Maundy Thursday

Today we celebrate Maundy Thursday: "Maundy" comes from the Latin meaning mandate or command. Jesus gives his disciples and all of us a command: Love one another as I have loved you. 

But, unlike an earthly ruler, Jesus doesn't just bark a command and return to royal duties. Instead, Jesus shows us how to enact this love. In following the example set by Jesus, we come to see that this love is much more than a warm fuzzy feeling. It is a giving love, not a needy love. It is a love that calls us to dive into the dirty mess of life with one another, washing each other's feet and serving others along the way.  

Over and over, God's call to us means that we must be willing to push our comfortable boundaries, embrace outsiders, and give up the notion that there is not enough to go around. We may resist, lose our tempers, but the call of God is insistent, calling us all, individually by name, until we finally step over the lines we have drawn for ourselves and discover a whole new world of plenty on the other side.

Jesus' enemies counted on his fear of death to shut him up and shut him down, but they were wrong. He may have been afraid and even disappointed. But, he spent his last free moments serving others, breaking bread with those whom he loved. 

Love one another as I have loved you; step out of your comfort zone, push a limit, take a risk, give up playing it safe. You have nothing to lose but your life the way it has been; and if you get scared, which you will, and if you get mad, which you probably will too, remember today's gospel story.

With Jesus as our model, we are called to step over the lines we have drawn for ourselves in loving and serving one another, not because we have to, and not because we ought to, or even because we always want to, but because we know that it is God's own self who waits for us with his grace, His unending gift love, on the other side of the Cross.

On this eve so long ago, Jesus shows us something very important: that our God wanted to do something to help real people, people who might be walking wounded like you and me—he wanted to feed them and to make them clean, to restore them to the glory of being Beloved Children. 

So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

I invite you to come tonight as we remember and enact the actions of our master, our Lord Jesus Christ. The greatest joy I know as a priest/pastor is in sharing the Word and Meal with you weekly; and tonight, in washing the feet of those who labor in Christ's vineyards every day.