washing feet, 1987

 

On this night when he freely gives himself to death

MEDITATION AT St. JOHN’S, EAST BENTLEIGH

MAUNDY THURSDAY (April 23^rd) 1987

 

 

Maundy Thursday; the time at which, since the fourth century, Christians have gathered to remember our Lord’s giving to his people the sacrament of the Holy Communion meal.

Maundy Thursday; since the eighth century the time at which those excommunicated from the church, having completed suitable penance, were admitted once more into the fold of believers.

Maundy Thursday; since perhaps the tenth century the day associated with Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet, an event commemorated in churches throughout the world by foot washing liturgies.

Maundy Thursday; the day mysteriously so named not, as some might believe, to add to the obscurity of our religion in the eyes of those beyond the pews. No:  named from the Latin word “mandatum,” commandment. it is on this day, according to St. John, that Jesus gave to his disciples the awe-inspiring commandment, “love one another, as I have loved you.”

Maundy Thursday, the day which you and I have come after journeying together through Lent. A day of communion, a day of forgiveness, a day of humility, and above all a day of love. And now, on this day we gather together with Jesus and his twelve disciples in the upper room, to share what Jesus – and Judas – knew would be the last meal of the disciples together.

Our Lord is full of the knowledge of his imminent betrayal, full of the knowledge of the betrayer’s presence in our midst. After washing our feet he will say to us, “someone who shares my table rebels against me.” It is no use us, like the disciples, turning to one another and asking, “is it I?”

For the answer is, “Yes.” It is Judas Iscariot who walks out of the upper room into the darkness tonight, but he was only the first to desert the ranks of Jesus on this night. Even dear Peter, of whose bravado we have heard read yet again tonight, is soon to leave Jesus in the trial, and walk out into the dead of night, walk away to the resounding cry of a cock crowing.

None of us stay with Jesus tonight, all of us choose to embrace not the light which has come into the world, but the darkness that is being away from, unfaithful to, that Christ-light. There will be much darkness between now and Easter morn. The darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane in which Jesus struggles alone in prayer, the darkness of the betrayal, the darkness of the long trial, the darkness that is to cover the earth at the time of the crucifixion. As Judas walks out from the upper room, John tells us, it was night.

We cannot look around us to wonder who it is that will desert the ranks of the one who has washed our feet tonight. Judas may betray him, but Judas merely embraces the extremes of darkness, the absolute act of cynicism. We all must admit to the darkness that is within us, tonight, the darknesses in our deepest recesses that are, ultimately, no more or less   than the absence of Christ-light in those parts of our soul that we keep from him.

Jesus knows only too well our darkness, our sin, and loves us yet, even as we desert him in the night. It is for this reason that he washes our feet, and not we his. We must let him, our servant, our deacon, our saviour, wash ours, lest we slip into the mistaken belief that he owes us any favours. We cannot earn re-admission to the light which is Christ, but can only accept the awe-inspiring mystery that he invites us to return to him. Despite our desertion of him in the night, the darkness that Judas enters tonight is not his alone but yours and mine.

We are not singing tonight the hymn, “ Ah, Holy Jesus,” but well we might.

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,

That man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?

By foes derided, by thine own rejected,

Oh most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?

Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee;

’twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee:

I crucified thee.

 

Paul tells us that he received the tradition that on this night on which we have come together, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, “This is my body.” We are also told that after supper Jesus took the cup, and gave it to his disciples saying, “This is my blood of the new covenant.”

Most important of all, we are commanded by Jesus always to do likewise, as a way of remembering the events of this night on which we have betrayed our Lord, as a way of recalling to memory the events that are to take place tonight and tomorrow, as a way of proclaiming to the world the enormous events of these next three days.

Every time we receive the elements, the body and the blood of Christ, we are to remember our unworthiness, to recall that we and all people have no right to embrace the light which is Christ, and that it is rather our universal human nature to embrace darkness, as we and all humanity do on this night of Jesus’ betrayal.

