Sunday, March 27, 2016
Sermon for
MAUNDY THURSDAY
I have set you an example that you are to do as
I have done to you.
You should do to one another as I have done to
you….
if you know this, you are blessed if you do it.
March 24, 2016
* Holy Trinity & St. Anskar
Why
does the Fourth Gospel omit what is most distinctive in the other three
accounts - what happened
afterwards, “as supper was ending”? John
does not mention the Bread and Wine, Body and Blood, at all. The Institution of
the remembrance we call variously the Holy Eucharist, the Mass, the Divine
liturgy, the Lord’s Supper, or the Holy Communion is missing. Or is it? In place of the Institution, John has the
foot washing. What if John intends us to
understand that it signifies the same Reality as the Eucharist: the turning
point in history, the beginning of the Kingdom of God, where God’s will is done
on earth as in heaven.
John, writing much later, seems to offer a commentary on
the other Gospels, which were no-doubt well-known to him. They would have been
read in the gatherings that he attended – maybe presided at in Ephesus
(according to tradition) – and these gatherings themselves would have been
Eucharistic worship, in which the Lord “was known to them in the breaking of
bread”. Furthermore, the structure of
John’s Gospel as a Book of Signs
leading to the Passion and Resurrection culminates in this foot-washing – the
last sign before the beginning of the Passion in Gethsemane - the sign, which
shows what the Eucharist means in practical, historical terms.
I
have set you an example that you are to do as I have done to you should do to
one another as I have done to you….if you know this, you are blessed if you do
it.
The
worship of the Divine Liturgy is not just the rite of remembrance in Bread and
Wine, it is remembrance in the form of mutual love.
The Pedilavium or foot-washing is a sign in
the sense of a symbolic enactment of the New
Commandment, that Jesus links to it. Now, only God can give commandments.
That Jesus gives a new one is itself a sign of His divinity. At least by the
time of John’s writing, Jesus was known to be God-in-the-flesh. What He gave us
that night was not the supreme wisdom of a sage or prophet, but a New Commandment. This Mandatum
novum came to be called the Maundy
in English which became the name of the liturgical rite of foot-washing, which
we also do in remembrance of Him,
acting out the New Commandment.
Love
one another as I have loved you.
The
New Commndment summarizes the Two Great Commandments, which we already call the
summary of the law. As John would say
elsewhere, whoever loves in this way enters the Kingdom of God, here and now:
“whoever loves is born of God and knows God.” That is, whoever loves as Christ
loves – sacrificially unto death – enters fully into communion with God. Not only with the beloved whose feet are
washed, but with God. So, the Maundy is a sign of Communion, just as the Bread
and Wine.
The Maundy is the last sign Jesus gives before His final,
victorious battle with Sin and Death. The Mystery of His Body and Blood is its
setting. When we show forth that is,
when we PARTICIPATE in His death and
Resurrection in the Holy Eucharist,
we participate in it personally by receiving Communion. Personal salvation, does not mean individual salvation – it is communal, Communion. And so is the love of the New
Commandment – not just love others,
but love one another. The
reciprocity, implies community. You
can’t receive communion by yourself.
That is a contradiction in terms. Holy
Communion cannot be separated from the New Commandment. I think that is why the
Fourth Gospel put the enactment of the New Commandment in place of the Body and
Blood. Both signs point to the same Reality: a New Heaven and a New Earth.
Because the Commandment is not only to Love
one another, but to love one another
as I have loved you. That is, sacrificially unto death.
Not every one of us may be asked to lay down literal life
for others, but Jesus nevertheless commands this sacrifice of all of us in a
deep, spiritual sense.
Anyone
who wishes to be a follower of mine must leave self behind, take up the Cross,
and follow Me.
Insofar
as we give up our ego to be crucified, we follow Him. We lose our lives in one
sense in order to find Life in the ultimate sense. We lose our individual lives
I order to find interpersonal Life in the Communion of the Holy Spirit, in
which each is the servant of all, in the way that the One by Whom All Things
Were Made, reveals by washing our feet.
We Adore You, O Christ, and we Bless
You,
Because by Your Holy Cross, You have
Redeemed the World
Last Sunday after the Epiphany
Sermon
for the Last Sunday
after the Epiphany
after the Epiphany
Year C ~ February 7, 2016
Holy Trinity & St. Anskar
Suddenly they saw two men,
Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of
his Exodus, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
+In the Name of God,
the Holy and Undivided Trinity
This is the
second time Peter Has acted like a boob since he defined Orthodox dogma at
Cæsaræa Philippi. As soon as he offered advice, he got a rebuke – again. The
vision was withdrawn, and the Apostles went from clarity of vision back to the
level of consciousness that can only hear and obey.
