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