Maundy Thursday

A New Commandment

Readings: Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 116:10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

Lord, you reclined at the table with your disciples as you celebrated the ancestral meal on this evening. You knew that your betrayer was sitting with you at the same table. You knew too that there was no other way but the suffering that awaited you.

You took bread in your hands, praying those ancient words, “This is the bread of suffering that our ancestors ate in a foreign land. Let all who are hungry come to the Passover meal. May the eternal, the Almighty, send a blessing on us and on all the Lord’s people.” You gave us a new explanation for the breaking of bread. Your life was about to be given in sacrifice. You could not have known that two thousand years later we would gather on this night and break bread and bless the cup, remembering your sacrifice.

Then during supper you rose from the table. Removing your outer garment, you wrapped a towel around your waist. You poured water into a basin. Kneeling down on the ground, you began to wash the feet of your followers. What a lesson in humility and service you communicated to us that night. You, our Lord, performed a task that not even a Jewish slave would be asked to do.

"Do you know what I have done?" you asked them. "You call me Teacher and Lord - and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done. Happiness will be yours if you behave accordingly."

You taught us a lesson that evening. You taught us that authority was to be a form of service. No one should be allowed to rule who had not proven their willingness to serve.

So often there is a gulf between those who serve and those who are served, between those who rule and those who are ruled. There is so much misunderstanding and hurt. Those in low positions feel misunderstood, unappreciated. They deem those in high positions as being remote and uncaring. They continue in judgement of one another until their hearts become bitter.

Would that we might follow instead your loving example. What a world this would be if we did. Just for once, let the policeman be arrested; the priest sit in the pew; the teacher sit at a desk; the foreman take a shift on the assembly line; the warden be locked in a cell; the doctor become sick and lie in the hospital bed; the judge be judged; the wealthy line up at the food bank; the person with the secure job line up at the unemployment office.

You call us to be a servant people, to live in solidarity with all of humanity. And weknow that only when we are a servant church will we have any relevance in our world. Tonight we come together to share as family at the Eucharist. We are sent out as servants into the world.

We know, Lord, that we should give everything. We should give everything until there is not a single pain, a single misery, a single sin in the world. We should then give all, Lord, all the time. We should give our lives.

But wait! That cannot be what you are saying. I am exaggerating. I must be. It doesn't make sense. It is simply too much for you to be asking of us.

Yet Lord, we know. There is only one commandment for everyone. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Love your neighbour as yourself. Lord teach us your way of service and love.