“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin for “new commandment,” mandatum novum.
This Holy Week, we are focusing on Pope Francis’ statement that “authentic power is service.” Nowhere do we see this more clearly than now, on Maundy Thursday, when our Lord takes the bread, breaks it, and tells us that it is his Body, given for us, and then shares the cup and tells us that this is his Blood, shed for us, and he calls us to do this in remembrance of him. Do this for the anamnesis, do this for the unforgetting of him, for the calling of him into our midst.
And then, he, the Lord of all, the One who called the worlds into being, does the work of a servant. He washes our feet, and we have to remember that in his day, feet really got dirty, because most people went barefoot. Our Lord has such humility that he washes our dirty feet.
And he calls us to love one another as he has loved us. He calls us to love everyone, especially the least of these, his brothers and sisters, the weakest, the very young, the very old, those who are ill, those who are disabled, those who need help. He calls us to do what he did, to love and serve others.
Today we will share in the Eucharist and in the footwashing. Taking off our shoes and socks makes us vulnerable in a sense. But vulnerable to what? To Christ’s love. And then we will share a simple agape feast as Jesus and his disciples would have done and as the early Christians did, and then, in silence, we will strip the altar. As we do these things, let us remember the words of our brother Francis, “Authentic power is service.”
Lord Jesus, may we serve others in your Name.
Amen.
Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: anamnesis, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Passiontide, servanthood |
Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT) 