Br. Lain Wilson

Maundy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-14

I’ve attended a lot of Maundy Thursday services in my life, and for me there’s a clear dividing line, a clear before and after: the year 2022, when I entered the Society as a postulant. It’s a dividing line not because of that, though. It’s a dividing line because, for the first time in my life, I participated in the footwashing.

I’m not sure what had held me back before. I suspect it was many things – a sense of restraint, keeping something of myself firmly under wraps (or under socks); a belief that I didn’t need to go forward, that I couldn’t gain something from it that I didn’t already have; and, perhaps, a bit of embarrassment, that my feet were sweaty in my socks and what if they smelled and what will people think . . .

What I experienced in that dividing-line liturgy – when I untied my shoes and took off my socks and sat shoulder to shoulder with these men – well, I can only call it surrender, the surrender of all that had held me back for so many years.

And so too each year on this night, on this night of many movements – when we come forward to wash and be washed, and again to be fed with Bread and Wine, when we process to and kneel in the garden, and finally when we go back out into the world – on this night, each of the many movements calls us to surrender, and in surrendering to be broken open by the One who is Love.

As we come forward to wash and be washed, to participate in this strangely intimate ritual, we are invited to surrender our secrecy. At the very core of our being is a mystery known only to God, but how often do we also hold a little something back, keep something in reserve, as a way of maintaining control over who we think ourselves to be? How often do we come to God in prayer and keep our shoes and socks on, shying away from the discomfort and intimacy of laying our innermost selves absolutely bare before the one who knows us more fully than we do or can ourselves?

“During supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself” (John 13:2-4). Jesus, on his knees with towel and basin, washing his friends’ feet, reveals to them something just as true about who he is as do voices from heaven or miraculous healings.

In coming forward and baring our feet, we too bare something of this inner self. In washing and being washed, in this profoundly simple act of humble service, we allow those bared inner selves to come into contact with each other, with all the heat and risk of live wires crossing. We take the risk of revealing something true about who we are to others; we allow others to know us in a way that God knows us.

We come to know, more fully and completely, that we are not in this alone.

And so, as we come forward to be fed with bread and wine, on this night when we also remember Jesus’ institution of the eucharist, we participate in this mystery by surrendering our self-sufficiency. So much of our lives, and our world, demands self-sufficiency. To show that we all have it figured out, that we can do it all, that we can climb the ladder of success by our own abilities, capacities, and worthiness. Even when we need help – and we will all need help – there’s a small voice that can so easily convince us that that help means we failed.

“This is my body that is for you,” Saint Paul reports Jesus saying (1 Corinthians 11:24). Not the body that you have earned with your own blood and sweat and tears. Not the body that you have saved up for years to purchase. This is my body that is for you – a free gift, beyond patronage and deservingness. And, This is my body that is for you – “you” plural. So too the Passover lamb: “Tell the whole congregation of Israel that . . . they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one” (Exodus 12:3-4). The bread and wine we receive – we receive – are not just for us as individuals. This bread and wine are the healing gifts given to us who comprise God’s family, God’s household, Jesus’ friends and siblings.

And so, as we go forward together to the garden, led by Jesus, present in his gifts to us, as we kneel together as God’s family, shoulder to shoulder, before him, we are invited to surrender finally our shame. We know how this story goes – disciples falling asleep in the garden, then running and hiding at Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion. We know this part of the story is one of human failure – failure of endurance, failure of courage. We will kneel together and sing together “Stay with me,” over and over again, a pointed reminder of the disciples’ failure – and of our own.

Because we do fail. Again and again. Fail in our intentions and prayers, in our thoughts and actions. We’re all fallible and frail. “Christ revealed our frailty and our falling,” Julian of Norwich wrote, “our trespasses and our humiliations.”[1] We all fall asleep in our own gardens. And we can’t help but feel shame for those failures. How familiar is Peter’s bitter weeping when his threefold denial proved Jesus’ prediction true (Matthew 26:75)?

Maybe you didn’t clip your toenails tonight; or maybe you carry something weightier in your heart, something that is closing you off to others, something that Jesus is calling you to surrender, to hand over to him in this place, on this night, when you are surrounded by the company of God’s family, when the live wire that is your inner heart wants so desperately to shoot out sparks as it comes into contact with those of others.

“Christ revealed our frailty and our falling, our trespasses and our humiliations.” But, Julian continues, “Christ also revealed his blessed power, his blessed wisdom and love. He protects us as tenderly and as sweetly when we are in greatest need; he raises us in spirit and turns everything to glory and joy without ending.” As we kneel before Jesus on this night, confessing our sins, washing feet, or pledging to remain with him, we surrender our shame to the one who raises us up not in spite of our failures but because of them. Not in spite of but because we are the fallible and frail creatures whom God loves so, so much. “God proves God’s love for us,” Saint Paul writes, “in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Tonight, on this night of many movements, we surrender to the One who is Love. As we kneel with hearts and souls bared, we hear clearly Love’s new command: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). This is risky. There’s so much heat coming from these live wires. But in this new command, and in our final movement back into the nighttime of this world, a world that so desperately needs this love, we can hear the promise of Love’s coming victory, reigning from the cross and overcoming all and turning everything to glory and joy without ending.

Amen.

[1] “Canticle S: A Song of Our True Nature,” in Enriching Our Worship 1 (New York, 1998), 40-41.