Maundy Thursday, 2025-C: The privilege and purpose of our madate

Lectionary: Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14; Psalm 116:1, 10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

En el nombre de Dios, nuestro santificadora, libertador, redentor, y nuestra esperanza. 

In the name of God, our sanctifier, deliverer, redeemer, and our hope. Amen. 

The revelation that we are God’s people and that our salvation is from God, came to us through our Jewish forebears. This revelation was always meant to reach all nations and all peoples, as Isaiah and other prophets proclaimed. Just as parents can love more than one child, God loves all of the branches on God’s family tree.

These forebears of our faith created a ritual, the Passover seder, designed to help the generations that followed remember God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery to freedom. This ritual is intimately connected with our Holy Communion. Each Sunday, when we bless and share our holy food of Communion, we are lifting up the third of the four cups, just as Jesus did with his disciples at his last seder supper. Allow me to put this into context.

The seder meal, (seder meaning order) is the origin of the Agape supper we shared tonight. It begins the Passover celebration, held in the Spring, as a sign of rebirth and renewal. The meal begins with the telling of the story (the Haggadah). The children are asked, “What makes this night different from all other nights?” The question is meant to spark their curiosity and they are encouraged to ask their own questions. This is how Jewish children are taught about their faith and their identity as children of God.

The meal consists of symbolic foods: roasted lamb symbolizing sacrifice, Matza, known as poor persons' bread, and parsley and other bitter herbs, symbolizing the bitterness of being enslaved. The parsley is dipped into salted water, symbolizing the tears of the people enslaved by the powers of the world.

During the meal, the people pause to drink four cups of wine. Each of the cups stands for how God has acted to save - taken from the book of Exodus (6:6-7).

The first cup is the cup of SANCTIFICATION. God says: “I will bring you out.” This cup symbolizes the promise that God will bring them out from their slavery so that they can serve God, not a human master.

The second cup is the cup of DELIVERANCE. Only God can save, and freedom from whatever or whoever holds us bound on earth is always a gift from God.

The third cup is the cup of REDEMPTION. God says, “I will redeem.” This is where our Holy Communion is intimately connected to the ritual meal of our Jewish forebears. In the Jewish tradition, the word redemption refers to a family member who acts to set their kin free from slavery, paying a great price for that freedom. The traditional image is of a father sacrificing his firstborn son for the freedom of his entire family. Because Jesus is fully God and fully human, he is the Father who pays the price, the Son who is the price, and the family for whom that price is paid.

While Jesus was at dinner with his friends, he took this third cup, blessed it, and gave it to his friends saying, "This cup is the New Covenant in my blood…" as often as you drink it, do this to remember me..

The fourth cup is the cup of HOPE. God says, “I will take you to me.” Since the Jewish people anticipated that the conclusion would be signaled by the return of Elijah, they kept an empty chair at the seder table. This cup also marked the end of the Seder supper.

The Christian narrative begins in the story of our Jewish forbears. For us, the fourth cup, our hope, has been fulfilled in Jesus, the Christ. Therefore, redemption is not something we await; it is our current reality, and Jesus made very clear how we should live this out - giving us a mandate at his last supper on earth: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

As hard as it may be for some of us to participate in the ritual footwashing, it really matters. As Jesus said to Peter, who wanted to refuse, you don’t understand what’s happening now, but you will… and, “unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Then he knelt down and washed their feet.

Remembering Jesus’ words to us: “I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you,” we sit and allow someone to be the presence of Christ for us and wash our feet. If we are physically able, we then kneel before someone else, as the presence of Christ for them, and wash their feet. In this way, we claim our share with Christ.

Just as Jesus prepared his disciples for what was about to happen, feeding them the holy food of his own body and blood, participation in this ritual as part of our Holy Communion prepares us for what is to come this Holy Week, beginning with the stripping of our altar at the end of this service.

As the body of Christ in the world today, it is our privilege and our purpose to live out Jesus’ mandate to love as he loved us. God grant us the will to put into action what we believe in our faith.

Let us pray... Fill us, most merciful God, with the power of your Holy Spirit, and free us from any bonds that continue to restrict our freedom to fully love you, one another, and ourselves. Enter our dreams each night this Holy Week and show us your will for us as your church’s servant leaders in this time and place. Loosen our tongues to speak your truth. Strengthen our hearts to birth your love into reality no matter the cost; and make each of us to shine with the celestial light that is the mark of your saints in heaven and on earth; for the love of your Son, our savior, Jesus, the Christ. Amen. (written by The Rev. Dr. Valori Mulvey Sherer)

Palm Sunday, 2025-C: Taking the first step

 Lectionary: Lectionary: Lk 19:28-40; then Isaiah 50:4-9; Psalm 39:1-16; Phil 2:5-11; John 12:12-16 

In my twenty years serving as a rector or priest in charge of a parish, the phrase I hear most often is probably: “We’ve always done it this way.” I learned, over the years, though, that “always” can mean many things, but rarely does it mean always.

