Many years ago something awful happened to me after I'd been to the Maundy Thursday service. I poignantly feel the raw emotions out poured in our Easter story. The reading set for tonight is John 13: 1-17, 31b-35. If you are not familiar google it or check out your bible. My experiences in life have shown me how awful human beings can be and also how amazing they can be. That is why I will always stand up for love and always encourage everyone else to follow that amzing new commandment given by Jesus that we should "Love one another" I hope you have a blessed Holy Week. The following is a short reflection on that passage from John that I shall deliver tonight in our Eucharist.
May my words be in the name of the living God creating
redeeming and sustaining. Amen
Wendy and I went to the Cathedral for the Chrism Mass today.
Something we haven’t done together for years. It was really nice and
+Christopher preached very well. One of the things he said about the gospel
reading for that service was that it was like an episode of Come Dine With Me.
Well I think our reading this week are more like an episode of East Enders. We
have betrayal and denial by two of Jesus closest mates. We have some strange
and extravagant behaviour at a dinner party. We have the dark night of the soul
where Jesus doubts that he has the strength to face what is coming his way and
the fight in the garden when a soldier is badly hurt. Actually it sounds like
one of my family parties.
We have loneliness, abandonment, treachery, humiliation,
tiredness, brutality, hopelessness, stoicism, bravery, forgiveness, compassion,
wisdom. The list of words that express the feelings that went on during the
events around our Holy Week stories are endless, just like the list of
experiences we have and the feelings that accompany them. That’s why I love
being a Christian because I know that my God intimately understands all the
trials and tribulations that have befallen me. God doesn’t just understand them
God has lived through them in the human life Of Jesus. Ain’t that good that we
can talk to God about anything and know that God gets it?
This gospel passage is special to me. It was the first ever
reading I was given and asked to write a sermon on. Jeffrey John had set us
this exercise during my New Testament studies and I felt a bit weird about
doing it. I still couldn’t see myself standing up in front of people and
preaching at that point in time. Anyway I enjoyed the exercise I was really
surprised that I got the highest mark in the class for my exegetical sermon. As
a result Jeffrey made me read out my assignment to the rest of the class. Oh my
days! I can still remember saying to him “You want me to do what!” I did it
with shaky legs and a shaky voice.
I needn’t have worried but I just hadn’t
updated my image of myself at that point. I re-read that sermon in preparation
for tonight and I have a few copies if you’d like one. In a nutshell I was
talking about Jesus knowing he was soon to die and yet doing this very
beautiful thing for his followers in washing their feet. In that act I can
imagine Jesus having a special word with each person and leaving them some
words of comfort as a parting gift like people often do with their loved ones
when they have a terminal illness. I still think that now all these years on
but I’d like to develop that a bit further. Terminally ill people know their
brokenness. They know their wounds, they know their frailties and yet so many
continue to sacrificially give of themselves to those around them.
Brokenness is an important word to the Maundy Thursday
liturgy. It’s when we remember the Passover meal and the synoptic gospels of
Matthew, Mark and Luke all have the words about the broken bread and Jesus
saying “do this in remembrance of me.” That’s why we see it as the institution
of Holy Communion. We have been learning with Wendy about John’s gospel being
different and John gives us the theology so in John’s gospel we have no details
about the meal because for John, Jesus is the Passover meal, he is what is to
be broken.
I was reading something earlier that said Maundy came from
the same route as mandate. I’m not sure how accurate that is but I like it
because tonight we are given a mandate. We are told very clearly remember me,
love one another and then Jesus gives us this great example of how to do it.
The whole of human endeavour is outpoured in our Holy Week
stories. Our job is to remember the mandate. Simples!
So let’s read that gospel again and really listen to the
mandate and think about what character or characters we are or have been and
why. Where are you at tonight and if Jesus was washing your feet what would he
say to you? We can share these experiences with each other after we listen to the
passage.
Reading
and discussion
And so I say again the whole of human endeavour is outpoured
in our Holy Week stories. Our job is to remember the mandate. Simples! Amen
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