Maundy Thursday at Christ Church Cathedral
Maundy Thursday at Christ Church Cathedral
April 21, 2011
May our work in the world be a vehicle for Your Love; May it shine and light up all darkened places. Be with us, O Lord. Amen. (Adapted from Marianne Williamson’s Illuminata.)
`Where I am going, you cannot come.'
. . . . .
It must have been so hard for the Disciples. We barely understand Resurrection, we who have more than two millennia of story and song, of tradition and ritual, of the repetitive and generational cycle of the church year. How must it have been for them, that the one they loved most, the one who had filled their days and nights, their minds and hearts and their spirits for nearly three solid years would feed them, offering all of himself, and then say “Where I am going, you cannot come.”
Those are the words that have been haunting me this week as I have prepared to preach from this Gospel.
I hear the grief and the finality of this statement, and I feel empty inside. I have imagined how this must have felt to those who heard these words. I have not been in their sandals exactly, but I can draw from my own life in order to feel with them this night.
My image for this kind of grief is that of being a single mother, forced to let my child go for a visit with a biological father whom I knew would not guard him or love him or keep him in safety. I stood and watched my little fellow at the airport, as he lagged behind, his blue eyes turned back entreatingly to my own. “Can’t you change this?” they seemed to beg. I tried to keep a bright face, one of encouragement and hope and comfort. But it was hollow because all I wanted to do with every fiber of my being was follow this little person I so dearly loved. And I was not allowed.
I understood that, but the practical reasoning that I had lost the arguments in court and was compelled to follow the orders of the judge who did not comprehend the situation fully paled in the wake of my terror, my confusion and my utter and complete helplessness.
As we journey through Holy Week, we pause here at Maundy Thursday with the specific goal of understanding what it means to feel lost.
The derivation of the name "Maundy" has two separate possible meanings, with both cited as the one that “most scholars agree is correct!” One possibility is that the English word Maundy is from the Middle English, and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase "Mandatum novum ("A new commandment,”) The commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved us. The other suggestion is that "Maundy Thursday" arose from "maundsor" baskets, in which on that day the king of England distributed alms to certain poor at Whitehall: "maund" is connected with the Latin mendicare, and French mendier, to beg. The name “Maundy Thursday” thus might arise from a medieval custom whereby the English royalty handed out "maundy purses" of alms to the poor before attending Mass on this day. Traditionally, Her Majesty has distributed specially minted Maundy Money; If she follows her tradition, this year she will hand them out to 85 men and 85 women (85 being the years of The Queen’s age). The Queen comes to the people and it is an act of humility by The Sovereign before God. The Tradition dates back to the 1st Century A.D. and the English Crown has observed some practice of humility (foot washing or giving) on Maundy Thursday for over 500 years.
Luckily, we are Episcopalians and the Middle Way is our comfort zone. Both possible derivations of the word Maundy have something to offer us this night. Humility is certainly where we arrive when we feel empty and lost. . In tonight’s service, the altar and the chancel will be stripped. “Can’t you change this?” we want to ask.
No.
This is to prepare for the solemnity of Good Friday, and also echoes the stripping of Christ's garments when he was arrested and brought before the soldiers. But I think that it also speaks to us on a deeper level. As we watch the church being emptied to stone, we remember what it feels like to bare our souls of all pride and to reach that point of total humility. . . when we are truly empty, we are at our best to fill our hearts with God and to truly understand what is to come.
When we are truly bare, we are ready to hear the words that come next from Jesus. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Is that love what we think it is? Is that love perhaps what we are afraid it might be?
In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis talks about one main separation in the meaning of the word love. He establishes this as Need Love vs. Gift Love. Need love, Lewis says, is born of emptiness. As we are empty tonight it is important to understand that. It is basically inquisitive to the core. One who loves in this way sees in every beloved object or person a value that he or she covets to possess. Need love moves out greedily to grasp and to appropriate. If we were to illustrate it, need love always has the expectation of being circular, --reaching out to the beloved to transfer value back to itself. The Very Rev. Sherry Crompton puts it more graphically: “need love sucks essence out of another and into itself.”
