YOU ARE WELCOME!
Maundy Thursday, March 24, 2016 (OSLC, Richmond)
(Exodus 12:1-14; I Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35)
I'm so thankful that you have decided to come to worship on this night. I say that because this night, even more than other nights and days, draws attention to this table, the Lord's Table.
As we listen to the forebears of our faith, as we attempt to hear the Word speaking to us, we may be enabled to glimpse the truth. All are welcome here.
I need to say that again, because sometimes we just can't hear. The sounds of the words may enter our ears but we may still miss the message. ALL ARE WELCOME HERE!
This welcome is utterly amazing. But often we are hesitant to be embraced by it. As a result sometimes we have attempted to build fences around the table, literally and figuratively. Sometimes we have expected, even demanded that people have certain understandings about this Meal before we welcome them. As if the Lord's meal is something we could ever understand or explain. After all, how is Jesus, this God in the flesh, this One who suffers and dies FOR US, present in, with and under the bread and wine? Can anyone explain that?
At other times we have tried to limit the welcome of the table implying that some are better suited to receive or more 'deserving' than others. At times we haven't allowed children to draw near. Often, by the physical arrangements of our worship spaces we have excluded some. This is not the way of Jesus who meets us in the Gospels.
The words and actions of Jesus around this table on this night show us that God welcomes all of us. We are all in need of forgiveness! Each of us, all of us together, need to be liberated from the many powers of death and evil that seek to hold us. At this table, all are welcomed, embraced by the Christ who can so free us.
We need to be continually reminded of this. I remember Sandra, a woman dealing with mental handicaps. She was in her 50's. Sandra knew that she was welcome at the table. Week in and week out she came. Her unique smile lit up her face. She eagerly reached out her hands, cupped in the shape of a cross to receive the bread. Sandra 'got it' in ways that I am not sure I ever will. She deeply knows Jesus' love for her.
Some thirty years ago, I also remember a man in his early 20's. I will call him Tom. Tom was gay, but at the time he was not yet 'out'. Each year at Christmas Tom would travel home from the city to his little country town and church. One late December afternoon Tom stopped into the church office for a visit. Tom asked, "Can I come to communion this Sunday?" He wasn't sure that he was welcome at the table. I tried to assure him that this is the Lord's table. He is welcome. He came and communed that Sunday. It was a wonder-filled day!
Do we know that this table is the Lord's table?
You are welcome at this table. Regardless of what you have or haven't done, you are invited. But don't just take my word for it.
See Jesus the night before he dies. He is at table. But he is not alone. All the disciples are present. All - including Judas who betrays him and Peter who within the next 24 hours will lie through his teeth denying not only that Jesus is Lord but that he, Peter, even ever knew Jesus. Judas, Peter, you and me: we are all welcomed to the Lord's table.
And, just in case we aren't fully caught up in this love of Jesus that has the capacity to take on death in all of its forms and transform them and us into new life, Jesus washes those disciples' feet. He shows them and us again and again what his love looks like.
Do we hear him speaking to us at His table? "This is my body, THAT IS FOR YOU. This is the new covenant in my blood."
Tonight of all nights we need to hear him. This night of all nights, we can hear him!
God knows us. God knows the powers of death, of hatred, greed, envy, blame, covetousness and fear, powers that act both within us and outside of us. God takes these powers seriously. Death and all its accompanying manifestations can suck the life out of us, drowning hope, squelching faith, pressing us down, towards despair. Death wills to convince us that death is ultimately all there is, that our only choices are to run from it, attempt to evade it, deny it or yield to it.
Such death is not just the cessation of our hearts beating, nor the cessation of movement within our lungs, nor even the ending of the marvelous activities of our brains. Instead this death is our own inability to bring about new life and then our refusal to trust that God can bring about new life for us: with others, with creation, with God, especially in the face and wake of brokenness, hatred, enmity, blame, disconnectedness.
To turn the tide of such death, to transform death and all its forms into new life is a cosmic battle requiring God's action, God's intervention, God's incarnation. God doesn't will for us to be enslaved to these destructive powers of hatred, greed, covetousness, violence, blame, despair. So God does something. God takes on human flesh in Jesus.
He is born. He lives. How he lives! On the last night of his life on earth as he gathers his disciples around a table, John tells us that Jesus washes all of their feet. Paul tells us that Jesus gives them the bread and the cup, realities which profoundly point to their new life – a burgeoning freedom. Jesus gifts them with Himself, his complete self. . .
So, where are we tonight? Where do you find yourself? Dare we face whatever has caught us, that has the capacity to entrap us, that limits our ability to feel, to love unconditionally, to forgive, to hope wildly, to pray fervently, to dance joyfully?
Sometimes, like the early disciples, the primary resistance to being freed, comes from within ourselves. It appears impossible for us to let go of our past hurts, to be enabled to make new choices, to relate to others and ourselves in completely new ways. After all, we've been this way for a long time.
But Jesus comes, refusing to give up on us. He comes to claim our hearts and minds with his love. Can you imagine him gently washing us? As His love washes over us we are recreated, brand spanking new. We are gifted with new beginnings, new possibilities.
All of this is utterly amazing. Jesus gives himself completely not knowing whether or not we will trust him, not knowing whether we will allow ourselves to be loved and then to love others in return. He gives himself completely letting go of whatever we have or haven't done, not being sure whether we will somehow accept this and be made new, again and again.
Out of the love of Jesus' life and death He invites us, longs for us to be caught up in His endeavor, the great and grand endeavor, which he sometimes calls the kingdom of God, where feet are washed, the hungry are fed and enemies are loved.
I am so thankful that you are here. Together we remember, proclaim and experience the welcome of our Lord at His table, where because of Him death is transformed into life and sins are forgiven, literally let go of.
By God's grace, we are called to live from this reality each day. Amen.