Maundy Thursday 2022

“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

 

Thus we begin the Triduum,

            the three liturgies of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday 

and the Great Vigil of Easter on Holy Saturday,

            three liturgies that in truth are three parts 

                        of one united liturgy stretching over three days.

 

I invite you to participate deeply in these three liturgies, 

to let your hearts be open to the full scope of meaning 

for the events we are commemorating, 

to follow Jesus as faithful disciples,

 

These liturgies are provided for us 

from the most ancient of times in the Church 

            as a means of devotion to our Lord

            and for nurturing our awakening

                        to the profound realization of our salvation.

 

It is not like coming to see or participating in the Christmas pageant,

                        which is so heart-warming and joyful.

But our participation here leads us to spiritual depths 

that cannot be underestimated or dismissed casually from our attention.

 

And so tonight, let us enter with the open hearts of devotion

            into this commemoration of the Lord’s Supper,

                        his last supper,

            in which he would change forever 

how we are to regard table fellowship with one another.

 

The importance of the narration of the events of Holy Week 

is reflected in the Gospels very clearly.

It is thought that when the Gospels were written down,

            they started with the Passion narrative

            and worked backward from there.

At least two full and long chapters in all four Gospels are devoted 

            just to the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday alone

                        not counting the entry into Jerusalem 

                        or the Resurrection stories.

Compare that with mere paragraphs for every other event.

 

Tonight we focus on 

          what Jesus did with the bread and wine of their table fellowship, 

how he transformed that forever 

and released through those common elements 

the grace of his abiding presence in a very material way.

 

Now we know that through sheer familiarity with the Sacrament

we lose the impact of the radical action 

that Jesus took in the midst of the meal.

 

He took the familiar bread and wine, part of most all their meals, 

bread and wine, which symbolized hospitality, nourishment, 

bread to strengthen 

and wine to gladden the heart.

 

He gave them the bread, and then when they had eaten it, he said, 

“This is my body.”

Whoops…

 

But then he gave them the cup, and when they had each drunk from it, 

he said, “This is my blood.”

“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

 

Jesus took the common elements of most every meal

            and changed forever how we would look at them.

This is my Body.  This is my Blood.

            A mind-blowing way to look at the intimacy of love

                        that goes to the extreme of self-sacrifice,

                                                            of giving one’s life for another.

 

Jesus was presenting himself as the sacrifice,

            the lamb, whose life was taken, 

whose life blood was poured out in sacrifice.

 

The life of the animal that was sacrificed and eaten

was in the blood,

life sacred and precious, represented in the blood

and therefore reserved for God alone.

And so the blood must be thoroughly drained 

from the slaughtered animal

before it could be prepared and eaten.

 

Therefore how shocking to their sensibilities this must have been,

so that they could profoundly realize 

that they were taking within themselves the very life of Jesus.

 

But always, every day, it is a matter of one life ending for another to live.

This is involved in every meal,

                        life sacrificed so that I may live

                        right down to the every last lettuce leaf, sacrificed for me.

 

Were we to eat mindfully, 

            we would become aware of the intimate communion of relationship

                        going on between what’s on our plate

                        and what we are:

            the digested fuel for our bodies 

            and components being used by the body to generate new cells.

Biologically it’s an interconnection between self and environment

                                    down to the molecular level.

 

Every meal can be seen as a holy communion.

You are what you eat.

 

And we become what we eat.

            By the eating, his flesh and blood merge with ours

                        and we with his

            as a very concrete and physical and literal demonstration

                                    of saving grace 

                        thus transforming us into the form of our humanity

that has been utterly taken up into the heart of divinity.

The communion we share is communion with God,

and is union with God in Christ.

 

In John’s Gospel during the Last Supper,

the beloved disciple rests his head on the bosom of Jesus.

 

What a beautiful image that is!

            to lay our head, the part of our body most representing 

                        our mind, our thoughts, our self-identity, our consciousness,

            to lay our head on the heart of Jesus,

                        that huge, compassionate, all-embracing Heart 

of the Love of God Incarnate.

 

And so we eat and so we drink

            becoming, in our salvation, more and more like our Savior

 

where there is no distinction between who is greatest,

            who is the favorite, who will have the honored position

                        at the supper table of the Lamb

 

What happens next in tonight’s liturgy,

            the stripping of the altar.