Lewis reminds us that it does not take exceptional imagination to acknowledge that many times when we humans say to another, "I love you," what we are really meaning is, "I need you, I want you. You have a value that I very much desire to make my own, no matter what the consequence may be to you." Or more simply, “I need to hear that you love me.”
Gift love presents an alternate reality.
Instead of being born of emptiness or lack, this form of loving is born of fullness. The goal of gift love is to enrich the beloved rather than to obtain value. Gift love is like an arc, not a circle. It moves out to bless and to increase rather to acquire or to diminish. Gift love is more like those mountain waterfalls I preached about a few weeks ago. It is plentiful and abundant and unable to be contained. Lewis concludes by reminding us that God's love is gift love, not need love. That Gift-love is the foundation of the commandment that fills our open and empty hearts this night.
And although we are commanded, we can choose. What direction will we take on this night we are both empty and commanded to be filled? We can choose not to strip ourselves as the altar is stripped and thus leave our hearts too full of need and pride to be able to understand the way that God loves us. We can choose to ignore the commandment by focusing on need-love. But we are then missing the best part: “Just as I have loved you.”
It is hard to grasp, probably just as difficult now as it was for the disciples on the night that Jesus fed them in an earthly way for the last time. But there is a wonderful Native American story that helps us to understand.
One evening an Old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.” The grandson thought about it for minute and then asked, “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
When we receive Communion, we choose which wolf to feed. Paul’s word’s the Corinthians are the familiar words we hear in every Eucharistic service. “The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In Eucharist, we partake of Christ himself as a sustaining force that will fill us and teach us to love—to love just as He has loved us.
But as we prepare this night for the Cross tomorrow, we pray as we sing the words of our Offering hymn; we empty ourselves and ask humbly with open and broken hearts for God to fill us:
“Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee; take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love; take my heart it is thine own, it shall be thy royal throne.
We cannot change it. We should not want to do so.
It is only in emptying ourselves on Maundy Thursday that we can begin to understand the Cross and turn toward the empty tomb.
Amen.
April 21, 2011
May our work in the world be a vehicle for Your Love; May it shine and light up all darkened places. Be with us, O Lord. Amen. (Adapted from Marianne Williamson’s Illuminata.)
`Where I am going, you cannot come.'
. . . . .
It must have been so hard for the Disciples. We barely understand Resurrection, we who have more than two millennia of story and song, of tradition and ritual, of the repetitive and generational cycle of the church year. How must it have been for them, that the one they loved most, the one who had filled their days and nights, their minds and hearts and their spirits for nearly three solid years would feed them, offering all of himself, and then say “Where I am going, you cannot come.”
Those are the words that have been haunting me this week as I have prepared to preach from this Gospel.
I hear the grief and the finality of this statement, and I feel empty inside. I have imagined how this must have felt to those who heard these words. I have not been in their sandals exactly, but I can draw from my own life in order to feel with them this night.
My image for this kind of grief is that of being a single mother, forced to let my child go for a visit with a biological father whom I knew would not guard him or love him or keep him in safety. I stood and watched my little fellow at the airport, as he lagged behind, his blue eyes turned back entreatingly to my own. “Can’t you change this?” they seemed to beg. I tried to keep a bright face, one of encouragement and hope and comfort. But it was hollow because all I wanted to do with every fiber of my being was follow this little person I so dearly loved. And I was not allowed.
I understood that, but the practical reasoning that I had lost the arguments in court and was compelled to follow the orders of the judge who did not comprehend the situation fully paled in the wake of my terror, my confusion and my utter and complete helplessness.
As we journey through Holy Week, we pause here at Maundy Thursday with the specific goal of understanding what it means to feel lost.
