Time to pray

Today I am praying for the United Methodist Church. Delegates from around the world are meeting April 23 to May 3 in Charlotte, N.C., for a General Conference session long delayed by covid concerns and complications.

 A lot is at stake, and destructive forces are arrayed to do as much damage to the church as they can.

 Some history:

 In 2019 a special General Conference was held to settle disagreements over UMC policy regarding sexual orientation. “Conservatives” rammed through a “Traditional Plan” that was “traditional” only if you choose to base tradition on the Spanish Inquisition.

It was unfair, unjust and un-Christian, but the “traditionalists” cheered – until “progressives” rallied and threatened to overturn the whole thing in a regular General Conference in 2020.

Covid derailed everything. So now in 2024, we are holding the 2020 General Conference. Meantime, “traditionalists” have bailed to form their own church, deceptively called the “Global” Methodist Church. The GMC and allies have managed to dupe one-fourth of UMC churches to disaffiliate from the UMC and join the GMC or go independent.

GMC and other anti-UMC operatives are still working within the UMC, and they hope to use this General Conference to continue their efforts to dismantle the UMC.

Here are some things I pray for:

* Removal of the harmful language about sexual orientation that “traditionalists” jammed into our Book of Discipline.

* Passage of a new set of Social Principles that does not contain such harmful language and sets a positive tone for the treatment of all humans.

* Passage of a regionalization plan that will give United Methodists in America the same freedom that those in other regions now enjoy to tailor certain policies to their own contexts without having to rely on a vote by global delegates.

It should go without saying (but given the level of lies promulgated by the GMC and others, it must be said) that none of these proposals would change our fundamental theology or our commitment to the mission of Jesus Christ.

Some forces have been working for a long time to devise an issue that would fracture the UMC, and they decided that sexuality would do the trick. So far it has cost the UMC dearly, but the battle isn’t over yet because these forces haven’t destroyed the UMC yet.

These forces (see how carefully I avoid reference to the GMC, the Wesleyan Covenant Association and Institute on Religion and Democracy) will not quit until they have destroyed the church or are divested of their power within it. I pray that this year’s General Conference will begin the process of exorcising these elements so that the United Methodist Church may continue its vibrant global witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Lights out!

KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES

CBS added insult to injury Sunday night when it delayed and then cut short coverage of a landmark Billy Joel concert.

 The much-touted broadcast began 30 minutes late because CBS wanted to show the end of the Masters Tournament. I used to play golf, and sometimes enjoyed it, but TV coverage of professional golf has always struck me almost as exciting as watching grass grow.

 When the Billy Joel concert did not begin promptly at 8, I thought perhaps CBS had inserted coverage of some major event – specifically, something involving Iran’s attack on Israel. So why, I wondered, did no other network delay its programming?

 That’s because only CBS carried the Masters, and apparently golf reigns over good sense CBS.

 Then the part that is simply insane. In the middle of Joel’s last song, his trademark “Piano Man,” CBS cuts to black and cues its local stations to begin their delayed 10 o’clock news shows. (Only in Central and Eastern time zones, though, because apparently nobody important lives out here.)

Heads may be rolling today at CBS. Probably heads should roll, but not just the one who punched the “out” button at the end. The strange ending only capped a flawed broadcast.

The show was the 100th sellout concert in Joel’s monthly residence at Madison Square Garden in New York. Joel and his band were in fine form. But CBS made two huge mistakes going in.

First, it mixed up the set list. Musicians draw up a set list to build a performance to perfect pitch. So you have to wonder why the musical geniuses at CBS saw fit to toss Joel’s set list and substitute their own.

Second, CBS inserted far too many commercials. Mostly these were boring ads for way-too expensive medications and lame promos for lame CBS prime-time series.

And that’s probably why the show ran overtime. If CBS had cut one or two unnecessary commercial breaks, it would not have had to cut the show short. CBS brass had to have known going in that the broadcast would go over two hours. So why did someone panic when it did?

Responding to widespread viewer anger, CBS has apologized for the “programming timing error” and promised to show the whole thing again Friday night. Think it will cut any of the ads?

