Maundy Thursday 2020

A Poem/Reflection for Maundy Thursday St. Andrew's Church, Nags Head, N.C. April 9, 2020 Thomas E. Wilson, Supply Clergy

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-17, 31b-35 Psalm 116:1, 10-17

Maundy Thursday 2020 

The time between Palm Sunday to Easter Eve is called Holy Week. The idea of Holy Week begins in the 4th Century after Christianity become legal, and the favored religion in the Roman Empire. The Emperor Constantine's Mother, Helen, a devout Christian traveled to Palestine to visit the places where Jesus lived, died and rose again. It was three centuries after the Jesus event and Jerusalem had been destroyed and rebuilt during that time so it was sketchy to find the actual steps of Jesus. But when Helen gets to town and starts building churches and monuments, the locals come up with some guesses. Christians start making pilgrimages to what they called “The Holy Land” and a tourist trade developed and flourished until the 7th century when the Muslim Conquerors disrupted the easy access. The 4th Century local version of the Chamber of Commerce came up with the idea of having a special week. Those of us who live on the Outer Banks understand the hospitality industry's idea of “special weeks.” In this week, the week before the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, the mass of pilgrims would begin. 

It began with a re-enactment of the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Then, different events about the teachings and miracles of Jesus observed for the next several days. Thursday had an enacted remembrance of the last supper, washing of the feet, prayer on the mount of Olives, the betrayal and arrest, followed by the denials of the disciples. Then after a night of darkness they would move into Friday where they would walk through the events of the trail, carrying the cross, crucifixion and burial. Saturday would be a day 

of reflection and silence with a highpoint service in one of the churches that Helen had built where she had been told was the burial tomb site of Jesus, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The service would begin after dark and continue to sunrise when candles would be extinguished and the cry would go out that “Christ is Risen.” Communion would follow and the pilgrimage would end with a feast. 

Pilgrims who had come back to their local churches, shared the news of how special the experience had been. Since the trip was both expensive and dangerous, local churches started to create a virtual pilgrimage of Holy Week for the rest of us. 

Today in Holy Week is called “Maundy Thursday.” The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word for mandated. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke and in Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians, Jesus’ command “Do this in remembrance of me!” refers to Jesus' Institution of the Last Supper. Jesus is celebrating Passover with his disciples where the Exodus story is told in order to remember who they are as good Jews; having a faith in God that God will deliver them out of the hands of their enemies. In the Passover celebration there is a Hebrew response to each miracle: “Dayenu” which means, even if it was only that; it would have been enough. Miracle upon miracle! This dependence on God's love is remembered and Jesus is telling them, whenever you eat bread or drink wine, know that God’s love and grace continues and there is still more to come. This is who we are, who follow him, people who trust God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. So, communion is whenever and wherever you are, and you trust. During this time of staying at home and social distance, please see each time you eat your daily bread or each time you drink something, even water remember that the Risen Christ is with you. 

When I first went to seminary, 39 years ago, the second day after I unloaded the U-Haul truck, I ended up in the hospital and two days later was sent up to Nashville to have surgery. At the small local Sewanee hospital, Bishop Girault Jones, the 7th Bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana, who had retired to Sewanee and became the Interim Dean of the Seminary was also volunteering to do weekly Eucharist Service in the Chapel at the Hospital and would take communion to each person who requested it. He told me before the service, to stay in bed and begin my prayers at the time he would begin the service. If he came to my room and the Doctors were with me, he would not interrupt them; but for me to know that I had received the communion by intension. It is a doctrine that if you are about to receive a sacrament you have prepared yourself for by prayer and are prevented from actually receiving it that God's grace was so sufficient that I would have received it by intension. For those of us who are now living through a time of social distance due to the Covid-19 virus pandemic, Intension Reception is a good doctrine to hold on to. 

The other element of Maundy Thursday is from the Gospel of John, who remembers the last Supper as the last chance Jesus had to remind his followers to minister to others and be vulnerable to being ministered unto, by the institution of the Washing of the Feet in remembrance of Him. The washing of feet in church services goes way back in the history of the Christian Church. It is an outward and visible sign that whenever we do a gift of ministry to help someone, we are doing it through Christ living in us. Also, whenever we receive a gift of ministry, we are to see it as someone being an image of Christ to us and to vulnerable enough to receive the gift of God's love. 

I was first introduced to foot washing in an Episcopal mission on Maundy Thursday 48 years ago. The Church of the Servant was meeting in people's houses and in an elementary school in Wilmington, N.C. I was a social worker at the time and had no problem accepting other people and ministering to them; but, like Peter in John's Gospel story for today, I had real problems allowing God or people to get close to me as my ego, my pride - the mother of all my sins, gets in the way. Jesus, over the years since, has been working on me to be vulnerable to God's grace and on good days I am able to allow it. We are all works in progress, as faith is not a destination but a journey. 

Today, be vulnerable to God's miracles and grace. 

Maundy Thursday

Before the parishioner he knelt down,

washing her feet on Maundy Thursday,

proud to show how he’s, on this day,

one of the humblest men in this town.

But -now it comes -his own ugly feet

to be accepted, to be ministered unto,

embarrassed, not wanting to go though,

looking for easy way a retreat to beat.

Jesus! I’m not sure I want you this close,

To see me as I am, I want to extenuate,

giving reasons that me, you won’t hate,

from thoughts of my head to my toes.

This church isn’t doing feet these years,

Yet, He’s daily washing souls by His tears.