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.)