Attached to God

Maundy Thursday 2016; John 13:1-17, 31b-35; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC 3/24/2016

Jim Melnyk: “Attached to God”

I would like to share with you a passage from Edward Hay’s book, Lenten Labyrinth.  Speaking about what he refers to as Holy Thursday – what we call Maundy Thursday – Hays writes, “Love is a word that evokes images of great affection, but to those of the Near Eastern world of Jesus it had less a connotation of passionate affection than of attachment.  To love God with all your heart, mind and body was to be totally attached to God – and to God’s design for the perfection of the world.  To love Jesus is to be likewise attached to him and his vision of the new Reign of God – [the Kingdom of Heaven,] a global community of unity, peace and justice.  To love one another means being attached – with great depth and devotion – to your brothers and sister of the family of Christ” – to which I’ll add, attached with great devotion to those beyond the Body of Christ – to everyone who bears the image of God engraved within.

That night at supper, Jesus took a loaf of bread – just like at any other Jewish meal – gave thanks to God, broke it, and passed it to his friends.  But he added something to his prayer.  “This is my body – take and eat this in remembrance of me.”  After supper he took the traditional cup of blessing.  But he added something to his prayer.  “This is my blood which is poured out on behalf of the world – drink it in remembrance of me.”

The word remembrance means so much more than simply recalling something – like where we placed our keys.  It means “to make present with us.”  At the Passover Seder Jews in every generation recall themselves as a part of the first Passover and the exodus that followed.  “When we – not our ancestors – when we were slaves in Egypt….”  When we break bread together we are present with Jesus and his followers in the upper room that night.  And Jesus is here with us in this holy place.  We do indeed receive the body and blood of Jesus.  It may still be bread and wine to all our senses, but the truth that is at its center – the underlying reality of what we take into ourselves – is truly the very presence of Christ.

As we break bread together we remember “[How we are] bound together by feasting at the Lord's table. ... In this shared meal, [we] become sisters and brothers in Christ. In this moment, they venture out from behind the scenes of privacy and solitude, out of the fragmentation that characterizes their lives. The Eucharist is the great Christian equalizer. All come hungry, yearning to be fed of God; all leave filled, fed on God's love” (Ellen T. Charry).

But as Christians we are bound together – attached to one another and to God – in more than this holy meal.

As that holy meal came to a close, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come, got up from the table….

When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, when he washed his betrayer’s feet, he was doing so much more – he was washing humanity’s feet.  He was washing your feet.  He was washing my feet.  He was washing our feet.  He washed the feet of every single human being who ever was, who now is, and who is yet to come. 

And I cannot help but think, knowing the fullness of humanity’s struggle to love one another and to love God, I can’t help but think that as Jesus knelt at his disciples’ feet, his tears mixed with the water he used to loving wash them.  He wept, I believe, not just out of fear of what was soon to come – and not simply out of sorrow for the world’s brokenness – but out of deep love for all humanity – out of deep love for us.

When we wash one another’s feet, just as when we break bread together in Christ’s name, it’s an act of anamnesis: we are made present with Jesus and his followers in an upper room on that important night.  And Christ is made present with us in this holy space tonight.

Through the sacramental acts of washing feet and breaking bread we begin to find ourselves totally attached to one another and to God.  To receive the body and blood of Christ, this night and always, we begin to find ourselves totally attached to Jesus and his vision of the kingdom.

These Sacramental acts are indeed Jesus’ Last Will and Testament” to us – his commandment for us to love one another as he loves us.

On Easter Day we will renew our Baptismal Covenant once again. We will promise that when we sin, we will repent and return to the Lord.  We will promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves, we will promise to work for justice and peace for all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.  My hope – my prayer – is that we learn to pray the words rather than simply recite them.

None of these words – “love one another, do this in remembrance of me, respect the dignity of every human being,” none of these words are new for us.  But remembering those words, and acting them out – how we love one another – how we love God – how we love the sojourner, the stranger, among us – living these things can and will make us new.