Maundy Thursday April 2, 2026 with The Rev. Dr. Kathryn C. Mathewson

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/HolyWk/MaundyTh_RCL.html

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Holy God, open our hearts to hear your call to us as we break open your word. Amen. There's a word that should continually haunt us as we continue to go on this journey with Jesus, and especially today. We hear it tonight, and we hear it every Sunday throughout our lives. The word is remembrance. Remembrance. According to Saint Paul, Jesus speaks it during the Last Supper that he has with his disciples. According to Saint John's Gospel, Jesus acts it out, washing feet, remembrance. This is how Jesus teaches by word along with deed, saying and acting at the same time. It's a mutual reinforcement that is offered to us so that his teachings will be seared in our memories so that we remember. So the supper begins with the Jewish ritual of breaking the bread. Jesus takes the bread, gives thanks by asking God's blessing on it, and then says something different here than is usually said as he breaks it. This is my body that is for you. This is my body that is for you. That must be very puzzling to the disciples. They watch his hands take the bread, bless it, and break it as usual. They remembered those hands, his hands. They watched them all these years as they followed them, as he touched people and healed them. One time spitting on them and making mud and putting it on a blind man's eyes to heal him. It pictures those hands. They know them almost like their own. When Jesus would reach out to gather the children toward him, or when he would reach out and lift up a young girl who was dead and alive again. Or to calm the storm, or to clasp together in prayer. They watched his hands. And as he breaks the bread, it's as if he's tucking his fingers right into it, and light is shining forth from those little crevices in the bread. Do this in remembrance of me. As if every time they give thanks and break the bread, his light is also present with them. So the supper continues and is completed at the end with the traditional pouring of the wine into the blessing cup at the end of the supper. Yet here again, Jesus changes the ritual. He says, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Puzzling the disciples are these references to his body and his blood. But because they are connected by watching his hands breaking that bread and pouring out that wine, they remember what he said. And weeks later, the puzzle is revealed. But during this meal, in between the bread and the wine, Jesus does also something that's very curious. He rises and he removes his robe and he ties a towel around him. And then one by one he kneels in front of them and he gently removes their sandals and pours water over their feet. And with those hands that healed so many, gathered the suffering to him and blessed the multitudes, Jesus washes off the dirt and donkey offal that has been collected on the streets, on those poor, gnarled and cracked feet. Instead of specifically saying, do this in remembrance of me, which he said before, he gives them a new commandment. Love one another as I have loved you. Love one another. During supper, he has a very long speech. He has so much to tell them. There's so much they need to know. He talks for a long, long time about how servants are not greater than their master. Servants are not greater than their master. Masters are not greater than their servants. And that he will be with them only a little while longer, and that God has glorified him, and that they are friends. And he goes on and on and on, and all of it almost impossible to remember, but they do remember the bread and the wine, the body and the blood. They do remember his hands on their feet. A humble blessing. An act of love. These words and deeds of Jesus actually hold a twofold meaning. He is speaking and acting to reinforce their memory, but he's also doing something else. Jesus is telling them something they will need to remember in the days to come. But Jesus is also binding them closer to him and closer to each other. He is remembering his followers. Every time they eat the bread and drink the wine, they become more intertwined with Jesus and with each other. Every time they serve one another, and indeed all of God's people, they are bound more tightly to Jesus and to each other. In each instance, Jesus becomes more present to them. They remember and they are remembered at the same time. If you think about it, it should come as no surprise that over their existence as the people of God, the biggest roadblock and the Israelites, the people of God, was amnesia. They forgot. They forgot. They forgot the promises of God as they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, complaining of thirst, building a golden calf. And even when they were hungry, they complained that all they got was this funny little stuff on the ground called manna, which they had to collect every day. They had to gather it, they had to eat it, they had to share it with one another. And eventually, as the time wore on and they formed their own communities, the nation, they eventually forgot the promises of God, so captivated by lust, by the lust for power and money, that their enemies dragged them into a different captivity. Far away, far away, Babylon, from a place that was so far from God that surely he was no longer with them. He was still in the temple in Jerusalem. They forgot to listen to the voice of God when the prophets, and there were a lot of them all that time. There were a lot of prophets. There was Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Amos, and others over all the years. They forgot to listen to the prophets when they called these people to repent, to return to the Lord, to remember. They forgot that their God is faithful and merciful. They forgot that God will never leave them. But God does not forget. God always remembers God's people in love. Maybe it's easier for us to say all of this in hindsight, two thousand years later, knowing the whole story. Maybe during Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples, there were gathering storm clouds that no one could quite yet see. There might have been a clue, might have been a clue when Jesus, when Judas abruptly left the table, and something was said about betrayal. There might have been a portent when Jesus invited them to join him in the Garden of Gethsemane, across in the dark, the Kidron Valley. There might have been a foreboding when Jesus went off to pray three times and returned troubled. But then it all happened so fast that it was hard to remember everything. When the storm came, it was all they could do to get out of the way, to remain safe in the background, watching and waiting. Waiting and watching through the chaotic trial, waiting and watching through the agonizing walk to Golgotha, watching and waiting the horror of the crucifixion. And then it was all over. Their journey was finished. Or was it? Spoiler alert. In three days, there's a whole new ending. The story of Jesus continues. The life of Jesus continues. Though they heard his words from the cross of forsaken despair, God did not forget Jesus. And Jesus did not abandon his followers. Sustained by the Holy Spirit, all these years later, we still follow him. If we are faithful and watchful, we will see the hands of Jesus guiding us. We will hear the voice of Jesus. We are living today in a gathering storm. Some might say it's already raging. But there are clues that God is with us. Watch for them. And Jesus is telling us to remember. Remember this. In January, millions of God's people joined the Buddhist monks in their walk for peace, physically or spiritually. What was it, 2,300 miles, something like that? Last week, millions of people, millions of people, millions of God's people all over the world stood shoulder to shoulder, physically and spiritually, with each other, calling for justice and truth. And on Wednesday, yes, was it just yesterday? Millions of God's people watched as Artemis II soared to the heavens, promising hope. It's all around us. We are being remembered constantly by God. We are bound together in justice and truth and peace and hope. We are remembering Jesus tonight. Eat this bread. Drink this cup. Do this in remembrance of me. Amen.