We do this to create the starkly simple setting for the Good Friday liturgy,

            to have a space so sparse that the only thing to draw our attention

                        is the Cross, so that we may place devotional attention there.

 

And tonight as we do this stripping reverently and with devotion,

            the Altar Guild members will do this action.

 

This is so apt, because these are the ones who minister unseen,

            attending to endless details

so that all of us may experience the beauty of worship

            and our liturgies may flow with the grace of the Spirit’s Presence.

They too are worship leaders, 

                        as much as the lectors and acolytes and musicians and clergy.

 

But the stripping itself, here is a way 

            for you to entering into that very personally 

                                                            as you observe the action at the altar.

 

On that altar in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus

            all our sin, all our suffering, all the hurt of the world 

                        is stripped away.

May our hearts be like this altar, stripped and then scrubbed clean

            by Jesus and his intentional action of the cross –

dying in order to serve us most fully,

            to absorb our suffering,

            to take upon himself the sins of the whole world.

 

Let your heart be stripped of the grief, the fear, the woundedness,

            the suffering and the sin.

Let go of what Jesus has already drawn to himself 

            and returned as the new creation of Resurrection Life to you.

 

And so we are invited to be with Jesus during these liturgies of Holy Week,

            to watch, watching for just an hour at a time,

                        the usual length of a Sunday service.

In these liturgies we can draw even nearer to Jesus

            as we follow the events,

and offer our worship, our profound sense of awe and wonder,

                        the gratitude of our hearts.

 

Remember, the events of this week

            are the whole reason for Christ's coming.

THE one major purpose of Jesus' life

            was to lay it down, to die.

All the events prior to Holy Week -

            - all the miracles, all the parables, all the Sermon on the Mount

- all were only preliminaries, setting the stage for what was to occur now.

 

Each of us is faced with Jesus' death in a very personal way.

            - what that means to me.

The audacity of one human being 

            intentionally dying as a way to bring me into life.

 

This week is a love song from God to us, 

a hard love song, but the ultimate love song of deepest, fullest love.

How can we turn our backs on such love?

And how can we also express our love in return? 

A Political Provocation

I want to begin by saying that 

            even though we have just participated in the reading 

                        of the Passion Account according to St. Luke, 

            I want to back up to the Liturgy of the Palms.

This Sunday’s readings give us the full scope of Holy Week,

            and on Good Friday we will focus in on the Passion of our Lord 

                        as we read it in the Gospel of John.

So I will direct our attention back to what has been called 

                                    the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.

 

I will state right out that this reading is making a political statement,

            a provocative political statement,

                        on purpose.

 

Now we are very much aware of political statements being made all the time

            here in this country,

and we are savvy enough to know that 

            most political statements carry hidden, or not so hidden, agenda,

            that they are often a cover statement for an underlying objective 

                        of gaining power

                        or benefiting one side of an issue against the other side.
Behind the words are the political maneuvering 

            aimed at getting or keeping power.

 

Such is the way political systems work

            and so it has been throughout recorded history.

Some win, and rise to the top of the ruling structure, 

                                    and others lose and pay tribute or taxes.

This is the way it is with “the kingdoms of this world,” 

            to put it in biblical terminology.

 

But in the Gospels Jesus often is making a contrast 

                        between the kingdoms of this world

                        and the Kingdom of God,

and the contrast is about as extreme as you can get.

 

The disciples are portrayed as forever having the notion

            that Jesus is going to bring about a new kingdom, a new political reality,

                        that would, of course, eliminate the Roman emperor, 

                        and their beloved nation would be free from foreign rule. 

No matter how many times Jesus tells them that these same political powers,

                                    both the Romans and their own Jewish rulers, 

                        are going to be the cause of his persecution and death,

no matter how many times he says this, the disciples just won’t hear of it.

 

Instead they are thinking about how, come the revolution,

                        with God on their side and Jesus elevated to a throne,

            which of them will get the powerful positions at his right and his left.

And Jesus tells them more than once

            if you are following me, one on either side of me,

            you will be down on your knees washing feet with me,

                        you will be serving others,

                        you will be going the extra mile,

                        giving whenever you are asked without thought of return,

                        forgiving 70 times 7,

                        turning the other cheek,

                        and loving your enemies.

