We have on our Holy Week journey reached Maundy Thursday. There is so much action on this day, I could write far too many blog posts!
We could focus on the supper in the upper room where Jesus breaks bread and pours out wine and tells the gathered disciples whenever they break bread and drink wine in the future, they are to remember him. Every time we share in Holy Communion, we remember him and what he did and does for us: his body is broken and his blood is shed for all, the bread and the wine become his body and his blood in us and we take them for, as my late minister and mentor George Kenny used to say in his calling us to the table, “our comfort and renewal.”
We could focus on Jesus in the garden, later, in torment, alone. His agony about what is to come is expressed in an honest prayer to his Father: “if it is possible, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours.” His mental state in loneliness must have been very bad. There was no NHS 111
Option 2 to call back then. Jesus didn’t have a mobile phone in the garden, anyway.
We could focus on the forsaking of Jesus by most of his disciples: denial, betrayal, fleeing (to a locked room in fear of the Jews: we will find them there on Easter Sunday.) We could focus on the crowd before Pilate, calling for Barabbas the robber to be released when offered a criminal to be freed. What of Jesus? “Crucify him!”
I shall be thinking of Rye Parish Church tonight. We shared the Maundy service with them every year. For me, the moving bit was the stripping of the altar while I read part of Lamentations, ending with the sanctuary in stark bareness. Jesus is alone. I should have been on Holy Island tonight doing the watch until midnight. To sit in the quietness reflecting on all this day means is very powerful. Someone sent me an idea that tonight we strip our lounges of furniture and cover the television with a purple cloth and do our own watch. I think Robert and Claire who own our holiday let and live next door would think us quite mad if we did that!
I choose to focus on what Maundy Thursday calls the Church to be. Jesus gets down on the ground in the upper room, takes a towel and basin and washes the feet of his disciples. And today he calls us to do that for others in his name: to be a people who wash feet, who serve others, who get dirty, who give when it is least expected. And, who live without question: that’s where Maundy Thursday gets its name - “a new commandment I give you, love one another as I have loved you.” By this, others will know we are his disciples.
Is the sign we are decent people that we will serve?
In this Covid 19 crisis we are seeing amazing acts of service - NHS workers in hospitals working in indescribable circumstances; teachers working with children of key workers in schools; supermarket workers putting up with all kinds of abuse; carers; bus drivers; refuse collectors; TV and radio presenters (Radio 2 is a lifeline at the moment especially the brilliant Sara Cox who is now on for three hours every day); pharmacists - (I went to the pharmacy on Tuesday to collect our medicine: it was an eerie experience.)
We watch those in leadership in our government each day working out how to get us through this crisis. Tension is bound to rise as the lockdown has to be lengthened. We were promised a review next week. We aren’t going to get one. The Queen showed amazing servant leadership in her broadcast that was watched by 24 million of us on Sunday. I’m writing this watching President Trump giving a press conference. I’m trying to trust him. We await the election in November. We know now he will up against Joe Biden. And of course, we continue to remember our Prime Minister in intensive care for the third night.
And a big up for clergy people providing support for people as congregations are dispersed and those keeping the Church nationally going. We got answers today to a lot of our questions about our future which we were worrying about not being answered. Which leads me on Maundy Thursday to think about how churches are serving and putting that new commandment to love into practice.
Most of you will know I’m trying to write a book about journeys. My first chapter is about the places we have been through that make us what we are. I’ve been fortunate to travel through and serve a variety of Methodist societies and over the last few days I’ve been thinking what mark they’ve left on me, and that mark is remembered as great acts of sacrificial service.
One man in my story I’ve been thinking a lot about is John Burnett. John was a Methodist local preacher with over 60 years service. He was my steward at the little chapel at Whissendine. I’ve never met a more sincere and humble Christian. He used to do a vestry prayer with the preacher and you never wanted it to end. His presence in the back corner of the chapel (by the radiator) was a calm, reassuring presence. I was deeply touched when the family asked me to return to the Circuit to give the eulogy at his funeral. Ask yourself on this day we think about service and loving without cost, who are your John Burnett’s?
Let me end like this. Mother Theresa who gave her life serving the poor of Calcutta was once asked why she did what she did for the poor souls she met every day. She said “each one of them is Jesus in disguise.”
I hope that once this crisis is over, the acts of service that are happening all over the country will continue, that we will continue to serve our neighbours and our vulnerable, and that churches having shut our buildings when they open again - whenever that is - will ask whether everything they do is serving Jesus and being Jesus. I wonder what churches will see as their priority? Perhaps we needn’t open up again anything we were finding no life in to keep struggling on. I love this sign outside Bishop Monkton Church. Their priority is clearly service:
For me, Maundy Thursday is a call to remember I am called to serve, and to remember the one who came not to be served but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many. Anglican clergy I think this week renew their ordination promises, we do it in presbyteral Synods, this year the Chair of the East Anglia District asked us to write our yes to the promises for another year to him as Synod couldn’t meet. I suggest as we read the events of today long ago we all ask ourselves because of what Jesus gives to us, what will we give him?
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