A sermon for Maundy Thursday
April 17, 2025 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR
Readings: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35
I visited Mary in her home. It was a room in a nursing care facility; far from the best one in town. Just a single room. She kept the place dark. It was like going into a tomb. Mary was 97 years old and had lived in that dark room for going on 20 years. She had no family, no friends, she said. She had called because she was Episcopalian once, when she was a child. She had been baptized in an Episcopal church, and her aunt took her to Sunday school sometimes. Not often, it didn’t sound like. She didn’t like the nursing home chaplain who had come by, so she called me. She called and asked me to step into her darkness, into this living tomb at the end of the hall. I stayed for an hour or so, and she told me her story. I will share her story with you over the next three days.
As I visited her that day, I had my Communion box with me. It had consecrated bread and wine in it from the previous Sunday. It’s usually the last thing on the agenda when I do a pastoral care visit. I tend to visit and catch up first, especially if it’s my first time meeting you. I want to hear your story. I want to know you. Mary wasn’t interested in that. “Let’s do Communion first,” she said. Before we talked about who we were, she wanted to hear the words of Jesus, “This is my Body, this is my Blood.” That’s what Mary said she wanted.
There is real comfort in those words. We hear them today in our reading from I Corinthians. St. Paul gives us the earliest written account of the Holy Eucharist. He tells us the words that Jesus spoke at the Last Supper. St. Paul wasn’t there; he didn’t hear them himself, but others told them about the night. Through this feast we proclaim the Lord’s death, Paul says. We proclaim that Christ has come among us to save us, and that to do that he gave his life, completely and totally. To save us, God in the Flesh held nothing back, but gave it all, taking upon himself the burden of all sin. That was the price for salvation. “You were bought with a price,” St. Paul says elsewhere. It’s a heavy price. We remember that each time we break the bread and bless the cup.
“This is my Body given, broken for you; this is my Blood shed, poured out for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” It’s Jesus’s way of saying, all this is for you. The cross, the nails, the crown of thorns, the suffering, the death. It’s all for you so that you can know–truly know–God. Remember that. Remember you were bought with a price. Remember, and feed on his life, offered freely in this bread and wine as grace to sustain you in the wilderness and as a pledge of your redemption, your inheritance in glory.
We finished Communion. I ended with a blessing, as I always do. “The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” If you’re Episcopalian, you’ve heard those words. No sooner had I finished them than Mary said: “I don’t feel no peace.” The pastoral conversation had begun; there would be no dancing around the issues today. Mary continued: “I don’t even know why I asked you to do Communion. Jesus doesn’t know I exist. Nothing good has ever happened to me in my life.”
I hear that a lot. I’ve thought it myself at my lowest moments. And Mary was in a low moment. Her depression was her closest, perhaps her only, friend. Depression has a way of telling us lies about ourselves; lies that say we are not beloved; lies that say we are forgotten; lies that say no one, not even God, cares for us. Those lies had eaten Mary’s soul to its core to the point that she thought Jesus didn’t know she existed.
I’ve wondered if there weren’t some disciples like that. The gospel of John takes us to the darkest moment of Jesus’s ministry. Jesus knows what is coming. He knows he will be betrayed. He knows. His mind is preoccupied with those things. It must have rubbed off on his disciples, setting them on edge. I’m sure it wasn’t Peter or Andrew, James or John, but maybe it was Philip or Bartholemew, Thomas or Simon. Maybe even Judas. Maybe they thought Jesus had forgotten them. Why were they part of this group anymore? They didn’t seem to get much out of it lately–constantly on the move, run ragged, overlooked. It’s at that moment, Jesus’s lowest moment and theirs, that he gives them the bread and wine. It’s at that moment that he bends down and washes their feet, taking time to show each one of them that he cares, he loves, he knows.
We believe that Jesus is 100% human and 100% divine. How that plays out is a mystery to us. How much did Jesus know? How far ahead could he see? Truthfully, we don’t know. But I like to imagine. I like to imagine that as he was washing the feet of his disciples he saw other feet: the countless feet of those who have followed him over the centuries. I like to imagine he saw my feet. I’ve had trouble with my feet the last couple of years; they hurt me sometimes. I like to imagine he saw that. I like to imagine he saw Mary’s feet and the painful path life took her down, every forgotten step, down that nursing home hallway to the dark room that was like a tomb.
And at the Eucharist, too. Did Jesus see more than the table of his disciples in that simple upper room? I hope he did. As he broke the bread and blessed the cup, I know he looked into the eyes of Peter and James and all the rest–even into the eyes of Judas who was about to betray him. He was doing this for them. But in his mind’s eye, in that divine place, I wondered if he didn’t look down through the ages to every altar where these words are spoken? I wonder if he saw the church in Corinth as St. Paul taught them what he had learned, those final words, that precious breaking, that sacred pouring? I wonder if he saw us tonight, at this beautiful altar with our well-worn words? I wonder if he saw us in that dark nursing home room, just me and Mary, small chalice and small paten, praying together?
I think he saw. As he said, this is my Body given for you, this is my blood shed for you, I think he saw us. As he told us to remember him, I think–I know he remembered us. He remembered Mary, too, in her tomb of a room, and he remembered all those whom the world forgets. This is for them. This is for all of us. And to Jesus, the heavy price is worth it; every drop is worth it.
Storied Grace 