23.04.2011
Archbishop Jackson's Maundy Thursday Sermon
Maundy Thursday: 21 April, 2011
Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin
Sermon preached by the Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Glendalough, the Most Reverend Dr Michael Jackson
Readings: Exodus 12:1-14; psalm 116:1, 10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; St John 13:1-17, 31b-35.
And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. St John 13:4.
One of the significant features of St John’s Gospel is that there is no Narrative of Institution as such. Nowhere do we find the Gospel givin g voice to the very words – remembered and recorded - in which Jesus takes bread and wine and makes them point to his Passion and through that Passion to the community of resurrection. This community will gather first at the foot of the cross and thereafter will gather every time bread and wine are taken, offered and shared. Eucharistic presence is part of the air which we breathe in the Gospel of John. As I read it, it is the outpouring, the cornucopia, of incarnation itself. The Word which in the beginning created our world and gave life and light to all people continues to shed its light and life abundantly in human form throughout the Gospel. On Maundy Thursday, when the disciples now as then receive the new commandment, the novum mandatum, the same all-creating Word lives out the gritty and steely commitment to service which is the bedrock of leadership in the tradition which we celebrate and share this morning. Maundy Thursday reminds us that service is for all God’s people and it is of all people.
This gathering, this thanksgiving, this Chrism Eucharist involves and enfolds all of us who exercise ministry in the name of Jesus Christ. This ministry flows from the church of God into the world which God came to visit in great humility, as the Advent Collect expresses it. This is not to deny in any shape or form that God in Jesus Christ came to save the world. But visitation is also a good way to think of God’s continuing presence among us. The creator humbles himself to be a guest in the world which he has given us freedom to fashion, to develop and indeed to mar and disfigure. In a profound sense, as Holy Week hammers home to us, we remain the unreconciled. Such humility is something which we need always to recognise and to practise. It is worth looking in a little more detail at how Jesus expresses this humility. Jesus performs the act of the most menial slave in the house – that is washing the feet of his followers, his disciples – without any hint of self-consciousness or suspicion of inappropriateness or sensation of loss of dignity either personal or official. In his explanation, he shows them that this is a lesson in mutual respect and solidarity. They need to get used to it and get used to doing it. What he has done for them - they are to do for and with one another – washing feet, not as abject service but as gracious generosity and also as helpful preparation for courageous service of others far and away beyond their number and their charmed circle. By this interchange they are given authority to touch and to heal, to wash and to cleanse, to refresh and revive in whatever ways are appropriate to the needs of those who are in manifest need. This is service as sacrament and it takes us to the heart of who the Eucharist is – the Servant King.
The sacrament is a sign and the sign points and guides us and everyone else to a reality. That reality is the God who is love as the working definition of the being of God. The character and the nature of God are such that God does not withhold this love from any part of the creation. This is one of the most difficult things for religious over-achievers, rather in the style of Lisa from The Simpsons, to understand. The multiplication of effort and the constant thirst for output does not of itself bring fulfilment. God wants us to rejoice in service and in leadership, in outreach and in mission, and yet God is not counting our individual, parochial or diocesan achievements as if they are ends in themselves. Like the sacrament itself they make sense only in that they point and lead to the reality of God’s love. Baptism, catechumenate, healing – these are a trinity of love in action. In each of them we see the Good Shepherd going after the sheep who are lost and wandering, the sheep who get into danger and harm, the sheep who need to be helped both to live and to die. This is the oil of gladness in the work of ministry.
I want each one of you in the silence which follows these few words to remember purposefully and without any wilful spiritual bashfulness about yourselves points and places and people who have touched you with the love of God and whom you, in turn, have touched and held with the love of God. It could be someone you said you would visit in hospital – and you did. It could be someone you said you would listen to – and you did without, this time, offering your own interpretation of their experience to them. It could be someone you said you would pray for – and you did more than that, you prayed with them and invited them to pray for you in the same time of prayer. It could be a passage of Holy Scripture which you have avoided because it does not appeal to you – and you have had to engage with it because it has followed you like a mosquito in the dark. It could be someone and something that I could not ever imagine – and that is surely even better.
St John 13:35: By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
ENDS