 

Jesus didn’t say blessed are the powerful, the strong, those politically adept.

            Rather he said blessed are the peacemakers, 

                        the pure in heart,

                        those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,

                        and those who suffer at the hands of those in power

for the sake of following the One who preaches the Kingdom of God at hand.

 

The Kingdom of God has a far different economic, political and military strategy

            than the kingdoms of this world.

 

So with this as the background and context, 

            here today we see Jesus doing something 

                                                                        which is almost out of character for him.

He makes preparation for what we would later call

            his TRIUMPHAL entry into Jerusalem.

 

He sets the scene up very intentionally and provocatively.

            The colt not ridden previously signifies a royal mount.

 

The route he takes coming from the Mount of Olives 

                        will lead up to the Temple through the Lion Gate.

It all fits the Messianic picture of a coming king,

            and the people with him are more than willing to fill out that picture.

                        And so are we – with our liturgy of a procession with palms.

                                    thinking we are doing something 

                                    which is an authentic mark of the kingship of Jesus.

The disciples do the equivalent of rolling out the red carpet:

            they carpet the road with their own robes.

They start chanting their slogans:  Jesus does powerful deeds, 

                                                       Jesus’ got the power!

            And their political anthem is Psalm 118,

                        a Psalm of David, the great king of the past,

                        now for the Davidic heir, lo, these many generations later,

                                                who comes riding on – a borrowed donkey.

 

Well, this all makes a mockery of both the leaders of the Hebrew nation

            and Pontius Pilate governing in the name of the emperor.

It is all so very provocative that the powers that be will have to act

                        and act forcefully and decisively.

 

And, can you see it, this is just what Jesus intends.

            This is all part of his purpose, 

                        essential for the main point of his mission.

 

And this is where we are going this week,

            as we do every year,

            for two thousand years now,

                        focusing our attention in scripture, worship and vigil

                                    around the center of our faith.

This is the most important time of the year in our observance of faith,

            if that isn’t already obvious.

 

So don’t miss it!

My brothers and sisters, be present this week like at no other time.

 

Every liturgy this week is designed to unfold the whole story of our salvation.

Like today with our palm branches.

            We are participating in a betrayal, when we do this liturgy;

            we are participating in a political mistake!

 

Every liturgy this week is designed to unfold the whole story of our salvation.

 

Every detail of what we do and say, 

                                    every piece of music, every liturgical action 

            all is a part of this story, of our story, 

                        of the story of Jesus and his death and resurrection.

 

Today the Palm Sunday story is the climax point 

in the narrative structure of the Gospels,

            the turning point that moves the flow of events 

                        from Jesus’ mission of teaching, parables, healings and feedings

                        to the sacrifice of his life for the sake of all living beings,

                                    the opening of the way of liberation, which is salvation,

                                    for the full expression of his purpose

                                                that everything, previous to this, was leading up to.

 

The turning point had been reached.

The people in the march into Jerusalem 

            were saying the words that would get Jesus and themselves all in trouble,

and those in the crowd who understood the consequences were concerned.

            “Teacher,” they said, “order your disciples to stop.”

But Jesus answered,

            “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

                                                                        The stones themselves would shout.

                                    They would shout, “Hosanna!  God, save us!”

God, save us.  That’s what the Hebrew word hosanna means.  God, save us.

 

There was no stopping this rush of all time, of all the ages,

            of all hopes, of all prayers, of all meaning

                        this rush into the vortex of this event now unfolding.

Even the stones would bear witness.

 

And they did, they have.

            If you have ever made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem,

            you know that these stones tell the story.

 

Stones that make up the last bit of the retaining wall 

            from where the Temple of Jesus’ day had stood.

Stones, in places the very stones, 

            that had been the streets that the feet of Jesus had touched.

 

The stones on the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane

            where Jesus had knelt in prayer.

The paving stones in the location identified as the Praetorium

            where the soldiers had mocked Jesus and abused and whipped him.

The stones in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher 

            where one could bend down on the knees to reach through the floor

                        and touch the stone of Golgotha,

            and the stones where the tomb had been.

