It’s easy to gloss over the story John tells,
to rush passed details to get to the Maundy of Maundy Thursday
—the Mandate, the Command,
the Law—the Law of Love!
“I give you a new commandment,
love one another just as I have loved you,
so that they shall know that you are my disciples.”
But,
if we tarry for a time,
take in some details,
we’ll notice just how strange the whole thing is
—what an odd meal…
Prayer
On several occasions I’ve had the
privilege of participating in Passover
—sitting down to a Seder meal with Jewish neighbors and friends.
One such meal sticks out in my mind…
I was in Jerusalem with an Israeli scholar-friend
one Passover,
and got to join him and some of his college buddies in a somewhat impromptu
Seder.
-We met at a public park in Jerusalem …
it wasn’t entirely clear to me that it was open…
-the Haggadah—the order of
service,
instead of using Hebrew Scripture,
used quotes from the poet Rilke,
-midway through the meal,
someone antagonized me about why we Christians scrubbed all the Jewish names
from the New Testament
(you know Miriam becomes Mary,
Yeshua HaMeshiak becomes Jesus Christ,
Shimon becomes Peter)
-and finally, an argument broke out about
how to end the service…
is it appropriate to say,
“Next year in Jerusalem”
or not…
especially when you’re literally in Jerusalem.
I kinda stumbled out of the whole thing
thinking,
“What a weird meal!”
What just happened?
Well, that was odd!
And I imagine the Disciples had a similar
experience,
at the end of the last supper…
what an odd meal.
The meal is a pre-emptive Passover meal
—at least in John’s Gospel
—because for John, Jesus has to die as the Passover Lambs are slaughtered
—because he is the Lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the Whole World…
So, this meal is Passover, and not
Passover,
Different, but the same.
It has a flavor of the event, but is its own event.
There is an order to Passover—but this thing,
there isn’t a familiar beat to it
—its something else,
uncomfortably so.
Uncomfortable too,
the blossoming betrayal building
—Judas seated there with the other disciples
—deceptive in his partaking of this meal
—or maybe like the Pre-Passover, it is a pre-deceit,
a horrible experience, like that moment before a fall,
when you feel the ground give way,
when your sense of balance shouts out, “Oh no!”
And halfway through the meal,
the Host, the Teacher, the Lord,
he strips and kneels and takes the form of a slave
—washing his guest’s, student’s, disciple’s feet.
Disgusting insists Peter.
Not you! My Lord, My Teacher!
Not you!
And after a back and forth
—Peter does what he always does
—He’s all out
Or he’s all in.
Remember, he’s the Disciple who throws
himself off the boat while still clothed,
He stands on the waves and then he sinks.
“Never wash me,
wash me to my core!”
No half measures, no middle ground, with
this man! All in or all out!
The meal, then interrupted by the host’s
accusation,
“One of you is not clean!
One of you will betray me.”
Followed by Judas’ awful exit.
Then a farewell, by the host
—my children, my little ones,
where I go, you can not come.
As you have leaned on one another’s sides this meal,
now I shall go to lean on my father’s side
—abiding with God,
so that there shall be abiding places for us all.
As I leave, I give you a mandate, a
command,
the Law of how to live together without me present as I have been:
“I give you a new commandment,
love one another just as I have loved you,
so that they shall know that you are my disciples.”
Especially with the disastrous and divine
events yet to unfold
—the awful Passion of Good Friday,
I imagine they stumbled out of the upper room saying,
“What a weird meal!”
“What just happened?”
“Well, that was kind of odd!”
And it is in that mess:
the ambiguous goodbyes, the betrayals, the overwrought extra,
the surprise and discomfort and disorder
—in that wild mix that is the Body of Christ
—that love holds it all together.
Love,
not an option, but a command
—not as we ought, but as we are able
Love,
not a means to an end, but the end itself!
not an abstraction, but the very muck of community.
Love,
not ours to command or conjure, but because of him! Because of
Jesus!
not from our lifeblood, to pour out like an empty cup,
but because Jesus abides with us
and has brought to us abundant life!
This love! His Love! This Love is
commanded is the Love first given; this is the Love of Jesus!
Thanks be to God! Amen.
