CLEANSED, FED AND SENT

Maundy Thursday Calvert Lenten Cluster Service

Thursday, April 9, 2020

 

 

John 13 New Living Translation (NLT)

Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet

13 Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end.^[a] 2 It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas,^[b] son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. ³ Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. ⁴ So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, ⁵ and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

⁶ When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

⁷ Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.”

⁸ “No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!”

Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”

⁹ Simon Peter exclaimed, “Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!”

¹⁰ Jesus replied, “A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet,^[c] to be entirely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not all of you.” ¹¹ For Jesus knew who would betray him. That is what he meant when he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

¹² After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? ¹³ You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. ¹⁴ And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. ¹⁵ I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.

 ³¹ As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said, “The time has come for the Son of Man^[h] to enter into his glory, and God will be glorified because of him. ³² And since God receives glory because of the Son,^[i] he will give his own glory to the Son, and he will do so at once. ³³ Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can’t come where I am going. ³⁴ So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. ³⁵ Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

 

We have come to the conclusion of the Lenten journey and we are preparing for what comes next in our Lenten journey.  Jesus is dining for the last time with his disciples.  Soon he will leave this gathering and go into the garden of Gethsemane where he will pray and ask the Father in his humanity to take this cup from him; to spare him the coming agony.  But he appends his request by adding, “Not my will, but your will be done” he prays, knowing this is why he was sent.  Now he must send those who followed him.

I don’t know what Lent means to you, or what its significance it is to you gathered here tonight in this virtual worship space, but for me, this is the most solemn time of the church calendar year.  What we are about the recall is the agony, death and glorious resurrection of the one who gave his life so that we might live.  These next 4 days are the very foundation of what we profess to believe in so, for me, Jesus’s sacrifice is more than just a story of good works, miracles and deliverance, it is what causes the blood in my veins to continue to flow; it is the very breath I breathe; it is living water; it is manna; it is everything.

There are lessons that we sometimes overlook in the meaning and telling of the story of the Last Supper and the washing of the disciples feet.  Jesus knew who his faithful followers were and he knew which of his disciples would betray him later that night and he knew which of his disciples would deny him in the coming days.  See, beloveds, you have to know your people, especially if you know you gonna have your back against a wall one day.  Jesus knew his disciples strengths and weaknesses and he still affirmed them as his sheep. 

Jesus got out the basin of water and took his outer garments off and bound them about his waist and began to wash the disciples feet.  As he washed their feet he explained that his instructions were not for everyone.   Even now his instructions are not for everyone.  Everyone is not spiritually ready to understand or receive Jesus.  Let me make it clear.  Just because you may have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, church, doesn’t mean you have opened your heart to receive him.  You just dipped your toes in the water.

When Jesus came to Peter, he protested, trying to be humble – Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but speak the word and I will be healed.  But Jesus told him if he didn’t wash his feet he could not be part of the group.  We know that Jesus never baptized anyone, but by washing his disciples feet Jesus was cleansing them and preparing them to go forth and carry the Gospel of Truth - not as pompous and critical teachers as the Pharisees were, but as humble, loving servants.  He was shodding their feet with the Gospel of truth and they didn’t understand it.  This symbolic gesture is representative of our baptism into new life in Jesus Christ.  If we were in person tonight, I would offer foot washing to all who would wish to do so and also invite you to wash each other’s feet.  This is an act of humility and servitude.  This is what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples.  To carry his message, they have to humble themselves and serve everybody.  The reward for this is greater than any monetary reward they could receive.  Serving frees the soul.  When we give of ourselves expecting nothing in return it is the purest offering we can present to the Lord.  That is what Paul meant when he referred to himself as a slave of Jesus Christ sent to preach the good news in Romans 1:1.  It is what is meant in Romans 6:15-23 when Paul writes, “Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! ¹⁶ Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. ¹⁷ Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. ¹⁸ Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

¹⁹ Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.

²⁰ When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. ²¹ And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. ²² But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Yet despite what Jesus knew about them, he blessed the bread and the wine and fed them both.  He dipped his bread in the cup with his betrayer.  He is no respecter of persons.  He treated them both the same, but he let them both know in grace and in love, that he deeply knew the spirits they fed.  See, we can’t fool God.  He knows our uprising and our down sitting and everything in between, and the wonderful thing is, despite it all, he loves us anyhow.

