Sermon (Fr Peay) March 29, 2018

Reflection on ‘Servanthood’

St John Chrysostom Episcopal Church - Delafield, Wisconsin

Maundy Thursday – March 29, 2018

V. Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.

“If I, then, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” John 13: 14-15

            Jesus gives the new mandate – “love one another, as I have loved you” – and then shows how it is to be carried out – through service. Jesus says that he gives us an example that we should do to each other what he has done to us. It seems straightforward, simple actually. Jesus tells us that servanthood, the act of being or becoming a servant, is following his word and his example.

            In addition to the example of washing feet, I believe he gave us another example of service in the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Whether we call it that, or communion, or the Eucharist (which is my own favorite name for it because it’s not only Biblical, but descriptive of what it is – a ‘good gift’ and a ‘thanksgiving’ or remembrance of what God does for us), it is a powerful symbol of what we are to be and to do for one another. Jesus became Eucharist for us on the cross – broken and poured out in unselfish love. That, to me, is true servanthood and what we’re to become for each other is Eucharist. Further, it means that we seek to nourish one another and to build one another up. To be a follower of Jesus Christ is to become Eucharist, to be a servant, so that others might live, grow, and flourish. In this scheme of things the role of the minister is rather clear, we are ‘set apart’ to serve the servants.

            I like what the contemporary English theologian Kenneth Leech wrote in his little book True Prayer: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality, “In the action of the Eucharist we can see the pattern of all spirituality: offering, blessing, breaking, and sharing. Our lives are offered to God within the redemptive offering of his Son. They are laid open to the sanctifying, consecrating power of the Spirit. They are broken and poured out in union with Christ for the life of the world. And they are, through Christ, brought into unity and communion in God with other lives which have been brought into Christ’s Body.” [p. 109] Here is the whole point of communion, it reminds us of who we are and what we are called to do. It is a graphic reminder, one that we can’t always take in with our heads, but one that speaks to us of the basic ‘stuff’ of human life and of that life in community. And, as the 17th century Puritan preacher Stephen Charnock wrote of the Lord’s Supper, “If it be a token of Divine goodness to appoint it, it is no sign of our estimation of Divine goodness to neglect it.”

            As we should not neglect this gift of God for the people of God, neither should we forget or neglect our mutual servanthood. Too often we treat our life together as church as we would any other club or civic organization. When it is convenient, we’re into it. When it isn’t – well, we’ll get back to it. This isn’t what Jesus commanded or instituted on that long ago night in the Upper Room. An example has been given. A new mandate set. If we are followers of Jesus, we are to be servants as he was. It’s that simple…and that difficult.

Sermon (Fr Peay) March 30, 2018

Good Friday – ‘God’s Friday’ originally – an important day; a day central to our faith, our salvation, our life as Christians. Yet we come to it as mourners and we are reminded that what we so often take for granted, or wear so lightly, comes at a great price.

The liturgy today is different. The building is stark, the altar bare, the tabernacle empty, no holy water in the fonts, all images are covered, and no candles are lit. Our attention is focused on the reality of WHO Jesus is, and WHAT he has done for us. Isaiah’s celebration of the “suffering servant” seems to weave together themes as diverse as the promises to David’s line and the Lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah. All of it designed to remind us that God is faithful – always. The Letter to the Hebrews picks up on the more liturgical aspect of Isaiah and amplifies it – showing us that the “suffering servant” is our high priest. A priest, one who stands between God and humanity making intercession; but now that HIGH PRIEST offers the sacrifice of himself, not the body of a dead animal. We are then drawn to John’s account of the Passion, showing us that Jesus’ offering is freely made and his priestly action undergirds, and enables, our own liturgical action: the blood and water from his side indicating Eucharist and Baptism.

