesus. Boyle uses as an example how Pope Francis moved from commemorating Jesus’ footwashing by washing the feet of twelve men each year to washing the feet of men and women, washing the feet of Muslims, washing the feet of prisoners, washing the feet of the poor. The Pope did more than copy Jesus’ behavior. He truly followed the heart of Jesus, serving like Jesus, loving like Jesus, getting right to the heart of the footwashing, even as he changed the pattern of it.

“Do you understand what I have done for you? If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” I wonder, in our culture that no longer practices footwashing in the same way, if we can find ways to move beyond merely copying what Jesus does to embodying the heart of Jesus’ message as we follow him with our lives. What does footwashing look like lived out today?

My nephew Sam, my oldest brother’s oldest child,  is almost 12 years old. I so love being Aunt Beth that sometimes it seems strange to think of the time in my life before I could claim my favorite title. But sometimes I think about how very much parenthood has changed my brother Jim. Jim was one of those people who was quite fastidious. He certainly hated it if someone would try to take a bite of his food. You couldn’t, even among family, take a sip of his drink - he’d have to get a whole new beverage if you tried to pull something like that. And if you even touched his dinner plate, he was pretty uncomfortable. This kind of dislike of potential germs is really hard to maintain when you have several siblings, but Jim somehow managed to make his feelings known and respected most of the time. And Jim’s house was always perfectly neat. When he and my sister-in-law first moved in together, one of their most common sources of conflict was related to keeping the house clean.

But then he became a parent. And everything changed. It’s hard to maintain a fastidious nature when you have to change someone’s diapers, and when you have to wipe their runny noses, and when you have to feed them, and clean up their messy food, and when you find yourself doing that spit-cleaning thing that your parents did to you that you swore you would never do to someone else. But everything changes, and suddenly you’re doing all these things you never thought you’d do, because your whole world has been reordered, and instead of life as usual where we’re always at the center of our own little universes, someone has arrived to help us do very quickly what we’ve meant to do all along - get ourselves out of the center and put someone else there instead. Babies are totally and utterly dependent. And parents learn very tangibly how your life comes to focus on serving others first, putting the needs of someone else before your own, a radical reordering of priorities when another human’s ability to live depends on your willingness to meet their every need, your willingness to serve. Of course, it’s easy for most parents to feel moved to this kind of love, this kind of serving for their own child. But Jesus demonstrates this kind of love and this kind of serving for us. What if Jesus is calling us to this kind of love and service for each other? For other people who aren’t cute babies?

The year before I came to serve here in Gouverneur, I was working as a chaplain at a retirement community in Rochester, and part of my work also involved being chaplain at two small homes called the Greenhouses. The Greenhouses are skilled nursing facilities for ten people in each home who are able to live in a setting and rhythm that is supposed to be as much like it would be at their own homes as possible. I loved this model of skilled nursing. It transformed my vision for what nursing home care could be like. When someone died at the Greenhouses, we would have our own memorial services there, in addition to whatever the family might do in the larger community. We’d invite the family, and of course the other members of the household, and staff members from that home and the neighboring home would come and participate too. Our memorial services always involved a time of sharing, and the staff would usually get a chance to speak directly to the family of the person who had died. I remember one memorial in particular. A woman named Helen had died. Her daughter Sharon had been very faithful, visiting her mother frequently and she came to the memorial. And the head nurse at the house said to Sharon, “I always look at the feet of the folks I’m caring for, and it tells me something about the kind of care they’re receiving. It is easy to overlook taking care of the feet. You can make sure a person is clean and that they are fed and that they are participating in activities and conversation. But to pay attention to someone’s feet, to take care of their feet - that’s an act of real love. Your mother had the nicest feet I’ve seen. They were always cared for, and clean, and polished, and soft. And I know you did that for her - you took such care of her feet.” And of course Sharon’s eyes were filled with tears in thanksgiving for this perceptive nurse. Jesus demonstrates this kind of love and this kind of serving for us. What if Jesus is calling us to this kind of love and service for each other? For other people who aren’t even our dearest mothers?