Sometime back in the 1980s, Linda and I saw Billy Joel live at Kemper Arena in Kansas City. We were mostly spellbound during the broadcast Sunday night. After more than 50 years of making music, Billy Joel still has it. He’s an incredible performer. That a TV network would butcher his signature song on its 50th anniversary during his 100th sellout show at Madison Square Garden is almost unthinkable.

 But these days the unthinkable is almost routine.

 Stay tuned after this commercial break for live coverage of the Second Coming of Christ (unless a sports event runs long).

Eclipse notes

Linda and me being amazed.

The Great American Eclipse of 2024 has come and gone. Even though we could see only 89 percent of it in the Kansas City area, it was spectacular. The light took on an eerie quality, the grass turned a vibrant green, and the temperature dropped noticeably as the moon passed across the face of the sun. Awesome!

 The next eclipse likely to be visible around here is not until 2044, when I would be 96, so I don’t expect to see that one. I saw the one in 2017, of course, and I recall one other, though I can’t recall when it was.

These being odd times, some odd things happened in and around the eclipse.

A friend in Lawrence (hi, Missy!) says she had to take her son out of school so he could witness the event. She was told the school wasn’t allowing students to view it because some didn’t believe in it.

Say what? It may be that the school wanted to avoid potential legal trouble if a student looked at the sun without proper protection. Or maybe some were frightened by superstitions promoted by some churches.

Yeah, the idea that the eclipse might be part of a “rapture” scenario was being pushed by a lot of people who should know better. Simply put, the “rapture” is a cruel hoax. It’s extrabiblical and nonbiblical.

The notion was created around 1830 by a wacko Brit named John Nelson Darby, and it’s been part of wacko fundamentalist “theology” for about a hundred years now.

The passage of time does not make it any more true today than it was in 1830, but millions of people still buy into it, sad to say. The idea that Christ will return secretly and zap special people off the planet is nonsense. The Second Coming will be a major event that no one can miss! You won’t have to be in the path of totality to witness it!

*  *  *  *  *

Speaking of hoaxes, about the blasphemous “God Bless the USA Bible,” I will say little. There is a fundamental difference between the Bible and the U.S. Constitution and other foundational national documents (unless, of course, you think that Thomas Jefferson was directly inspired by God, but think about that for a minute).

Still, if you want to put $60 in the pocket of a rich swindler for a King James Bible you could buy for ten bucks elsewhere, it’s your money to waste.

*  *  *  *  *

So what do you do with those eclipse glasses you bought especially for this event? You could keep them as a souvenir, or you could hang on to them for next time, though I get mixed signals about whether the plastic lenses will be any good by then.

If you act by Aug. 1, you also can send them to a place that will pass them on to Latin Americans who can use them in a few months when their country is in the path of totality for the next eclipse. Yes, they happen several times a year, just not often where we can see them. The address is:

Eclipse Glasses USA

PO Box 50571

Provo, UT 84605

*  *  *  *  *

I was rooting for Caitlin Clark and her Iowa teammates on Sunday, but they couldn’t quite pull off the NCAA women’s championship. Clark reached 3,951 career points during the game – a record. Or maybe it isn’t. Seems that Lynette Woodard got 3,649 points during her KU career, and none of those was a three-pointer.

These are the things that some sports fans quibble over endlessly. I guess that’s part of the game, as it were, and why I’m not a sports fan. Life’s too short, I say – though I know others think that arguing these things over a beer is the spice of life.

*  *  *  *  *

German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis on this date in 1945. 

Fools for Christ

It seems appropriate that the first Sunday after Easter was April Fool’s Day. After all, it was a cheerful Christian missionary, not some grouchy atheist, who first called Christ followers “fools for Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:10).

 I have frequently felt a little foolish right after Easter. For much of my active career in ministry, I suffered from what I call PED, or Post Easter Depression.

 It’s a common ailment among pastors. On Resurrection Sunday, we proclaim that the resurrection of Jesus makes all the difference in the world and changes everything – and the next morning we discover that for most of the world, nothing has changed in the slightest. Most of the world simply does not care.

 We proclaim, “Christ is risen!” The world shrugs and says, “So what?” It’s deflating. It’s depressing. And I suspect that pastors aren’t the only ones who suffer from it.

