Exodus 12:1–4[5–10] 11–14
Psalm 116:1–2, 12–19
1 Corinthians 11:23–26
John 13:1–17, 31b–35
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Welcome. This one word, welcome, is compound. Two words in one. “Well.” And “come.” It could not be a more fitting for the Three Days’ Celebration. We come to be well, to be whole and complete. Words, good words and God’s Word are important, especially in these days.
But in our Three Days’ celebration, ritual actions declare what and who we are to be. They speak louder than any words could possibly muster.
Tonight, words like I forgive you are amplified by the action of absolving with hands gripping the vulnerable top of the scalp and offering a tangible blessing.
On this Maundy Thursday, while we hear Jesus’ new commandment to love another as he loves us, it is enacted while we expose the bottom of our bodies, and offer feet to be ceremonially washed by worship leaders who are turned into servants.
On this night, while we recall Jesus celebration of the Passover and say that his own body and blood are central to our paschal feasting, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins, we will consume bread and wine with our mouths as if Christ’s dying and rising on behalf of sinners feeds us, and is linked to our own destinies.
Welcome.
Living in Vermont for almost seven years, in my role as pastor of a historically immigrant church, I was an agent of reconciliation. I had to help the congregation reconcile its past with its future. No longer just a clump of Swedes who were tied to the marble industry, we had to recognize the newcomers from the flatlands of New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere. The local newspaper helped us recognize our mission when it declared that the region was no longer fueled by a manufacturing economy, but in the growing industry of ski resorts, restaurants and inns, and shops, had morphed late in the past century into a service economy.
This meant significant soul-searching for our congregation. We had to work to acknowledge the gifts of outsiders, like the one new to us who proposed starting an early childhood center to meet the needs of working families. We made a congregational decision to spend significant endowment funds, something like $70,000 seed money to renovate the building to make it more accommodating to children, and fill the classrooms with colorful furniture, toys, and books.
We had to include those who were eager to support this venture who gave their money and their time. And as there often is when money is part of the issue there was conflict. There was a struggle between some of the old-timers who wanted to save money for a rainy day and who were desperately afraid that the risk of the new childhood center would drain the church’s finances and the congregation would die, and those who were passionate about this outreach into the community.
We had to learn, again and again, how to reimage ourselves as a church that welcomed families into our building and into our ministry who were not Swedish, and who were not part of our congregation. And we had to learn how to love one another as Christ loved us, sacrificing, self-emptying, lavishly.
Change does not come easily. Breaking old habits is hard work. It requires giving up, and letting go.
Tonight at Christ the King, we are leaving the forty-day period of Lent for the ways of new life with God. Forty, as everybody knows, is biblical language that means a long time. We’ve had a long time to consider just what we are getting into when we invite God and God in Christ to be at the center, while other priorities and activities have to be put aside.
Tonight we are invited to begin life anew in Christ. My role as pastor, like when in Vermont, will be an agent of reconciliation. You too are invited to play that role! This is what reconciliation means: We must leave behind resentments and assumptions. We must not make distinctions between insiders and outsiders. Jesus welcomes you. In your new life in Christ, welcome others. Like the community in Vermont we must change from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, if you know what I mean. We must shift our emphasis from producing, offer our feet to Jesus, and then wash others.
It’s hard to change. In Jesus’ story told by the gospel writer John, just before Passover, Jesus actions matched his words. His transition from ministry with God’s people to the glory on the cross was visible in his washing feet. He was signaling a movement from horizontal dimension to the vertical in chapter 13 of John, the very chapter read tonight. He was an agent of reconciliation. But Peter did not want change. He was stubborn. He did not want to hear about Jesus’ suffering and dying as the way to new life. He did not want Christ to be a model of servanthood, but of something else, like a battering ram, or maybe a beneficent dictator. He wanted people to scurry around Jesus, keeping busy, not to stop and offer themselves to him.
What did Jesus say? “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Peter quickly changed his tune, no longer protesting a foot wash but asking for a full body wash.
Tonight Jesus offers his love to you, and you, and you. It is Jesus’ love that is enacted on your feet. It is Jesus’ promise that is offered in communion. You are invited to exchange your old life for his new life as you enter into the paschal mystery these Three Days, together with the community of Jesus’ friends.
So come forward with your feet, your hands and lips, and whole selves. See how loving with open hearts and minds changes you. See if the Peters and the Judases in and around us might be offered the ministry of reconciliation.
And return to this community, often, tomorrow, the next day, and the next. It’s the dawn of something new.
Welcome.
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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