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Sermon
Deacon Joan Barr Smith
Maundy Thursday
2008
Maundy Thursday Sermon
March 20, 2008
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer."
"Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." This is the night that the end had come, the night as the gospel said when his hour had come to depart from the world and go to the Father.
There are so many ways to think of this night of Maundy Thursday. It was the night in which Jesus was betrayed, delivered into the hands of the authorities. It was the night he gave the new commandment, the mandate (hence the name Maundy Thursday, a corruption of the Latin mandamus), to "love one another as I have loved you." And it was the night when he demonstrated to his still uncomprehending disciples that he came not to be served but to serve, by performing the act of a slave and washing the feet of the disciples, including those of the man who was about to deliver him unto death.
This is a remarkable night, a night joining the pivotal events of the Passover or deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery, their defining historical event, and the institution of the defining Christian rite of the Eucharist. We hear the words he spoke that night each time we take communion, the words with which he told his disciples that the wine and the bread, the ordinary components of a meal, were his body and blood, and whenever they ate and drank them, they were to do so in remembrance of him. He told them what was going to happen – his body would be given for them, his blood would be shed for them. All because He loved them to the end.
What else happened? Many things, but one in particular stands out tonight as we are here remembering. He washed their feet. Yes, he washed their feet. This was almost as remarkable at that time as it would be today if you walked up to a group of your friends seated at a table, with a towel and a bowl of water and said you were going to wash their feet. The reasons it would be strange would be different today. People would think you were nuts because who wants to be around other people's feet? It would be insulting to suggest your guests' feet were dirty. They would presumably be wearing shoes and socks and look funny and odd and vulnerable after removing them and their bare feet were sticking out. Most of all, your friends would be embarrassed.
Well, Jesus' friends were embarrassed, too, but for a different reason. In those days, because people wore open sandals and walked long distances on dusty roads, it was common to wash your feet when you arrived at your destination. A gracious host would provide the means to do this. In most places, you did this for yourself. If your host was wealthy, someone would do it for you. It would never be the host. It would be a slave. Not a highly placed slave, a steward or housekeeper or overseer, but a lowly slave, someone at the absolute bottom of even the slave heap. Certainly no one who was referred to by this group of friends as Lord, Master, Teacher, Rabbi, would be in the foot-washing business. For Jesus to take this lowly role demonstrated the heart of his message to us, the mandate of Maundy Thursday. He was telling us something very profound. In other accounts of that night he tells the disciples and us that he came not to be served but to serve. He demonstrates that he is willing to do anything to serve those whom he loves, even for the one who was going to betray that love.
We deacons think of Maundy Thursday as Deacon's Day, the time when Jesus represented to his friends and to all of us the concept of servant ministry, the basic concept that deacons vow to demonstrate by their own lives and ministries. If there is a ritual which defines the ministry of the deacon, it is foot-washing. We are charged at our ordination to make Christ and his redemptive love known to those among whom we live and work and worship. The lowly ritual of foot-washing is such a wonderful way to demonstrate that love, a representation that none of us would ever consider if Jesus himself had not showed us the power of symbolism.
At the end of tonight's gospel, he gives the mandate that ties it all together, all of the pieces of this amazingly rich and substantive passage. "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." Forgive those who betray you, serve the world while being willing to have the status of a slave, minister to one another, remember me as you share the fellowship of my table, and above all, love one another as I have loved you. They will know you are Christians by your love.
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