Last Thursday was the Beginning of Easter – Maundy Thursday. I had the joy of presiding at the Maundy
Thursday worship service at St. James Anglican Church in Parkhill. We are back in the Pandemic Shut Down – I am
not sure what the colour is – you could say I am pandemic colour blind – I just
know we are back to not having in-person worship and need to limit gatherings to
our immediate family and above all keep wearing our masks and social distance
when we need to go out for essentials – not the faux essentials but actual ones
– o yes and wash those hand thoroughly and often. We are gathering together on social media –
Facebook in this case. I have not been preaching
very often recently so I thought I would share with you my sermon for the
Maundy Thursday worship service.
Today we are
celebrating Maundy Thursday in which our Saviour Jesus Christ put service ahead
of being served by washing the feet of his disciples. However, today is a double occasion – we are
also marking a very important secular occasion – April Fools Day. This is a very important day for many reasons
but not the least because it is my birthday.
As a result,
I have a special place in my heart for fools.
There is a long tradition of fools having a special place in our world. Sometimes this is a place of honour as in the fool
in medieval times who was in the court of the king and whose job it was to
remind the king that he should not get above himself – reminding the king that
he is only human and is going to die – reminiscent of Ash Wednesday – you are
dust and to dust you shall return.
However,
fools have not had very good press historically or in our culture today. Perhaps you are old enough to remember that forgettable
TV show from the 1980’s – The A Team.
The unforgettable character Mr. T had the catch phrase “pity the fool” –
not very complementary. Then there is
the saying there is no fool like an old fool – and as I am 72 years old today that
is applicable to me on both counts. Another
note of interest is that being 72, I was born on April 1, 1949. A Canadian Heritage moment associated with
that date is that this was the day that Newfoundland was originally going to
join Confederation and become the 10th province. However, the premier of the day – the
redoubtable Joey Smallwood – no fool he - decided he didn’t want Newfoundland
to become a perpetual April Fools joke so he moved the day to March 31st. Canada would certainly not be the same if NFLD
and Labrador had not become part of our Confederation.
Being an
April Fool all my life - in a good way of course – I have been assured by St.
Paul that this is a good thing. He makes
a bold statement in 1 Corinthians, "We
are fools for Christ's sake.” Indeed, my
blog is named after this passage – it is called Another Fool for Christ. So, if we believe Paul, I am in good company
- we Christians are all fools – fools for Christ.
Now you
might be asking what this has to do with Maundy Thursday - the reason we have
gathered today -albeit by social media.
Jesus is modelling for us exactly what it means to be a fool in St. Paul’s
sense. In Jesus’s act of washing the
disciples’ feet he was making a fool of himself. This after all was doing something which in
some circles would have been unthinkable.
Washing the feet of a guest was the job of a slave or servant. Peter showed how outrageous this act was.
He blurts
out in his usual way of saying what he is feeling, “You will never wash my feet.”
Jesus’s response says it all, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”
That is the
reality for us. If we are to follow Jesus
we will be viewed as fools in the eyes of the world. St. Paul sums this reality for us:
We
are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but
you are strong. You are held in honour, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly
clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands.
When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the
rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.
This is not
an attractive picture, to be what no one in their right minds would choose to
be and do. But then again to be fools
for Christ has rewards that are beyond the imagination of this world. We are called to serve and not be
served. We are called to love and not
hate; we are called to love one another and Jesus loves us. I will close with yesterday’s word of the day
from Br. James Koester of the Society of St. John the Evangelist an Anglican
monastic community in the United States:
The word is Way
The
way we are invited to walk is not an easy one. It involves towel, basin, and
water. It requires us to bend, to stoop, and to kneel. It involves cross and
nails, thorns and spear. It requires us to die.
It
involves tomb, and grave clothes. It requires us to lay everything aside, even
our own lives. But for those who follow, it is life, and peace, and joy.
As Jesus said to the lawyer who asks, "who is
my neighbour." In response, Jesus shares with him the parable
of the Good Samaritan and asks him which person was a neighbour to the man who
was robbed and beaten. The lawyer answered “the Samaritan”, Jesus says to
him and to you and to me – “go and do likewise”. Let us do just that -
let us go and do likewise. Blessings on
your journey of service.
