I’m not exactly sure why this night requires a homily because tonight is not so much about “words” as it is about “signs.” In some ways the whole service is a sign.
Our readings point us in this way. Exodus spoke about the blood on the doorposts being a “sign” of God’s passing over and sparing the enslaved Hebrews from the wrath descending on the land of Egypt. In Paul’s simple words to the Corinthians we have the earliest reference in the New Testament to what we now call the “Eucharist” or “Holy Communion” and learn that bread and cup will now forever signify to us Jesus’ death until he comes. And in tonight’s portion from John’s extensive recording of the highly symbolic events and words of the upper room, Jesus gives his disciples a sign in the washing of feet about a new commandment of love for one another. Tonight then is all about signs.
In a classic definition of what we hold as sacramental, we are told that a sacrament is an outward and visible sign (ordained by Jesus) of an inward and spiritual grace from God. A sacrament, then, is to be sign or symbol for us of a spiritual reality beyond the physical manifestation we see with our eyes. So tonight in signs – towel and water, bread and cup – God becomes present and the Spirit is experienced. In these things – quite ordinary things – God “speaks to us and we affirm that “in, with, and under” these manifestly ordinary and physical things, Christ is found.
And if, to use Marcus Borg’s phrase, I may “extend the metaphor,” could we not understand the whole of our Christian tradition as sacrament – the Bible, the creeds, the liturgies and rituals, the hymns and music, all of it? To quote Borg: “When one sees Christianity as a sacrament of the sacred, being Christian is not about believing in Christianity. That would be like believing in the bread and wine of the Eucharist rather than letting the bread and wine do their sacramental work of mediating the presence of Christ…Rather, being Christian is about a relationship to the God who is mediated by the Christian tradition as sacrament. To be Christian is to live within the Christian tradition as sacrament and let it do its transforming work within and among us.” (READING THE BIBLE AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME, p. 35)
Truly our life together as Christians is a constant celebration of the life, teaching, and acts of Jesus. The dictionary defines the verb “celebrate” as something people do to commemorate an event. Tonight, perhaps as much as any day or night in our whole tradition, invites us to celebrate Jesus, to enact God’s dream for the world, to live into God’s intention for creation. C.S. Lewis called this the “great dance” where we catch a glimpse of God, whose justice and mercy clap hands as discord fades away. Yes tonight, even amid a week that seems more aptly titled horrific than holy, what we “see” in water washing feet and bread and wine eaten around a table take us beyond human knowledge to the passions and purpose of creation. In these signs, we discover that we do not so much “believe” in God as we come to “belove” God, where “in, with, and under” water, bread, and wine we discover the way the heart should go in giving one’s whole self to God.
Washing each other’s feet as servants one to another, gathering around Christ’s table of grace, peace, love, and joy – this is at the heart of what we do, of who we are. And from this heart we find a deeper sense of spirituality and new connections with one another and with the world and God.
Over the years of my ministry I waxed and waned on how simple or fancy our celebrations should be. I’ve been high church and I’ve been low, and while we all have our preferences, that is just what they are – preferences. There is no right or wrong way to celebrate Jesus and our life together in his name. What I do know is that Han Kung is right when he says that our celebration of the Lord’s Supper is what makes it possible for the church to remain a church.
Let me close with a story that Thomas Pettepiece, once a prisoner of conscience himself, tells in his classic VISIONS OF A WORLD HUNGRY. It is, I think, a powerful reminder that in the signs around us we see by faith the way the heart should go.
(STORY)
Today is Resurrection Sunday. My first Easter in prison. Surely the regime can’t continue to keep almost 10,000 political prisoners in its gaols! In here, it is much easier to understand how the men in the Bible felt, stripping themselves of everything that was superfluous. Many of the prisoners have already heard that they have lost their homes, their furniture, and everything they owned. Our families are broken up. Many of our children are wandering the streets, their father in one prison, their mother in another.
There is not a single cup. But a score of Christian prisoners experienced the joy of celebrating communion – without bread or wine. The communion of empty hands. The non-Christians said: “We will help you; we will talk quietly so that you can meet.” Too dense a silence would have drawn the guards’ attention as surely as the lone voice of the preacher. “We have no bread, nor water to use instead of wine,” I told them, “but we will act as though we had.”
“This meal in which we take part,” I said, “reminds us of the prison, the torture, the death and final victory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The bread is the body which he gave for humanity. The fact that we have none represents very well the lack of bread in the hunger of so many millions of human beings. The wine, which we don’t have today, is his blood and represents our dream of a united humanity, of a just society, without difference of race or class.”
I held out my empty hand to the first person on my right, and placed it over his open hand, and the same with the others: “Take eat, this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Afterward, all of us raised our hands to our mouths, receiving the body of Christ in silence. “Take, drink, this is the blood of Christ which was shed to seal the new covenant of God with men. Let us give thanks, sure that Christ is here with us, strengthening us.”
We gave thanks to God, and finally stood up and embraced each other. A while later, another non-Christian prisoner said to me: “You people have something special, which I would like to have.” The father of a dead girl came up to me and said: “Pastor, this was a real experience! I believe that today I discovered what faith is. Now, I believe that I am on the road.”
My sisters and brothers in Christ, may the signs that we see tonight in water and bread and cup be for us a faith discovery that sets us on the road, too, in the way the heart should go in giving one’s whole self to God.
