Maundy Thursday

A New Commandment/Mandatum

Inscribed on a bronze tablet at the foot of the Statue of Liberty are these words of Emma Lazarus:          The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

She also wrote, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

These might well sum up the themes of the Christian observance of Maundy Thursday. The lessons remind us of where the story began: the Exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt celebrated annually as Passover. Jesus and his friends on their way to Jerusalem the week of Passover. We read Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14, the Lord’s instructions to Moses and Aaron the particulars of how to celebrate their freedom as “a festival to the Lord.”

As John portrays the scene, however, the Last Supper Jesus shares with his friends is the night before the day of preparation for the Passover – not a Passover seder. We can imagine that Jerusalem is bustling with visitors and pilgrims from all over the ancient world and not at all aware of what is happening in that upper room. Yet, freedom was on everyone’s mind we can be sure as the oppressive bondage of Rome was felt as an infringement on the freedom of peoples throughout the extensive Roman Empire. Perhaps that is why even gentiles traveled far to be in Jerusalem for this annual festival of freedom – a festival that demonstrated a hope that one day all people might once again be free from the yoke of Rome just as the Israelites had once escaped slavery in Egypt. Until we are all free, we are none of us free.   

Slavery. Because of our particular history with slavery in the United States, a history that still remains an open, gaping wound in our common life to this day, we sometimes lose sight of the various kinds of slavery still practiced at home and abroad, including what we now call human trafficking. Until we are all free, we are none of us free.

 This is no doubt one reason Jesus, as leader of a movement of God’s love, mercy, justice and forgiveness, takes on the role of a common household slave as he washes his disciples’ feet. Peter speaks out for all of us to express just how shocking this moment really is. “You will never wash my feet,” he cries out. Many of us feel uncomfortable accepting such service from others. It seems to make us nervous when friends and others go out of their way to be helpful, especially if it is to do something as tactile and intimate as washing one’s feet. The youngest slave, a child, was assigned this task in an ancient world where one walked long, rocky and dusty roads to arrive at one’s destination. Upon entering a household, this child would wash your feet. We can allow ourselves to think about just how good that must have felt.

But for one’s master, one’s teacher, the leader of a movement of God’s love to get down on his hands and knees to wash feet – it’s simply unimaginable. But had he not said to enter God’s kingdom one must come as a child? And has Peter, have we, already forgotten that at dinner the week before Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, had anointed his feet with expensive ointment and wiped them with her hair? Has Peter forgotten the unnamed “woman of the city” who knelt before Jesus as he was dining with a Simon the Pharisee, and washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair? Dare we allow ourselves to think that perhaps these two women were prophetic and had inspired Jesus to do the same?

A colleague in seminary called John’s narrative the Felini Last Supper: across several chapters there is no mention of bread or wine, body and blood, but rather Jesus stripping down, putting a towel around him, getting down on his hands and knees like a child slave to wash feet. No doubt it was shocking then and it ought to be shocking now as there are children all over the world and right here in the United States being trafficked as sex slaves every day – along with women and men. Jesus seems to be saying, ‘We may be about to celebrate Passover, but as long as one of us is chained none of us are free! This is what I must do, what we all must do, until all men, women and children are free once and for all.” Until we are all free, we are none of us free.     

Amy Jill Levine reminds us in her book, Entering into the Passion of Jesus, that “the week of the Last Supper is Passover, when Jews celebrate freedom from slavery. The time should remind us that slavery still exists, and its effects still exist.” [p 125] She goes on to suggest that Jesus chooses to act as a slave to invite followers of his to do the same. “They could choose to give up their freedom to God who then becomes the only master they ever have. If God is their master, then no earthly master, no earthly slavery, has true power.

“The idea makes sense, but it should not cause us to celebrate slavery; it should force us to remember that there are people, then and now, who suffer slavery, from Israelites in Egypt to the slaves that appear in the New Testament….to the slaves who exist throughout the world today. It is insufficient, Jesus tells us at the Last Supper, to take up the role of a slave when we know there are actual slaves, human beings being treated by other human beings as property. To be a servant leader, to take on the role of a slave, also means taking on the role of freeing others – not only from sin but from bondage. The risks of eating that bread and sharing that cup and getting down on our knees to wash one another’s feet are high. We give up personal authority; we serve others; we are to free others.” [Amy Jill Levine, Abingdon Press, Nashville: 2018, p 126]

This is the very essence of the New Commandment, the New Mandatum: “Little children, I am with you only a little longer. … I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Do this in remembrance of me. “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” This is what it means to enter into the passion of Jesus.