The Strength to Love: A Maundy Thursday Sermon

 

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

This simple phrase is really the bedrock of our Christian faith.

If we live in love and have love for one another…care about each other…listen to each other’s stories…celebrate each other’s successes…mourn each other’s losses…we are actually moving in the direction of being the people God so desires us to be.

A people in relationship with each other…rising and falling and rising again with each other.

So…it made me sad when I heard an interview with a preacher from the more evangelical…non-denominational tradition…say that when he preached on the Beatitudes…Jesus’ opening to the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew…and emphasized the “love” of Jesus… the response from his congregation was anger and rejection.

They told him in no uncertain terms that to love as Jesus did is “weak.”

And they weren’t about to be weaklings.

I hardly think that Jesus is a weakling.

In fact…he takes a lot more guts and grit to follow the path that he took.

To dare to stand up to the oppressive occupying force of Rome and call out the corruption of religious collaborators…remaining steadfast in his trust in God and never lifting a weapon to do it…. that’s powerful.

To love as Jesus did also means to step down…in fact…stoop down…to wash the feet of his disciples.

They don’t understand this at first.

We hear Peter asking Jesus to not just wash his feet but every part of his body.

And while he doesn’t say this, we can get the sense that Jesus was looking at his dear beloved disciple and with a sweet smile telling him, “This isn’t about hygiene, friend, I trust you did shower today.”

This foot-washing ritual is an act of purification…recalling the sacrament of baptim that we have inherited.

Interestingly…on this night…we also have the reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinithians where he recalls for the bickering church of Corinth…the institution of the Eucharist…when Jesus celebrated the Last Supper.

This meal…central to our own celebrations…is a type of agape meal…a love feast. At the table…Jesus transformed the traditional blessings offered over the bread and wine…and made them a tangible…physical…covenant…binding his life to his disciples…declaring that they represented his body and his blood.

And all of them ate the bread. They all drank from the cup of wine.

All of them.

Even Judas Iscariot.

Judas also presumably had his feet washed in John’s telling of the story.

All of those who were Jesus’ friends…and even the one who turned on him…were bound together through baptism and this new covenant of bread and wine.

Jesus knew trouble was brewing.

He knew that he was on a deadly path.

He knew he was going to be betrayed…in one way or another…either through an act of commission…or in acts of omission and fear by those who denied him and ran away.

And yet he loved them… all of them…to the end.

Because…in the end…Love will prevail.

This is what Jesus has passed down to us through his word and example…through the grace and forgiveness extended to those whom he loved even though they let their fears get the better of them.

This is what Jesus is calling us to remember…as we wash each other’s feet…as we gather to enjoy the Eucharist tonight: no matter who we are…what we think of ourselves…whatever labels the world slaps on us to define us…we are…at the very core of it all…God’s beloveds.

And through these acts of water…wine…and bread…Jesus is reminding us that our first duty in this life is to love one another.

This doesn’t mean we won’t have disagreements.

Or even disappointments…or disillusionments with each other’s blindness.

And Jesus reminds us to always first look for that log in our own eye before we stick our fingers in someone else’s eye to pluck out that speck.

By loving one another enough to stay in relationship…we are loving the Christ in each other.

And when we do that…we are loving the God who carried Jesus through this long night into the dawning of Easter.

As we pray the words of Psalm 22 this evening…and gaze upon an empty altar…remember that Jesus commanded us to love one another.

And it takes real strength to do that.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.