Lent 2009 #38: Maundy Thursday

John 13:5-10,14-15  5 Then [Jesus] poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" 7 Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." 8 Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." 9 Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" 10 Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you. 14 [If] I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you."

THOUGHTS:

Jesus, shortly before his crucifixion, chose to wash the feet of his disciples. Peter doesn't want Jesus to wash his feet. Maybe it seems demeaning to allow his Lord to do something so lowly. This is something Peter could do for himself, or someone of lower stature maybe -- but not a task for his master. It's not Godly work! Right?

Do you identify with Peter here? We like to be self sufficient, and we tend to think of servant's work as being demeaning. We want to be independent! Yet, as disciples, we need to allow God to serve us through others when we can't make it on our own. We also need to be willing to be servants to others, giving of our time to do work we might even consider demeaning. Like Jesus, we may need to lower ourselves to show others how much they are loved.

PRAYER:

Lord God, you have given us the very air we breathe. Teach us when to rely on our communities and guide us to serve the world around us in your abounding love. In Jesus name we pray, AMEN.

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REMINDER: Carpool to worship with us during HOLY WEEK (meet at SUB 1 room 207).  Email lutheran@gmu.edu if you have questions.

TODAY (4/9) - MAUNDY THURSDAY:  Meet at 6:50pm and we'll head to services at a local Lutheran congregation.

4/10 - GOOD FRIDAY:  Stations of the Cross in mixed media -- The object of the Stations is to help the faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage of prayer, through meditating upon the chief scenes of Christ's sufferings and death.  We'll meet at 6:15pm to check out this mixed media experience created through the collaboration of 4 faith communities.

4/12 - EASTER: Meet at 10:25am to carpool to a local Lutheran congregation for Easter worship!

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These devotions are provided by Lutheran Campus Ministry at George Mason University .  Feel free to share them with your friends!  For more information on our ministry and events, see http://gmu.edu/org/lutheran  

You can subscribe to these devotions by RSS or email from http://lentendevotions.blogspot.com

Lent 2009: Sixth Sunday (Palm Sunday)

As mentioned previously, Sundays are not part of Lent, but rather always celebrations of the resurrection.  To mark this distinction, instead of my thoughts on scripture, here's some interesting stuff I've stumbled upon lately...

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"Every minute that the world emphasizes the power of God more than the love of God, it will be more inclined to use force.  Wherever we prize certainty more than we prize humility, we can expect to find ourselves more readily distinguishing between good people and bad people. ... And the more we do it, the more we lean toward punishing bad people for not being good, and trying to force bad people into becoming good people, as if force will work such magic, or as if we all had the same definition of good."  ~ Peter Marty (Grace Matters, 5/6/2007) 

"My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong."  ~Mother Jones

"One aspect of serving others is listening to the call within to express your gifts—those talents you have that make you feel infinite when you are doing them. When we express those gifts, the Holy Spirit works through us in ways we may never know directly, touching the lives, hearts, and minds of others." Joanna Bates (environmental scientist, dancer, and writer)

"I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it.  I think apart from the idea that I am a sinner and God forgives me, this is the greatest lesson I have ever learned.  When you get it, it changes you... God's love will never change us if we don't accept it." Donald Miller (in Blue Like Jazz)

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These devotions are provided by Lutheran Campus Ministry at George Mason University .  Feel free to share them with your friends!  For more information on our ministry and events, see http://gmu.edu/org/lutheran  

You can subscribe to these devotions by RSS or email from http://lentendevotions.blogspot.com

Lent 2009 #2

Thoughts:

Many people perform some type of "fast" during Lent.  This is people are doing when they give up chocolate, or don't eat meat on Fridays, etc.  In the passage below, Isaiah is asked to tell the people about the kind of fast God desires from them.  It isn't a fast about giving up something you may or may not miss.  It isn't a fast about personal suffering.  It's a fast of working for justice, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, repairing fallen walls, and making this world we live in more habitable.  How can you use your time and abilities this season to make the world we live in a more hospitable, habitable, and hopeful place for others?  How can we use this type of fasting to strengthen our relationship with God?

Isaiah 58:1-12
1 Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.

3 "Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. 4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? 6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

13 If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; 14 then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Prayer:

O Lord God, we thank you for our very lives.  Without your spirit, we would have remained dust forever.  Now, as we live, we wish to fast as you desire.  Call us to grow closer to you through service this Lent.  Give us a heart to carry out your Will in our world.  Help us to be your hands.  For the sake of your son Jesus the Christ.  AMEN.

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These devotions are provided by Lutheran Campus Ministry at George Mason University. Feel free to share them with your friends! For more information on our ministry and events, see http://gmu.edu/org/lutheran  
You can subscribe to these devotions by RSS or email from http://lentendevotions.blogspot.com

Lent Day #38 - Maundy Thursday

John 13:3-17 (ESV)
3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" 7 Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." 8 Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." 9 Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" 10 Jesus said to him, "The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you." 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "Not all of you are clean."

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them."

THOUGHTS:
Today is "Maundy Thursday" or "Holy Thursday". Today the Church remembers:

• The Last Supper
• The Institution of the Eucharist (communion)
• Jesus washing the feet of the disciples
• Judas betraying Jesus
• Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane
• The arrest of Jesus
• etc.

The Gospels are jam packed with the events of Jesus life corresponding to today and tomorrow.

I'm looking at the message accompanying the foot-washing. We, as disciples of the Christ, are called to service. Foot-washing is foreign to our context -- we don't walk around every day on dusty ground in sandals. Some churches still do it to commemorate the event, and it can be a powerful reminder of both our call to service, and our call not to prevent ourselves from being served.

The first part of this seems easier. When we are able to knock down the walls of selfishness around us, we see the needs of others. Helping them feels good. It can be "cool" to serve others. Feeding the homeless, giving money to charity, we like these things. It makes me feel generous and philanthropic. No matter how small, service to others feels good and right -- maybe even natural.

Jesus points out that serving and caring for others doesn't make us better than them. We care for them because we are like them. Sure, there may be differences, but we are all human. We all struggle. Sometimes the situations we find ourselves in get the best of us.

We aren't as good at accepting the service of others. We like to feel independent. "I don't need your help -- I can do it on my own. I can take care of myself. I can dig myself out of this hole." This is selfish pride. Like Simon Peter, we arrogantly assert that we don't need the body of Christ (our communities) to dote on us. Instead of feeling entitled to be cared for, we feel entitled to be independent. We don't want to feel like a charity case.

The "Maundy" in "Maundy Thursday" is derived from the first word of the Latin version of John 13:34 (ESV):

34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."

Compare verse 34 to verses 14-15. These are mutual relationships. We are all to love one another. We are all to serve one another. Are there times that we try to prevent others from loving and serving us? Are there ways that we can be more open to allowing others to support us, even as we work to better support them?

PRAYER:
Dear Lord, today we pray that you give us the strength to love and serve those around us, while giving us a humble heart open to allowing others to meet our needs as well. For Jesus sake. AMEN.