What do we remember?

 

A Sermon preached on April 17, 2025 Maundy Thursday at St. Augustine’s

Exodus 12: 1 – 4, 11 – 14, Corinthians 11: 23-26, John 13: 1 – 17, 31b – 35

Maundy Thursday sometimes seems like the ritual equivalent of a poor mixed up kid! We reenact three very different events. A shared meal, foot washing and a late-night prayer vigil. One thing that connects them of course is that the events behind them all happened on that one night, about 2000 years ago. First Jesus shared a meal, possibly a Passover meal, with a group of his followers that among other things we call the Last Supper. It was actually not the last meal Jesus would share with his disciples, many post-resurrection encounters include the sharing of food, but it was the last before the crucifixion. We heard Paul’s account in his letter to the Corinthians, which is the oldest version, predating the Gospels.

During that meal, according to John’s Gospel (13:4-5), Jesus “got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.” This is unusual in several ways. Servants would wash the feet of (honoured) guests – but usually when they arrived, not in the middle of the meal. And – though we have other exceptions (see Mary in the Gospel on Sunday 6 April) – it was the job of servants or slaves, and not the master or teacher!

Finally, though we did not hear that as part of our readings tonight, but we did on Palm Sunday when the Passion Gospel was read, Jesus and his disciples left for the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives:  “When he reached the place, he said to them, "Pray that you may not come into the time of trial." Then he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, knelt down, and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done."  (Luke 22:39-40)

Following Jesus’s commands, “do this in remembrance of me” for the meal, “you also should do as I have done to you;” for the foot washing and “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial” for the vigil, we relive these three events each Maundy Thursday, re-experiencing and inhabiting them, trying to make them part of our lives. At our church, we remember the Last Supper every week of course, when we celebrate the Eucharist. I think that whenever we share a meal in love, with friends, and perhaps even more with strangers, we are also obeying his command and reliving the Last Supper!

Were we Mennonites, we would repeat the Foot washing several times a year. They consider this, like the Last Supper, to be an ordinance of the Lord and Article 13 of the Mennonite Church of the USA’s Confession of Faith justify it as follows: “Believers who wash each other’s feet show that they share in the body of Christ. They thus acknowledge their frequent need of cleansing, renew their willingness to let go of pride and worldly power, and offer their lives in humble service and sacrificial love.”

And we could argue that we obey Jesus’ call to pray that you may not come into the time of trial every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer of which that is a part.

But these three events are connected not only by their timing, by having happened on that one fateful night. They are connected by something deeper, by Jesus’s self-giving. In the bread and wine Jesus gives of himself: This is my body; this is my blood. At every Eucharist we receive that gift! On Palm Sunday we heard the so-called Christ Hymn in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2:7-8): “he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself.”  There is nothing more humbling than washing feet. This is another act of self-giving, of visibly giving up privilege and rights and power. And finally, in the garden, he gave himself up to capture, without resistance, even knowing where that capture would end: “He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8)

“Do this in remembrance of me,” is not just about the act, about repeating the outer signs of a past event, but about the motivation, its inner meaning. “Do this in remembrance of me,” is also a call to self-giving, to “take up your cross and follow me!” (Matthew 16:24) We are called to share not just meals, but of our wealth and bounty, of our very selves. We are called to acts of humble service: We are called to sacrificial love. The more I see what selfishness, all the “me and us firsts” causes in the world, the more I am convinced that this is truly the only way to live.

The Gospel reading ended with Jesus’s new commandment, mandatum in Latin after which Maundy Thursday is named:

“Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)

Everything else we do in remembrance of him points to this, to love one another as He loves us. Nothing more, nothing less.

Amen.