Do we know what Jesus has done for us? I’ve been using a lot this season a book called Stages on the Way: Worship Resources for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, put out by the Wild Goose Worship Group of the Iona Community. I was looking for some direction for our Palm/Passion Sunday Service this year, and a friend recommended it, and the writings just speak to me - I’m so glad I got the book. There are some dramas for worship included in the resource, and one of them for Maundy Thursday includes a narrator speaking to Simon Peter, trying to help him understand the significance of the footwashing. The narrator says to him, “Peter, this is what [Jesus] must do. This, whom you call ‘servant,’ is your Lord. To be the Lord means to be the servant; to do the dirty work and to do it in love. And that is very costly, although you count it stupid. For a good world, a man may lay down his life with pride; but for a bad world and for people who reject, betray, deny, it is much harder. His power is in his weakness. And you may not know that today, and you will not think it tomorrow, when from a cross, against the sky, he hangs helpless. But this is the way the world is transformed … by loving the unlovely, by dying for the lifeless, by forgiving those, like you, whose hearts are too stubborn to see what they are or know who he is. Be still, and let your feet be washed and let your mouth be closed. Think not always to act, always to speak. But first let your Lord do for you what you must do for each other.”

Do we know what Jesus has done for us? May we learn the full measure of it day by day. And may we not just copy, but follow, so that all will know we belong to Jesus by our love. Amen.

Sermon for Maundy Thursday, Mark 14:22-25, 32-42, John 13:1-17, 31b-35

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.  

           

---

[1] Brueggemann, Walter, “Maundy Thursday,” Gift and Task, 126.

Sermon, "How Will You Measure Your Life? By Who and How You Love," John 13:1-17, 34-35

Sermon 1/15/17

John 13:1-17, 34-35

How Do You Measure Your Life?

            Some of you may have heard of this little thing happening in our church right now. The RipIt Ministry, which just continues to blossom in new ways, has just kicked off its annual challenge. This year, seasoned mentors are pairing up with folks who are trying to reach some fitness goals to help guide and support them in their journey. I decided, with a little convincing from Amber Ormasen – have you ever tried to refuse a request from her? – to take part. One of the first things we had to do was get weighed and measured. It’s not my favorite experience, for sure. But it’s hard to measure your progress if you aren’t really sure where you started. I’ll be able to measure my progress in pounds lost, but also in changes in inches. Of course, those measures aren’t the only measures that are valuable. Folks might measure how many seconds they can hold a plank position before and after the challenge, or whether their cholesterol has improved after eating healthy for a few months, or whether they just feel better. But whatever way we do it, I know folks talking part in the challenge will be looking for ways to measure the impact of what we’ve been working on.

            We’ll be thinking a lot about how we measure things as our worship focus for the next few weeks. I think we’re busy measuring most areas of our lives. We want to know – how do we measure up? How do we compare? How are we doing in life? How do we stack up? Our question for the next three weeks is this: How will we measure our life? The question isn’t whether we will measure our lives or not. We’re all measuring – whether we’re aware of it or not, whether we know how we’re measuring our lives or not, whether we’re happy with our measurements, or not. We do measure our lives. So for the next few weeks, we’ll ask ourselves: How do we measure our lives? We’ll ask how we do it now. How do you measure your life right now? What measure are you using? What results are you looking for that tell you you are “on track” or not? And we’ll ask how we should be measuring our lives. How does God measure us? How does God ask us to measure our lives?

            So how do we typically measure our lives today? We might measure our lives by what salary we earn and how successful we are at work. That’s where we spend the bulk of our time, most of us, and a lot of our sense of self-worth can come from being measured at work. We might get bonuses or raises or a good review or be rewarded for being employee of the month. We might be in positions of power that give us status. We might get a new, prestigious title, or measure our worth by the size of our office. In sports, we keep track of how many points were scored, or how many yards someone went, or how many homeruns someone accumulates, or how fast or how high or how far someone could go. We give awards for best acting and best directing and best writing and if you don’t qualify for any of those, you might win best dressed, at least. We’re measured in school by our grades and our scores on standardized tests, by our attendance records. We’re measured by our appearance – how much we weigh, how tall we are, what brand of clothing we’re wearing. I think more and more we’re measured by how happy we can make ourselves look in facebook photos and Instagram pictures. So many ways that we add up and measure the value of our lives. How do you measure your life?

