Revised Common Lectionary for Maundy Thursday, Year B: Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 116:1,10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Redemption is a drama in three acts – three acts and a brief intermission – tonight we take part in Act One.
Act One, Scene One: The curtain rises. We see a group of people gathered in an upper room somewhere in Jerusalem.
A meal is in progress… Is it a seder, the ritual meal of remembrance of the Passover? We don’t really know; the playwrights have not made this clear; the theater critics, the scholars debate this issue. Three of the story-tellers suggest that it is but the fourth, John, tells the tale very differently. (The synoptic gospels tell the story in a similar way and, if truth be told, in the same way – Luke and Matthew based their stories on Mark’s, so to be honest there aren’t three stories, there’s only one that would make us think that this supper is a seder, but John doesn’t. In fact, John doesn’t even care about that – he spends no time at all describing the meal, for him the important thing is what happened afterward, and that comes in a later scene. So as we begin this three-day, three-act drama of redemption, since we have heard Luke’s voice narrating the story, let’s just assume that what we see in this first scene of the first act is, indeed, a seder.)
Those present are prepared to do all that is laid out in the instructions in the book of Exodus; they have worn their sandals; they carry their staffs; they expect to eat of roasted lamb and unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They anticipate spending the night in remembrance of that which happened generations before in Egypt. If we can imagine that they celebrate as modern Jews celebrate, they expect the youngest among them to ask the questions, beginning with “Why is this night different from all other nights?” They know that the head of the household, their rabbi Jesus, will answer those questions in the prescribed way and tell the story of the Passover.
And when the youngest asks “Why do we eat the broken matzah?” they expect Jesus to answer “This is the bread of our affliction; the unleavened bread of poverty, baked and eaten in haste,” but instead he takes the bread, brakes it and says, “This bread is my body, given for you.”
Can’t you just see them in this scene, reclining in that upper room, those serving the meal coming and going, a breeze blowing through the open windows, following along in their prayer books, the Haggadah … They look up startled, glancing at one another, murmuring to each other, “What is he talking about? That’s not here! That’s not the right answer. Where is he? What page is he on?” But the moment passes, the meal moves on, until at the end he takes up the fourth and final cup of wine, the kiddush cup, which recalls God’s promise, “I will acquire you as a nation; you will be my people and I will be your God.” They expect Jesus to say, “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, sovereign of the universe, creator of the fruit of the vine,” but instead they hear, “This cup is my blood!” “What?! What is he saying???”
It is for Jesus and his disciples one of those fleeting opportunities when, because of the pupils’ confusion or frustration or grasping for understanding, the teacher can pass on to the students new information, new values, new moral understanding, a new behavior, a new skill, a new way of seeing and coping with reality; it is what we have come to call “the teachable moment” and so he teaches, yet again, “Remember! Remember,” he says, “Love one another as I have loved you.”
The curtain falls as Jesus continues to teach; the disciples look mystified.
Act One, Scene Two: The curtain rises again. We see the same group of people gathered in the same upper room somewhere in Jerusalem.
The meal is over, the dishes have been cleared. The disciples are arguing among themselves about who is the greater among them. Jesus looks frustrated and troubled; the teachable moment has passed and they clearly have not understood! They just haven’t gotten it.
“Look,” he says, “the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. Here, let me show you what I mean.” Getting up from the table, he takes off his robe, ties a towel around himself, pours water into a basin, and begins to wash and dry the others’ feet. Peter protests, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answers, “Peter, if I don’t wash you, you can’t be part of what I’m doing.” So Peter relents, “Well then, not only my feet! Wash my hands and my head, too!”
Peter speaks for us. We don’t get this foot-washing thing, do we? Washing our hands makes more sense to us, as it does to Anglican nun and poet Lucy Nanson who wrote:
Wash my hands on Maundy Thursday
not my feet
My hands peel potatoes, wipe messes from the floor
change dirty nappies, clean the grease from pots and pans
have pointed in anger and pushed away in tears
in years past they’ve smacked a child and raised a fist
fumbled with nervousness, shaken with fear
I’ve wrung them when waiting for news to come
crushed a letter I’d rather forget
covered my mouth when I’ve been caught out
touched forbidden things, childhood memories do not grow dim
These hands have dug gardens, planted seeds
picked fruit and berries, weeded out and pruned trees
found bleeding from the rose’s thorns
dirt and blood mix together
when washed before a cup of tea
Love expressed by them
asks for your respect
in the hand-shake of warm greeting,
the gentle rubbing of a child’s bump
the caressing of a lover, the softness of a baby’s cheek
sounds of music played by them in tunes upon a flute
they’ve held a frightened teenager,
touched a father in his death
where cold skin tells the end of life has come
but not the end of love,
comforted a mother losing agility and health.