The derivation of the name "Maundy" has two separate possible meanings, with both cited as the one that “most scholars agree is correct!” One possibility is that the English word Maundy is from the Middle English, and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase "Mandatum novum ("A new commandment,”) The commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved us. The other suggestion is that "Maundy Thursday" arose from "maundsor" baskets, in which on that day the king of England distributed alms to certain poor at Whitehall: "maund" is connected with the Latin mendicare, and French mendier, to beg. The name “Maundy Thursday” thus might arise from a medieval custom whereby the English royalty handed out "maundy purses" of alms to the poor before attending Mass on this day. Traditionally, Her Majesty has distributed specially minted Maundy Money; If she follows her tradition, this year she will hand them out to 85 men and 85 women (85 being the years of The Queen’s age). The Queen comes to the people and it is an act of humility by The Sovereign before God. The Tradition dates back to the 1st Century A.D. and the English Crown has observed some practice of humility (foot washing or giving) on Maundy Thursday for over 500 years.
Luckily, we are Episcopalians and the Middle Way is our comfort zone. Both possible derivations of the word Maundy have something to offer us this night. Humility is certainly where we arrive when we feel empty and lost. . In tonight’s service, the altar and the chancel will be stripped. “Can’t you change this?” we want to ask.
No.
This is to prepare for the solemnity of Good Friday, and also echoes the stripping of Christ's garments when he was arrested and brought before the soldiers. But I think that it also speaks to us on a deeper level. As we watch the church being emptied to stone, we remember what it feels like to bare our souls of all pride and to reach that point of total humility. . . when we are truly empty, we are at our best to fill our hearts with God and to truly understand what is to come.
When we are truly bare, we are ready to hear the words that come next from Jesus. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Is that love what we think it is? Is that love perhaps what we are afraid it might be?
In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis talks about one main separation in the meaning of the word love. He establishes this as Need Love vs. Gift Love. Need love, Lewis says, is born of emptiness. As we are empty tonight it is important to understand that. It is basically inquisitive to the core. One who loves in this way sees in every beloved object or person a value that he or she covets to possess. Need love moves out greedily to grasp and to appropriate. If we were to illustrate it, need love always has the expectation of being circular, --reaching out to the beloved to transfer value back to itself. The Very Rev. Sherry Crompton puts it more graphically: “need love sucks essence out of another and into itself.”
Lewis reminds us that it does not take exceptional imagination to acknowledge that many times when we humans say to another, "I love you," what we are really meaning is, "I need you, I want you. You have a value that I very much desire to make my own, no matter what the consequence may be to you." Or more simply, “I need to hear that you love me.”
Gift love presents an alternate reality.
Instead of being born of emptiness or lack, this form of loving is born of fullness. The goal of gift love is to enrich the beloved rather than to obtain value. Gift love is like an arc, not a circle. It moves out to bless and to increase rather to acquire or to diminish. Gift love is more like those mountain waterfalls I preached about a few weeks ago. It is plentiful and abundant and unable to be contained. Lewis concludes by reminding us that God's love is gift love, not need love. That Gift-love is the foundation of the commandment that fills our open and empty hearts this night.
And although we are commanded, we can choose. What direction will we take on this night we are both empty and commanded to be filled? We can choose not to strip ourselves as the altar is stripped and thus leave our hearts too full of need and pride to be able to understand the way that God loves us. We can choose to ignore the commandment by focusing on need-love. But we are then missing the best part: “Just as I have loved you.”
It is hard to grasp, probably just as difficult now as it was for the disciples on the night that Jesus fed them in an earthly way for the last time. But there is a wonderful Native American story that helps us to understand.
One evening an Old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.” The grandson thought about it for minute and then asked, “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
When we receive Communion, we choose which wolf to feed. Paul’s word’s the Corinthians are the familiar words we hear in every Eucharistic service. “The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In Eucharist, we partake of Christ himself as a sustaining force that will fill us and teach us to love—to love just as He has loved us.
But as we prepare this night for the Cross tomorrow, we pray as we sing the words of our Offering hymn; we empty ourselves and ask humbly with open and broken hearts for God to fill us:
“Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee; take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love; take my heart it is thine own, it shall be thy royal throne.
We cannot change it. We should not want to do so.
It is only in emptying ourselves on Maundy Thursday that we can begin to understand the Cross and turn toward the empty tomb.
Amen.
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