            It’s not just out in the secular world that people try to measure success like this. I have to tell you: when pastors meet, typical questions are: How big is your church? How many people are in worship? What’s your budget? How many people are on staff? There’s a tendency to think that bigger is always better, and that success in ministry means getting appointed to larger and larger churches. It can be pretty toxic, pretty stressful, this culture of measuring each other’s worth in this way. I wrestle with the allure of wanting to measure up. I would argue that meaningful ministry is about so much more than numbers, but I also get excited when we have more, and I also feel acutely aware of how much we have, or don’t have, of everything. When we measure, I feel like we set ourselves up to be disappointed with our results.

            How will we measure our lives? Rev. Adam Hamilton shared that when he meets with families to plan a funeral for a loved one, most people don’t talk about the achievements their loved ones racked up at work. Few people pull out the plaques or trophies or awards that their beloved had accumulated. What they talk about is how loved they felt. They talk about the time they got to spend together. They talk about the times they laughed together or cried together as a family. They talk about the quality of their loved one’s character – how kind or brave or caring or compassionate they were. (1)

            How will we measure our lives? No matter how much time we spend pursuing other aims, it seems that what really matters is who and how we love one another. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandments are that we love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and that we love our neighbors as ourselves. But how on earth do we measure love? In the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, the writings speak of loving-kindness, of steadfast love. In the New Testament, the gospels and letters use the word agape for love, a word that has the connotation of a selfless, self-sacrificing love. In other words, just claiming that we love someone – that we love God, or that we love one another – isn’t enough. Our love has to be demonstrated in real action. Our love has to show in what we do and how we live. Jesus talked about this as bearing good fruit. We heard John the Baptist mention in the text we read just last week – we’re called to bear fruit – the fruit – what we have to show for our lives – is how we’re measured. Again and again Jesus shares parables suggesting that God looks to make sure we’re growing good fruit in our lives. So how do we love in a way that gives us something to show? How do we measure our lives by who and how we love?

            Our gospel text today shares a scene that we typically hear on Maundy Thursday, the night that Jesus celebrated what we call “The Last Supper” with his disciples, the night that he was betrayed and arrested. The word “Maundy” is from a Latin word that means commandment. Jesus gives us in this passage what he calls a “new commandment.” But of course, the new commandment Jesus gives is one that is actually not new at all: He commands us to love one another as he has loved us. So that leads us to the question: How has Jesus loved us?

Where Matthew, Mark, and Luke all write about Jesus sharing a final meal with his disciples during Passover, John focuses on something entirely different: a foot-washing. During supper, Jesus gets up, prepares, and sets about washing the feet of his disciples. Some of you may have participated in a ceremonial foot-washing as part of a Holy Week service before, or in some other setting. When I was about to be ordained, our bishop at the time Bishop Violet Fisher washed the feet of all of us who were in my ordination class. It can be a deeply moving experience. But I also think it is one that’s a bit hard for us to translate into contemporary culture. In Jesus’ day, foot-washing was a common practice. People walked in sandals on dusty roads, and whenever you entered a home, it would be common to wash your feet. But you would wash your own feet or it would be the task of a slave to wash your feet. If you weren’t a slave, you would never wash someone else’s feet. And if you were the higher ranking person, if you were the teacher for example, you certainly wouldn’t be washing the feet of your disciples. Jesus was taking on the task of a slave. When he washed their feet, it was an act of humility, service, devotion, love, an act of love he offers on the night before he will even give his own life as a demonstration of his love. I have a hard time even finding an act we could offer someone today that would compare to what Jesus offers the disciples.

            No wonder, then, that Peter reacts how he does. Disbelieving what is clearly happening, he asks Jesus, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” He insists that Jesus will never do such a menial, humbled act for him. But Jesus tells Peter that if Peter wants to have a share in Jesus, he needs to receive what Jesus is offering. And then Peter is in, whole-heartedly! Once Jesus has finished washing the disciples’ feet, he says to them: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord … So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” And it is then, in this context, that Jesus says “I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

            Jesus has demonstrated what he means by loving one another. When Jesus shows love, it means that he’ll trade in his status as teacher for that of a slave instead. When Jesus shows love, it means he will serve others in ways that most people would consider beneath them. When Jesus shows love, he humbles himself, that the other person might be lifted up. He offers his very life as an act of love. This is what I mean by loving as I have loved, Jesus says.