But Peter wasn’t entirely
a boob. At least, to his credit, he believed
his vision, his own sense of reality. He didn’t listen to the skeptical voices
cautioning him: “this is a hallucination,
wishful thinking. It can never happen. Better be realistic pragmatic. Don’t be
so naïve. Changes like this don’t happen in the real world. Learn to
compromise.” At least Peter didn’t give in to that. Sure, what they were seeing
was too good to be true, but Peter was willing to believe it anyway. No. He was
not entirely a boob and maybe there is a lesson for us in Peter’s response.
Believing something too good to be true was not his mistake.
Peter still got it wrong, though. He misinterpreted what he
saw. He believed in it, alright, but he didn’t really get it. Neither do we,
most of the time. What do we call this strange event? The Transfiguration. By giving it that name, we suggest that the
important thing about it was what the Apostles saw, that the main thing was the
human vision of the Uncreated Light, the Glory of God in the Face of the
Incarnate Son. That is probably what Peter thought it was all about, too, and
that was his mistake. He wanted to stay there, put up some tents, and enjoy the
vision. We may err in the same way by calling it the Transfiguration and not the New
Exodus.
Why would we call it that? Because that was the topic of
discussion in the Council of the Transfigured Ones that the Apostles witnessed.
That conversation was the main thing, not the Apostles’ vision. Our translation
says they talked about the “departure” Jesus was to accomplish in Jerusalem.
And so we diminish its significance, because the Greek word is exodos, the name the Greek version of
the Old Testament gives the Second Book of Moses the name we still use. Exodus: something a great deal more important than an ordinary departure.
The Glory of the Uncreated Light was the same Glory Moses saw on Sinai in the
Fist Exodus, the same Glory that received Elijah in a Chariot of Fire.
The point is that the Glory of God transforms creation and history. The Greek word we translate as
transfiguration is metamorphosis –
transformation. Transfiguration means
the whole process of transforming this world into the Kingdom of God. Moses and
Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, are collaborators in that
process, which was about to culminate on another, even holier mountain called
Calvary. Creation is mysteriously disfigured. The Glory of God is about to
erase that disfigurement.
What the Apostles see transforms the disfigured creation at
every level. It is not accidental that the very first thing that happens when
they come down from the Holy Mountain is a personal liberation from demonic
disfiguration. It is also really
significant that Jesus had already commissioned the Apostles to do this kind of
thing. We have a role to play in the historical liberation and transfiguration
of creation, even though we aren’t always up to the task, as the Apostles were
not, in this case. Nevertheless, our Lord shares His Glory with us, not just
for our own spiritual fulfillment, but for the transformation of the world. Not
so that we can build three tents and stay there to enjoy it, but so that we can
join Him in His liberating work.
Transfiguration of persons, politics, society, the living
earth and the whole universe is a process,
a journey to Jerusalem, in which we
join and contribute along the way. It is a journey – not staying put in
rapturous vision – because the Council
we have witnessed in Glory involved human political leaders. Moses defied the
Establishment and led a slave revolt. This was impossible, The Red Sea was in
the way. But God fought for the slaves and made
it possible, once they were willing to hope. Likewise, Elijah denounced the
Establishment, publicly reviling the legitimate King, who was, however, in bed
with a pagan, who had her own agenda. Elijah reserved his worst vitriol for
Jezebel, whose very name has come to mean treachery and wanton cruelty.
Elijah’s politics weren’t very realistic. He doubted himself and got depressed,
but God didn’t let him down. God sent an Angel to help him get to the mountain
where God had met Moses, and spoke to Elijah in “a still, small voice.”
My point is that the figures who appear with the Godman in
Glory are not just visionaries, they are political activists and leaders. The
odds were against them, because our whole sorry world is like the poor boy
flailing around in convulsions and foaming at the mouth and hurting himself.
Meanwhile our legitimate, established authorities are in bed with the Jezebel
of Big Money, who worships the Baal of Market Economy. But it is Moses and
Elijah who appear with Jesus in Glory, to discuss the Exodus He sets out
accomplish in Jerusalem.
Peter didn’t entirely get what was going on, but he and the
Apostles went along anyway. Will we join them in the journey?
ALLELUIA!
HIS LIGHTNINGS
LIGHT UP THE
WORLD!
AMEN!