 I’m sure everyone remembers the day after a special loved one died. That morning, you saw life radically differently than you did 24 hours before. But it quickly became obvious that most of the world did not know about your loss, or much care about it either.

 Our sadness in death is mirrored by our gladness in the Resurrection. We have a great message for the world – and the world doesn’t much care to hear it. We shout, “We’ve got good news!” And the world yawns. “Heard it all before. Tell me something I haven’t heard.”

 The very word “gospel” means “good news.” This is the kind of news that if it were printed in a newspaper and tossed onto your driveway, the impact would shatter the pavement. This is weighty news. This is news so weighty, so significant, so life-changing, that no matter how many times we announce it, it’s always news – and it’s always good news.

What’s good about it? What makes it news, rather than “olds”?

Let’s start with the micro view – that is, our personal view. Consider the perennial questions. Who are you? Why are you here? What is the meaning of life?

Trust me, you are here for a reason. You’re not an accident. You’re here on purpose, and you have a purpose. You’re not here just to take up space and look pretty and get a sugar high on Easter candy. You have a higher calling. You have a holy calling.

God is calling you to live for God’s glory by becoming the best you that you possibly can be – and you can’t be that person by serving just yourself. You can achieve your full potential only when you serve others. You are here, then, to love and to be loved and to make a difference in this world.

That’s the micro view. For the macro view, let’s turn to this big, fat, scary book we call the Bible. It has two parts. Part One is a whole lot fatter than Part Two. The plot keeps thickening in Part One until it comes to what appears to be a dead end.

Your individual story is in here. Your individual story is the same story that’s told in Genesis chapters two and three – you know, that embarrassing episode with a garden and a talking snake. And that, in turn, is the same story that’s told in all the rest of the chapters of Part One – only now the protagonist is a people called Israel.

Sadly, it’s mostly a story of failure. Israel is charged with being God’s light to the world, and Israel just isn’t up to it because, as a representative of all of us, and just like the best of us and the worst of us, Israel is just so human.

Part One ends without resolution. It’s like a musical chord that hangs in suspension, waiting for the next chord to resolve the tension, only the musician stops playing, and the resolution never comes.

Part Two provides the resolution. Part Two says, “Surprise!” and wraps it up. Part Two says that there is a character in Part One who was there all along, only you didn’t recognize him because he worked behind the scenes, as kind of a stagehand. (I’m mixing metaphors here, you see.)

In Part Two, the stagehand takes center stage, and he wraps things up in a most unexpected way. Like a masterful musician, Jesus resolves the suspended chord.

Jesus is the answer to Israel’s yearnings, and the answer to ours as well. Jesus called his people to a new way of being Israel, and he calls us all to a new way of being human. Jesus sums up Israel’s story, and he makes our lives add up, too.

Here’s the good news as proclaimed by that bandy-legged squirt of a guy named Paul, in one of his letters to some Christians in the ancient city of Corinth. Paul says: “I passed on to you as most important what I also received: Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and he was buried, and on the third day he was raised in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15.3-4).

It all happened “in accordance with the scriptures,” Paul says. That’s the way it had to happen to complete the story of Part One in this big book, though nobody quite expected it to happen this way.

Looking back, it makes sense. Looking forward, you just can’t see it. It’s a mystery that’s been hidden for the ages, Paul says in another letter (Romans 16.25). But it’s not a mystery you’re going to figure out on your own. The answer has to be revealed. The author of the mystery has to reveal what’s been going on all this time.

What God has been up to is rescuing a world that has gone way off course and can’t find its way back, just as each of us has gone way off course and needs to be brought home safely. The Bible’s story is about the rescue and renewal of all creation, and my story and your story are about being rescued and renewed in the process.

We are rescued, yes, from the clutches of what we call sin and freed by forgiveness to be renewed and to become the loving people we were created to be.

How does the Resurrection of Jesus accomplish this? By six o’clock on the evening of what we (strangely) call Good Friday, Jesus was dead and buried. No doubt he was dead. Roman soldiers were trained killing machines.

Jesus was dead, and there was no hope for his recovery because, as everybody knows, dead people just don’t come back. Cry for them all you want, it doesn’t happen.

