Maundy Thursday, 03/28/2013

Sermon on John 13:1-17, 31-35, by Samuel D. Zumwalt

¹Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ²During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, ³Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, ⁴rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. ⁵Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. ⁶He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" ⁷ Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." ⁸ Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." ⁹Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" ¹⁰Jesus said to him, "The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you." ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "Not all of you are clean." ¹²When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you understand what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. ¹⁴If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. ¹⁵For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. ¹⁶Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them...Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. ³²If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. ³³Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, 'Where I am going you cannot come.' ³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ³⁵ By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

HOW GOD WORKS

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (13:34). In St. Jerome's Vulgate (or Latin) Bible, "new commandment" is rendered "mandatum novum." From the Latin word for commandment "mandatum," the British call this day "Maundy Thursday." As Lutherans began to use English we borrowed the word "Maundy" from the Book of Common Prayer. Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers call this day simply Holy Thursday.

In my childhood, the primary focus of today was not Jesus' new command with the story of His washing feet; rather we gave our attention solely to His institution of Holy Communion. While the First Eucharist or Lord's Supper was the context of our Maundy Thursday celebrations, we often missed the "what does this mean for daily living" component. That is why, during this first day of the Triduum (the three days), most of us Western Christians include this reading from John 13 and our Lord's example of what He means by "love," in the Greek "agape," by hearing and then enacting the washing of feet.

It is not, at all, a flight of sermonic fancy to talk about the other words for love one finds in Greek. C.S. Lewis' famous little work on "The Four Loves" tracks through them more thoroughly than I can do here. But what we often mean by love in our daily speech is all about the feelings we have for others: passionate love for another (eros); family love (storge); love of friends and neighbors (philia). These loves are what most of us mean when we talk about love, and these often are what is meant when applied to how people generally talk about love in the Church, as if these things were what Christ was talking about in an imprecise way. From such undifferentiated use of the word "love," a multitude of misunderstanding and even bad decisions have been made.

Of course, here in John 13, again, Jesus is very precise in His use of "agape" for love. "Agape" is often rendered "caritas" in Latin from which we get our word "charity," but even that is often misunderstood. Many of us have understood that "agape" is "selfless love that expects nothing in return," but even that is given to misunderstanding. Rather, "agape" is to show or prove one's love for the other as primary by serving, as in the washing of feet here, and by giving one's life away in a life of obedience to God's good and gracious will, as in Christ's death on the cross for the sin of the world.

Because "eros" (or passionate love) is so overused and also so misunderstood, you might find it helpful to think about its connection to "agape" in the daily life of Christians. You could read Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical on love, which could have been written by a Lutheran theologian. I have provided a link in the online version of this sermon. *1

So, then, why is keeping Maundy or Holy Thursday, in the way that we do it, so important? In these three days, our Lord is teaching us by example, what He means by "love" and showing us to what kind of life He is calling us daily as His disciples.

When we come on bended knee or stand or are seated to receive our Lord's true body and most precious blood in Holy Communion, I suppose it is inevitable that our primary concern is the forgiveness of our sins, as it should be. But, then, is that it? Are we simply going to the altar, as medieval Christians often did, to borrow from the First Bank of God just enough of Christ's body and blood to cover our most recent sins? And if that is mostly it, then we perhaps have rather missed the point that it is the Lord Jesus we receive, and that He doesn't just pop in to say "I forgive you" and then pop out again. Instead, when you and I have received Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, He has united Himself to us and us to him and us to each other and us to the whole Church in heaven and on earth. How very American (and by that, I mean, individualistic) we often are in our understanding and practice of what happens when we commune!

Yesterday, we heard how Judas received from Jesus' hand the morsel dipped in the bowl on the table at the Last Supper, and then Satan entered Judas, and then Judas went out in the night to betray Jesus. If we commune unthinkingly or without sorrow for sin or without recognition of Whom it is we are receiving, we may well go and do likewise. Indeed our inner Judas is always lurking inside each of us, because we live in a world filled with the darkness of sin, death, and evil both banal and profound. Even in the Church, our inner Judas often makes him or herself known in the ways we live out our calling as children of God. American individualism simply does not get what Jesus means by love!

So, think on these things before you commune today. And let us examine our lives with a few probing questions: 1) Have I casually or cavalierly come to the altar without thought of my own sin and without thought that I am receiving Jesus? 2) Have I been indifferent to His call to worship and particularly His call to confess my sins and repent of them? 3) Have I been a church hopper, one jumping from church to church without ever committing to the life of following Jesus in one Christian congregation? 4) Do I serve my neighbor when it's convenient or when I think it would be something that was good for my children to learn? 5) When it's inconvenient to meet my obligations do I tell others that I am far too busy to find a replacement? And, if so, does that mean that I think others are just not as busy as I? And, is it possible that I am acting as if everyone else has been placed in my life to meet my needs? 6) Do I treat Jesus' commandment to love as simply a call to feel close to particular people? And, if so, am I absolved from Jesus' command if I don't like others or if I don't feel like helping? 7) Have I defined church for myself as a community of my friends or the people I feel closest to, so that I am trapped in a church of the past that no longer can be located in the present? 8) Do I understand that Jesus is calling me out of my misunderstanding and individualism and even narrowness-of-thought to a life of limitless service until the day I die? And 9) Can Jesus teach me anything new through the study of His Word? Or, do I already know all I need to know?

Let us, listen again and watch the Lord Jesus, dear ones, as He teaches us by example in these three days. His new commandment to love is a call to be His Father's children and not our own persons. His new commandment is to empty ourselves, to forget ourselves, to let go of those things that are disobedient to our Father's good and gracious will, and to give our whole lives away in humble service as our heavenly Father directs in His Word. Agape love means having new hearts recreated in us again and again as we are filled with the power of the Lord Jesus' endless life and love in the Holy Communion.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel D. Zumwalt
Wilmington, North Carolina USA
E-Mail: szumwalt@bellsouth.net

Zusätzliche Medien:
*1 (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html).

Bemerkung:
John 13:1-17, 31-35 English Standard Version, © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers]

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