Maundy Thursday (Year B) – Thursday,
April 5, 2012
Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church,
Lancaster, PA
Text: John 13:1-17,31b-35
Just
four days after being released from 19 years in prison, Jean Valjean,
exhausted and hungry, trudged into a small town in his native France.
Jean Valjean is the main character in Victor Hugo's novel (and also
the musical) Les Miserables.
He lives in France of about 200 years ago, when he and most everyone
else was poor. He had been locked up on prison ships for 19 years
just for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's children. He
went to every inn and house in town, but no one would have him in on
account of his yellow passport, which announced his status as an
ex-convict. He was turned away even from the prison and the stables.
Eventually, only one house was left, over by the church. Someone
told him to knock there. It was the bishop's house.
Despite
the pleas of his maid who is terrified of Valjean, the bishop
welcomes him, feeds him supper and gives him a place to sleep. Yet
in the middle of the night, Valjean awakes. Maybe he was angry at
the world, or at God. Maybe he was just that desperate. But when he
awakes, he creeps past the bishop and takes out the silver plates and
forks and spoons he had eaten off of hours before, places them in his
knapsack, and hurries away. Valjean is a complicated man – he's a
lot like us. He leaves the bishop's house with what the hymn we just
sang calls “self-inflicted pains of broken trust and chosen wrong.”
Yet he is oppressed by the injustice of his society, as the hymn
puts it, “by social forces swept along, by powers and systems close
confined.” He is deeply wounded by an uncaring and unjust world.
I think we can relate.
There
are two other people in the story we heard tonight who are a lot like
Valjean. One is Judas, and the other is Peter. The funny thing
about this touching and familiar story about Jesus washing his
disciples' feet is that the lectionary cuts out and weaves around its
two most difficult parts. But sometimes we need to hear the voices
telling hard truths from the shadows. Just after verse 17 begins the
story of Jesus predicting Judas' betrayal. Jesus says of the
betrayer, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I
have dipped it in the dish.” He gives the bread to Judas, tells
him, “do quickly what you are going to do,” and Judas leaves.
And then after our reading ends at verse 35, the story continues with
Peter. In verse 37, Peter wants to follow Jesus where he is going,
and he exclaims, “I will lay down my life for you!” Jesus
answers starkly, “Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly,
I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three
times.”
These
two, Judas and Peter, have followed Jesus through the good times and
the bad. They have seen the miracles and also heard the taunting
from those in charge. They are good people, children of God, chosen
by God. They're a lot like you and me. But they're not all they
think they are. They are afraid. Judas may be afraid of what he
sees coming for Jesus. He doesn't want to be rounded up along with
his rabbi. He may fear losing all his money, or even his life. He
tries to save himself. Peter is afraid of shame, or the loss of his
social position, or the unknown. If our hopes of a happy and
comfortable life were on the line, would we not be heading out
tonight to betray our Lord?
We are
Judas – desperately trying to save ourselves in an uncertain time,
when following Jesus offers us no guarantees. We are Peter – not
able to witness to the one being executed by the state, not willing
to bear the cost of discipleship. We are Valjean – those who have
been crushed by the weight of a fallen humanity, who sometimes cannot
resist the temptation to go the way of the world and take what we can
from whoever we can. We are a complicated people. We are God's
people. We are the Body of Christ, through often we tear his Body
apart. As we just sang, we were made in God's living likeness – by
love, for love. God's living likeness still we bear, though marred,
dishonored, disobeyed.
Valjean,
Judas, Peter, us, we are all tragic characters. This story has been
written time and again. We all know how the story's supposed to end.
Valjean should go back to prison. God should execute righteous
judgment upon Judas and Peter, and...us.
Except
that's not what happens. Sure enough, in the morning, Valjean is
quickly caught and brought to the bishop's front door, stolen silver
in hand. We expect a strong condemnation from the bishop, whose
heart's been broken. But as Valjean
and the soldiers stand by the door, waiting for the sentence, the
bishop says instead, “Ah! here you are! I am glad to see you.
Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of
silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred
francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?”
The author tells us, “Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and
stared at the venerable bishop with an expression which no human
tongue can render any account of.”
I have
to believe the look on Valjean's face was a lot like the look on
Judas' when the man he was about to betray stooped low to wash his
feet. I imagine it was a lot like the look on Peter's face, when
after the resurrection he realizes that it was God who had washed his
feet that night. It is at the moment when human brokenness is at its
height in John's gospel, in the midst of the betrayal and the denial,
that Jesus Christ, our Lord, stoops down to wash the feet of the one
who will send him to his death.
The
grace of God in Jesus Christ is astounding, surprising, amazing. The
audacity and excessiveness of God's love is shocking. Shocking like
the sudden transformation of judgment into forgiveness, mercy, and
new life. Having convinced the soldiers that Valjean did not steal,
the bishop dismisses them, turns to Valjean and says, “before you
go, here are your candlesticks. Take them.” We're told, “Valjean
was like a man on the point of fainting.” The bishop's final words
to Valjean, this man humbled by a reckless love, were these, “Go,
my brother, for you no longer belong to evil. I bought your soul,
and I withdraw from it all black thoughts, and I give it to God.”
And Valjean went out, spending the rest of his life, the rest of the
book, helping others and doing good deeds.
Tonight,
we hear the defining moment for Jesus. “Now before the festival of
the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this
world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end.” Even as they plotted to kill
him, even as they left his side, the master stooped down to be a
servant to his disciples. He loved his own, his own who did not
accept him, to the end. To the point of death, even death on a
cross.
At
your feet, washing you in his grace, on the cross, loving you to the
end, Christ says to you, “Go, my sister, my brother, for you no
longer belong to evil. I bought your soul, and I give it to God.”
And then as he gave to the disciples that night, he gives to us a
commandment, an invitation, to love one another. Just as he's loved
us. A love that takes the form of the servant, that seeks the other
before the self, that humbles oneself, that surprises, amazes,
astounds.
What
can we do when God gives us such astounding love, but to trust and
love the one who gives it, to seek to live our lives loving as Christ
first loved us, even to the end? God is inviting you to allow love
to be the sign of your faith. The Holy Spirit is moving in you,
turning you into a living witness to the love of Christ. Where has
Jesus Christ been washing feet with your hands? To whom is he
sending you? But for now, as God continues to use us to surprise the
world with love, as we also continue to betray and deny, we are
sustained by our Lord who loved us to the end. The end is coming
tomorrow. We will gather to adore the crucified one. We will gather
again Saturday night, and Sunday, to see how God turns endings into
new beginnings. Amen.
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