Maundy Thursday: April 5, 2007.

Exodus 12:1-4 [5-10] 11-14

Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19 (NRSV)

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

As with the preceding Sunday, the readings for this day seem at first to pull in different directions. The very name of the day finds its source in the Gospel reading: "I give you a new commandment [Vulgate: mandatum novum], that you love one another" (v. 34). This calls to mind its context of footwashing and mutual service and self-sacrifice.

By contrast, the day is far more firmly linked in the popular Christian mind with the institution of the Eucharist, and this latter theme is featured both in the reading from 1 Corinthians 11, which contains what is probably the earliest written form of the Verba, and in the reading from Exodus 12, in which the Passover meal is instituted "as a perpetual ordinance" (v. 14). The potential conflict is only exacerbated when one recalls that not only does the Gospel according to John not include an account of the institution of the Supper (at least per se, however much one may see allusions in chapter 6) but that the Gospel goes out of its way to dissociate whatever meal Jesus may have shared that night with his disciples from the Passover by stressing that the festival began on Friday evening that year (19:14), not Thursday evening, as in the Synoptics.

What is the preacher to do? Most of the foregoing observations belong in the study (or perhaps in a Bible class on the lectionary), not the sermon itself. The sermon is, indeed, a teaching moment, but seldom should exegetical observations be offered for their own sake. On the other hand, it is at best harmonistic--and at worst a travesty of the text--to run roughshod over such distinctions as we have seen. How best to make these tensions creative for ourselves and our hearers?

One possibility suggests itself by analogy with a liturgical experiment that met with some success in my early days as an assistant pastor, while still in graduate school. On Maundy Thursday I led the congregation in a Passover Seder meal (very little changed from a Jewish model, as I have problems with "Christianized" Seders--but that's another story). The congregation then proceeded immediately into the church for the Divine Service. The latter then began with the sermon, which served as a pivot between the two rites and meals, allowing me to lift up both commonalities and what's "new" about the "new covenant in my blood."

Mutatis mutandis, as they say, perhaps the sermon can serve a similar function within a Maundy Thursday service using this year's readings. Depending on where in the service one places the footwashing ceremony, one could use the sermon as a pivot to the Eucharist or (if one begins with the sermon) simply to draw together the somewhat divergent elements that we have already seen, perhaps employing some of the observations below.

The Gospel reading that inspires both the name of the day and the washing of feet helps us understand that, as used by Jesus, the culturally ubiquitous word "love" has some very specific content. Contrary to popular song (ironically, most recently by a group named "Darkness"), love is not "only a feeling." For Christians, love is incarnated in Jesus, above all as he "lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13 RSV). That love, in turn, provides inspiration and finds echo in mutual--even menial--service (13:14), and it is the ultimate proof and witness that we are his disciples (13:35). That Jesus explicitly has us today in mind is suggested by his comment "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them" (13:17). The only other use of the word makarioi (blessed) in this Gospel is in the "doubting Thomas" incident in 20:29, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe," in which John's Jesus explicitly references future generations.

The public witness provided by that willing mutuality of obligation lies close to what St. Paul says of the Eucharist in 1 Cor 11:23-26. In the context of sharp words directed at all things that divide the church (but especially economic status, in this case), Paul recites the words of institution that he had "received from the Lord" and then draws this conclusion from them: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (v. 26). Whatever else he may mean by "proclaim the Lord's death," he is surely declaiming an important facet of the liturgical axiom lex orandi, lex credendi. He is saying that the way the Corinthians share in the body and blood of Christ--whether with mutual respect and deference (11:33) or as factions (11:19-21)--tells much about what they truly believe about the purpose and result of the cross that lies at the heart of the faith (2:2). In the broader context of this epistle, it is equally clear that unity or factionalism at the Eucharist is only the most obvious measure and culmination of broader issues of Christlike service versus self-advancement to be seen elsewhere (as in the succeeding discussion of spiritual gifts, including Paul's famous discourse on love in chapter 13--cf. the Gospel reading from John 13, above).

Where the preacher must take care in all of this is in the risk of letting hearers infer that faithful life and worship are their burden. It is, perhaps surprisingly for some, the reading from Exodus that prevents such a mistaken foray into Law. The Passover meal is an eternal memorial (and, indeed, a re-presentation, as in 12:27) of the Lord's monergistic deliverance of his people, Israel, from slavery and death. Deliverance does not come without cost. Blood is shed; lives are lost; indeed, gods die (v. 12). But for Israel it is a gift that reorients their whole lives, beginning with their calendars (v. 2). It is worth noting that the Passover celebration maintains a balance between the communal and individual that often has proved difficult for Christians, who seem to zigzag between "holy mother church" and "me and my Jesus." The Passover is eaten at home, by family units, but the nation's observance is supervised by the priesthood (cf. v. 1, one of the few times the LORD speaks to Aaron as well as Moses), and the slaughter of the lambs is done by "the whole assembled congregation of Israel" (v. 6).

In sum, Passover was (and continues to be) for Israel a sign of God's grace in remembrance of God's grace, to be eaten by a people "on the way" (v. 11). They, or at least their houses, are all "marked by the blood of the lamb" (vv. 7, 13) and thereby delivered from destruction, and their obedience in response is a witness to all the world to the awesome and terrible love and power of their God. For the people of the new covenant, "Pascal victim" and "Pascal bread" proclaim their own deliverance and call them to the same witness of responsive obedience: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:35). GCH