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Maundy Thursday
Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may thankfully receive the same in remembrance of him who in these holy mysteries giveth us a pledge of life eternal, the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
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Maundy Thursday
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Scripture citation(s): John 13:1-17, 31b-35
A Sermon by
Fr. Austin
on
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
✛
To Love One Another
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I can think of no more painful charge against Christians than that we fail to keep this command of Jesus, the new commandment that we love one another; the fulfilment of which is supposed to be so obvious that all the people around will know that we are Jesus’ disciples. How sad it is to have to admit, here on just about the holiest night of the year, that we do not do that, that we do not manifestly love one another in a way that unambiguously speaks to the world that we have learned from Jesus the most important thing.
It is a tender night as well as holy. Gathered in an intimate room, Jesus lays aside his garments, an action symbolizing his laying down his life, and he takes up towel and water and does one of the most humiliating things in that culture: he bathes the weary, worn, tired feet of his friends. It is marvelously refreshing to have your feet washed: I remember the time it happened to me as part of the Maundy Thursday celebration, and although I never quite got over the awkwardness of having someone else wash my feet, it was surprisingly cool, and calming, and even tender. There is counter-cultural Jesus, down below his disciples, down at their feet, doing this tender and refreshing thing for them; a thing they wouldn’t even ask a servant to do, Jesus is doing it for them.
And then he explains it. The explanation is that he is forming them into a new people, a community bound together on a new basis. This community, this new fellowship around Jesus, it is not based on being of the same race, or of the same (as we say) socioeconomic class. It is not like one of those Internet communities of shared interest, “the community of stamp collectors,” as we have learned to say, or “the left-handed lawn bowler community.” Nor is it based on a shared opposition to some threatening outside force. Most every community in the world is based on one of those things, commonality of interest or protection against outsiders. “We” form a community because we are not like “them.” But the basis of Jesus’ community is love, love of one another—and that is radically different. Although distinctive [it is, at least in the gospel, a small community, and is distinguished by being attached to Jesus], it has nothing to do with defining itself over against the outside. The entirety of the definition of Jesus’ community is mutual love, love for one another.
So on this tender and holy night of Maundy Thursday, we pause to realize that even after some two thousand years of practice, we don’t do this very well, and the manifest proof of our failure is that outsiders don’t recognize us as having love for one another. However, the good news—and in the church there is never anything apart from good news—the good news is that in another radical sense, we don’t have to succeed at this.
And the reason is that Jesus has already done what matters. Like putting off his garments at the last supper, he then put off his life, laid it down of his own accord at the foot of the cross. How do you show your friends that you love them? The greatest way is to die for them. Jesus has done just that: he has loved us to the end. Every command that is laid upon us—including the “Mandatum” that gives Maundy Thursday its name, the “mandate” that we love one another—Jesus has already fulfilled it.
What this means very practically for us is that we don’t have to succeed, we need only to try. And the world will see our love for one another when the world is ready to see miracles. As I was preparing this homily, I was also reading some of the collected thoughts of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. As the founder of the Missionaries of Charity, she has a lot to say about loving one another. Once a parent came to her asking for money to buy medicine for his child. The medicine needed was not available in India but would have to be imported and was very expensive. The nuns of course had no money, but just then another person arrived with a box filled with medicines. This person went around and collected partially used and unneeded medicines, and brought them to the Sisters. Right on the top of that box, and in the exact quantity required, was the medicine needed for that child. God is already arranging for us to love one another. Our love for one another is right there in front of us.
Tomorrow we will see him on the cross. There he takes off his life and lays it down. I think the daily, ordinary life of people who want to love one another is like looking around the cross. We’re trying to find that life that he laid down and left for us to pick up, trying to find it down there amongst his garments, down there beneath his feet. He took off his life, and laid it down, right there, waiting for us.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find Jesus’ life, to take it up and put it on as our own: a life that is for others, a life grounded in nothing but friendship? Even if we don’t succeed, what matters is that Jesus has already done it. After he washed our feet, he himself took up his garments and proceeded to be, once again, our Teacher. And in the same way, after his death, he took up his life and again came to us. It’s not too late to learn, not too late to find the life he laid down for us and took up again. The one thing that binds us together is to love one another.