Except that this time it does happen. And it’s not that his body is re-animated or resuscitated. Let’s get our “R” words right. He is resurrected. He comes back in a new body that is somehow very much like his old body but also very different.

This is the first time it ever happened. But we are assured that it will happen again, at some future time, when all who trust in God are raised with Christ to new life. And we won’t just be re-animated or resuscitated. We also will be resurrected in bodies fit for eternity. That’s our personal stake in this story. Because he lives, we also shall live.

Jesus’ death is important, oh yes. As the Suffering Servant of God, he bears the consequences of our sin. But without the Resurrection, his death would have no meaning. Good Friday makes sense only in light of the Resurrection. Without the Resurrection, Jesus might be just one more of the millions of people who are ground into the dust every year by the tyrants of this world. By raising Jesus from the dead, God completes the story of Israel and fulfills the story of creation and brings salvation and hope to our broken world.

If Jesus is alive today, we ought to be alive as well. Just the way the birth of a baby changes everything in a household, so the resurrection of Jesus gives each of us an opportunity for new birth, a chance to be changed with all of creation, and a chance to give glory to our creator by living according to the master plan, in love and peace and joy.

See, we need to do more than simply believe the good news of Jesus. We need to be changed by it. We need to become good news people. Everything about us ought to be shaped by the good news. We ought to be living, breathing evidence that Christ is alive, and that his living in us changes everything about us and is changing every thing every where all at once.

It's news so good is sounds foolish, news so good that we fools for Christ will keep proclaiming it until all the world understands.

Maundy Thursday

It’s Holy Thursday -  or, as it’s still often called, Maundy Thursday.

 The word “Maundy” comes to us from the Latin word mandatum, meaning commandment. This refers to the new commandment Jesus gives his disciples at their Last Supper, the commandment to love one another.

 The story we’re exploring comes from several scriptures. Rather than reading each individually, I’ll weave them together into one narrative.

 Let’s begin by looking at the setting of our story. So many times we leap right into it without regard to its context. But context is everything. Call this ..

 Scene 1, Prelude.

 It’s the morning of Thursday of what we call Holy Week. Holy Week began last Sunday with what we call Palm and Passion Sunday – the day we celebrate Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and look ahead to the grim events of the rest of the week.

Jesus knows how dangerous it is for him to be in Jerusalem. Both religious and civil authorities are out to get him, and he plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with them all week.

He shows up in the daylight, when he is surrounded by adoring crowds, and the authorities are afraid of moving against him for fear of causing a riot.

But before nightfall he fades into the darkness. He retires for prayer on the Mount of Olives on the city’s east side, and spends the night there or in the nearby suburb of Bethany.

This is where several friends live, including Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead only a few months earlier. He is safe here.

Tonight will be different. Tonight is the Feast of the Passover, the annual celebration of God bringing Israel out of bondage in Egypt. Tonight Jesus will dare to stay in the city after dark. He is ready to confront the powers of evil that are allied against him.

Scene 2 – Meal prep

(Mark 14:12-16)

He has made secret arrangements for the Passover meal. Now he needs to set the plan into motion. Why the secrecy? Because he knows that one of his 12 closest disciples is planning to betray him, and there are things he must do before that happens.

So he turns to two of his closest disciples, Simon Peter and John, and he tells them to go into the city and prepare the Passover meal.

‘Where?” they ask.

“You’ll see a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him.”

Usually it’s women who carry water, so this fellow will stand out in the crowd, though not enough to arouse suspicion. He leads them to the house of a woman named Mary and her son, John Mark. They have a large second-story guest room that Jesus has chosen for his Last Supper with his disciples.

No one but Peter and John will know the location, though, until Jesus leads them there for the meal. He’ll be safe from arrest as long as he keeps Judas at his side.

Peter and John may supervise preparations for the meal, but they can’t do it alone.

Somebody has to take a lamb to the Temple for sacrifice. Given the thousands of pilgrims in the city for the festival, that will involve standing in line for hours with a restless lamb that grows increasingly agitated at the smell of blood and gore.

Then, when the lamb is slaughtered, it has to be brought back to the house and roasted.

