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SERMONS

Maundy Thursday
April 5, 2007

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

We call this day “Maundy Thursday.” The word maundy is derived from a Latin word in in the first antiphon traditionally sung at the ceremony of the washing of the feet. The first words are “Mandatum novum” -- Latin for “new commandment.” It’s from the gospel of John. The “new commandment” is the one Jesus gave to his disciples after he had washed their feet. He said to them: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you...”

For many of us, the image of Jesus stooping down to wash the feet of his disciples on their last night together, is a most powerful image of servanthood, an icon, if you will, of what it means to engage in servant ministry. Christ washed the dirty feet of his disciples, one by one, on the night before he died. And Jesus told them to follow his example in how they treat one another. To wash the feet of a fellow traveller was something that slaves usually did. So for the leader and teacher to wash the feet of his followers was an act of great humility.

Tonight we lift up that icon of servanthood, by re-enacting that scene from John’s gospel in our own way. We take water and basins and sponges and towells, and we take turns washing the feet of our fellow travellers. Participation is not mandatory, but those who wish to may come forward, sit in one of these chairs, and have your feet washed by another person. Then, you’ll get up, offer your chair to the person behind you in line, and you’ll wash their feet.

And foot washing is always a little awkward. Let’s tell the truth -- our feet are not usually our best features! Our feet, like the other parts of our bodies, aren’t perfect. At least mine aren’t -- mine have callouses and scars, rough places and wrinkled places. Feet are not especially pretty.

But accepting the invitation to have our feet washed invites us to put aside our self-consciousness about our feet so that we may experience for ourselves what it might have felt like to have had our feet washed by Jesus himself. For some of us, it is not easy to let someone else take care of us, even in this small way. But the washing of feet can be a vivid reminder of the call to all Christians to love one another and to serve in Christ’s name. This night reminds us vividly what servanthood looks like. It is quiet. It is active. It is done in the name of love. Our call to ministry may take many forms -- it may be washing one another’s feet, or taking soup to a sick person, or visiting a lonely person, or feeding a hungry person or being kind to a difficult person. And one of the things tonight reminds us is to pay attention to those moments of invittion, when we have the opportunity to reach out to another person in the name of Christ.

The washing of the feet is one of several re-enactments we do during Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, we re-enact the arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem. On Palm Sunday and Good Friday, we read the Passion Gospel in parts, which means we act out in our own small way the last days and hours of Jesus’s earthly life.

But the foot washing from John’s gospel is not the only event from long ago in the life of Jesus that we celebrate and re-enact on this holy night. For on Maundy Thursday, we also celebrate the Last Supper, where Jesus instituted the sacrament of Holy Communion -- when he shared bread and wine with his disciples at the last meal he would enjoy with them on this earth.

And every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we are doing what Jesus told us to do. The Eucharistic prayer in our liturgy is always called “The Great Thanksgiving,” and that prayer always includes a description of what happened on the night before Jesus died for us.

When we celebrate Eucharist together, on this night and on Sundays and every other time we do so, we lift up and make present the saving power of God through Jesus Christ; we take and bless ordinary things, like bread and wine, and we eat and drink the consecrated bread and wine of communion.

The word eucharist is from the Greek word for “thanksgiving”. So maybe we should call Maundy Thursday the “other Thanksgiving,” because it is the night that we give thanks to God for the institution of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Take, eat. Take, drink. Do this in remembrance of me.

Tonight we give thanks for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, which makes our salvation possible. We give thanks for the gift of the Eucharist, which gives the body of Christ -- the church -- a way to remember our very reason for being -- namely, that the body of Christ, was given for us, to save our souls and to offer us new life.

“The body of Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.” (BCP 338) Amen.