It is a day focused on the centrality of the Cross, but with an eye to the glory that will come through it. The writers of the early Church often reflected on what this day meant and there are two brief excerpts from their writings I’d like to share with you. One comes from a third-century author, identified as Pseudo-Hippolytus, who, to my mind, writes one of the most moving reflections on the Cros and its implications for us: This tree is my everlasting salvation.  It is my food, a shared banquet.  Its roots and the spread of its branches are my own roots and extension.  In its shade, as in a breeze, I luxuriate and am cared for.  Its shade I take for my resting place; in my flight from oppressive heat it is a source of refreshing dew for me.  Its blossoms are my own, my utter delight its fruits, saved from the beginning for my harvest.  Food for my hunger and well-spring for my thirst, it is also a covering for my nakedness, with the spirit of life as its leaves.  Far from me henceforth the fig leaves!  Fearful of God, I find it a place of safety; when unsteady, a source of stability.  In the face of a struggle, I look to it as a prize; in victory, my trophy.  It is the narrow path, the restricted road.  It is Jacob’s ladder, the passage of angels, at whose summit the Lord is affixed.  This tree, the plant of immortality, rears from earth to reach as high as heaven, fixing the Lord between heaven and earth.  It is the foundation and stabilizer of the universe, undergirding the world that we inhabit.  It is the binding force of the world and holds together all the varieties that human life encompasses.  It is riveted into a unity by the invisible bonds of the Spirit, so that its connection with God can never be severed.  Brushing heaven with its uppermost branches, it remains fixed in the earth and, between the two points, its huge hands completely enfold the stirring of the air.  As a single whole it penetrates all things and all places. (Trans. Boniface Ramsey, Beginning to Read the Fathers, p. 81)  The other comes from the ninth century theologian Theodore of Studios. He wrote: How splendid the cross of Christ! It brings life, not death; light, not darkness; Paradise, not its loss. It is the wood on which the Lord, like a great warrior, was wounded in hands and feet and side, but healed thereby our wounds. A tree has destroyed us, a tree now brought us life. (Office of Readings, LITURGY OF THE HOURS, 2nd Friday in Easter)

Note that both show what has happened in the tragedy of the Lord’s Passion and Death works not DEATH, but LIFE! This day reverses the day of the Fall, it opens for us the way to life, and oneness with God. Today death IS “swallowed up” by the very Author of Life! We mourn, yes, because this day has been costly to God, but we rejoice because of the benefit it brings to us. Dietrich Bonhoeffer – who himself walked the road of self-giving love as a martyr at the hands of the NAZIs – reminds us of this in his book THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP. He makes an important distinction between “cheap” and “costly” grace. He wrote: Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God. (THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP, p. 46)

Mourn. Adore the Cross, recognizing the instrument of “costly grace,” and receive the presanctified gifts of the Lord’s Body and Blood. Then leave this place remembering that, as St. Paul says, . . . your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. This is ‘God’s Friday,’ an important day.

Sermon (Fr Peay) March 29, 2018

“If I, then, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” John 13: 14-15

            Jesus gives the new mandate – “love one another, as I have loved you” – and then shows how it is to be carried out – through service. Jesus says that he gives us an example that we should do to each other what he has done to us. It seems straightforward, simple actually. Jesus tells us that servanthood, the act of being or becoming a servant, is following his word and his example.

            In addition to the example of washing feet, I believe he gave us another example of service in the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Whether we call it that, or communion, or the Eucharist (which is my own favorite name for it because it’s not only Biblical, but descriptive of what it is – a ‘good gift’ and a ‘thanksgiving’ or remembrance of what God does for us), it is a powerful symbol of what we are to be and to do for one another. Jesus became Eucharist for us on the cross – broken and poured out in unselfish love. That, to me, is true servanthood and what we’re to become for each other is Eucharist. Further, it means that we seek to nourish one another and to build one another up. To be a follower of Jesus Christ is to become Eucharist, to be a servant, so that others might live, grow, and flourish. In this scheme of things the role of the minister is rather clear, we are ‘set apart’ to serve the servants.

            I like what the contemporary English theologian Kenneth Leech wrote in his little book True Prayer: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality, “In the action of the Eucharist we can see the pattern of all spirituality: offering, blessing, breaking, and sharing. Our lives are offered to God within the redemptive offering of his Son. They are laid open to the sanctifying, consecrating power of the Spirit. They are broken and poured out in union with Christ for the life of the world. And they are, through Christ, brought into unity and communion in God with other lives which have been brought into Christ’s Body.” [p. 109] Here is the whole point of communion, it reminds us of who we are and what we are called to do. It is a graphic reminder, one that we can’t always take in with our heads, but one that speaks to us of the basic ‘stuff’ of human life and of that life in community. And, as the 17th century Puritan preacher Stephen Charnock wrote of the Lord’s Supper, “If it be a token of Divine goodness to appoint it, it is no sign of our estimation of Divine goodness to neglect it.”

            As we should not neglect this gift of God for the people of God, neither should we forget or neglect our mutual servanthood. Too often we treat our life together as church as we would any other club or civic organization. When it is convenient, we’re into it. When it isn’t – well, we’ll get back to it. This isn’t what Jesus commanded or instituted on that long ago night in the Upper Room. An example has been given. A new mandate set. If we are followers of Jesus, we are to be servants as he was. It’s that simple…and that difficult.