| "Maundy Thursday 2007"
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Maundy Thursday sermon
Thursday, April 5, 2007
David Fletcher
I remember when I was first introduced to the traditions of
holy week. It was all very exciting, strange, and new for me,
coming from a church that had been very sparse in worship and
had not included much in the way of Christian tradition. Easter
just sort of appeared in the springtime with no preparation,
no Lent, and no holy week at all. I hadn’t even heard
the name “Maundy Thursday” when Joyce and I started
attending the Episcopal Church 26 years ago. The name Maundy
Thursday was very puzzling to me. What could it mean? Maundy
seems to be an adjective, modifying Thursday as Good modified
Friday.
Then, after going to my first Maundy Thursday service, I thought
I had figured it out. It sounded like maudlin, which means highly
sentimental, so Maundy obviously meant melancholy, a thoughtful
and gentle sadness. It certainly seemed quite “Maundy”
to recall the somber events leading up to our Lord’s crucifixion,
such as his abandonment by Judas and his prayer at Gethsemane,
and we reinforced this maundiness with the stripping of the
altar and leaving the church in silence, some of us staying
to maintain a silent prayer vigil through the night.
Well, it turns out I was wrong about the meaning of Maundy,
but I’m sure I’d feel better about my ignorance
if I asked each of you what Maundy meant! I wonder if you know.
As a matter of fact, Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum,
which is translated as command. It’s where we get the
English word “mandate.” This is the day that commemorates
the commands Jesus Christ issued on this day, also called Holy
Thursday. So what are the mandates of Maundy Thursday? What
was it that Jesus commanded us to do on the day of the Last
Supper, commands that were so important that he took the trouble
to issue them right before he went to the cross?
One of the commands Jesus issues on this day has to do with
the Eucharist. He commands us to celebrate the Eucharist, to
eat the bread which is his body and drink the wine which is
his blood. In the reading given for this day in the Book of
Common Prayer, Luke 22:14-30, we are told how Jesus at the last
supper gave his disciples first bread and then wine and commanded
them to continue to do this in remembrance of him.
In the Epistle reading of I Corinthians, the apostle Paul reports
what Jesus said on the first Maundy Thursday, even though Paul
wasn’t there himself. Paul tells us that he “received”
this information “from the Lord.” I don’t
know how the Lord gave this to Paul, whether audibly as a voice,
in a dream, or in what other way, but somehow He communicated
this to Paul. Jesus makes it clear to Paul that the things he
did on that first Maundy Thursday were not one-time events,
but were something he wants us to continue. When we do this,
we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
Listen to the words we heard a few moments ago:
“The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took
a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and
said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance
of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper,
saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this,
as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
Christ commands us to “Do this in remembrance of him.”
We are to eat the bread and drink the wine. And in so doing,
we reenact the events of his passion and make them vividly present
once again.
Jesus commands us to celebrate holy Eucharist—and Was
ever a command obeyed so well and so thoroughly obeyed? The
book of Acts tells us that the first believers “devoted
themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the breaking
of bread, and to the prayers.” Historians note that the
earliest Christians were known to celebrate the Eucharist whenever
they met on Sundays, the day of the Lord’s resurrection.
Since those early days, the Eucharist has been celebrated over
and over again, on every continent, for twenty centuries. It
was celebrated in Roman catacombs at a time when doing this
was punishable by death, with Christopher Columbus before he
set out for the new world, and in the English colony of Jamestown
in Virginia 400 years ago. It is celebrated today in glorious
cathedrals in Canterbury, Moscow, and San Francisco, in skyscraper
chapels in the beautiful parts of major cities, and in storefront
churches in the inner cities. It is celebrated by chaplains
on warships at sea and on the fields of battle.
Certainly Jesus’s command to celebrate the Eucharist
has been faithfully fulfilled many, many thousands of times.
We have been faithful in obeying that command, and we will continue
to do so as long as there is a Christian church on earth. If
we cease doing that, we cease to be the church.
We’ve done well on that command of our Lord. But what
of the other mandates, or commands, that he gave us on Maundy
Thursday---how have we done on them? Let’s look at the
other commands. Before the dinner, since there was no servant
to perform the customary washing of the disciple’s feet,
our Lord wrapped a towel around him and did it himself. Then
he clearly commanded us to wash one another’s feet. In
Luke, Jesus makes his point very plainly:
“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.”
We are supposed to wash one another’s feet. This is an
explicit command of Jesus, and it couldn’t be much clearer.
How have we done on that one? Well, in our parish do have a
literal foot washing once a year on Maundy Thursday, and there
are churches that consider it on a par with communion and do
it on a regular basis. The problem with us today is, we really
don’t need our feet washed. We don’t walk to someone’s
home for dinner on dusty roads with sandals on our feet. If
we are going to obey this command literally today, it will be
annually, as part of our ritual, but not an everyday thing.
So are we off the hook and able to cross this off our list
of responsibilities? Or are there other ways we can obey this
command? Well, what is it to wash feet? It is assume a position
of humility and to be willing to do tasks that others are reluctant
to do and feel are beneath them. It might be washing blankets
for PADS, or taking responsibility to make, set up, and clean
up coffee hour. It might be visiting the elderly, perhaps doing
little jobs for them. I believe that if we look for such things
and do them, we are truly washing the feet in today’s
context.
A third command he gave at the last supper is found in John
13, a reading heard tonight in our service. Here again Jesus
explicitly tells us that he’s giving a command:
34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I
have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all
people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another."
Jesus sets us a task: love other Christians. Elsewhere we are
told to love all people as our neighbor, but here it’s
explicitly about loving other Christians as Jesus loves us.
How are we doing on this third task?
Can the world look at the Christian church today, or the Anglican
Communion, and say that there’s so much love there we
can’t help but see that Jesus is real? Or do they see
backbiting, criticism, anger, and even hatred, and assume that
the Christian faith isn’t really such a big deal after
all?
It is fascinating to me that Christians ignore commands like
these that Jesus made very explicitly, yet obsess about things
that he never spoke about at all, such as homosexuality. Christ
never addressed that topic in any way, shape, or form, yet people
act as though it’s someone’s position on that issue
that defines where they stand in relation to Jesus and the way
of life he offers us.
I think it’s easy to think that we have simply failed
at the love commandment, but not so fast—there is indeed
a great deal of love among Christians. We see it in our parish
all around us all the time. There is a great spirit of love
in this place, and it’s a wonderful place to be. There
are many churches like this. Yet and still, there are many ways
in which today’s Christians fail to love one another,
and there remains a lot to be done before the world is so impressed
by our love that they are drawn to Jesus because of it.
It is Maundy Thursday, the day of the betrayal of Jesus, a
very somber day, but a day of rejoicing for the gift of the
holy Eucharist, the gift of the humble service, and the gift
of Christian love. Let us embrace all of these important commands
of our Lord with all of our hearts.
Amen.
|
