Holy/ Maundy Thursday

We pray for those who are filled with hatred, for those who turn to violence to settle conflicts. May the healing love we celebrate today effect a deep change of heart. We pray for the gift of recognizing in every human face the traces of a brother or a sister.  

By the end of the fourth century it had become common to conduct the eucharist on this occasion. An evening celebration became a means of recalling the Last Supper. Through the act of foot washing, it also became an occasion for stressing the responsibility of believers to do as Jesus did.  

 “Maundy” derives from the Latin mandatum, “command,” a derivation from Jesus’ remark in John 13:34 that he gives his followers a “new commandment,” namely, “to love one another.”  

 Holy Thursday is the beginning of the Great Feast. 

 Exodus12:l-14 reminds us that Christians see this night in relation to the Jewish Passover. Both celebrations are rituals of community solidarity. There is also the role of the lamb whose sacrifice marks God’s people and keeps them from harm. The meaning of Jesus’ death becomes rooted in the final meal he shared with his disciples, making this the Christian form of paschal sacrifice.  

 Breaking bread and sharing the cup are means of entry into Jesus’ death and, by implication, into eternal life. The hallmark of discipleship is service: “the leader must become like one who serves.” The common meal and the life of service reveal a kingdom that “I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me.”  

 Discipleship entails taking Christ’s ministry into one’s life and into the larger world.  

 The nature of this ministry of service is dramatized in John 13:l-15. Here the focus of the Last Supper shifts from the meal to Jesus’ example of service. The use of cleanliness as a moral metaphor encompasses a reference to the one who will betray Jesus. Cleanliness indicates the high quality of life to which Christians are called.  

 Present the primary symbols of the celebration: bread, wine, ewer and basin with towels. The cross can remain in the background. Symbols are richest when they are fully celebrated, not merely displayed. Wash the feet of the assembly liberally with plenty of scented water and dry with oversized, fluffy towels. If wine is used, purchase a high quality, full-bodied red wine that is not too dry. Have the best bread bakers in the parish/congregation prepare the communion loaves.  

 During our most ancient celebrations, we return to music that reflects our 2,000-year heritage of faith. Chants and motets should not be discarded for the new and trendy. As we return to these celebrations each year, the majority of our texts, responses and music should be familiar. When people know what to expect, they are able to enter fully into the liturgy’s gestures, movements and rituals.  

 Just as good manners provide us with a code of behavior that helps us to negotiate social occasions with friends and strangers, so do our rituals allow us to immerse ourselves into our gathering and its function without wondering what we are supposed to do next.
 

  

 “Holy/ Maundy Thursday,” Liturgy 11, no. 4 (1994): 31-32.

God Has Made You Clean – 24 April 2016 – Fifth Sunday of Easter

Judith Simonson challenges Christians to take notice of the passages from scripture that we privilege over other passages. We do this with the Bible just as some Christians treat the Koran.

On what bases do we prioritize the scriptures? How ought we to engage in this privileging, given the sometimes contradictory pronouncements from the word of God?

On this Sunday when we are still freshly celebrating the Resurrection, we might explore what it would mean to give priority to what liberates, what “makes new,” what welcomes and embraces, rather than to what differentiates and judges. Peter challenges us to love, as does John’s Gospel: “love one another as I have loved you.”

John 13:31-35

When it comes to picking and choosing sacred texts, Christians hold their own in a world of diverse faiths. It has become altogether too easy in recent years to point to difficult verses in the Koran and lay blame for world events there. But we Christians are also adept at pulling out isolated verses from the Bible to buttress our arguments on current disagreements, while ignoring seemingly contradictory texts. . . .  

I submit, here, that the main contribution Christianity makes to the world of religion is to tell about God's love for the undeserving as it was given flesh and blood in the story of Jesus. Jesus' command that we love as he loved, continue[s] to make real that which would otherwise be an abstraction. Jesus had to go away, but we are here. His way of life as a demonstration of God's love is now to be our way of life. . . .

[W]e in the churches are filling the newspapers and airwaves with discussions of church polity, lifestyles, hymnals, gender issues, popular religious figures and their downfalls, and complaints that Christmas is becoming too commercial. At the same time, people learn how the world works and come to the conclusion that God must have the same value system. In our world, you are rewarded for what you do, respected for what you have, and money will buy almost anything you want. Why shouldn't people come to believe that heaven can be bought, too?

Jesus calls us to live in another way entirely, demonstrating being God's way of being: loving without regard for wealth or status, and willing to sacrifice for the good of the other. Our motivation needs to be clear also, lest people think we are doing this to curry favor with God. We care for others out of gratitude for what God has already done for us. One advantage of being out of step with the world is that people are more likely to ask why. – Judith E. Simonson

Acts 11:1-18

In Acts, God struggles to adjust Peter's assumptions to the scope of God's mission, and a person Peter had thought to be outside the bounds of salvation receives the Good News with joy. What assumptions does God struggle to adjust in your congregation? What eagerness for the gospel might you begin to see in those whom you are hesitant to reach? – Taylor Burton-Edwards

It is extremely provocative to take into serious consideration Peter’s teaching that “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.” God makes clean all those who enter the baptismal waters. We are drowned and brought back into life. We are utterly changed. But there are some people in our world, in our communities, and in our neighborhoods and families who are not recognized as the newly born baptized. This passage calls us to ask: Who today is called “profane”? Who, then, must we stop maligning?

Revelation 21:1-6

In Revelation, God comes to dwell among mortals on a new earth where, among other things, the undrinkable water of the sea and human tears are made new and offered as the water of life to all who thirst. How does your congregation “desalinize” the chaotic, pain-filled waters around you and invite all to receive the water of life? – Taylor Burton-Edwards

Judith Simonson is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Taylor Burton-Edwards is the Director of Worship resources for the United Methodist Church.

Homily Service 40, no. 6 (2007): 3-10.