How will we measure our lives? By who we love and how we love. We are God’s strategy for loving the world. We are God’s plan for redeeming the world with love in action! (1) That’s an amazing responsibility, an amazing gift that God entrusts to us. We can measure our lives by the fruit that our love-in-action grows. And we love-in-action by loving like Jesus – by forgetting about our status and instead thinking of how we can serve others, by humbling ourselves so that others can be lifted up, by putting others first, by sharing with them the valuable gifts of our time, our attention, our heart.

I challenged the children to think about how they would put their love into action this week, and I want to challenge you to do the same thing. Love might seem like a hard thing to measure, but Jesus says we can see good fruit, a sign of love’s presence. I want you to pay attention, to keep track this week, and challenge yourself. When can you demonstrate love for someone? When you are at school, at work, at the store, at a meeting, out for a walk – how can you – how will you – practice lovingkindness this week? And be on the lookout for ways that others are demonstrating their love for you! When you see good fruit in someone else, when you notice their loving actions – take note! Next week we’ll talk about what kind of fruit we saw this week.

How will we measure our lives? By who and how we love. Jesus shows us the way, as he washes our feet. How will we love? Like Jesus does. Amen.

(1) Hamilton, Adam. Sermon,

http://cor.org/leawood/sermons?q=&year=2014#d/sermon/1542/cor_l

Sermon for Maundy Thursday, "New Commandment," John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Sermon 3/24/16

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

New Commandment - Maundy Thursday

            On Maundy Thursday, we gather to remember two significant events that Jesus shared with his disciples. Matthew, Mark, and Luke recount Jesus sharing a Passover meal with the disciples and reimagining the symbols of bread and cup for them to be Jesus’ very body, broken for them, Jesus’ very blood, poured out for them. It is a foreshadowing of the breaking and bleeding of his body that will happen less than twenty-four hours from the time they share in the meal. It is a way that Jesus makes them – and us – a part of this breaking and bleeding. We, the body of Christ, are broken and poured out too, as he calls us to be the body of Christ for the world. Jesus says this is a new covenant he makes with us, a sign of forgiveness, and he calls us to remember every time we’re at the table together.

            In John, we get a different story, deeply meaningful in its own way. Jesus is sharing Passover with his disciples. John tells us that Jesus, knowing that God had put all things into his hands, that he had come from God, and was going to God, possessed with all that comforting knowledge, Jesus gets up, and ties a towel around himself, and begins to wash the disciples feet. We don’t know how any of them received this gesture, except for Peter, who questioned, seemingly with disapproval – “Lord, as you going to wash my feet?” Jesus tells him Peter will understand eventually. “You will never wash my feet,” Peter declares. Jesus tells Peter that if he wants to be part of Jesus, to share with Jesus, Peter must be washed by Jesus. Peter swings like a pendulum then, saying, “Well then, wash my hands and head too!” But Jesus tells him that the feet are enough.

            After finishing the footwashing, Jesus says that he has set an example. If we call him Teacher and Lord and mean it, we ought to do what he does – wash one another’s feet. Because we’re servants, messengers, not greater than the master, the one who sent us. As Christ’s servants and students, we’re meant to do what he does. Then Jesus says that we’re to follow the new commandment he gives us: to love one another. Just as Jesus has loved us, we’re to love one another. That’s how we’ll show that we are disciples. That’s where we get the name “Maundy Thursday” from. We get the word mandate from Maundy – a new mandate, a new commandment. But we know that, right? We’re supposed to love one another, and follow the example of Jesus? Aren’t we taught that from childhood? Love God, love one another. That doesn’t sound very new. But the way Jesus says it, and the significance he gives to it by adding it with this footwashing – he’s telling the disciples that he’s telling them something different – or to do something differently – than he’s seen from them so far.

