Given For All: A Sermon For Maundy Thursday

Preached Thursday, April 17, 2025, at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, Barrie, Ontario

Lections:  Exodus 12:1-14, Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 17:1-17, 31b-35

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Tonight we do something so unusual, so profound, so clear in its meaning, that I think the act of washing one another’s feet speaks clearly to our souls.   To kneel before someone, to touch and wash their feet, to accept the other’s offer of vulnerability and grace, and to hold that offer, like their feet, in the greatest trust and humility – these things speak clearly and eloquently to our Lord’s call to love one another that I think they scarce need a sermon to illuminate their meaning.  

Besides this service where we do this one extraordinary thing once a year, we also do the perfectly ordinary thing of coming forward to take the bread and wine.   Well, sort of.   The bread is really a weightless, tasteless disc that might be distantly related to wheat, and a tiny sip of wine for those who dare to drink from the chalice.  Nevertheless we recognize that this symbols stand for something greater, and see them as a glimpse of the love and forgiveness of the heavenly banquet.  So we do this every Sunday, and as we receive the bread and wine we hear the same words each Sunday, the same words that we just heard in our second lesson, “this is my body”, “this is my blood”, “do this in remembrance of me”.   

The familiarity of the eucharist that we are all used to is juxtaposed with the strangeness of something that we just do on this particular night.  Some of us are brave and allow ourselves to feel the shock of water and strange hands on our gnarled and unlovely feet, others awkwardly watch and all grateful that they don’t have to go forward.  This is all as it should be, for the Anglican saying certainly applies tonight, “All many, some should, none must”.    But I wonder tonight, as we transition from the foot washing to more familiar ground, what if we could  somehow also find communion weird, as that last supper must have seemed to Jesus’ friends as they heard him say “This is my body”, “This is my blood?”

This meal, what we call eucharist or communion, certainly was strange to the first Christians.   It was absolutely foreign to their thinking.  When Paul wrote his first letter to Corinth, he was writing to new believers who had started a church, but had almost no clue what they were doing or why.   They knew about communion or the Lord’s supper, but they observed it as if it was just a normal meal, conducted according to the usual social rules of the ancient world.   The haves ate with the haves and had quite a nice time.   The have nots stood at the fringes and watched.  

So Paul wrote angrily to them:

²⁰When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. ²¹For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk.  ²²What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you! (1 Cor 11: 20-22)

 Paul made it clear to the Corinthians that this was an event for all of them.   No one should be left out.  It was a meal for all, to be started only when the community had come together, so that all believers would be fed, regardless of their wealth and status (1 Cor 11:33).   These instructions on how to conduct this meal were not up for debate.   As Paul told this struggling church, “I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you” (1 Cor 11:23).  These instructions came from Jesus himself, and when he said “do this in memory of me”, he was speaking to all his followers.

 Paul understood that a community that waited until all were at the table was a community that cared for one another.   It was also a community that wanted its witness about Christ to have integrity and credibility.   No one was left out of this meal, slave, rich or poor, man and woman, observant Jew and gentile believers in Christ, all were welcome.  That was a huge message in the ancient world. 

 It’s a huge message in our world of inequality and injustice, where a handful of mega wealthy oligarchs control vast amounts of wealth and billions have inadequate access to shelter, food and water.   When we come forward to receive the bread and wine, rubbing shoulders with people from all walks of life and from different races and places, we come forward and are welcomed by our God who wants all to be fed.   I think we make a mistake to think that the bread and wine are just spiritual food, that communion is simply about the feeding of our souls.   Food is food.  In taking the bread and wine, we remember a savior whose place was with the poor in body and spirit, who called us to care for the least among us.

 “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you”.   Tonight, our act of communion may not be as dramatic as the ritual of footwashing but they point to the same thing.   Both actions remind us that just as God came to serve us, so are we expected to serve.  The life of this parish, particularly what we do around food, should be in the spirit of the eucharist.  If one of us brings some folded twenties to slip into the free will offering, and someone else brings an appetite sharpened by want and hunger, both should be welcome.  No one should be resented for being a free rider, because we are all free riders at the communion table.   Our social events, our programming, our mission and outreach, need to point the God who wants to feed us all out of his love and abundance.

I started by saying that the eucharist seems symbolic compared to the physical reality of footwashing.   I suppose we could do something to make communion more concrete.  We could tear off chunks of bread for one another, leaving the floor covered in crumbs, and drink the wine in big gulps so that it dribbles down our chins.    That would be fun, though it would be messy!   But better still, I think, to make our communion truly real and truly urgent by remembering the amazingly generous spirit of the words that we hear each time we take the bread and wine.    

This is the bread.  This is the wine.  This is the love.  This is the abundance.  Given for us.   Given for all of us.   Paul  wrote, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you.”  May we, who have received so much grace and abundance from the Lord, hand them on to others.  May we wo do these things in remembrance of him, remember also those who are physically and spiritually hungry.   Amen.