In his book on survival amid the Holocaust, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl quotes Fyodor Dostoevsky “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”
In the maelstrom of Maundy Thursday, with violence on the horizon perpetrated by leaders drunk with power and fearful of change, we are given a model for responding to conflict,
uncertainty, and suffering with grace, compassion, and love.
Maundy Thursday comes the Latin translation of “new commandment”: Jesus’ counsel to his followers to “love one another” without distinction of friend or foe, neighbor or stranger.
Love in a Troubled Time
On a night in which threat and uncertainty are palpable, in which the powers of death and destruction are gathering to destroy Jesus’ mission, Jesus gathers for supper with his followers, and amazes then with his words and actions. Rather than circling the wagons in fearful self-protection, he expands his circle of love and empathy to include those who in a few short hours will abandon and betray him. He washes their feet – dirty smelly feet – something no leader in the first or twenty first century does to his followers. He doesn’t “Lord it over” them, but serves them. Jesus shows his first followers and us that spiritual greatness is not found in wielding power, threatening retribution, bullying, or decimating, but in service.
A leader serves and shares. The Messiah sacrifices. No distant monastery, no private golf club, no penthouse suite, no gated community, or closed heart. Spiritual greatness comes through community and love.
A Spirituality of Service and Sacrifice
On Maundy Thursday, we celebrate service and sacrifice and also community with God and one another. Ubuntu, I am because of you, we are because of one another., God is the vine and we are the branches. There is an energy of love flowing through all things, and when we connect with that energy, we have everything we need to flourish, to experience abundant life, and share that abundance with the stranger, political foe, and least of these. No transactional bargaining or quid pro quo: just love that flows without price tag or limit. Connected with God, we will be fruitful, abundant, and do small things with great love and great things with compassion and generosity.
Life is challenging. These days we wake up with troubled spirits. We fear for the future of our land, and the impact of leadership, bereft of vision and compassion, and inspired by grievance and retribution the impact on our lives and the most vulnerable in our midst. Tempted to close the doors of our hearts, on Maundy Thursday, Jesus shows us another way – generosity, sacrifice, service, empathy, and love – these endure forever, built on the solid rock of God’s generosity, sacrifice, service, empathy, and love.
Let us be worthy of this dark time. Remember those lines from Tolkien’s “Fellowship of the Ring” –“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
This is our time. This is the day that God has made and we will rejoice in the struggle, defiant joy, because Christ is with us always and trusting him, we will one act at a time, one day at a time, heal our world, despite what our leaders do. For we will be worthy of our time and faithful to the love that endures forever
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