            One of the traditional Maundy Thursday worship practices, then, is a footwashing, where the pastor or other leaders of the congregation wash the feet of those in attendance, or at least the feet of a symbolic few. Every year since Pope Francis became the pope in the Catholic Church I have watched videos of him washing the feet of an ever widening circle of people, in a traditional that used to include the Pope washing the feet of 12 Catholic men. But the pope has now washed the feet of women and girls, the poor, and those of different faith traditions, or no faith tradition. This year he washed the feet of Muslim, Hindu, and Christian refugees living in shelter in Rome. Have you ever had your feet washed by someone? When I was just about to be ordained, the Bishop, Bishop Violet Fisher, invited all of us to be ordained to a retreat for the day, and she washed our feet. I remember people feeling awkward and uncomfortable – what about those who had worn stockings? What if we felt embarrassed by our feet? What if our feet didn’t smell like perfume? But she washed our feet.

            I’ve been thinking a lot about this strange practice – footwashing – and what Jesus means for us to learn from it. We talked a bit about his practice a couple weeks ago, when we talked about Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet. Footwashing was common, because of the hot, dusty climate, and long travel on foot with only sandals for footwear. You washed your feet when you entered a home. But you washed your own feet. Or a slave washed them. A humble task. A menial task you wouldn’t ask someone else to do unless you considered them of such low status that it wouldn’t matter if they washed your feet.   

            What, in today’s world, is like footwashing? Jesus tells us to wash one another’s feet, to do for one another what he does for us. But we don’t wash feet today in the same way. It is no longer common practice. And so I’ve been wondering, what is an "equivalent" to footwashing today? I think about the place washing one's own feet had in Jesus' society, and who would usually wash someone's feet (Not a peer! Certainly not your Teacher!), and I wonder if we have anything other practices today that would be as compelling. If Jesus was demonstrating this kind of sacred act of servanthood today, would he wash feet, or would he do something else? I posed these questions on facebook and got some excellent answers. “Helping someone pack and move.” “Hearing a confession.” “Cooking and serving [someone] a meal.” “Getting the Upper Room ready for the meal … [The] hot sweaty work of moving tables, scrubbing floors, cleaning the bathroom, taking out the garbage.” “Clipping someone’s toenails.”

One pastor colleague wrote, “Our sense of physical space is so much wider/bigger than in the days of footwashing as a regular part of people's lives. I think of the ways we experience those intimate, humbling moments- I fed an 88 year old woman at the hospital yesterday, coaxing her one bite at a time. Her eyes looked at me with such trust and weariness.” Another said, “This question makes me think of the hierarchy of servants at Downtown Abbey. I cannot imagine Lord Granthem shining the shoes of his footmen.”

            Another: “On a mission trip to Baja California last summer, working with kids of migrant farmworkers, we treated many of the kids for lice by putting mayonnaise in their hair, letting is sit for an hour, and then washing their hair and combing it out. It was a strange and intimate experience, and much more beautiful than I'd expected.”

A friend named MaryBeth wrote, “The parallel that has seized my imagination is helping elderly folks care for their feet. My mom can't reach her feet to cut her nails and I'm terrible at it (and I live 250 miles away from her.)” And another responded, “I was thinking what MaryBeth said. Then I was watching the people doing pedicures while I was standing in line at Walmart tonight. That would make it to my list.”

            Another: “Thankless tasks: baggage handlers, bagging groceries, pumping gas, serving fast food, custodians. Jobs that people don't notice until they are done incorrectly [at minimum wage]. I think many volunteer opportunities or jobs that care for people are given recognition in prestige or honored by their peers, but would we notice who was doing those jobs that are done while we check our phone/daydream/talk to [our] companions?” (1)

            At the Greenhouses in Rochester, one of our nurses said that she always looks at the feet of the elders who live in the house. At the memorial of one of our elders, she commented on how devoted the daughter was to Helen, who had died, which the nurse knew because Helen’s feet always looked beautiful and soft and cared for. An act of love from daughter to mother.

            Jesus says that this is how we demonstrate love as his disciples: that we would offer the same acts of loving service – the sometimes menial or difficult or dirty or back-breaking or humbling tasks that we would normally only even consider for someone who was as close to us as our closest of family members. This is how Jesus loves us. Enough to wash our feet, enough to serve us in any way that’s like it. Enough to do that for every person, every child of God.

            Who do we serve? Whose feet will we wash? Whose nails will we clip? Whose bathrooms will we clean? Whose fast food will we serve? Whose hair would we comb for lice? Whose floors will we scrub?

