Spirituality and Leadership and Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday.  Also known as Holy Thursday, and Thursday of the Mystical Supper. 

It is called Maundy, as it is Latin for ‘mandate’…meaning commandment.  It is the night Christ gave us a new mandate, “to love one another, as I have loved you”.

On this night, so long ago, Jesus had his last supper with his disciples.  This night he taught them a great spiritual lesson …to love one another, through service ….in his act of washing their feet. 

It also is a profound example of leadership.  For as anyone who has been a leader, a good leader that is, knows it is the leader that serves and takes care of their people, not the other way around.

On this night, we recall these spiritual lessons by doing them… foot washing, the Eucharist, and the stripping of the altar.

Profound liturgical actions are recalled and acted out.  Any liturgy has at its heart a sacrificial action. We offer something, and God takes that offering and does something wonderful with it, something we cannot do for ourselves.  Lessons learned that go way beyond words.

In the Exodus reading, the focus is on the first Passover, a deliverance of the people from bondage in Egypt …into freedom.

This sacred text is read at every Passover feast in a liturgical setting as a profound reminder of a how a liberating and loving God delivers us from bondage, whatever that may be….

In the Corinthians reading, Jesus is having his Last Supper with his disciples… this is where we get the institution of the Holy Eucharist. A meal of bread and wine that helps us experience the Holy, to not only think about God but feel it, experience it.  It can be, is transforming….if we let it.

And in the gospel reading, John focuses on another ancient liturgical rite, foot washing.  Awkward for some, embarrassing for others, this solemn act of the Maundy Thursday liturgy helps us open our hearts.

One cannot help but feel the sense of humility.   Christ stoops to wash our feet, turning all our concepts of higher and lower, above and below, inequality and equity, into a new reality of love.

For in matters of things spiritual, things are backwards and upside down… up is down, and down is up.  Weakness is strength, the end is really the beginning…..

There is something about this sacred night that sets it apart. We’re not merely remembering the night before Jesus died, we are actually living it through the liturgy.

The insight and connection with the Passover of our Jewish sisters and brothers…. the solemn washing of the feet….. the taking of the bread and the cup……these experiences leave us with a depth of meaning that goes beyond words.

Then, the altar is stripped and prepared for Good Friday, and we transition from the most intimate liturgical moment of the Eucharist to emptiness, darkness. 

Why do we do this?  What can we do… but leave silently and go to our homes?

What we are about to do is act out that new commandment – perhaps by washing the feet of someone with whom we have had a disagreement, or someone we totally do not know. These are glimpses of what that love looks like.

The living out of this loving one another as I have loved you comes through when others help others, a community that practices radical hospitality to strangers, aliens, the poor, and those who have no helper.

Yes it is not easy….to face our pains and hurts, and I mean really face them….to go into that metaphorical or real dark room, to suffer…to let that seed crack open… and die…but it is the way to healing, wholeness… and new life.

As we leave, the words of Jesus remain in our hearts: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you...”

Amen.

[Note:  This was a homily I gave last year at St Andrew's Episcopal Church in Sedona, Arizona]