Stones still silently shouting their history and their role in this great story.

 

            Hosanna.  Save us.  Let the strong man save us.

 

The kingdoms of this world read these words one way

            anxious and desperate for a strong man to take care of things.

The kingdoms of this world, and their set of values,

the power basis upon which all political structures operate

            can hardly understand this story of Jesus and the Kingdom of God.

 

You mind may very well be much more focused on present politics,

                        in the world, in the nation, locally, even in our own families. 

                                                                                                

So I would urge you instead 

                        to put your mind on the words of the Epistle reading for today.

Let this be our palm procession anthem, this ancient hymn of the early church,

            that the Apostle Paul includes in his letter to the Church in Philippi:

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,…”

            his mind, his values, his humility, his obedience, 

                        his body given for you,             his death for your life.

Let THIS mind be in you.

  

I'll press on

 Mary of Bethany washed the feet of Jesus with fragrant and costly nard

            and then wiped his feet with her hair touching her head to his feet.

This was a lavish gift of love poured out on Jesus in a very personal way

            to the embarrassment and consternation of the disciples, 

                                                                                                  especially Judas.

Did you know there is a version of this story in all four gospels?

            This is a story I have consistently been drawn to.

            The story resonates deeply with me.

At the heart of it all is the personal attraction of Jesus.

 

What I want to do this morning in this brief bit of time

            is to share with you some of my personal love for and devotion to Jesus.

 

Now this is where I take some risk, 

            when I talk about why I am still in the church,

            because I am tapping into others’ motivations also

                        for why you yourselves are here.

 

It’s okay if you are not here for the same reason as I am.

 

But there’s a risk for me

            because talking in this way about Jesus 

            is often seen as the height of evangelizing, 

                        and that is something about which 

            Episcopalians are characterized as avoiding like the plague.

Stereotypes about evangelizing and Jesus talk,

                        especially when followed up with church abuse.            

            have unfortunately given Jesus a bad name for many.

                  

This has blocked many from making for themselves 

                        incredible discoveries about just how extraordinary, 

                                    how revolutionary, 

                                    how incredibly and intimately personal Jesus can be, 

            and how enlivening, liberating and empowering this can be for us.

So it is a dilemma for me to speak about this, 

            but the fact remains that if it weren’t for Jesus 

            and his Presence revealed through scripture and the sacraments

                        I wouldn’t be here.            

For me the Eucharist is the altar call,

            coming to the altar to receive and consume the Body and Blood of Jesus.

Repentance and redemption is all there in this altar call.

 

And so I want to share with you this morning this love for Jesus,

            and the Epistle reading for today really helps me do that.

 

This is a key epistle reading well placed in the scheme of things

                                                for all the Lenten readings.

It is about a basic, fundamental relationship to Jesus,

            and identity with him in baptism,

            of being in him, in whom we live and move and have our being.

 

The Apostle Paul says, “I regard everything as loss 

because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, 

and I regard them as rubbish,…” 

            Well, that’s too wimpy of a translation.

            The word means dung, human excrement actually.

And Paul says that he not only regarded everything as loss

            but on account of knowing Jesus

                        he has lost everything.

Truly, after the road to Damascus his whole status, credibility, viability,             

                        and reputation within his religious community was lost, destroyed,                     because he now identified with the heretical sect of the followers of Jesus.

            

So Paul says, on account of the far greater value of knowing Jesus

                                    experiential knowing, heart knowledge,

            I regard all that I had valued before as in the toilet

“in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, 

not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, 

but one that comes through faith in Christ, 

the righteousness from God based on faith.”

 

So we need to talk about righteousness.  What is righteousness?

            That’s another hot button word for many, often heard as self-righteousness.

 

Righteousness is to be in right relationship to the God who gave the Law, the Torah, 

to be in union with the wholeness of the Law Giver, 

the life of walking by the Spirit through grace 

rather than through self will 

or out of the illusion of separateness,

            but as one, in union with the Creator;

righteousness is the state of one who is as one ought to be;

righteousness is a way to characterize being a New Creation. 

            Righteousness equals the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

This righteousness is not something that we ourselves can accomplish 

by scrupulous adherence to the law.

            Paul’s righteousness, and ours, comes through faith.

