Reflections for Maundy Thursday: A Table. A Basin. Some Food. Some Friends.

(Based on the work of Brian McLaren in We Make the Road by Walking, prefaced by selections from John 13 - 17)

The opposite of remember is not to forget.

The opposite of remember is actually dismember

To remember is to bring the body back together, to bring the parts and pieces back together. 

 

On a night in an upper room with his friends, I have to imagine that Jesus was unsettled. 

 

He'd been with these people for so long he knew their personality quirks. 

 

Already he had seen them bickering about important things. Whatever threat he felt in his own body, he was also aware of the human tendency for a group to fall apart, to fall away. 

 

And so on this Thursday we gather to be reminded that Jesus asked us to remember. 

 

It's as if he knew. 

It's as if he knew that we would fall apart.

We would fall away. 

We would deny him. 

We would wrestle with things that don't matter all that much.

We would forget that we were called by Jesus himself to love one another.

 

At the meal they shared, Jesus asks that people use bread and wine as a way of coming back together

…a way of bringing the body of Christ back together 

…of healing the wounds and the places where we have been dismembered since we last gathered at the table. 

 

And then…

I have to imagine how perplexed these men who followed him were when he said I have to wash you.

 

Just as I have loved you, I ask you to love one another. 

 

Remember and love. 

Remember and love. 

 

Bring the body back together, because where I'm going you cannot go, and surely you will fall away.

 

But always there is bread there is wine. 

There are acts of service and love.

 

This night may we remember and love well. 

 

May it be so. 

Amen.