HOLY WEEK 1998 - LOVE SO AMAZING
Preacher: Father James Murray SSC
MAUNDY THURSDAY The Secret of the Upper Room
You are my friends." John xv. 14.
"Is it I?. . it is one who dips with me in the dish." Matthew xxii. 26.
One of our advantages is that we have the benefit of hindsight. As we look into the upper room and watch our Saviour at his work, we can already interpret what he is doing in the light of what has come after.
But it is also to our disadvantage, for we anticipate every action, and may not even realise how used we have become to the scene itself. Yet, when it took place, even the room was unfamiliar and borrowed, the city outside, tense and crowded for Passover.
The rough men whom the dear Jesus had called to follow him did not then know what the upper room would become for them, or that they would very soon lock themselves in, out of craven fear, and without a skerrick of faith left.
Yet that upper room would become for them, and for us, a trysting place, the heart of our worship, the foundation of our faith.
But tonight's meal had been prepared not as a sophisticated occasion with aesthetic overtones. That would be to mistake the dear Jesus, turn him into a dilettante, and make his gospel effete, his church eclectic, and his mission limited.
You and I would then just be a little club sitting around a table of mutual self-satisfaction.
But his mission was to save the whole world, and to do it only as a priest can do it : by offering sacrifice&emdash; but look, wonder&emdash; worship&emdash; the sacrifice was himself. If you would seek the establishment of priesthood in the upper room then you must turn to the washing of the feet first, and not the meal, for the washing of feet was the lowliest task assigned to the most degraded slave. It was dirty work. And our Lord is always doing the world's dirty work. But how ironical that the reward for Christ's betrayal should be thirty pieces of silver, the redemption price of such a slave.
So the dear Jesus divests himself of more than his clothing. He strips himself of self-importance, power, even authority, and now, naked as he will be for crucifixion, he twists a towel around himself and washes the disciples' feet.
It is important to remember whose feet they are, these calloused feet which had stood athwart the gunwale of the boats on stormy Galilee. Feet which sat comfortably at the taxation booth and extorted money, feet which have trudged reluctantly from home to treacherous Jerusalem, feet that have walked insidiously to arrange betrayal, and will walk again with the temple guard when they come to arrest the dear Jesus as he rises from agonised prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. These are the feet which will run helter-skelter out of harm's way when the time comes.
The dear Jesus stoops, he pours the water. The cool is on their feet. Peter protests, knowing that the bowed servant is his Lord; and soon the protestations will come from all of them when Jesus tells them one of them will betray him.
You can imagine the silence around that table, that table in the upper room. Sitting among them is a spy!.
And they all ask, "Is it I?" "Is it I?" Is it I?" "Is it I?".
So how searing it must have been later this night to have heard our dear Saviour's words, "You are my friends."
So, you see, the priesthood being established is a radical priesthood, even a priesthood of humiliation, of service, of uncomplaining sacrifice.
It is to be a priesthood which calls itself by a new name : "diakonos" servant "doulos" slave, a slave at everybody's beck and call, in the heat and cold, in vigour and exhaustion, for the servant has no rights, the slave no respite. Each can be called at any hour of the day or night.
Indeed, the way St John the Beloved has it in his account of the upper room, this is the church in microcosm. Everyone is called to priesthood, for everyone is called to be a servant and to fulfil the role of slave.
We who are priests, even those called to be bishops, remain forever deacons, servants, slaves to the dear Jesus, the Jesus who takes a towel and washes our feet.
But there is a focus in the upper room, a mysterious light, a revelation, and an empowerment, for the dear Jesus is establishing a memory, not as some do by making shrines or painting images or carving replicas, useful as they can be, but in flesh and blood "This is my Body given for you&emdash; this is my Blood shed for you".
"You are my friends. No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends."
But this divine friendship takes up the simple element of water&emdash; a creature&emdash; to be at the disposal of the divine love; and the basic food too, the work of human hands, bread and wine broken and shared in a Divine Feast.
But we should not take it all for granted. The upper room has a secret for us, revealed to us for a purpose and the purpose is divine.
What is the secret of the upper room? In his Gospel, St John the Beloved has no account of the Eucharist&emdash; for him the washing of the feet is crucial. Of course he does not neglect the Eucharist, the great thanksgiving. It is a thanksgiving for creation itself. It shows how the opportunistic God is working in love among us, and St John the Beloved writes of the feeding of the five thousand as the Eucharistic sign.
You will remember the account. A crowd faithfully following, united by a hunger for something they could hardly name, some wanting signs and miracles, some seeking proof and reassurance, but all hungry. The dear Lord looks at them with the divine compassion.
