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March 20, 2008 - Maundy Thursday
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Psalm
118:14-29, Matthew 21:1-11
Maundy Thursday:
“Jerusalem: The Test of Power Is When Not to Use It”
Thanks for all the great readings of scripture
this season, including the passion story Sunday and tonight. This story lies at
the heart of who we are individually and as a people of faith. We cannot hear
it enough, cannot take it seriously enough – even as it forever reveals to us
our own foibles, faults, and follies at trying to follow this leader, doing what
we know so well in our hearts Jesus would do! This week and especially this
night – with the “commands” (what “Maundy” means) to prepare the Passover meal,
-- to love one another as he has loved us, -- to serve one another the very
elements of his life that he may live in us, -- to engage in such service to
others as not even a slave could be required to perform in the washing of feet –
and more! – This week and this night leave us with all too much clarity of our
call – what it looks like to do what Jesus would do!
We might see this week as a five-act drama --
First, on Palm Sunday there is the unmistakable
movement into the city – which we were helped to recreate so joyfully by the
children and by the Tongan Brass Band! – highly visible, vocal followers and
well-wishers – perhaps many of them taking part in their first “demonstrations”
or “actions” – their first deviations from the straight lines of their lives,
their first confrontations with Roman and other forces of occupation and control
– especially strong and vigilant because the Passover is like the Fourth of July
– remembrance of national independence.
Second, for several days Jesus becomes exhausted
with all the pressures of official surveillance and harassment of him on the one
hand – and all the failures and frustrations of the disciples to understand and
to follow him on the other. He slips into the city by daylight, merging himself
for protection among the crowds, preaching, teaching, calling them and us all to
a new way of life. He slips back out of the city each night, to stay in “safe
houses,” homes of friends, in suburbs like Bethpage and Bethany – allowing
himself to be anointed for costly mission.
Third, tonight -- the turning point of the whole
week -- begins with Jesus connecting the offering of his own life with the
Passover Meal of his people. It is enriched with the deeply personal commands
and commitments he adds for us. Then Jesus goes to the garden alone, while we
cannot stay awake for the sake of our very best friend – looking prayerfully,
even desperately, for a way out – a way of avoiding this completely new,
unexpected thing God is asking of him.
Fourth, once Jesus decides to go all the way
with God and this mission, the climax comes quickly through the rest of this
night – a series of charges and condemnations. Jesus offers no real defense
other than to keep putting the questions back upon those who raise them –
revealing our own deepest fears of risk to our lives and our ways of living. In
spite of our intentions and even our expectations of ourselves, we fall away
from him – in betrayal with Judas, in denial with Peter, in abandonment and
resignation to death with everyone else – until Jesus is left utterly, bloodily
alone in humiliation and finally in execution.
The last act of the drama awaits us on Sunday,
the third day, when the Passover Sabbath is ends – and almost as an
“after-thought,” a ritual of what we call “closure” -- some of the women among
us at least, including his mother, venture back out to the improvised tomb –
hopelessly, helplessly longing perhaps to see his pierced and bruised body again
– to touch him once more, to cleanse and anoint and wrap him for lasting burial
. . . Little do we know what awaits us there.
I call this meditation “Jerusalem” because that
“city of God” and of God’s peoples -- represented in three major faith
traditions who call it our spiritual homes -- seems so forever gripped and
crippled with cycles of conflict and violence – which stand for those cycles
throughout the world. Not only does Jesus ride boldly if humbly into a city of
tension and turmoil this week. It has long been axiomatic in his faith
tradition that prophets could not help but “die in Jerusalem,” die at the hands
of their own “powers that be” – any place in this world. Jesus weeps looking
over the city -- because we cannot see and will not accept the things that make
for peace! Rather we end up investing ourselves, intentionally and not, in
cycles of suspicion and conflict, division and violence through centuries.
Whereas the true test of power is to know when and how not to use it.
Palm Sunday remains the most “newsworthy” day of
Jesus’ life. On Palm Sunday the people would have made Jesus their savior and
king – in the powerful image of David the warrior-king. Had Jesus but said the
word at that time, his followers and opportunistic others would have stormed the
city for him!
It is not often, any time or any place in
history, that someone with the clear chance for so much personal power and glory
as Jesus on this day gives it up.
Jesus knows he will face this choice from the
forty days Satan tempts him with personal power and glory in the wilderness
after his baptism! He knows he could have invoked powers of sword in the
garden, at the time of his arrest. In fact, we need to add to the “commands” of
this night – “Put down the sword!” Whatever that stands for in the way of
weapons of violence and war – put it down. If we “live by the sword, we die by
the sword” – and that is the end to war!
Even from the cross, when he could have summoned
“legions of angels” to rescue him. How often does someone choice to give up
such powers? To opt for nonviolent resistance? To offer up only their own
lives – nobody else’s – not even those of one’s closest friends? To surrender
to a higher power, a greater glory – and to engage in demonstration of action
through loving witness and service that makes no worldly sense at all? That
seems doomed to nothing but frustration and failure, death and despair? As we
say, what a tough act to follow!
This last week of Jesus’ life becomes, to our
amazement, the first week of the rest of the lives of all those who ever follow
him. Let me say that again. This terrible week of death for Jesus is the
beginning of life for all who come after. New life for all those who tried so
pathetically to follow him in the beginning – new life for us who try so
pathetically to follow him even now. Brothers and sisters, if we are reluctant
to be seen as hopeless idealists -- pathetically doomed to real and apparent
frustration and failure, death and despair -- we might as well drop the cross
now. We might as well look for some other, more likely, parade than the one we
set out in this week – perhaps a parade that will do whatever it has to in order
to win, to eradicate every enemy rather than risk our lives just as bravely to
make them our friends. A lot of Jesus own “wannabe” followers do so.
Holy Week is every year -- if we let it, if we
show up for it – the longest and most lasting week of our faith-lives. The
story of this week – as we have enacted a portion tonight and as our young
people now read it for us – takes up a third to a half of the length of each of
the gospels. This is the oldest part of the gospels, the part first recorded
and the key to understanding all the rest of his life and work. We come out
tonight, and tomorrow, to experience as much as we can – as much as we bear, as
much as we dare – of what Jesus and his follower-friends experienced then. That
we might see, and hear, and take to heart, and even to act – in ways that we may
become a little more faithful to him even now.
Betrayal, denial, abandonment, resignation,
utter defeat, inexorable death. Were it not for the honor of following Jesus,
we’d just as soon leave this week to somebody else! Can I get a witness? For
Jesus this week, in the end, is all about realizing that there IS nobody else!
Jesus has no other plan, no fallback position -- but US! If the pain does not
stop with Jesus, if the pain does not stop with us, with this generation, the
pain stops with no one. There is no one else.
We only recycle the pain – the suffering, the
innocent death, the grief, the anger, the hatred, and the revenge – again, and
again, and again. Our children inherit from us – by our commission and our
omission. Jesus acts here to end the pain. Somebody must find the courage,
somebody must find the heart, to stand, to follow – even by ourselves – when all
others have thought better of it and have saved themselves – for whatever we
think it is we are saving self for . . . .
It is said that someone asks Jesus how much his
God loves this world. Jesus responded, “This much.” And he stretched out his
arms, and he died. Amen.
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