With my hands outstretched before you
I stand humbled and in awe
your gentle washing in water, the softness of the towel
symbolizing a cleansing
the servant-hood of Christ.
Wash my hands on Maundy Thursday
and not my feet.
Yes, Peter speaks for us; we would rather our hands be washed. But Jesus insists, he must wash his disciples feet for only in this way does one truly honor and serve another in love, only in this way does one recall whose servant one is. He says to them, “If I, your master and teacher, have washed your feet, you must now wash each other’s feet.” Only in this way can his disciples remember his teaching that what is done for us is also to be done for others.
They don’t get the opportunity, however, for the second scene ends as Jesus becomes visibly agitated and declares, “One of you is going to betray me.”
As the curtain goes down, the disciples are looking puzzled and Judas Iscariot is leaving.
Act One, Scene Three: The curtain rises again. We see a garden and an olive grove just outside of Jerusalem. Jesus is there, accompanied by Peter, James, and John.
“Stay here,” he tells them, “Stay awake while I go over there to pray.” As they settle themselves, he moves away from them, and collapses in a heap, sobbing: “O God … Father, let this pass!”
Three times he returns to find them asleep; three times they rise looking sheepish and embarrassed; twice he tells them again to try to stay awake as he goes away still pleading with God for a way out. “Enough,” he says the third time, “Enough! We’re leaving.”
When they look back on that night, how must they feel? When we look back, how should we feel?
Poet Mary Oliver offers a glimpse in her poem Gethsemane:
The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did,
maybe the wind wound itself into a silver tree,
and didn’t move, maybe the lake far away,
where once he walked as on a blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be part of the story.
Yes, this too, our utterly human inability to fully keep company with our Lord, this too must be part of the story when it is told, as we see it unfold in the church’s memory tonight, but for now the stage fills, the garden becomes crowded … Judas returns accompanied by temple guards, and Roman soldiers, and servants of the priests … and are those some of the disciples showing up? The orchard of olives suddenly is filled with angry activity, with scuffling, with fighting, with confusion. Peter calls out, “Lord, should we fight back?” and, without waiting for an answer, draws his sword and cuts off a servant’s ear.
“Stop!” cries Jesus. He reaches out and tenderly touches the servant’s head, healing his wound. He seems sadly confused, “Why have you come to arrest me with swords drawn?” he asks, “I’ve been teaching in the temple all week! You could have taken me any time.” It all seems too much for him. Certainly, it’s too much for us! Again, a poet, Ted Loder, speaks for us:
Sometimes, Lord,
it just seems to be too much:
too much violence, too much fear;
too much of demands and problems;
too much of broken dreams and broken lives;
too much of wars and slums and dying:
too much of greed and squishy fatness
and the sounds of people
devouring each other
and the earth;
too much of stale routines and quarrels,
unpaid bills and dead ends;
too much of words lobbed in to explode
leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls;
too much of turned-away backs and yellow silence,
red rage and the bitter taste of ashes in my mouth.Sometimes the very air seems scorched
by threats and rejection and decay
until there is nothing
but to inhale pain
and exhale confusion.Too much of darkness, Lord,
too much of cruelty
and selfishness
and indifference.Too much, Lord
too much,
too bloody,
bruising,
brain-washing much.Or is it too little,
too little of compassion,
too little of courage,
of daring,
of persistence,
[too little] of sacrifice?
Jesus and his captors exit; the disciples, confused and frightened, sneak out behind them. The curtain falls. We are left in darkness….
Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, as we enter again into the mystery of these three most holy days, as we participate once again in this three-act drama of redemption, we ask you to illumine our minds and hearts with the hope and promise of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection; satisfy our hunger and thirst not for bread and drink alone, but for love, and truth, and justice, and peace; as we share your Son’s Body and Blood, renew us and energize us to be a true community of light amid the darkness of sin and injustice in our world; as Jesus invites us to share at his Table, let us in turn invite our brothers and sisters to the table where all can share the resources of your abundance, where justice and peace reign, and where love transforms souls and societies; as the drama of redemption continues, may life conquer death, may light shine in the darkness, and may courage and compassion grow from sacrifice; in Christ’s holy Name we pray. Amen.
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