One church I served had a tradition that I found disturbing and possibly illegal - at least canonically, but they insisted they’d always done it that way, so it must be OK. It turns out they had only been doing it for the three years prior to my arrival.

For most of us, Palm Sunday has “always” been combined with the Sunday of the Passion. This tradition was started in 1970 by the Roman Catholics - a long time ago, but certainly not “always.” The Procession of the Palms started for Episcopalians with the 1979 Prayer Book.

The reason Christian Churches combined these two events into one Sunday isn’t deeply theological - it was practical. People weren’t coming to the Good Friday liturgy, the one where the Passion Gospel is always read, so the passion gospel was added to the Palm Sunday service - meaning it’s read twice during Holy Week. The church leadership added the passion to a Sunday so more people would encounter it.

Their goal was well-intended. People tend to skip the hard stuff in Holy Week and jump straight to the joy of Easter, as evidenced by some area churches offering their Easter pageants two weeks ago. But followers of Christ are enjoined to take up our crosses and follow Jesus. This is that moment for us.

I’ve told this story before, but it bears re-telling. When COVID shut our churches down during Holy Week in 2020, we had to move our Holy Week services online quickly. Like so many other churches, the church I was serving didn’t yet have the proper equipment to do that. We had to use my phone and iPad to record the services. As you can imagine, my devices kept running out of memory - which kept happening during our recording of the Good Friday service.

On about the third try, our Deacon, who was emotionally exhausted from having to read the passion gospel over and over, said, “I hope this one takes. I don’t know if I can read this again!”

Good Friday - the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus by the Romans as an insurrectionist - is a difficult reality for us followers of Christ to experience. The complicity of the Jewish religious leadership makes it that much harder. In fact, all of the Triduum of Holy Week can be difficult to experience.

But every step we take together in Holy Week leads us to “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say: resurrection on Easter. The thing is, most of us are very busy, and it can be hard to choose to take ourselves to church for what may be discomfiting worship experiences, but I want to urge us all to walk on in the discomfort - taking every step from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday and Holy Saturday - together. It is a powerful experience to share and one that truly prepares us for the brilliant, transforming resurrection experience of Easter, celebrated at the Great Vigil and Easter Sunday.

Our bishop, Deon Johnson, has recommended that we re-separate Palm Sunday from the Passion, returning to an older tradition, so today we focus on the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem just ahead of the Passover celebration. The passion gospel will not be read today. It will be read at our Good Friday service at 6:30 p.m.

We need to remember that this was a huge festival in that time and place. The Passover - the story of the redemption of the Jewish people by God through Moses, who led them out of slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.

This celebration drew huge numbers of people to Jerusalem every year. It was like our PRIDE day in Miami. People joyfully celebrating their freedom from oppression.

As people gathered in the big city, news began to spread about Jesus, the country rabbi who did great miracles - even raising a guy named Lazarus from the dead! Jesus and Lazarus were coming to the festival and people were buzzing about getting to see them up close.

Remembering that the theme of the celebration was freedom from oppression, the people began to hope that if Jesus had the power to raise someone from the dead, then God must be with him. So, maybe if Jesus were to be made their king, God would be with him as God was with King David when he conquered Jerusalem in 1000 B.C.E.

As their leader, maybe Jesus could lead them to freedom and peace as Moses did when he led the people to the Promised Land in 1446 B.C.E. Maybe this Jesus was their salvation from their current Roman oppression.

When the people saw Jesus coming, they cried out, “Hosanna!” which means, “Save us!” Be the one God uses today to save the people of Israel - just as God has done before.

Take Jerusalem as King David did. "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

As the Jewish people became penetrated with hope, the Jewish leadership got nervous. They knew that talk like this would bring a swift and violent response from the Romans. Calling out to Jesus, some Pharisees said, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop."

Knowing this salvation wasn’t about as small a thing as winning Jerusalem or leading the people out of their current oppression, but salvation for the whole world for all time, Jesus answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out." In other words, this is happening. All of creation is one with God as this redemptive moment is revealed.

They couldn’t imagine what was about to come. Who could have?

Well, Isaiah for one. Speaking for God in about 700 B.C.E., Isaiah said, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ (49:6)

Walking with Jesus from this triumphant moment to the truth of salvation - the redemption of the whole world by God - is our commission this week. Today we take just the first step.

Reveling in the hope and joy of this day, the day Jesus arrived, ready to do what he came to do, we accept this spiritual high - even knowing the lows that will come as the world responds to Jesus - especially knowing the penultimate high that is Easter, just days away.

I want to paraphrase what we prayed today in our Collect, “Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant us to know that WHEN we walk in the way of his suffering, we also share in his resurrection.”

May our prayer be realized. Amen.