Maundy Thursday, 13 April, Fr James Heard at St George's Campden Hill
Maundy Thursday, 13 April, Fr James Heard at St George's Campden Hill
Tonight’s
Gospel passage I’m sure is quite familiar to us. Jesus, the servant king, takes
the lowly position of a servant by washing his disciples’ feet. It was Jesus’
way of showing who God is, what God is like.
The other
main character was Peter, the impulsive, but also endearing, disciple. He has
an astonishing ability to get it so right sometimes, but also an equal ability
to completely misunderstand. And in this encounter, he misunderstands what
Jesus is doing. He refuses Jesus’ offer of washing his feet, thinking that this
simply isn’t becoming to a rabbi, a holy person.
Jesus
insists, however. He must wash us if we are to belong to him. When Peter
understands this, he abruptly changes his mind and impetuously demands that
Jesus give him a complete bath!
Jesus reminds
Peter, he remains us, that by belonging to him, by being called by him, we have
already been washed. We don’t need another full immersion, as it were. As Tom
Wright puts it, what we need is a regular washing of those parts of ourselves,
our personalities and bodies, which get dusty and dirty. This has been our
journey throughout Lent.
After washing
his disciples’ feet Jesus tells them to do likewise. Jesus gives them, he gives
us too, a pattern to follow… a pattern of serving, of caring for one another,
of not getting too proud or important. And we need to be reminded about this
again and again, because we all too easily forget. We are challenged to look
beyond our own little horizon, to look away from ourselves, and at the
community we are called to serve. How will everyone know that you are my
disciples? If, if… ‘you have love for one another’ (v.35).
This is
important to remember, because we can often become hardened to the world’s
needs. This is particularly true in our world of instant communication – a
bombing in Syria is relayed immediately through 24-hour news channels, twitter,
facebook and so on into our lives. And there is so much shocking news that we
can easily become inoculated or numbed by the often horrific stories and events
that we daily hear. Our hearts can so easily become hard.
I’ll never
forget hearing Jackie Pullinger speak at Holy Trinity Brompton several years ago.
She left Britain when she was 21 years old, after studying at the Royal College
of Music, and arrived in Hong Kong with $10 in our pocket. Has hasn’t left. She
been there since 1966. She has spent her entire working life serving the drug
addicts in what is called the Walled City. The organisation that formed now
provides homes for 200 people. The charity's work has been recognized by the
Hong Kong government who donated the land for the rehabilitation homes. The
intervention process that the drug addicts go through is very intensive.
Instead of giving them medications they are put into a room for 10 days, and
prayed over and cared for by a group of ex-addicts. This is the quote I heard
her say:
‘God wants us to have soft hearts and hard feet; the problem is that we
have hard hearts and soft feet.’
What a
challenge. We constantly need reminding that our vocation as Christians is to
serve, to love one another. To love and serve those who seem unlovable.
So that’s the first challenge… to love and to serve as Jesus did.
The second
thing to reflect upon tonight and, indeed, throughout Holy Week, is how we
worship. We come to a part of the church’s year that embodies the Christian
faith in a definitely physical way. Tonight, we wash feet. Tomorrow at 12 noon
there is the ‘liturgy of the cross’, a chance to physically stand before a
wooden cross, to hold it, to kiss it, to stand silent before it. At the
Saturday vigil, we gather around a bonfire at the entrance to church, light the
Easter Candle from this bonfire and process into a pitch-dark church singing
‘the light of Christ’. Other candles are lit. When we come to the Gloria the
organist stretches his/ her arms over the organ, the lights are switched on, we
ring bells… we shout out, Christ is risen!
We experience
the drama of salvation in a remarkable way an embodied faith… light, colour,
movement, smells, taste, they are all there. They are there throughout the
year, of course, but there is a glorious intensity during Holy Week.
This might
all be old hat to you good Anglican folk. But for many Christians, for me
growing up, we had a profoundly disembodied faith. The roots of this are a
mind-body dualism where the mind, thought, will, is considered more pure,
holier than the body. The body is something to overcome, and most certainly
excluded from worship. I’m exaggerating to make a point, of course.
I didn’t
recognise this growing up. I only noticed it when I returned to my home church
after being in an Anglican church for several years. I remember looking around:
there was no brightly decorated altar and certainly no vestments, there were no
candles, no cross, no stain glass windows. It was a profoundly interior,
disembodied faith. Becoming a Christian meant saying a prayer – which is a
cognitive act – or, like John Wesley, experiencing your heart ‘strangely
warmed’, an affective experience which is also something interior. I don’t want
to knock those things because our intellect and emotions are part of who we are
and part of our faith. But our faith is enriched and deepened if it is embodied
because, quite simply, we ourselves are embodied beings.
This physical
dimension is seen and experience in a profound way this evening in the washing
of feet. It’s a profoundly physical and spiritual way of connecting and
re-enacting the Gospel narrative. Of course, we get nervous about the idea of
washing someone else’s feet. Equally, we feel anxious about letting someone
else wash our feet… it is risky; it’s a vulnerable thing to do. And yet I want
to encourage you to embrace the risk, to step out… It’s the most natural thing
a community of people could do.
I’d like to
end with a poem by Malcolm Guite entitled: Maundy Thursday.
Here is the source of every sacrament,
The all-transforming presence of the Lord,
Replenishing our every element
Remaking us in his creative Word.
For here the earth herself gives bread and wine,
The air delights to bear his Spirit’s speech,
The fire dances where the candles shine,
The waters cleanse us with His gentle touch.
And here He shows the full extent of love
To us whose love is always incomplete,
In vain we search the heavens high above,
The God of love is kneeling at our feet.
Though we betray Him, though it is the night.
He meets us here and loves us into light.