            Jesus offers us the commandment – that we serve one another, that we are known, marked as disciples because of the way we love. He does this, says this, washes feet on the very night that he will be denied and betrayed and abandoned by the same people whose feet he washed. Clearly, there is nothing that can disqualify you as a recipient of the serving, loving hands of Jesus. So too he commands us.

I think the footwashing of Maundy Thursday catches us in a conundrum. We feel, whether we’ll admit it or not, that there are others who are unworthy to be served by us. Sure, we’ll wash some feet if Jesus tells us we must – but we want to pick whose feet we wash. While that might be serving, we’re not serving like Jesus is. And if we don’t or won’t do it like he does, then we’re making ourselves, the servants, greater than our master, Jesus. That won’t work.  

            And on the other hand, we feel we’re unworthy to be served by Jesus. Would you be able to let Jesus Christ kneel before you and wash your feet? The thought brings tears to my eyes. How could we be worthy of such an act of love? We can’t get the right answer because we’ve asked the wrong question. Worthy of Jesus washing our feet? He doesn’t do it because we’re worthy of it or not. That’s not a question that’s on Jesus’ radar. He does it because he loves his disciples. Because he loves us. Because he loves me. Because he loves you. Jesus loves us. All of us. 

            We all love. But what’s new about the new commandment is that Jesus says we’re supposed to love one another just as he has love us. In other words, we love through humble service. We love even those who would deny and betray and ditch us. We love even those who no one else seems to love. We love especially those who no one else seems to love. We love those who have wronged us. Those who we think we’re better than. Without conditions and qualifications and counting the cost and figuring out who is worth it. We love as we serve. Just as I have loved you, Jesus says, you also should love one another. When we do this, he says, people will know we’re his disciples. They won’t need to ask. We won’t need the label. They’ll know. They’ll see it in our love. Tell me, who knows you are a Jesus-follower, just because of how you love? Amen.

(1) https://www.facebook.com/eaquick/posts/942156513872

A Sung Communion Liturgy for Maundy Thursday/The Season of Lent

A Sung Communion Liturgy for Maundy Thursday/The Season of Lent

(Tune: RESTORATION)

Lift your hearts to God your maker.

Lift your hearts unto the Lord!

Let us thank God! Let us praise God:

God of mercy, love and power!

Let us gather at the table

Hearts uplifted, hands outstretched

This, the table of thanksgiving

Cup of blessing, bread of life

From the dust we were created

God gave us the breath of life

But we wandered from God’s Presence

Bound for pain and grief and strife

Let us gather at the table

Hearts uplifted, hands outstretched

This, the table of thanksgiving

Cup of blessing, bread of life

God sought us through law and prophet

Called to us throughout the years

We rejected, lost in wilderness

God called us but we would not hear.

Holy, Holy, God Almighty,

Holy God we sing your praise!

All creation’s filled with glory!  

Glory in the highest!

In good time God sent a Savior

God’s own son, a gift for all.

For our sake he bore our burdens

Listen, sinner, to the call!

Let us gather at the table

Hearts repentant, sins confessed

This, the table of forgiveness

Cup of blessing, bread of life

On this night we recall the supper

Jesus shared with dearest friends

Knowing they’d deny, betray him

Still, he gave this holy gift

We remember bread that’s broken

We remember cup outpoured

Christ has died but Christ is risen

Christ will come to us again!

On these gifts, pour out Your Spirit

Make these gifts become for us

Body, blood of Christ who loves us

By his life, we are redeemed.

By Your Spirit we’re united,

In this meal we are made one

God, we thank You! God, we praise You!

Cup of blessing, bread of life

Come, now, sinners, poor and needy,

Weak and wounded, sick and sore;

Jesus gives his life to save you,

Full of pity, love, and power.

We will arise and go to Jesus;

He will embrace us in his arms

At the table of our Savior,

O there are ten thousand charms!

God we thank you for the mystery

As you give yourself to us!

We are blessed and we are strengthened

In the name of Jesus Christ.

We will arise and go to serve you

Blessed by what we’ve shared tonight

At the table of our Savior

God, you’ve given us new life!

Text: Rev. Beth Quick, 2014.
Adapted text in vs. 7-8 based on text by Joseph Heart,
“Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy”

Permission is given for free use of this hymn text with author attribution.

 

A Sung Communion Liturgy for Maundy Thursday/The Season of Lent by Rev. Beth Quick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.