On Good Friday and Easter Sunday we will talk more of the death to which we betray our Lord, the death which we proclaim each time we joined together in Holy Communion. Tonight, though, we should remember the darkness: the night into which we go after our Lord has washed our feet. We shall remember the darkness, and remember that it is not only the darkness of Judas, but also the darkness of all the followers of Jesus, you and me included. It is my darkness and your darkness.

But so too it is your feet and my feet that Jesus washes. As I went into retreat a few days before my ordination I received and took with me the words of a dear friend: “Allow Christ to be your servant in the silence.” So too we must allow Christ to be our servant in the darkness of this night, and in the private darkness of our own soul. And the further we go on in Christ the better we shall know that the darkness of this night is our darkness.

Let us remember this night not only for the darkness but also for the words that Jesus speaks to us in the face of that darkness, the words for which this day has come to be named: “love one another, as I have loved you.”  And so, together remembering that love, let us go on to eat his body and drink his blood in the rite which he commanded us, so that we might proclaim to the world that for all we are in darkness, the light of Christ has come into our midst.

 

 

[In digging out this 1987 sermon I found a much longer version. There was much in it that I now find (even more) excruciating (in 2025) and I should remain very thankful that, I suspect, my training vicar Ken Hewlett put a red pen through two or three paragraphs of somewhat self-indulgent wallowing dressed up as meditation. Thanks, Ken …  I had the best training vicar imaginable!]

 

descending the mountain

 

 

MS Herald of Free Enterprise 

photo by Franz Golhen 
and made available as Public Domain.
Wikipedia. 

SERMON PREACHED AT St JOHN’S, EAST BENTLEIGH

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT  (March 15^th) 1987

 

READINGS

 

Genesis 12:1-4

Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22

Timothy 1:8-10

Matthew 17:1-9

  

In last week’s Gospel reading we
heard of an occasion on which Jesus drew aside from the demands of daily life, and was led by the Spirit into a desert experience, an experience of struggle with temptation. Now we find him once more withdrawing from the crowds. This time for a very different sort of experience.

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear of Jesus taking aside three of his closest disciples and with them ascending a mountain. The experience that befalls the four is one of those pinnacle experiences of life that fortunately occur rarely – too many experiences of the mountain type would prove too demanding for the human soul to manage. The experience that takes place is the experience that we have come to know as the Transfiguration.

Exactly what took place on the mountain it is hard to tell, for the account is rich in symbolism and light on detail, but it would seem that the disciples experienced a vivid vision. Three of the four gospel writers saw fit to include it in their account, suggesting it was felt to be of great significance for the followers of Jesus as they sought to live out their new found faith. Nothing has changed; the passage has much from which we can learn.

Most of us have heard numerous sermons preached on this passage, and in many ways I hope we will hear many more. The experience on the mountain is a moving experience in the life of our Lord, and of those of his disciples who were with him. As is so often the case, the disciples misinterpret the events that befall them. That the gospel writers learned of the disciples’ errors is testimony to the humility of those first followers of Jesus.

The scene on the mountain is a mystical scene of great beauty, often depicted in stained glass windows, and particularly in the European art of the Renaissance. But what does it mean for us?

What, as we journey together through the season of Lent, are we to learn from these events? As we prepare for our Lord’s death and the glorious events of Easter, what does this Transfiguration mean for us?

In answer to this I wish to take as my text one verse from our gospel passage. In verse 9, the final verse, we read, “as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, ‘tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead’.”

The writer emphasises two points. The first is the obvious point that they do all return from the mountain experience. The second is that the meaning of the mystical experience they share on the mountain cannot be explained except in the light of our Lord’s death and resurrection.

So let us first consider the question, “why did Jesus command his friends to silence?” What is it about this mountain experience that is inexplicable except in the light of the events of Easter?

