Below, for your consideration and reflection, is the sermon from the Maundy Thursday (March 24, 2005) worship service (conducted with the Kingston United Methodist Church).

---

Today is the day of Holy Week that Jesus began with friends and life intact, but ended with him utterly deserted and forsaken. Later this evening, after supper, everyone around Jesus conveniently forgot the relationship they had with him. Later this evening, in the garden, in deep prayer, even he will be tempted to abandon the abandoning ones, in a way, he will be tempted to forget.

His choice, we know, will be to drink the cup of suffering . . . and to remember.

But not so, the disciples.

In John’s rendering of the story, one would have thought that this purification ritual of foot washing, with the master playing the part of the slave, bending low to serve, gesturing from the depths of hospitality, with splash of water, soundless wiping, that this moment would not have been so easily forgotten by them.

For the other gospel writers, one would have thought that a love feast in which Jesus celebrated an upper room Passover with his closest followers, when he spoke of a broken, poured out body, when he spoke of redemption and forgiveness, would not have been so easily forgotten.

You would think that all of that -- and so much more -- would have, especially, of all times, later tonight, would have kept alive the memory of what he had told them, what he had done for them, what he had been with them.

Really. It shouldn’t be so hard to remember – he said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” didn’t he? Why was it so hard for them to remember?

All it took to strip Judas’s memory was thirty pieces of silver, offered as payment to betray Jesus into the hands of those who wanted to kill him. In that final upper room gathering, the dark power of forgetfulness casts its shadow as Jesus says, “The one who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.” Judas forgot.

Across the night comes echoes of disciples bickering over who would be regarded as the greatest. They forgot. A few hours after departing from the upper room, Peter forgot, with only the crowing of the rooster to remind him of what should have been. And then, there was the angry mob, with their blood-curdling shouts, “crucify him.” If, indeed, some in that mob were among the crowd gathered five days earlier to spread palm branches and blankets, then they, too, in a short span of time, forgot.

Not many years later, the Corinthians also seemed to forget. This new congregation of Christians that had come into being for the sole purpose of worshiping and following Jesus, had devolved into a quarreling cluster of factions. Apparently, one of these factions would arrive early for the Eucharist and help themselves to the wine before the others could have any. They forgot their focus. That was a real problem if they were to live the words of Jesus, words like “this I command you to love one another.” If their mission included sharing and showing the love of God to the world around them, how could they do this if they forgot their focus?

The people Jesus had come to depend upon all forgot. They forgot his ministry and mission; they forgot his miracles and meals. Perhaps, most of all, across all the days and nights and years of history, they forgot his words about this new commandment, “that you love one another.”

How many times have we forgotten? “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Selective memory. It makes us one with the disciples. Sometimes, our selective memory is of a personal nature, other times it’s a reality lodged deep in the subconscious of the whole human race, of the nation, of the Church. But, at all times, selective memory is evidence of the sin, our sin, of abandoning Jesus, of choosing not to remember.

Sure. We turn Holy Week and the story of Judas and Peter and all the rest who deserted the Lord into an annual ritual of beating ourselves for not remembering. And maybe, from year to year, we do begin to remember, if only for a little while. And, that is a start.

But, truth is, we have a hard time remembering day in, day out. The harsh words we speak, the absence of kindness, the idols of culture and wealth that we cling to so closely, our failures in commitment, our misplaced devotion, these should haunt us, if only we would remember his words, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

Yes. I know. There are always other things we must be doing, other duties and obligations, and so we choose not to remember what Jesus has told us to remember.

We also choose not to remember just how corporate and how incidious can be the dark reality of sin in us, that across the ages, the church has forgotten the poor and the widows and the children, that we have done things like blamed the Jews for murdering Jesus, discriminated against people of other races, brutalized Muslims and people of other religious traditions, justified slavery, endorsed the decimation of native American tribes, allowed apartheid to go on much too long, and sat by without protest as our own government uses superior military might and without provocation to impose freedom upon people of other nations. Where, I ask you, is the love of Jesus in all of that?

We wear our WWJD bracelets and place a gold or silver cross around the neck, yet how often do we fail to remember to do justice, fail to play the part of peacemakers in our broken and fearful world, fail to love as Christ has taught us to love?

And the haunting question that comes to us on this Maundy Thursday is this: Have we all forgotten his new commandment, “that you love one another, just as I have loved you?”

How easily we forget him and his love. The stripping of the altar that will end our service tonight, dramatizes the stripping of memory, and all of the emptiness, desertion, and betrayal that resulted.

If it is finally even possible that we can be redeemed, then redemption begins as we learn to remember: remember who we are, remember the tragedy of our humanity, remember the sins of our national identity, remember the foolishness of daring to call ourselves Christians.

If we believe it is not finally impossible that even we can be redeemed, then let us come to this table and, in the words of Jesus, “do this in remembrance of me.”