The new word Jesus offers on Maundy Thursday is not just a holy communion in bread and wine or washing of feet, but a transcending vision of service.
Maundy Thursday with social distancing
Maundy Thursday | Matthew 26
As I started preparing online liturgies for Holy Week, this is the one that scared me the most. Precisely because this is the liturgy designed to get us into each other’s space. It is all about intimacy and service. And I didn’t know how we were supposed to do that through a computer screen.
We tie two big ideas to Maundy Thursday. One comes from the Last Supper and the other comes from what happens in the gospel of John at the Last Supper. Tradition has us connect this remembering of Jesus gathering one last time with his disciples. Eating. Drinking. And then getting up and washing the feet of his disciples.
This is an act that is evocative and disorienting to the powerful. When the newly consecrated Pope Francis chose to wash the feet of women in prison, many powerful Roman Catholic cardinals and archbishops were aghast.
Washing
These are two, extraordinarily tactile elements, which require us to not only be in the same room, but be near to each other.
Each year we gather for the final Eucharist of Holy Week. We hear the word, sing, pray, and then we wash feet. Often they’re sweaty. I know mine usually are. Always approaching nervously and confused. Am I supposed to be afraid or what? Or what if I like this getting my feet washed? How weird a thing is this?
How are those home alone supposed to wash someone’s feet? Washing your own feet is called bathing.
Some have tried to add the idea of hand washing, which we’re all doing obsessively anyway. But it doesn’t quite translate, because that awkwardness is part of the point. You’re doing something for someone else that you’d never do. And they would never let you do. As a servant.
It isn’t just doing something for someone to show your love. It is putting yourself below them in the hierarchy to love them.
Feasting
The other element is the feast. The gathering at the table before tomorrow’s fast.
Each year I invite us to consume all the consecrated sacrament, including the reserves, so there is nothing to sustain us through Friday and Saturday except the Word. Jesus and his promise of salvation.
And in the midst of this night that would normally fill us with solemnity, there’s something exciting and rebellious about finishing everything up. Rather than the fasting of Lent, it feels like the pre-fast of Shrove Tuesday, when we pig out on pancakes and sausage. We come up for seconds and thirds. We first sip the wine and then when it comes by the second time, we drink. And if there’s a third, we gulp.
Those who have experienced this with us are used to staying at the rail. Eventually you’ll get a handful of bread. No point in lining back up. This night, there is more than enough. We eat and drink it all.
A New Story
This year, as we gather in our homes, remembering together as one in many places, I invited us to hear a new story. Not at the table, but out of town; in Bethany. A woman (it doesn’t give her name) pours a jar full of ointment on Jesus’s head.
Now, this is kind of a strange image, to be honest. I’m trying to imagine it and it doesn’t get any less awkward.
But let’s not dwell on the pouring yet. Dwell on how the disciples respond and how Jesus responds.
It isn’t only Judas angry about this “waste of resources.” All of them are mad.
It makes them angry.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a group that worries about money, but let me tell you. What makes everyone mad is never the same thing. I guarantee that they didn’t all think “oh the poor will have less.” At least someone is worrying about balancing the budget. And someone else is worried about their ministry project.
But note that their response isn’t disappointment or confusion. It was anger. The action angered them.
I have seen church people get angry about greater and lesser things than the use of expensive ointment. And yet it never looks like the response Jesus would give. The targets of his anger are injustice and inequality.
They are angry, but Jesus is not. As much as we are often like the disciples in this story, we, like them, are trying to be more like Jesus. And he is far from angry.
Jesus
There he is, probably dripping with oil, smelling of sweet and floury scents. An image that would induce laughter in a 20th Century sitcom, elicits a different response from his disciples.
“Why do you trouble the woman? … By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial.”
The record scratches and the anger dissipates.
It’s not about the oil. Or the poor. Or, in a very real sense, even Jesus sitting with them.
Jesus is going to die.
And who really wants to think about that? Jesus warned them several times and they keep avoiding it. Why would this be any different?
Facing Death
Perhaps most surprising is what Jesus says next. Which is hard to believe since he just referred to the oil dripping from his hair and beard as anointing for burial.
“Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”
In remembrance of her. Not Jesus. Not the Christ.
She is the center of the gospel in this last moment. In this last gathering with his students. Her action embodies the gospel. We’re to remember her today.
And it is almost fitting, then, on this day of holy intimacy and service, that we are to remember a woman and her act of true grace and we don’t even know her name. She is the picture of service.
“Wherever this good news is proclaimed,” we proclaim what she has done, remembering her.
She didn’t avoid death.
Or change the subject.
She faced her Lord’s death,
acknowledged its coming,
anointed him for burial,
even when she could have enjoyed one last meal with him.
Serving Others
Tonight, we’re remembering her act of grace together. It might not feel like we’re together, but we are. There might appear to be distance between us, but it isn’t true—only physically true.
Ruth A. Meyers, Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Liturgics at Church Divinity School of the Pacific reminds us that in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when we are all yearning to be physically present with one another, tradition reminds us of Spiritual Communion.
St. Thomas Aquinas refers to spiritual communion as “an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the most holy sacrament and lovingly embrace him” in the midst of those times when we cannot physically receive the sacraments.
Meyers writes:
“Any Christian desiring to receive the sacrament can offer a prayer for their own spiritual communion.”
The Prayer Book for the Armed Services offers us this prayer:
“In union, O Lord, with your faithful people at every altar of your Church, where the Holy Eucharist is now being celebrated, I desire to offer to you praise and thanksgiving. I remember your death, Lord Christ; I proclaim your resurrection; I await your coming in glory. Since I cannot receive you today in the Sacrament of your Body and Blood, I beseech you to come spiritually into my heart. Cleanse and strengthen me with your grace, Lord Jesus, and let me never be separated from you. May I live in you, and you in me, in this life and in the life to come. Amen.”
Communing Tonight
We may not be in a position to physically wash another’s feet or partake in the sacraments, but our hearts still yearn, our minds still remember.
Tonight, let us keep the faith. Remember. Partake in this spiritual communion eagerly, enjoy the company of friends through the internet, offer opportunities to serve and bless those serving our communities—especially for the hungry and the homeless; the sick and the dying.
Keep serving with grace, feasting on the Word, believing in the resurrection, and following in the way of Christ. His way of Love with hope and thanksgiving.