Maundy Thursday: Honesty in Friendship
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Each year I try to impress upon us the benefit of moving through these services in Holy Week. It has been a practice since the early church to celebrate the Triduum, the Holy days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. They form a new Passover for Christians, as following Christ in the way of the Cross, we identify with him, hear – inwardly digest – the story, and make that movement from death into life, from the hill outside the city, to the empty garden tomb. In our imagination, in our prayer, it’s an entry point into this central narrative, without which, Christianity has nothing to say and no purpose. But we don’t enter it as Christ, or as a beloved disciple, following faithfully throughout. In hearing the story, we identify in our uncertainty, our impatience, our weakness with Judas – betraying with a kiss. In our fearfulness of exposure, of suffering, with Peter. And because our nature and our circumstances compromise us in all the good that we would like to do, we are as likely to be crying out ‘Crucify’ as ‘Why, what evil hath he done? And it’s important that, as on Palm Sunday, we say those words together, in order that in penitence, with an open heart, we may come back before him.
The disciples themselves argue who of them is the greatest and ask to sit at Jesus’ right and left. That honour is given to the thieves – and if we are able to make that journey through our own suffering, it is our hope to be able to whisper the words of the good thief at our end: ‘Jesus remember me, when you come into your kingdom.’ That we might hear the blessed return: ‘today, this day, you will be with me in paradise.’
For those of us with the stamina to take this journey through the cross, the theme for our reflections will be honesty. Tonight raises questions about honesty in friendship; in the promises made by the disciples to Jesus. Good Friday raises questions of honesty about our public life, which in both the great – or catastrophic events – and the petty – remain as they ever were. And Easter raises questions of honesty about our faith. How honest can we be about what we believe, what we hope for, what we feel for and expect from God. In every aspect of his life and teaching Jesus calls us to honesty. It’s honesty that gets him killed.
The first half of John’s Gospel is Jesus dealing with the world; the disciples are barely mentioned. From chapter 18 we have the passion and resurrection. It’s this section, beginning with today’s Gospel, known as the farewell discourses that Jesus addresses the disciples. And the central point that Jesus makes throughout is that being a Christian, following Jesus, means turning upside down normal human relationships.
Normal society, from the corridors of power to your local bookclub –has a pyramid structure. Wealth, entitlement, connection, resources, sometimes ability, all narrow to give certain individuals precedence. As we go down the pyramid the numbers increase, and the responsibility and power lessen. All organisations work like this: businesses, football clubs, the Church, most friendship groups. Human social life naturally organises itself as a pyramid.
At the bottom are the unremarkable guys who essentially just turn up. And buried under that first layer out of sight are the excluded, the marginalised, those who don’t fit. This is the layer, the rung below the bottom rung, that Jesus associates with. But this is also the place from which he says Christians must begin. The act of foot-washing is the act of a slave. It appals the disciples. Peter is deeply uncomfortable.
Jesus is the Messiah, the king, God incarnate. How can he show deference to the disciples? And who then will show deference to them? In the Synoptic Gospels there is a sort of inner-circle of disciples – Peter, James and John – who get special privileges, the explanations of parables, the transfiguration. They’re kind of the mean girls of the New Testament. Then there’s the Big 12. Then there’s everyone else. So even in this proto-church we see a nascent pyramid forming.
It’s this pyramid that Jesus turns upside down – By coming down from the pinnacle of the pyramid and taking the part of the slave. We see it also in the trials when he shows no deference to Pilate or Herod, where he had readily served not only his disciples but all who had come to him in weakness. And to us it should be disarming. Think of the people you respect. The email address, or phone number, you read and are excited to hear from. The invitation you will immediately accept. Love isn’t just about being nice, the benefactor condescending. It’s about converting our social brain away from seeking out those people who have the things that we like and value; It’s about resisting that urge to accept the deference of those we feel ourselves superior to. The insidious pleasure we might feel when someone calls us ‘sir’.
The point is not to be perverse, or revolutionary; But to understand that our natural instinct to react to the signals given to us by power, wealth and status, is unhelpful; is not Gospel-driven. There are better ways of valuing people; of relating to people.
God does not see humanity as some kind of pyramid; A scramble to the top, where only the top 1%, or people who can properly pronounce quinoa, matter. But in every human situation we will have to realign our perception in order to exchange our worldly vision for Gospel vision. And ultimately this is about finding a new honesty of relationship. So that we’re not basing our friendships on finding people like us; Comfortable, non-challenging relationships; Relationships that make us feel more important, or valuable; That push us up the pyramid. Where are you right now in the Putney pyramid?
Honest friendships are built on mutual openness, a desire to know, understand and enjoy one another. The sort of love that seeks out difference in order to enlargen ourselves, our hearts; That seeks out weakness, in order to strengthen; That seeks our vulnerability, in order to stand with it.
Our challenge is to see the pyramid in which we operate, and then look the other way. To gird ourselves with a towel and start washing feet. Not because we’re better and have something to offer; But because those who have no one to wash their feet have most need of it. And because when the pyramid is turned upside down, suddenly everyone is lifted up.
There is great value in watching American high school movies. Always they are set up with very clear social hierarchies – from the jocks and cheerleaders, the Mean girls – through the wannabes and geeks – down to the outsiders and rejected – those regarded as weirdos and embarrassing. Teenagers in film are always presented as a sort of natural animal kingdom. And the point of these films usually from Breakfast Club to Mean Girls to High School Musical is almost always to overcome these cliques and raise up the lowly; To break down the hierarchy. Perhaps it’s highschool drama that most reveals the Christian backdrock to American culture and society.
Famously in John’s Gospel there are no sacraments. No description of baptism, no Last Supper. It may be that John thought charitable service was more important than liturgical services. I suspect it’s more that John presumed that his readers had contact with the Church and its practices, as well as the other Gospels. But in the commandment to love one another, in the physical demonstration Jesus performs in washing feet, can be seen a theology of the Sacraments. That in loving service we come to belong to one another – That in washing the feet of the poor we are baptized. In loving service we find the unity of the church – That in washing the feet of the weak we drink from the one cup of Christ. In loving service we know and become like Christ. That in washing the feet of our brothers and sisters we are made one body. In loving service we become friends – with one another, with God.
The Church is a funny place. I cannot really reconcile myself to the fact that there are bishops who live in palaces. The Gospel is a constant challenge to us. Do not let this community become a privileged members club. Don’t let us become a pyramid of power and status: Let us wash one another’s feet and embrace the humility that gives way to equality; The honesty that puts down the mighty from their seat And exalts the humble and meek; That fills the hungry with good things and send the rich empty away. To befriend the friendless; that is to follow Christ. Amen.