Whoops, this is a little out of order: a Maundy Thursday sermon.
A story is told of a young man, known to
be unsavory, who falls in love with a saintly young woman. Because of his
reputation, he knows that she will not so much as look in his direction. So he
slips into the vault of the town cathedral, dons one of the masks of the saints
used in the annual town festival, takes on the demeanor and behavior of the
saint, and begins to woo her. Surely enough, over time, she begins to fall in love
with him. As the relationship flowers and deepens, the young man’s scoundrel
friends become envious of his success with the saintly young woman, and one
day, out of sheer spite, they challenge him in the center of the town square,
in the presence of his beloved, to take off the mask and reveal his true
identity. Dejected, knowing that all is lost, he slowly removes the mask…
…only to reveal
that his face has become the face of the saint.
This story comes
from a book by one of my professors in Virginia, James Falwell. He himself
wasn’t sure of its origins, but its inspiration is likely medieval dramas which
played with the concept of the mask (like Cyrano de Bergerac). The “mask” metaphor
is also found in the writings of church fathers and mothers, about our desire
and our search for God.
Professor Farwell
told the story to illustrate something about the mystery of the Eucharist.
Today, in our Epistle, we hear Paul’s “words of institution,” that is, the command
given to us by Jesus at the Last Supper, along with the command to love one
another. When we who call ourselves followers of Christ share Eucharist
together, we put on a mask, like that young man. We enact and speak in
ritualized ways that reflect the actions and attitudes of those who follow Jesus
of Nazareth. We praise God, the source of life, beauty and truth; we listen to
the history of God’s love for us and our struggle to flourish as humans in the
service of God; we lament what is broken in the world; we call to mind our
obligation to help those who are broken and how imperfectly we practice
that. Then we commit again to “walk in
love as Christ loved us,” making peace with each other and welcoming each other
to a shared table
We bring our
desires for God and for our Life to the altar—sometimes with intention and
focus, and fully present--other times more timid, or unfocused. In directing
our actions together we unite under Christ and with Christ. His blood—the blood
of life—enters our own bloodstream; his body, which he asks us to take, and
eat—literally to chew on--nourishes our bodies. Like the young man in the story,
we seek the one we love--or try to love--or want to love more deeply; and we do
this by acting and speaking in ways consistent with the nature of the One we
love. Just as the young man in the story
became the one he longed to be, worthy of the love of the saintly young woman
by imitating the saint.
These latter
chapters in John’s Gospel, from which our reading is taken, are full of Jesus’
instructions to his followers. Jesus had
a problem to solve—he knew where he was going, but his disciples could not
grasp it. They are huddled together in fear and terror in the place we call
“the Upper Room.” They are, to put it
frankly, freaking out. In these
chapters, Jesus uses his last hours with them to pray for them, to teach them,
to love them, to encourage them, to prepare them to be the church without him
on earth. Throughout these chapters, the disciples say, “how can we be your
people if you are not with us? Without
you, what are we supposed to do?” Along with his teachings, Jesus gives us two practical
commandments to answer that question—what are Christians to do? In our Gospel
we hear him tell us the first one: love
one another, as I have loved you. He
embodies that in action with the washing of the feet. And then, in the sharing
of the meal, he gives us the first instructed Eucharist.
This Last Supper
of Jesus with his disciples—from which our Eucharist came--was a Passover meal.
In Exodus we hear God’s commandment to mark the Passover, to commemorate when,
by the blood of the lamb, the people were liberated from their slavery and
given passage to the promised land. The Passover Seder still gives strength to
Jewish people. They are commanded to celebrate it every year. It reminds them
of the goodness of God, the gift of God’s liberation of their people, and holds
them together to remember who they are and whose they are. And in the Last
Supper Jesus inaugurates it as a Christian tradition and gives it Christian
meaning—and so we say, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” In telling
us to continue it, Jesus marks his own sacrifice for us, not just as a history
lesson, but as a reminder of who WE are, and whose we are. This is where the incarnation pivots from
Jesus’ bodily presence on earth, which is coming to an end, and Christ with us,
in the Holy Spirit and the sacrament. And
so he says, “do this.” Twice in our Eucharist, with the bread and the wine, he
says, “Do this, in remembrance of me.”
 |
| Eucharist, by Gisele Bauche |
There’s a saying
about the Episcopal Church: We pray what
we believe, and we believe what we pray.
Well, some of us
do. At least some of the time.
I mean, sometimes
we’re not always feeling it. And you know what, that’s ok. Woody Allen once
said, 90 percent of life is showing up. In the 12-step movement, there is the
expression, “Fake it until you make it.” It says, “I’m willing to put one foot in front of the other,
work the program, keep coming back, go through the motions– and do that on
faith even if I don’t always believe it or understand it – that through this
work, the belief and understanding will come.” In fact, studies show that taking
on a more positive outlook – pretending to be happy when not, or adopting a
strong, non-verbal body posture despite not feeling the confidence that the
posture would suggest – has the effect of moving us in the direction that we
are acting out. Neuroscience now confirms how much of what we do with our
bodies wires our brain, just as much as the other way around--perhaps even
more. So when we show up with our bodies—our
thoughts and beliefs then follow. If you’ve ever said, “I almost didn’t come to
church this morning, and now I am so glad I did”—you know those times when your
body leads the way.
And so we do
this: We do this in that faith that what
we see, say, sing, hear, taste and even smell – is forming us, one Eucharist at
a time, to be like little Christs. We do this to literally and figuratively
become members of Christ’s body—of one mind with Christ, and Christ’s hands and
feet in the world. And in so doing, we affirm that being Christian is not so
much about holding particular beliefs or doctrine about God or the world, but
about becoming a certain kind of person before God and in the world.
Robert Taft, a
scholar of liturgy, wrote that, “the purpose of Eucharist is not to change
bread and wine, but to change you and me: through baptism and eucharist it is
WE who are to become Christ for one another, and a sign to the world that is
yet to hear his name.”
So pay particular
attention to the sights and sounds of this mystery as we celebrate it tonight.
As you take the bread and the wine, ask for it to work in your body, to change you,
a little at a time, to be a little more Christlike, so that we make the world a
little closer to God’s kingdom. As St Augustine said, “be a member of the body
of Christ in order to make your Amen
true…Be what you can see, and receive what you are.”
That is, a beloved child
of God, and a living member of the body of the one true Christ.
Preached April 18, 2019 at St Gabriel Episcopal Church, Portland, OR
Lectionary readings: Exodus 12:1-4, 5-14; Psalm 116:1, 10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17; 31b-35
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