All three accounts in the gospels of the transfiguration scene tell us clearly of the disciples’ misunderstanding of the events, and of their awe, even fear. We should hardly be surprised. The prophet Malachi, who was writing five centuries before these events took place, warned the people of Israel to expect the return of Elijah, the ancient prophet, as a sign of the coming of the Day of the Lord. It was a vision a good Jew of our Lord’s lifetime would have longed for, as the end of the trials of the people of God, the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven. It was a popular Jewish belief that Elijah had never physically died, but had been assumed bodily into the presence of God.

Similarly, some had begun to teach that Moses had likewise not died, and like Elijah had been taken bodily to the presence of God. Imagine, then, the disciples’ awe and fear when, on a mountain they were confronted by the vision for which their people had longed for so long.

Was this really to herald the coming Kingdom? The end of Roman rule? The reinstatement of the free State of Israel? All these interpretations may have flashed through the disciples’ minds. Whatever interpretation they took, this vision represented for the disciples a sign of the end of life as they knew it.

Their response is most sensible. They ask Jesus whether they should pitch a tent, provide a place for their master to dwell with the two ancient figures. They are recognising the enormity of the situation, and saying to Jesus, “Look, look, the wonderful day has come. Let us take this moment, the moment of the salvation of Israel, and treat it with the respect it deserves.”

Incidentally, it is worth noting that both Mark and Matthew describe this event as happening “after six days,” but failed to give a point of reference. The timing should remind us of the time of Creation. It is after the sixth day of Creation that God rests and pronounces, for the final and definitive time, “it is very good.” Are the authors trying to tell us here that the Transfiguration experiences are the eve of a New Creation, the new Kingdom of God? Luke seems to use a different phrase that may well suggest the same thing, telling us that the event took place after eight days, but again without a reference point.

So in many ways the three disciples were right. At the time of the transfiguration a new dawn is breaking. But it is a dawn more radically new than even the disciples expected. Only Jesus is fully aware of what the vision means, and only he knows the cost at which the new era must be bought.

So he tells his disciples that they must not attempt to restrict the scope of the vision they have seen, must not limit it to the scope that they as Jews have been brought up to long for and pray for. Matthew is writing his gospel for Jews who have converted to the new Christian faith. To those new converts the message of the Transfiguration would be only too apparent. The new dawn is about to break not only for the Old Testament people of God, but for the whole of creation. It is Matthew who concludes his gospel with the command to “go and make disciples of every nation.”

The “no” that Jesus gives in reply to his disciples is because the new era he is ushering in is far more radical than they or anyone else could have realized. It is an era that extends salvation to the Gentiles. The death and resurrection of our Lord, which is the price that the new era is to cost, is not to be the property of a chosen few, of  the Jews, but of all the world.

So Jesus tells the disciples not to build a tent. Instead they are to wait until the meaning of the vision they have witnessed becomes clear. Only when the Easter event has taken place will they or the world know the meaning, the enormity of the meaning of the vision they have witnessed.

And so to my final point. The disciples come down from the mountain. Jesus, if he is to be saviour of the world, cannot remain in a state of glory on the mountain. He must instead come down, and set his face towards his own death, towards the intense loneliness of the cross, towards seeming defeat, before the magnificent meaning of his life can become apparent.

It is that journey down from the transfiguration towards Jerusalem that we as a parish are sharing as we travel together through Lent. If we are to follow our Lord we must in some small way travel with him through his decision to enter Jerusalem, through Gethsemane, and on to the Cross. That is why we observe Lent, and why Christians have done so for seventeen hundred years. To understand the victory of the Cross by which we are saved we must first understand something of the suffering.

That I believe is the guts of this passage. Christ can be no saviour if we leave him in glory on the mountain. As we approach our parish mission we must be very clear that this is not the Christ we are to proclaim it to the world. There can be no salvation for us and for our neighbour if we avoid the tragedy, or as Paul puts it, the scandal of the Cross.

There is for our world no hope if we believe only in a Messiah who remains in a state of glory on the Mountain of Transfiguration. Instead, we rejoice because he comes down, descends to the Cross and to Hell, and only then, on Easter morning, rises in the fullness of his glory. It is so we can make no mistake about that that Jesus commands his disciples to silence and descends the mountain.