Other dishes must be prepared as well. Probably we should imagine a whole crew of people – mostly, if not all, women – working in a first-floor kitchen throughout the day to make sure everything is done on time.

These women are not casual acquaintances. They are among his most local followers from Galilee, and several of them have contributed to his ministry from their own pockets.

Among these are several women named Mary: Mary Magdalene; Mary the mother of James and Joseph; Mary the wife of Clopas; plus Salome, the mother of James and John the sons of Zebedee.

When the male disciples go into hiding, these women will be with Jesus when he dies, and several will journey to the tomb to anoint his body on Sunday morning.

Tonight, they work to prepare his last meal.

When the hour arrives, Jesus and his 12 disciples assemble in the upper room.

We’re all familiar with Leonardo’s famous painting where everyone is sitting on chairs or stools on the other side of a very long table. That’s an artistic composition, and a very good one, but I can assure you that it’s not even close to the way it happened.

Most tables in those days were much lower to the floor, perhaps only a foot or so high.

Diners did not sit on chairs or stools. They would lie on a rug on the floor and recline next to the table on their bellies or on one elbow.

Three tables would be arranged in a U shape. Those serving the meal would serve from inside the U, and those eating the meal would be arranged outward in a kind of fan shape, with their feet facing outward.

We might think that Jesus has the place of honor at the top of the U, but it appears that it’s customary for the host to recline on one side of the U.

If you read the account in John chapter 13 carefully, you can see that Judas and John are reclining on either side of Jesus, and Peter is way over on the other side of the U. Peter is so far away from John that he has to pantomime the question, “Who is Jesus talking about?”

Scene 3 – Opening words

(Luke 22:14-16)

As they gather at the table, Jesus says: "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God."

Whatever does that mean? Until it is fulfilled when and how? The disciples don’t know, and we ought to be careful claiming that we do.

All we can be sure of is that when those days are fulfilled in the kingdom of God, we want to be there.

Scene 4 – Foot washing

(John 13:4-15)

The Seder is an order of worship for the Passover meal. It is roughly sketched in the book of Exodus, and it was developed and expanded for 600 years before the time of Jesus. On the one hand, the Seder is very stable and doesn’t change much. On the other hand, participants are free to make their own innovations, and there are many local variations.

In other words, we sort of know how Jesus celebrated with his disciples that night, and we sort of don’t know.

In modern versions of the Seder, at some point early in the meal, the leader or host of the Seder goes around the table with a basin of water and a towel, and he washes the hands of every participant.

Jesus does something similar in his role as host of this meal, but what he does is so astonishing and so revolutionary that after 2,000 years of thinking about it, we still fail to fully comprehend it.

He gets up from the table and removes his outer robe, so that all he’s wearing is a loincloth – the first-century version of boxers or briefs.

He ties a towel around himself and pours water into a basin. Moving around the table, he washes his disciples’ feet, one by one, and dries them with the towel he’s wrapped around himself.

At upper-class dinners, this is the job a servant does as the guests arrive. A few people wear shoes, but most people in this time and place wear sandals because they’re just more comfortable in the heat than shoes, and feet are easier to clean than shoes.

But feet are ugly and dirty and smelly, just not pleasant at all. That’s why washing them is left to servants. Well, where are the servants in the upper room? Why didn’t Peter or John think of this detail ahead of time? Maybe they could have hired somebody to do it. Or maybe Jesus told them to just skip it; he’d take care of it himself.

We don’t know whose feet he washed first, John or even Judas, because they were closest to his place at the table. But when he gets to Peter, Peter is shocked. He says, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

Hear that? He doesn’t say, “Teacher” or “Master.” He says, “Lord.”

Jesus answers, "Right now you don’t know what I’m doing, but you’ll understand later."

Peter objects, "You will never wash my feet."

Jesus says, "Then you can have no part of me."

Peter says, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!"

“Not necessary,” Jesus replies. “Just your feet. Otherwise, you’re clean.”

But then he adds, cryptically, “Not all of you are clean, though.”

Soon he’ll announce that one of them will betray him, and the room will erupt with denials and questions, and Peter will motion to John, “Who’s he talking about?”