            

And this faith is not faith as holding a particular belief system, or theology,

            but faith as deep trust and a surrendering to God,

                        an entrusting of self towards union with God.

 

So we have this righteousness, verse 9 tells us, through faith in Christ.

That is how most translations put it,

                        but literally in Greek it is the faith of Christ

            and in this context this makes much more sense

 

Paul tells us, “…not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,” 

            “but one that comes through [the] faith of Christ,

            the righteousness from God based on faith.”

 

It is Jesus’ utter surrender, the complete emptying of himself, 

            which is the ultimate act of faith

            that brings him the title, Jesus Christ the Righteous, as in 1 John 2:1.

His faith brings us that same righteousness 

                                                            as we are found in him.

            

So this righteousness, which one could say 

                        is a process of being saved/redeemed/whatever you want to call it,

            is not about expectations by ourselves or others 

                        about keeping rules and being good, 

but for me it is the discovery of such a gift that I must respond.

 

Faith, we need always to remember, is a gift of the Holy Spirit, 

not a self-generated attitude or a focus of belief.  

It is an infusion and flowering in the heart and mind 

of the very life of our Lord.  

Faith for us is not possible without that uniting love of our Lord.

Jesus does the work in us

            bringing to our self awareness that we are indeed the child of God.

Our righteous comes not from our own effort but through the faith of Christ.

 

 And so Paul continues in verse 10:

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection …”

 

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.” 

                                    What a beautiful aspiration!

I hear those words, and my heart responds with Yes!

            That is the deep desire of the heart, the pull of uniting love.

 

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection

(and Paul continues,)

            and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 

if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; 

but I press on toward the goal 

for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

 

Paul is speaking about a spiritual process

            which he does not yet claim as complete within himself

A process of growing awareness of identity in Christ

            in which all his own sufferings – and Paul had quite a few – 

                        were all swallowed up in the Cross

A spiritual process not yet complete, a goal

            and so he says, “I press on”

            to cooperate with this process at work within him.

“I press on to make it my own, 

because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

 

So Paul is willing and open to leaving behind all,

                        seeing it all as having as much value as dung,

            leaving it all behind to the point of even forgetting – 

Can you imagine forgetting all your past accomplishments,

            all the work you have done at making yourself 

noteworthy or useful or successful or good – 

 

Pressing on toward that goal of a full realization of knowing God

            knowing God’s love,

Paul calls it             “the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

 

So for all of us, what would be included in “pressing on”?

            Prayer, and meditation, are primary examples of how to press on,

                        and offering our worship together, and studying the scriptures,

                        and serving one another in love,

                        and carrying out our various baptismal ministries,

                                    not for self aggrandizement but as selfless service,

for this all has to flow out of the Spirit at work in us,

            so that our ministry flows out of a place of grace.

 

The church is called out of the world culture into wakefulness 

            of the infinite, radiant, creative potency which is manifest 

                        in Jesus and through Jesus as the word of God.

How deeply do we feel this and recognize this?

What is the spiritual hunger of your heart?

 

Why we come here to church

            is different for each.

What keeps us here at church together

            is Jesus addressing each one’s unique needs 

whether we are conscious of his ministry to us or not.

 

So we come to the last part of Lent,

            and this epistle reading can be a key passage for entry into Holy Week.

Therefore I want to strongly encourage you, to urge you 

            to participate in the rich offering that Holy Week has for us, especially:

Palm Sunday…

Evening Prayer on Holy Monday and Holy Tuesday…

Tenebrae on Holy Wednesday…

Maundy Thursday…

Good Friday…

Easter Vigil…

Easter Day…

All of this, our Holy Week commemorations of the Passion of our Savior,                                     provides a rich source 

            here at the heart of our faith and worship.

 

These are our high holy days – please come to them all, 

                                                                                                and see what happens.

 

As for me when I leave here,

            I’ll press on 

                        as that beautiful hymn, What wondrous love is this expresses.

I am not ashamed to say that I love Jesus

            and would kiss his feet 

            and wash them with my tears and wipe them with my hair,

for in Jesus I have found life and love and joy and peace.

 

Press on,

and may we all discover more of Jesus 

            to liberate our hearts and empower our lives.