Maundy Thursday

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett     

On the night before he was to die, Jesus did what he always did. He asked those around him to come for dinner. He invited those closest to him. He invited even the one who was to betray him. He invited the strong and faithful. He invited those whose faith was weak and full of doubt and fear. Some were wealthy, some were dirt poor. Some were righteous, some were wicked. Some were famous, some were infamous, some were notorious, some remain unknown to this very day.

Jesus did what he always did; normal human acts of kindness, invitations into the warmth of human community and fellowship. He took the stuff of everyday life and gave it new meaning. Bread, wine. He broke the bread and gave it to one and all to share. He blessed the cup of wine and he gave it to one and all to share.

No requirements about who could share the bread and the wine. Just normal everyday folks who believed and wanted to follow in his Way – just folks who were doing their best as best they could, and Jesus welcomed them.

Everyone was welcome at his table, as he knew God welcomes everyone.

He welcomed these everyday folks and gave them one another, and he gave them the gift of his continuing presence with them, even beyond death and the grave. Gave them one another and gave them himself.

¹⁹Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ ²⁰And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

“Jesus… does what he always does: he issues an invitation in the breaking of the bread. On this night, as Jesus invites us to his table, he invites us … to remember him EVERY time we break bread -- at the altar, certainly, but also in the lunchroom and the dorm cafeteria, the family dinner table or the counter at the diner. Whenever we break bread, or draw breath, we are invited to do so in remembrance of Jesus, until he comes to complete the redemption of the world for which God anointed him.” *

After Jesus and the others share in the bread and wine, he tells them the special context of this Passover meal. He is the lamb that will be slain. He will give his life for the world. And when they eat this bread and drink from this cup, they will know him present with them, until the day he returns to complete his work of redemption in the world.

While they wait for that day, he says, “the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. ²⁷For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”

This self-offering and this servanthood is not what the people of that time - including the disciples - expected from God, from the Messiah of God, or from the man Jesus who has come in the name of the Lord.

It is not what people from this day and time expect, either.  People do not expect the power of God to be shown in patient acceptance of this final cost of his discipleship, nor to be shown in servanthood to all sorts and conditions, the lonely, the outcast, the lost, the sick, the alien, “The tired, the poor, Those yearning to breathe free, The homeless, and the tempest-tossed.”

People do not expect power to be patient in suffering for the sake of others. They do not expect power to be an offered love in the service of others. They do not expect power to be willing to endure for the sake of others. But that’s the way it is. That is Jesus, and that is the way of Jesus.

The Jesus we remember this night is the one who offers himself. He is the Jesus who serves others. He is the Jesus who goes to the Cross for the life of the world. He is the truth of God.

And he invites us to join together with him and with one another and to be fed with the bread of life and the cup of salvation. And he asks us to go then and be his body and to serve the world in his name.

* Dylan Breuer

The Fourth Sunday in Lent - John 9:1-41

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

How do you tell the difference between a First Class Miracle and an everyday miracle? That’s a tough question, maybe too tough to start. Let’s start with a more basic question. How do you know when a miracle is a miracle; when something happening is miraculous?

Is it simply something out of the ordinary, an exception to one’s day-in, day-out experience? Something unexpected? Or is it a miracle when something good happens if you have been expecting something bad? Or maybe some thing or some event is a miracle when it aligns with what we believe to be signs of God’s kingdom, signs of God’s presence, signs of God’s action.

That works for me. I think a miracle happens whenever we see a sign of God’s presence, God’s activity, God’s purpose, God’s way, God’s kingdom in the everydayness of our lives.

How do you spot a miracle? We are told in the song that miracles happen every day. Where? When? I don’t see them everyday in my life. How about you? See them every day, do you? Have you seen a miracle any day in your life? What if that is the problem, that we don’t see, we don’t notice, we don’t look, we don’t expect?

Was it a miracle that Samuel found a God-ordained boy named David to be the new king of Israel? In hindsight I think it probably was, but not a first class miracle. (I wasn’t actually present when Samuel found David.)

How about in the gospel lesson from John? Was it a miracle that Jesus healed the blind man? Absolutely it was a miracle, to my mind and my faith. First class? I don’t think so.

Did you think it was a miracle when you heard this in the first verse of the reading? “As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.”

When all the others in the story had seen a blind beggar by the side of the road, as they crossed to walk on the other side of the road, when they had only seen a beggar, Jesus saw a man, a man, a man born blind.

I think that is the first class miracle. Jesus saw a man, a man born blind who had been forced to beg by the side of the road in order to live. A man in desperate straits. A man in need. A man. And Jesus healed that man.

Jesus healed all the time. It was pretty ordinary for him, and for other itinerant healers, too. But Jesus first saw this blind beggar as a man, as a man in need, to be sure. But he knew him first as a man, a person, a child of God, a brother, a human being. And only then, as a person in need and then he was moved to act. A first class miracle in my book.

Perhaps the most damning point in this gospel story is that to the others in the story he was only that blind beggar. As I have not seen others from time to time.

I want to tell you another story of a First Class Miracle, told to me by my good friend, Bud Holland. Bud worked for many years at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City. These are his words about another man named Richard.

“I met Richard on my way to the Church Center. Over the years we became good friends and prayer partners. When I met him he said that he was "special." He had two first names: Richard Jeffrey. He and I laughed. I brought people to meet Richard. Initially I said my name was Bud. It is Bud as in Budweiser. He laughed. Later I introduced Jerry Drino to him. He had not heard the name Drino before so he decided to call Jerry "Heineken." Again we laughed.

“I often wondered what he was about on that corner of 38th and 3rd Avenue. He did have a cup to receive money but it was such a passive way of asking for money. He never verbally asked for money. Then over time I realized that he was bartering love and he became for me a prayer partner. He always remembered the people I asked him to pray for. When people passed him on the street they would greet him by saying "hello, Richard." So he was known by so many others. Knowing folks who work on the street by name is unusual to say the least. It bears witness to his witness and faithful friendship over the years.

“When I told him that I was not going to be working in the city and would therefore not be seeing him very often, he rose from where he was sitting, tears filled his eyes, and he uttered these words: ‘It will be all right. God closes the distance between us.’ By the way, I was recently in the city and did not see him at the corner. In a very special way I believe we will always be in each other's prayers.”

In my words, a First Class Miracle.

When we truly see a person we could easily pass by as a neighbor, as a man, as a woman, as a brother or sister in Christ, as a person, with a name and a face which bears the light of God’s presence in our meeting, we will truly see. And we will know at that moment that we have been part of a First Class Miracle. Today, Jesus shows us the way.