Maundy Thursday 2012 "Do This In Remembrance of Me"

John 13: 1-17
I Corinthians 11: 23-26
John 13: 31-35

Among all thought, of all philosophy and poetry, human ideas about God have been our loftiest, most prized and esteemed. It is as if there needs to be a common vernacular for the existence of life, but when praising God, when singing glory to God in excelsis, when postulating about human existence and the meaning of life in relation to the Divine, we need a different, more eloquent language, a King's English as compared to colloquialisms. However, as much as we desire for our worship and language about God to be our very finest, faith is experienced in the most base and elemental relationships of life. In vows of commitment at marriage, in the changing of priorities which come with the birth of children, in their becoming adults, in remembrance of the dead, and daily gathered at the table in the breaking of bread or sharing of wine.

Throughout the last year, our Session have tried to offer the Sacrament of Communion in differing and meaningful ways, until returning to what has been most familiar and most expedient, of each person receiving while seated in their regular places.
As Jesus broke bread naming and claiming this unleavened element of the passover, this manna of God as being his own body broken for us, we have tried having one loaf. Yet human concerns about the touching and handling of the common loaf have caused us to return to having the bread broken for us to each receive.
As Jesus shared a cup of wine as being the cup of his own blood, and the sacrificial lamb's blood of the covenant of our redemption, we attempted to share wine; as well as unfermented juice for those unable to receive, and also in individual cups, which became cumbersome to identify each of these three as being different and yet being the sign and seal of the covenant.

This evening we have invited each to get up from their regular places of worship to sit at table as companions. We do so for several reasons... First because we are “companions in communion”... the word Companion made up of two Latin words cum meaning together and panis being the word for bread, so companions are literally those with whom we share the breaking of bread. It is theologically and physically impossible to have communion alone. Also, we have been invited to move from our regular places to sit at table together with The Table in the shape of the Cross from the Chancel down the aisle of the church, because this was the means of the Church of Scotland from which the Presbyterian Church in the USA originates. In the Catholic Church, the Lutheran and Anglican, their emphasis at Communion was to kneel as sinners before an Altar. In the Scottish Highlands the Reformation shift was that Jesus sat at Table with his disciples, whom he loved and trusted as companions. Third, that on this evening of Christ's Last Supper we dare not simply wait to be served in our pews unchanged, but that we need in communion to physically and spiritually and intellectually and emotionally get up from where we have routinely been, and consider whether we will claim the place we are invited to at the table.

In differing cultures around the world throughout history, believers have shared communion differently. While the Scriptures describe jesus sat at Table with his disciples, the Middleastern practice would not have been to sit on straight back Sinclair chairs from Mottville, but rather to recline on pillows on the floor. 25 years ago, I had the experience of traveling across the USSR visiting churches, none of which had pews, because they perceived it would be the height of arrogance for sinners to sit in the presence of God. One could stand, or kneel, or lay prostrate with your face on the floor, but never sit comfortably. A favorite experience came from serving another congregation, which received a memorial gift for cushions on the pews, and the church debated for six months if we should really be that comfortable in worship, or if there was not something important to us as Calvinists in sitting on hard Oak pews. What was most intriguing in sharing communion in a Georgian Orthodox Church was that when the host was offered, there were tiny loaves on a silver tray, and like birds flocking for food, the believers rushed forward, only to bring the roll sized loaf back for them to break and serve another.
What has always been fascinating about the Last Supper is that in Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet, and in his giving the gift of this Sacrament, knowing what he was about to do, Judas was present. For one of Jesus' twelve disciples to betray the Savior with a kiss for 30 pieces of Silver is the sin of Judas, that causes him to be scapegoated throughout history. But more than a simple betrayal, having known this in his mind, with the decision already made, Judas allowed Jesus to kneel down and wash his feet... Judas was given the bread and the cup, nothing was withheld from him. The invitation to receive is here for everyone, the struggle of Simon Peter is that in order to be part of the communion we first have to choose to receive.

Peter's dilemma is that Jesus is modeling something which is a complete anathema servant leadership. Peter had never been motivated by servanthood, but rather by self-interest and self-preservation, the climax of which comes this night in his being asked three times to identify himself as a companion, and three times he rejects Jesus.
To lead by servanthood, is to give up all control...
to trust that serving the needs of others will empower the body to accomplish what needs to be done,...
to vulnerably give up the pride of the leader to decide, assured that God is in control.

According to The Mechilta, one of the oldest Hebrew midrash (sermon) commentaries, not even a Hebrew Slave would Never be required to wash the feet of others. This was so intimate and so filthy a task, that while a Host was required to provide a bowl and pitcher of water and towel as an invitation, each individual would only ever wash their own feet. What Jesus offered in stripping down, wrapping the towel about himself and washing the feet of his disciples was the most servile, most subjective, lowest and most base means of service.

A towel is what a servant always had at hand. A Towel is what you wiped up spills with, what we wiped the dirty face of a child with, what you used to clean a wound, or to swaddle a child, to blot tears, or to cool a fever. A Towel goes back to the symbolic mantle of the Prophet, which Elijah struck the water with and passed on to Elisha as the badge of his office. A Towel is the origin of a pastor's stole. Different from Pontius Pilate washing his hands at the Crucifixion, Jesus' Foot Washing is an act of Apology, Forgiveness and Reconciliation. In 2004 at the World Forum for Evangelism, those who were Hutu and those who were Tutsi the warring people of Rwanda washed one another's feet, and those who were Palestinian and Israeli washed one another's feet. In 2006, a former Government Official of South Africa in a public act of apology washed the feet of an Anti-Apartheid Activist.

World culture is in the midst of change, radical, relentless change.
What we thought we knew and how we knew it, the values and priorities of the world, all have been tossed up in the air, waiting to settle. Up until recently, we thought we could make decisions by logic and deductive reason. Life was described as being a Game of Chess, the mastery of which was to think through moves and counter-moves to always be one step ahead, we each imagined we could win. While world culture has become increasingly capitalistic, with winners and losers and greater and greater segregation between us, every person believing everything and everyone has a price...
Still this Sacrament has always been an Invitation to the Whole World:
“You do not know now what God is doing, but later you will understand.”
“Do this in remembrance of me.”