I thank God that he does, for otherwise we have nothing to say to those people tragically killed in the English Channel shipping disaster, or to their families.[1] Without the scandal of the Cross we have nothing to say to those who suffer tragic illnesses, or to their families and loved ones. For we would be speaking only of a saviour who knows glory, not suffering. We would have nothing to say to the children of Soweto, or to the victims of the Gulf War, or Beirut, or Afghanistan, or countless other tragedies.

But our Lord comes down from the mountain. He comes down and turns towards Jerusalem, towards the events of Easter. In doing so he brings the experience of suffering into the very heart of God, and simultaneously brings God’s victory into the very midst of suffering. So it is that as we journey together through Lent we can rejoice in the knowledge that not only Good Friday but the glorious event of Easter lie ahead.

So, to the Son who comes down from the mountain and turn towards Jerusalem, that we might all be saved, all be transfigured, be all blessing and honour, glory and power now and forever.

---

[1] The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsized and sank at Zeebrugge on March 6^th, 1987, six days before this sermon was written. 193 passengers and crew lost their lives.

 

Servants of God (january 1987)

 

a Guatemalan stole, 
symbol of service from a suffering land 

SERMON PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF THE ALFRED HOSPITAL, MELBOURNE

SUNDAY 11^th JANUARY 1987

 

“Servant of God”; this is the name given to the person spoken of by the prophet Isaiah in a series of hymns in the book of the prophet, or prophets, Isaiah. We don't know who Isaiah was speaking of when he composed the Servant Songs, but from the time of our Lord followers of Jesus, and probably Jesus himself, have taken the words as referring to him, to Jesus, the Christ of God.

The Servant Songs, of which this is the first of four, are for me among the most beautiful passages in the entire Bible, and among the most beautiful poetry known to me. But they're more than pleasant entertainment; because they are applied to our Lord from the very beginnings of Christianity they are a stirring insight into who he was called to be, and who I, as a follower of Jesus together with you, are called to be in his name.

From the shortest of the songs we learn most of what is to be explored in the other three, longer songs. We learn that the Servant is upheld by God, that he is a source of delight to God, who is the speaker. We learn of his gentleness, yet it seems to me that above all we learn of his commitment to a message of justice and of hope.

Momentarily I am reminded of one servant of God very noticeable in Victoria at the moment. Desmond Tutu, like Christ, is a man unflinching in his commitment to justice and hope for all people, and at the same time is a man of great gentleness, who, for as long as there is any alternative, will strive to ensure that apartheid is destroyed without a bloody revolution. No witch doctor, but a servant of Christ, striving in faithfulness to bring forth justice out of oppression and state-endorsed violence.

But the Servants of God have always been called “witch doctors,” or called by countless other derogatory names. Martin Luther King had his house bombed years before he was assassinated. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged by Hitler. Saint Thomas a’Becket was assassinated for his commitment to justice, to name just a few. Such is the way of the Servants of God.

And you and I too are called like Tutu, like King, Bonhoeffer and Saint Thomas, to be Servants of God, and to pronounce messages of justice and hope. Sometimes such a call may involve a commitment to political struggle for justice. At other times we may be called to sit with those who suffer in the face of accident, illness, death, and there by our presence speak a word of hope in the face of evil. And at other times we must let others come to us, in the name of Christ, the Servant of God, and bring to us hope, comfort, or freedom.

The other week a woman I was visiting here cried out to me, “Am I mad? People tell me I look well, but I know I'm not well. Am I mad?” In her pain she wanted to hear a clear word of truth; her oppression was the pain of the illness and the added pain of those around her avoiding what she knew to be the truth.

“No,” I told her, “You’re not mad. And yes, you are ill.”

 “I think so too,” she replied.

She died that night, and while I wished I had done more for her, I breathed a prayer of thanks that I had momentarily, for her, been a servant of God, bringing the sad truth that no one was prepared to let her know.

We can be servants of God in many ways, but it is to that that we as Christians are called.