Jesus knew that some seeds that are planted will sprout and bear fruit while some will wither and die just as the fig tree that bloomed out of season with leaves yet bore no fruit.  Are our churches still bearing fruit? Are our ministries still bearing fruit?  Or are we just sprouting leaves?  We have been in quarantine for close to 40 days.  What fruit have we brought forth during this period?  How has God spoken to us during this time? 

If you’ve been on social media or TV, you’ve learned how many have put their lives on the line to support, minister to and comfort those who have been affected by the pandemic.  But, if you’ve paid close attention, you’ve also discovered that there are those who have dismissed this as an overreaction.  You’ve probably heard stories of real life heroes, and you’ve heard stories of greed and hoarding in the time of great need.  Where’s the toilet paper, the paper towels and now the chicken wings?  See, just like the disciples, we have our focus on the wrong story.  We have allowed the distraction of the virus distract us from the real story.  The disciples were focused on Jesus leaving them and afraid of the retaliation they were sure to face as his followers rather than the spirit, power and authority he had given them to do continue the work he had begun.  They didn’t understand the significance of the event they were taking part in at that moment.

After Jesus excuses Judas from the gathering to go do what he felt he had to do and he tells the remaining disciples he will only be with them a little while longer.  Jesus gave this last commandment to his disciples and sent them to “Love each other just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”  Love each other as I have loved you.  If we could just learn to love each other.  Love each other in our differences; love each other in our incompleteness; love each other in our imperfections; love each other in season and out of season.  But in order to love others, we have to first learn to love ourselves.  We have to love ourselves in our imperfections; acknowledging that we need forgiveness; we need to love ourselves in our incompleteness because God loves us in our imperfections and incompleteness and promises that we become complete in him as we strive for perfection.  As Paul writes in Philippians 3:14, “ I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus took our imperfections and nailed them to the cross at Calvary.  Church, there is therefore now no condemnation to those of us who are in Christ Jesus.  As we participate in this Love Feast, remember the love that overcame sin and death.  Remember the love that surpasses all understanding and brings us peace.  Remember the love that had no beginning and has no end.  Remember a love that give life everlasting to all who and receive would believe .  If we were in physical space we would say as we take this cup and drink from it, remember the blood that was poured out for us to follow this last command to love each other as Jesus loved us that he gave up his life – the devil didn’t take it - he gave it up willingly so that you, and you, and you, and I would remember his unblemished perfect sacrifice. 

As a colleague wrote in a devotion today, Jesus invites us to his table where he is the servant who washes away our sins, feeds us with spiritual manna and then calls us into ministry with him.  In that last supper, the one who offers eternal life first had to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, then feed us with the Word of God, and lastly sends us out to love others has he first loved us that he gave up his life so that we might have life and have it more abundantly in Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], dream or image according to his power that is at work within us.  Amen.

One of the Crowd

ONE OF THE CROWD

Mount Hope UMC

Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020

Matthew 21:1-11 New Living Translation (NLT)

Jesus’ Triumphant Entry

21 As Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the town of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. ² “Go into the village over there,” he said. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey tied there, with its colt beside it. Untie them and bring them to me. ³ If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will immediately let you take them.”

⁴ This took place to fulfill the prophecy that said,

⁵ “Tell the people of Jerusalem,^[a]
    ‘Look, your King is coming to you.
He is humble, riding on a donkey—
    riding on a donkey’s colt.’”^[b]

⁶ The two disciples did as Jesus commanded. ⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt to him and threw their garments over the colt, and he sat on it.^[c]

⁸ Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹ Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting,

“Praise God^[d] for the Son of David!
    Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
    Praise God in highest heaven!”^[e]

¹⁰ The entire city of Jerusalem was in an uproar as he entered. “Who is this?” they asked.

¹¹ And the crowds replied, “It’s Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

            The Palm Sunday story is usually one that focuses on Christ’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem riding on a donkey and a crowd of people shouting and proclaiming, “Hosanna in the highest” and waving palm leaves.  Within the week, we know that Jesus will be tried, crucified, died, buried and will rise again.

            Today, church begins the journey to Calvary for Christians.  This is going to be a different journey this year, because we will not be worshipping together in our Sanctuary.  Our homes have become our sanctuary.  But let me give you a word of encouragement.  In Christ’s time, while there were synagogues and temples, they were in large cities.  Many families worshipped in their homes then with the male head of the household – father or grandfather – reading the scripture and explaining it to the family and the mother setting the atmosphere with food, candles, etc.  So here we are today, gathered as families in our homes worshipping as the Israelites did in the past and even as some now do who do not have a synagogue near enough to their homes to walk to.  Let us give God praise that we can praise him anywhere, anytime, anyhow!

