PROPERS: MAUNDY THURSDAY
TEXT: EXODUS 12:1-4, 11-14; JOHN 13:1-17, 31b-35
PREACHED AT ST. PETER’S, BON SECOUR, ALABAMA, ON THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2019
ONE SENTENCE: The deliverance symbolized in this week is a gracious gift and can be unwrapped by our receiving and sharing it.
“This month shall mark for you the beginning of months,”God tells Moses and Aaron. It is the eve of the first Passover – the beginning of the Hebrews’ deliverance from slavery in Egypt.
The beginning of months. Indeed, for all the meaning it has assumed, this is the week of weeks. It is in this week that God’s movement collides with the brokenness of the world.
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In the wee hours of Good Friday, March 28, 1997, a fire broke out in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Starkville, Mississippi. The church building, beloved by more than 2,000 parishioners, burned to the ground on Good Friday. It lay in smoking ruins at the end of Holy Week.
I was Rector at Church of the Resurrection there. We were shocked beyond words. More poignant symbolism could not be imagined.
Until this week – the week of weeks. Notre Dame Cathedral, the beautiful cathedral located on the Seine River in Paris, met a similar fate. Much of its historic edifice was consumed by flames that leapt scores of feet into the air.
These fires, destroying houses of worship, are metaphorical. That is, they point toward something else. They symbolizesome aspect of life.
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In this case – in this week of weeks– they point us toward thehuman condition at the time of the Hebrews’ slavery in Egypt and Jesus’ final week of earthly ministry.
Face it: Our world is broken. The world was broken in Egypt for the Hebrews (and even though they didn’t notice, it was broken for the Egyptians, too). The world was broken in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago – as the teeming crowd praised Jesus when he arrived, and then watched as the Romans crucified him. And it is broken today.
Human efforts to reach the height of existence – to reach dominance, power, and affluence – lies in a smoking heap. Those aspirations are idolatry. And we flail about, seeking to find the next thing, whether that is technology, politics, economics, or something else.
It is analogous – again, symbolic– to the Tower of Babel. The higher we reach, the more we strain, the more we become splintered, divided.
We should all be humbled. Like the ashes of a great cathedral, we should acknowledge that we need help to rise anew. The ways were not working for the Hebrews in Egypt. They were not working in Jerusalem in Jesus’ day. And we have ample evidence our ways are not working.
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The Gospel reading from John is instructive. It is about aroad less traveled.The passage tells us that a willingness to serve one another is the way to follow Jesus. That simple act of washing the disciples’ feet symbolizes all of Jesus’ teachings – loving one another, turning the other cheek, giving your cloak to another person, not returning evil for evil.
There is a small portion of the Gospel which jumps out at me. Hear the words again:
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand. Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”
The simple fact of that passage is this: In order to show mercy, we must receive mercy. In order to show love, we must receive love. In order to give grace, we must receive grace. In order to serve, we must be willing to be served.
That gift – the fullness of God’s love – is what is being offered to you today. It is being offered here in the washing of feet, and in the body and blood of the Holy Eucharist.
When we are so washed and so transformed – so touched by the gracious hand of God – we will be able to rise out of the ashes to new life in Jesus.
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