Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Maundy Thursday, 28 March 2024.
Miniature depiction of the Last Supper from c. 1230 (Source)
• First Reading: Exodus 12: 1-4, 11-14 (The Passover)
• Epistle: 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26 (Instruction on marking the Last Supper)
• Gospel: John 13: 1-7, 31-35 (A new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples)
I suppose that the family meal must be the oldest institution in the world. The gathering of the family to eat together – to share time and space with nourishment and to allow these to build into kinship, loyalty, humour, the sense of belonging that comes before clan or tribe or nation.
And this was the foundation of the Passover as instituted by Moses – the focus on family life which was also being melded into the life of the nation. But the simplicity of the family meal is still the foundation of what follows.
And God took this as the starting point for a community that would know Him as the One who had saved them and delivered them from slavery, leading them into a new kind of freedom.
It would develop its own liturgy and customs, but not lose its focus on Him. It would survive war, famine, dictatorship, civil strife, natural disaster, exile and massacre.
And yes, it would be the foundation of a new understanding of and relationship with God.
As Jesus was facing His crucifixion and trying also to look beyond it to His resurrection, and to the life of the community of His disciples, He also took what was already the common currency of His disciples and transformed it.
Again there was the sharing of food and wine and fellowship. The household gathered around its head, in this case Jesus.
But now He gave it new significance. First, He divested Himself of all traces of honour and did the most menial thing He could think of – washing the feet of the disciples.
It might be menial but it was also the stuff of leadership. While the institutions of Israel and Rome and Greece and everywhere else were all about status and the magnificence of the leaders, Jesus’ interest was in the life of the community and everyone in it, at its most basic level.
The disciples’ feet may be grimy, never mind sweaty and smelly, but they needed tending to, and this was part of their life together. And if their feet needed tending, then so did their thoughts, feelings, memories, expectations.
Their relationships and aspirations, the things that stimulated them and which also overawed them: were all part of the life of that community.
He was not very interested in Annual Meetings, in motions and resolutions, audited accounts or rules of order. That was for organizations rather than families. They might be necessary in due course but must never take precedence over the life of the community of faith.
But then there was more. A community without a focus or aim would soon dissipate.
Now He was pouring Himself into the bread and the wine. It is interesting that John’s account places it after Judas Iscariot had left the Upper Room. But now Jesus was giving them something that really would remain down the centuries.
For whatever happened to Jesus – or to the disciples – the sharing of the bread and wine were a sharing in Jesus Himself. He would be there – not so much as a matter of liturgy but as a matter of His self-giving in real time.
The books and colleges of theology might help, but would never be a substitute. The lived and shared experiences of the community of faith would always be the hallmark of the life He had come to impart to them, and the quality of their love for one another would be the pointer to their faith in Him.
And so in the simplest way possible, Jesus was giving them the foundation for their lives together in prayer and worship, in which He would be central, but the disciples themselves would be the evidence for His salvation as they moved out into the city squares and the countryside, throughout the world.
‘Do this in Remembrance of Me’ would become a command to love one another, as they allowed His love to flow through them.