But now they’re about ready to eat. They have clean feet, and they’re still not quite sure what just happened.

Jesus sets aside the towel, puts his robe back on, and reclines in his place at the table. He asks, "Do you understand what I have done for you?

You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right; that is what I am.

So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. See, I’ve set an example for you. You should do to each other what I have done to you.”

Have you ever done that? Have you ever been part of a foot washing ceremony on Holy Thursday or another occasion?

You may have been brought up in a church tradition where foot washing was as normal as a Sunday potluck. More likely you were brought up in a tradition like United Methodism, where we talk about it sometimes, but we rarely do it.

Twenty years ago, in another church, I led a group of friends through a 28-week small group experience called Companions in Christ. Guidebooks for it are still available through the Upper Room publishers.

After 28 weeks of meeting together once a week, we were a pretty tight group. I thought we were ready for just about anything. But several people looked ahead in the guidebook, and they saw the suggestions for a closing session. It included personal sharing, holy communion – and foot washing.

 Several people told me that we if were doing a foot washing, they would not attend.  So we concluded our small group experience with personal sharing and holy communion, but no foot washing. I have not proposed doing it in any church since then.

 What is it about foot washing that disturbs so many people? Sure, feet are gnarly and ugly and smelly, even if they’ve been clad all day in the most expensive walking shoes on the market.

I once knew a woman who was so revolted by the sight of bare feet that she had one of two reactions: scream and run, or dissolve in a fit of giggles. Few of us probably have that kind of extreme reaction – and yet we are revolted by the very idea of foot washing.

I have done it in public several times. Once, in a church setting, I washed Linda’s feet because I knew no one else would volunteer. The other times were at men’s retreats. Once I washed the feet of a close friend, and before I was done we were both in tears. Other times I washed the feet of men I barely knew, and it seemed not to affect either of us emotionally.

If you watched the Super Bowl on TV, you probably saw one of several religious-oriented commercials, including the one that’s part of the “He gets us” campaign designed to make Jesus more relatable to modern audiences.

The ad pairs apparently unlikely people in a foot washing: a White cop washing the feet of a Black youth, for example, or an anti-abortion protester washing the feet of a pregnant woman about to enter an abortion clinic.

It concludes: “Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet.”

You might think that would be an innocuous message, but in today’s hyper-sensitive and totally bonkers political climate, the message was so provocative that it was almost incendiary.

Some folks complained about it being “woke,” whatever that means. Others thought it reflected some kind of foot fetish. Both responses show how ignorant of Christian basics many people are.

The reaction to this ad suggests a deeper message in the act of foot washing. When you wash a person’s feet, you become a servant to that person, and that person is placed in a position of great vulnerability. It’s as if social roles are reversed, and power dynamics are inverted.

It’s said that you can choose your friends by the way they treat your server at a restaurant. If they treat your server poorly, they won’t be a good friend to you or to anyone else. So look out.

Scene 5 – First and last

(Mark 9:35)

Then, too, recall something Jesus once said. He said, “If you want to be first, you have to be last, and servant of all.”

Scene 6 – Love one another

(John 13:34-35)

There are two more key events in the narrative of this meal. One is the institution of Holy Communion. The other is the “love one another” command.

The gospel of John is the only one that mentions Judas leaving in the middle of the meal, going off to set up the arrest of Jesus. He leaves right after Jesus says, “One of you is going to betray me,” and everybody else wonders who that might be.

We know Judas leaves before Jesus announces the “love one another” command. But John’s narration doesn’t include the first communion, so we can’t be sure whether Judas leaves before or after it.

Does Judas share in this most holy event? Or is he absent when it happens?

What you believe may reflect your personal theology more than any historical consideration. Does Jesus offer these signs of grace to Judas, even knowing that Judas will betray him? Or does Jesus delay this act until after Judas is gone?

Are there limits to God’s grace? If there are, what are they – and who sets those limits?

Keep that in the back of your mind as we move to our next event.

At some point after the foot washing, Jesus gives his disciples a new command. It’s not really new. It’s been part of his teaching from the start. What’s new is the way he phrases it and the emphasis he puts on it.