HOMILY preached at Holy Wisdom Monastery, Middleton, WI on Holy Thursday, April 14, 2022
I’m not exactly sure why this night requires a homily because tonight is not so much about “words” as it is about “signs.” In some ways the whole service is a sign.
Our readings point us in this way. Exodus spoke about the blood on the doorposts being a “sign” of God’s passing over and sparing the enslaved Hebrews from the wrath descending on the land of Egypt. In Paul’s simple words to the Corinthians we have the earliest reference in the New Testament to what we now call the “Eucharist” or “Holy Communion” and learn that bread and cup will now forever signify to us Jesus’ death until he comes. And in tonight’s portion from John’s extensive recording of the highly symbolic events and words of the upper room, Jesus gives his disciples a sign in the washing of feet about a new commandment of love for one another. Tonight then is all about signs.
In a classic definition of what we hold as sacramental, we are told that a sacrament is an outward and visible sign (ordained by Jesus) of an inward and spiritual grace from God. A sacrament, then, is to be sign or symbol for us of a spiritual reality beyond the physical manifestation we see with our eyes. So tonight in signs – towel and water, bread and cup – God becomes present and the Spirit is experienced. In these things – quite ordinary things – God “speaks to us and we affirm that “in, with, and under” these manifestly ordinary and physical things, Christ is found.
And if, to use Marcus Borg’s phrase, I may “extend the metaphor,” could we not understand the whole of our Christian tradition as sacrament – the Bible, the creeds, the liturgies and rituals, the hymns and music, all of it? To quote Borg: “When one sees Christianity as a sacrament of the sacred, being Christian is not about believing in Christianity. That would be like believing in the bread and wine of the Eucharist rather than letting the bread and wine do their sacramental work of mediating the presence of Christ…Rather, being Christian is about a relationship to the God who is mediated by the Christian tradition as sacrament. To be Christian is to live within the Christian tradition as sacrament and let it do its transforming work within and among us.” (READING THE BIBLE AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME, p. 35)
Truly our life together as Christians is a constant celebration of the life, teaching, and acts of Jesus. The dictionary defines the verb “celebrate” as something people do to commemorate an event. Tonight, perhaps as much as any day or night in our whole tradition, invites us to celebrate Jesus, to enact God’s dream for the world, to live into God’s intention for creation. C.S. Lewis called this the “great dance” where we catch a glimpse of God, whose justice and mercy clap hands as discord fades away. Yes tonight, even amid a week that seems more aptly titled horrific than holy, what we “see” in water washing feet and bread and wine eaten around a table take us beyond human knowledge to the passions and purpose of creation. In these signs, we discover that we do not so much “believe” in God as we come to “belove” God, where “in, with, and under” water, bread, and wine we discover the way the heart should go in giving one’s whole self to God.
Washing each other’s feet as servants one to another, gathering around Christ’s table of grace, peace, love, and joy – this is at the heart of what we do, of who we are. And from this heart we find a deeper sense of spirituality and new connections with one another and with the world and God.
Over the years of my ministry I waxed and waned on how simple or fancy our celebrations should be. I’ve been high church and I’ve been low, and while we all have our preferences, that is just what they are – preferences. There is no right or wrong way to celebrate Jesus and our life together in his name. What I do know is that Han Kung is right when he says that our celebration of the Lord’s Supper is what makes it possible for the church to remain a church.
Let me close with a story that Thomas Pettepiece, once a prisoner of conscience himself, tells in his classic VISIONS OF A WORLD HUNGRY. It is, I think, a powerful reminder that in the signs around us we see by faith the way the heart should go.
(STORY)
Today is Resurrection Sunday. My first Easter in prison. Surely the regime can’t continue to keep almost 10,000 political prisoners in its gaols! In here, it is much easier to understand how the men in the Bible felt, stripping themselves of everything that was superfluous. Many of the prisoners have already heard that they have lost their homes, their furniture, and everything they owned. Our families are broken up. Many of our children are wandering the streets, their father in one prison, their mother in another.
There is not a single cup. But a score of Christian prisoners experienced the joy of celebrating communion – without bread or wine. The communion of empty hands. The non-Christians said: “We will help you; we will talk quietly so that you can meet.” Too dense a silence would have drawn the guards’ attention as surely as the lone voice of the preacher. “We have no bread, nor water to use instead of wine,” I told them, “but we will act as though we had.”
“This meal in which we take part,” I said, “reminds us of the prison, the torture, the death and final victory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The bread is the body which he gave for humanity. The fact that we have none represents very well the lack of bread in the hunger of so many millions of human beings. The wine, which we don’t have today, is his blood and represents our dream of a united humanity, of a just society, without difference of race or class.”
I held out my empty hand to the first person on my right, and placed it over his open hand, and the same with the others: “Take eat, this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Afterward, all of us raised our hands to our mouths, receiving the body of Christ in silence. “Take, drink, this is the blood of Christ which was shed to seal the new covenant of God with men. Let us give thanks, sure that Christ is here with us, strengthening us.”
We gave thanks to God, and finally stood up and embraced each other. A while later, another non-Christian prisoner said to me: “You people have something special, which I would like to have.” The father of a dead girl came up to me and said: “Pastor, this was a real experience! I believe that today I discovered what faith is. Now, I believe that I am on the road.”
My sisters and brothers in Christ, may the signs that we see tonight in water and bread and cup be for us a faith discovery that sets us on the road, too, in the way the heart should go in giving one’s whole self to God.