Remember, too, that we so often look in other ways, judgmentally perhaps, jealously, enviously in our dissatisfied hunger, and the one who lays down his life for his friends&emdash; he says "You are my friends"&emdash; will feed us.
The feeding of the five thousand. We call it miracle. They were fed. Indeed they were satisfied. There was more than enough to go around.
Yet the origin of the food was merely five little bread rolls and two dried fish, a schoolboy's play lunch.
He must have revealed it willingly enough, given it up willingly enough, and watched in wonder and astonishment that it fed five thousand in the hands of the Divine Master.
So catch the secret of the upper room. Its secret is never to discriminate&emdash; Judas is fed as well as Peter. One betrays. One denies. John is fed as well as Thomas. John stands at the foot of the cross, while Thomas doubts that the atonement has even taken place. "Show me the wounds. Prove you are alive. Otherwise I will not believe." Sound familiar?
So the upper room establishes memory, substantiates friendship with God, offers a startling priesthood of humility, and satisfies the deepest hunger in us, the most dire thirst.
But the upper room has other secrets. It was a room given willingly by the parents of John Mark the future evangelist. The preparation was itself all an act of faith. It was a test of fidelity to the dear Jesus, some of whose instructions beforehand must have seemed bizarre if not chancy.
Being here tonight reminds us too how strange and even tortuous at times the will of God may seem to be.
Yet look back and you will see the divine hand at work. You have your little treasure trove. It is in safe keeping you believe. You guard it jealously. It is yours.
You are willing to follow Jesus, perhaps at a safe distance. You do not want to get too involved.
And you have come prepared. The little rolls of bread and the two dried fish mean that you will not be hungry. But another hunger overtakes you in the person of the dear Jesus himself in his irresistible charm, his boundless love. You have never met anyone quite like him before, perhaps glimpses of him in other people at times, whose lives have been given over to him. But meeting him for himself is unique.
He is unique, and you join a great throng. It is the church militant here on earth, defeated at times, in despair and darkness and doubt, wounded at times, in turmoil. You may even have thought of walking off and leaving it to its own devices. Yet, in the face of Jesus Christ you see the divine love, and even in the wounded body of Christ you see your own wounds.
And the body of Christ sits down and waits for the voice of Christ, the voice which once heard can never be forgotten, and you discover again the secret of the upper room. It is the washing of the feet, and the breaking of the bread, and the sharing of the life and love of the dear Jesus.
On the day of the feeding of the five thousand, it was the boy's willingness to share which made the miracle possible, but it is the miracle of every Eucharist : we all come hungry, we all go away satisfied.
When Charles de Foucauld, that saint of the Sahara, lived in his hermitage for months on end, he could not say Mass. There was not one other Christian to help him offer the Eucharist, for the Eucharist can never be solitary except under the most extraordinary circumstances; but, when another Christian came into that Muslim enclave, brother Charles of Jesus knew joy beyond belief. The Eucharist could take place. His hunger could be satisfied and his thirst quenched.
We who are priests take this blessing to many who are sick. We see the miracle over and over again, and the solemn joy when Jesus comes to bodies racked with pain.
It is the secret of the upper room.
We also see the humble washing of the feet done by unsung and unknown servitors of Christ, sometimes who never presume to claim their right even to his name.
They have learnt the happiness of "diakonos", the servant, and the role of "doulos", the contented slave. Chained to the divine love, they hunger and thirst after righteousness.
If you listen hard enough tonight, you will hear their prayers as they wash the feet of children in the Sudan or comfort the hungry in Indonesia.
In the dark towns of many an African country, the feet are being washed by the dear Jesus in his servants and his slaves.
In homes where those with AIDS are dying, the feet are being washed tonight by the dear Jesus in those who are often exhausted by emotion and overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness.
In this church the high priesthood of Christ is mediated through those he calls his priests, but whoever remain deacons, servants, until the day they die. And a great wave of intercession crests here whenever the table is prepared for the five thousand hungry, longing, hoping, crying, weeping, hurting, bewildered, whom we call the sick or the poor or the alienated, because the dear Jesus has never stopped divesting himself of his power, even his authority, and identified himself with the world's needs. Stripped naked before an uncaring world, he has appeared, girded with a towel, washing the feet of the world's weary.
So tonight we have come to have our hunger satisfied and our thirst quenched.
We have not merely come to see a commemoration or a liturgical play-act, but we have come to substantiate the priesthood of Christ, to share the secret of the upper room, and to determine our own status as servants of the love of God, slaves at his loving beck and call.