            I won’t be before you long, church, because I want you to be able to participate in the Love Feast and I want you to be able to also attend the service the District Superintendents are offering at 11:00 this morning.

            I want us to use our imaginations this morning and think about what that day over 2,000 years ago looked like.  Jesus’ reputation preceded him.  For three years he has been challenging the local priests, Pharisees, Saducees and Roman authority.  He has preached, healed, performed miracles and taught the meaning of the Word of God – all without what they considered “formal training” under a Rabbi.  He ministered to Jews, Samaritans, the centurions of the Roman army, the poor and the outcasts. 

Jesus is now a hunted man.  The Pharisees were looking for an excuse to kill him and he knew it.  His disciples had advised him against going to Jerusalem for this reason.  But it was time for the Passover Feast and every devout Jew would be going to Jerusalem to participate in the Passover.  I think it’s interesting that Joseph and Mary journeyed to Bethlehem for the census and it was during this mass gathering of people that Jesus was born.  Now, he is traveling again to a mass gathering of people to his death.  The circle of life will soon be fulfilled.

No crowds greeted him to announce his birth.  But because the Passover was a high holy day for Jews, Jerusalem would have been full of people making the pilgrimage.  Jerusalem would have been crowded with families and their households.  Houses would be teeming with family who have come from miles and miles and who have not seen family members since the previous year’s Passover.  Space would have been tight.  Life would have been stressed and strained.  Toilet paper scarce.

            Crowd hysteria is something psychologist have been studying for years.  It is a craze or state of extreme emotional excitement and it can exhibit itself in either a positive or negative form.  On that day, it only helped to incite the Pharisees further.  Their fear was that Jesus was influencing the Jews away from their teachings because they were teaching obedience to God but adding their own rules and restrictions.  Jesus was freeing people from the impossible laws the Pharisees made that even they could not obey.  So, the crowd was jubilant to see the man who ministered to the least, the last and the lost.  They were excited to see him for themselves and hoping that he would perform a miracle in their presence.  They were cheering the person who was meek and humble and who greeted them on their level and understood their pain.

            Can you imagine being one of the crowd that day as Jesus rode into Jerusalem.  Imagine yourself in that crowd.  Imagine you were the woman with the issue of blood who had been healed by Jesus.  Image you were the leper, or blind Bartemaeus, or the lame man by the pool of Bethsaida, who had been restored to wholeness.  Imagine you were the man in the graveyard who had been delivered of the demons that possessed him.  Imagine you were the woman who had been caught in adultery and was saved from a stoning death.  Imagine the deliverance and salvation you have received from accepting Jesus.

            If you were in that crowd you would be shouting and waving your palm leaves.  You would be shouting “Hosanna in the highest and peace to people on earth”; you would be shouting “Thank you, Jesus”; you would be pushing and straining to get closer, to touch his cloak, to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in its fullness.  You would probably even sing “Ride on King Jesus!”

            But also, in that crowd were people Jesus had not yet reached and who did not know him for themselves.  People he had not yet healed, had not yet restored to wholeness, had not yet taught the meaning of real love.  There were unbelievers in that crowd.  There were people who were threatened by this man Jesus and his followers.  People who were not waving palm leaves and shouting exhortations.  There were non-believers in that crowd.  We know this because there were people who asked who he was and those who knew told them that it was Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet.

            Are you one of the crowd who knows Jesus and his saving grace?  Has Jesus brought you out and delivered you from sickness, sin and death?  Has Jesus been your wheel in the middle of the wheel?  Will you follow him to the cross on Calvary?

            Or are you one of the crowd that have never experienced the love and peace that surpasses all understanding?  A love and a joy that keeps you safe and secure no matter the storms that blow in life?  A comfort that no matter how deep the heartache still lets you know that you are protected and cared for no matter the grief or rejection you have faced?

            I don’t know about you, but I am one of the crowd that can testify that Jesus can take a wretch like me and picked me up and turned my life completely around and put my feet on solid ground; that he can heal any disease and cure any sickness known to man; that Jesus, and only Jesus, can love me when nobody else does.  I don’t worry about no COVID-19 or coronavirus; I don’t worry about no pandemic, I don’t worry about no quarantine; I don’t worry about no toilet paper because long as I got King Jesus, I don’t need nobody else.