Sermon for Maundy Thursday

 April 17, 2025, Maundy Thursday

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

You might have expected our Gospel reading to focus on the eating of a meal—aren’t we supposed to be observing and remembering the Last Supper?  Isn’t this event so consequential that it becomes the foundation of one of our two sacraments?

Yes, those things are true.  The Last Supper does become the meal that the earliest Christians shared every time they were together, a literal meal, where people shared their food so that no one went hungry.  This meal, the memory of all these meal, they become our sacrament that we celebrate every Sunday.

Tonight’s Gospel gives us the undergirding philosophy, both of the sacrament and of the mission of Jesus in the world.  “Love each other.”  It seems so simple.  The reaction of Simon Peter shows that love is never simple.  

In the Gospel of John, these men have been together for several years.  In our modern times, we might wonder why Simon Peter reacts so negatively to the idea of Jesus washing his feet.  Some of us have seen the footgear worn by first century desert residents—those sandals left most of the foot exposed.  It’s not like Jesus would be surprised by Simon Peter’s feet, the way that our friends might be surprised if they ever saw our feet.  And in our age of pedicures and shoes that protect us, our feet aren’t likely to offend our friends.

What might be lost on us is that Jesus is taking on a task usually left to slaves and servants and people on the lowest rungs of society.  Peter objects to the idea that Jesus would debase himself in this way.  

What does this type of service look like today?  If Jesus appeared in our houses, we might not flinch if he wanted to wash our feet.  But our bathrooms?  Would we draw the line at our bathrooms?  If Jesus wanted to go get the meat for dinner and headed off to the local slaughterhouse, would we stop him?

Peter objects because Jesus is the leader, therefore everyone should line up to serve him.  Jesus once again tries to teach the disciples that the inbreaking Kingdom of God will not be like the earthly kingdom of Caesar or Herod or Pilate or the religious leadership.  

What does a life of service look like?  Jesus models a life of service that is much more complex than washing feet or fixing a meal.  In our Gospel tonight, with its lack of emphasis on the meal that will become the sacrament, we are reminded of the scope of Christ’s love, the mind-blowing expansiveness of the love that God shows for all of creation.

Jesus knows that Judas will betray him, but Jesus doesn’t send him away before the foot washing.  The Gospel of John is very clear about when Judas leaves so that we will know that Jesus includes him.  Peter will betray Jesus in a new way, with his denial of knowing him at all—but Jesus washes his feet too.  All of the Gospels remind us again and again—we are not so very far away from Judas or Peter in all the ways that we don’t understand what Jesus tries to teach us.  Jesus calls both men friend—and Jesus calls us friend too.

In so many ways, this last supper shows us the way we are to live in this kingdom of God that Jesus says is happening right now.  Think about the verbs we use:  Jesus blesses the bread, he breaks it, and he shares it.  It’s a metaphor for the whole human life.  We can’t share the bread until we break it.  This sacrament shows us that brokenness is part of human life, but that Jesus can transform that brokenness.  He does this by blessing—he blesses the bread, he blesses the disciples, and this meal prepares him to be a blessing for the whole world.

And it’s not just a blessing that we experience.  Jesus offers us a meal of liberation.  The Old Testament reading reminds us of how the Passover meal began, of the need to be ready for deliverance from bondage.  In the Old Testament, it was the bondage of slavery in Egypt.  Today—we are held captive by so many things:  disease, fear, loss, difficult circumstances of all kinds.  Jesus comes to tell us that we are free.

Jesus sets humanity free in many ways:  he casts out demons, he heals, and he invites people to dinner.  He shows us ways to resist the forces that want to keep us imprisoned or kill us; he reminds us again and again that the forces of love are stronger than the forces of evil that seem so powerful.

As we move through the stories after Easter, pay attention to where we find Jesus.  He doesn’t return to the blood soaked cross.  He leaves the tomb and never looks back.  He joins the disciples where they have gathered, and once again, they share meals together.  He joins followers on the road to Emmaus, and they only know who he is after they have shared a meal.  He cooks breakfast on a beach for the disciples who have returned to the fishing life that they knew before Jesus.

These meals transform these first believers.  They go from denying him, betraying him, forgetting what he has taught them to being a force that transforms the ancient world.  They do this by emulating him, by creating what is essentially a table ministry that includes the least powerful and the most powerful in their communities.

This Last Supper of Jesus is really the first meal in so many ways.  It becomes the foundational practice from the earliest days of the Christian church, and it continues to be foundational today.  It goes from a Passover meal that celebrates deliverance to becoming one of the sacraments that continues Christ’s redemptive work, a redemption now extended to all people.

Hear the good news, the good news heard by the Israelites in Egypt, the good news heard by first century followers of Jesus, the good news proclaimed across centuries.  Deliverance is at hand.  Evil does not have the final word.  Come and eat.