MaundyThursday 2014

Maundy Thursday 2014

 

A few years ago I wrote a blog piece which talks about dust during Holy Week. It is a good theme to bring into play tonight as we remember Jesus washing the dirt and grime off his disciples’ feet. But of course dust, in our tradition, is not only the literal dust of the hot streets of Jerusalem but also the stuff of which we are made – that fallible being which, we are reminded in Genesis, is dust and will return to dust.

In a world which is so tossed and turned and conflicted the amazing and wonderful news is that this night is not only about making us look good but transforming us to the eternal Good which is Christ in God. This evening is about not how we look but about who we are truly to become.

I cannot imagine how the disciples must have felt as they sat down to this meal with Jesus. The Gospels, of course, have it at slightly different times of the week. For Matthew, Mark and Luke this is the Passover but for John the Passover Lambs are being slaughtered at the same time that Jesus is crucified and so this must be the night before Passover. In either chronology the message is clear that Jesus is the true Passover Lamb – that this meal of exile is redeemed into a meal of belonging. The Israelites who were packed up and ready to flee are replaced by the church of Jesus which, although it may be transitory in earthly terms, is firmly rooted in the symbols and elements of New Covenant – that is bread and wine.

We know from John’s testimony that the disciples were not naïve of the fact that any tide of tolerance of Jesus by the Jewish authorities had turned once and for all and they must have been counting the hours until some sort of conclusion broke over their heads – whether it was armed insurrection or a bloody put down they were ready for catastrophic change for at least some of them. They had probably not predicted the how and where of the events that would unfold before them – but this meal was, no doubt, a refuge. A few moments of presence together, to refuel, to laugh and to tell stories – to remember the story of their nation no doubt but also to share the sorts of tales that fellow travelers share, of amazement and triviality.

And Jesus does this strange thing in the midst of all this. He washes feet and shares out bread and wine. John does not recount the institution of the Eucharist – he does not need to as it has been done, instead he offers the Foot Washing and the prayers of Jesus as a piece of theology about what this means. We are servants, we are beloved, we are rooted and grafted in. Jesus turns us over from his earthly care to the care of the Comforter, the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.

Tonight we celebrate this beginning, we remember these words of Jesus, this is My Body, this is My Blood and we do this in remembrance of Him. This is the Festival tonight – the foot washing only tells us about attitude, the servant mentality, the fact that this is given freely, as a gift, by God who made Heaven and Earth and yet stoops to become human, stoops with a towel around his waist and washed feet, dirty, smelly feet, the job of the lowest slave. This is what God has become?

And what about us – who are we becoming through this journey. For many of us this is an ongoing pilgrimage. We have walked this way before. But, as with so many returns, this one, this year, will be different because we are different. We are another year older, another year wiser, more hurt or more healed, better prepared or running in at the last moment. We are most of all, who we are. We are called to a confession and wholeness before this altar that can be a little unsettling.

Jesus speaks to weakness at this table as well as to strength. He warns Peter of his vulnerability – you will deny me and then he takes his eager disciples to the garden, and they sleep. This is not a story of great human achievement it is a story of God’s holding our humanity in all its beauty and brokenness by becoming beautiful brokenness in the person of Jesus, in bread and wine, in a man on a cross, in the tears of a mother.

Tonight we are called to celebrate, the altar is back in white celebrating this great gift. And then, after we receive communion, the mood will change. The white will give way to the quietness and desolation of a savior who cries to God in agony in the Garden. We will reserve the Sacrament for use tomorrow, Jesus is with us, but as we remember the hours creeping into darkness, hours of arrest and torture, He is with us not as celebration of life,  but as one who suffers, as one who chooses silence over words and is silenced by anger.

And then, of course, tomorrow as we remember Jesus’ death the Church is plunged into a sorrowful emptiness.

We are moving to silence but we are beginning with joyful celebration – refuge perhaps from these days of Lent as we imagine the disciples in high spirits receiving the gifts Christ gave with only scant understanding of what they might mean. Refuge as we hold onto memories of the journey, laughter and smiles from our fellow pilgrims. Refuge from the Lenten purple and Passiontide red.

They tumble out of the upper room, perhaps catching out breath in the cool night air. Jesus is not laughing now, something has happened, Judas has gone to sort something or other out – but they barely notice that and walk quietly to the garden. Some of them giggle at a random joke now and then, but Jesus is not finding things funny any more.

Their feet are dusty again, cool dust which wiggles itself into warm feet and sticks.  And as they get to Gethsemane we smell the earth beneath our feet, damp with dew. They feel the warmth of each other’s dusty humanity as they huddle together under thin blankets. And they sleep – perhaps wondering whether Jesus will wash their feet again tomorrow, what they must learn from this. Little understanding that they will feel the hot angry dust of a crucifixion march and stand on the baked, caked earth of calvary hill before they will ever feast again.