This is the sermon I preached on Maundy Thursday at St. Giles Chapel here on the Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community campus. I don’t usually post sermons here on my blog but I am making an exception. I sense this is the last sermon I will preach. I have no clue how many sermons I have preached over the past 20+ years but I think it is a mantle I am passing on to others now. I have been retired now for over three years and I am finding joy in new endeavors. But since this is the last (though my husband says, “Never say never.”) I decided to post it here on my blog. If sermons are not your thing, the wonderful thing about the internet is you can just hit exit and skip over this post.
A GLASS OF MILK
Maundy Thursday.
Maundy is not a word we often use.
Maundy originates from the Latin phrase mandatum novum
which translates as “new mandate.”
Even though we might not use the word “maundy”
in our every day conversations,
we definitely understand the word MANDATE.
MANDATE has been a central part of our lives
these past two years during,
as our 9-year old grandson calls it,
“the covid.”
The mask mandate.
The stay six feet apart mandate.
The quarantine mandate.
If you look in the dictionary you will see mandate defined
as an official order or commission to do something.
We define it a little differently in the Church.
Jesus is giving his disciples a mandate,
a new COMMANDMENT.
We just heard that mandate,
that commandment,
when we heard Lin read John’s gospel:
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you,
you also should love one another.
By this
everyone will know
that you are my disciples,
If you have love for one another.
Jesus knew this was not an easy commandment to follow.
He even says IF you have love for one another
people will know you are my disciples.
IF you have love for one another….
Jesus knows us well, so very well.
Jesus knows from the start that this commandment,
his mandate to his disciples and to us
is not simple or easy.
IF you have love for one another.
There are some people in our lives who are so easy to love.
So, so easy to love.
And then there are others….
Oh my!
Those OTHERS who are so difficult for us to love.
We all have those people.
But Jesus does not give us an out.
He doesn’t say love the people who are easy to love,
love the people who look like you, act like you,
worship like you, vote like you, love like you….
He does not give us a list of exceptions.
Jesus NEVER says that it is okay to NOT love certain people.
But he does know that this mandate,
this commandment he is giving
right before he physically leaves the world
will not be easy.
IF you have love for one another.
IF….
And yet….this mandate, this commandment,
is one of the last things he says to his disciples.
After all, today is not SUGGESTION Thursday,
Today is MAUNDY—MANDATE—Thursday.
It is one of—if not THE— most important things Jesus wants his disciples-— including us— to remember,
To try,
To do.
Love one another.
Just as I have loved you,
you also should love one another.
Being a follower of Jesus is not about making Jesus FIT into our world;
It’s about us growing into the world Jesus envisions.
It’s about us trying to live into Jesus’ commandment to love one another.
Tom and I have a niece who has autistism.
She will be 35 years old in June.
She is non-verbal
but so very sweet, very dear.
Because of our niece, years ago I read Annie Lehmann’s book
The Accidental Teacher: Life Lessons from My Silent Son.
Her son Jonah has autism.
Annie and her husband spent years making Jonah the focus of their lives,
Trying every possible way to bridge the developmental gap for their son.
But nothing really worked.
They tried vitamins, restricted diets, communication boards,
sensory integrations therapy, everything.
But for Jonah,
each hope was followed by disappointment.
Annie writes,
“We might as well have been chasing butterflies with a torn net.”
Finally, when Jonah was in his teens
and the whole family was worn out and exhausted,
they decided to just let go of their checklist of goals.
They decided to just let Jonah enjoy the things he enjoyed
without their projected expectations of accomplishments.
One thing Annie continued to do do was to read to Jonah.
Now Jonah had little patience for anyone reading to him
except if the reader, usually his mother,
would SING the story.
Once Annie was singing the story of Cinderella—
she had sung it to Jonah probably a hundred times before—
singing as Jonah rolled about on the floor,
Jonah seeming completely oblivious to the story.
His mother would sing and always leave the last part of a sentence
for Jonah to complete.
She sang,
The clock struck 12,
And Cinderella ran down the palace steps
leaving behind a glass…
Jonah kept rolling on the floor
as his mother waited for him to say the word SLIPPER.
And at last Jonah completed the sentence for his mother…
…leaving behind a glass…she sang again
and Jonah replied a glass of milk.
Leaving behind a glass of milk.
Annie Lehman says she never hears the story of Cinderella
without seeing a glass tumbler filled with milk
sitting on the palace steps.
The world expected a Messiah who was so very different than Jesus.
They expected a fancy glass slipper
But they got a tumbler of milk.
They expected a warrior, a royal King.
But they never expected someone
who believed that the world
could be changed by love.
By LOVE.
Which meant that anyone—even you and I— can help change the world.
Jesus calls us—then and still now—
to act, to offer, to give, to pray, to heal, to do—
but most of all to LOVE.
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you,
you also should love one another.
By this
everyone will know
that you are my disciples,
If you have love for one another.
It sounds so simple
But It’s not easy.
Sometimes I feel like I am chasing butterflies with a torn net.
Loving one another is not always easy.
But it is what we are called to do.
Love one another is the mandate, the commandment,
Jesus gives to us.
It is this mandate that we honor today.
This Maundy Thursday.
A glass of milk
Oh Jeanne, I am home on lunch break from teaching inside the prison. How often I have felt like I was chasing butterflies with a torn net. This morning was different. It felt like LOVE was leading the way, not me and my net. I have to agree with Tom, "Never say never." At the same time, I support giving ourselves permission to explore new avenues.
Miss your sermons too! Thank you for this insightful sermon that we so need to hear, especially with all the division exploding around us.