“Love one another,” he says. “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Now there’s a new question that’s similar to the previous Judas question.

When Jesus says, “love one another,” to whom and about whom is he speaking? Is he speaking solely to the now 11 disciples and saying that they should love one another chiefly – and possibly even to the exclusion of others?

That is, is Jesus saying that followers of Jesus should love only other followers of Jesus, and not Jews or Muslims or Hindus or none-of-the-aboves?

Or is Jesus being much less exclusive and meaning that we ought to love everyone? Isn’t that, after all, what he said in his Great Commandment? Remember it? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your spirit and all your mind and all your might – and love your neighbor as yourself.

Which way is it? Some churches insist it’s the first way. Love others who are just like you because they are just like you, and shun all those sinful folk who aren’t like you. I hope you understand that those churches are profoundly and sinfully wrong.

Scene 7 – Who is my neighbor?

(Luke 10: 25-37)

In the gospel of Luke’s version of the Great Commandment story, once Jesus delivers the commandment, a lawyer has a question. It’s not really a question. It’s an attempted dodge – and Jesus will have none of it.

The lawyer asks, “And who is my neighbor?” Who is the one I’m supposed to love as well as I love myself? The lawyer wants Jesus to narrow it down to just a few – members of his family, his political party, his bridge club; folks like that, folks like him.

Typically, Jesus answers by telling a story. It goes sort of like this.

On the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a Hasidic Jew is attacked by robbers and left for dead. Three potential helpers come along.

The first is a Republican. He takes one look at the poor guy lying by the road in a pool of blood, and he says to himself, ‘No way am I getting involved in this,” and he keeps on going.

Now along comes a Democrat. He takes one look at the poor guy lying by the road in a pool of blood, and he says to himself, ‘No way am I getting involved in this,” and he keeps on going.

Finally, along comes a migrant worker with expired papers. He takes pity on the robbery victim, patches him up and hauls him to the nearest aid station.

Which one of these three was a neighbor to the robbery victim? The one who showed mercy, of course.

In the eyes of Judeans and Galileans, he was a Samaritan, a detested foreigner. Yet he alone showed mercy. He alone acted as a loving neighbor.

So Jesus concludes: “Go and do likewise.”

Maudy Thursday is about the official institution of this command: Love one another.

That means that whoever you’re stuck with at any given moment, whether you like them or not, Jesus says you ought to love them as fully as Jesus loves you and as fully as you love yourself. That’s whoever you are stuck with in an elevator, in line at the grocery store, whoever and whenever: love them, want what’s best for them.

 You can try to dodge that if you like. You can try to kill it with a thousand qualifications. But deep in your heart you know the truth of it.

 Love others as I love you, Jesus says. No exceptions.

 To demonstrate, he offers another illustration. He offers a faith act that we have turned into a separate meal called Holy Communion, or Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper.

 Scene 8 – Holy communion

(1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

 The earliest narrative we have of this event comes not in the gospels but in the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth.

 Paul says:

 I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he returns.

And so Christians have done ever since, especially on this holy night.

After the meal, Jesus and the 11 sing a traditional hymn. It was probably part of Psalm 118. It has the frequent refrain, “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His steadfast love endures forever.”

 Then they go to the Mount of Olives for prayer. Judas knows this is where they’ll go, so that is where he’ll lead the soldiers to arrest Jesus.

 Jesus knows they’re coming. At some point he can probably see them moving up the hillside, their torches shining in the darkness.

 Now is a moment of decision. It’s still possible for him to drop over the other side of the hill and disappear. It would be fairly easy to elude capture, as he has eluded capture several times before. But it is not to be. Though he has prayed for release for the ordeal he knows is coming, he will not run from it.

By 9 o’clock tomorrow morning, he’ll be raised on a cross to die. To some, he looks like just another victim of the way religion and state often conspire to eliminate opposition. But we Christians have always seen a deeper meaning in his death, and his ultimate triumph over sin and death. It is the clearest revelation that we have of the great loving heart of God.

Tomorrow, on Good Friday, we hear more of the story – and on Sunday morning we hear the exciting conclusion. 

(A message delivered March 28, 2024, at Paola United Methodist Church, Paola, KS.)