Mark 14:17- 37 (12-72)
As we continue in our Lenten series of looking at the last week of Jesus’ life, using primarily the gospel of Mark and the book, The Last Week, by Marcus Borg and John Crossan, today our theme is Maundy Thursday. One of the holiest days of the Christian calendar, a day so familiar because not only do we observe it each year during Holy Week, we also remember it every time we share at the table of Communion. The word ‘Maundy’ actually comes from the gospel of John’s account of what happened on that Thursday – it records Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and giving them a new commandment, ‘maundatum, that the disciples love one another as Jesus has loved them.
This morning, however, we will leave John’s gospel aside and focus on how Thursday unfolds in Mark’s hands – a story that is far more than the meal of the Last Supper as life-changing as that meal was and continues to be. The meal was just the beginning of the significance of Thursday’s events. From the sharing of the bread and cup, that one last embodied lesson about divine justice in a world not our own where all are invited to share in the feast (Last Week p. 118), Jesus’ story moves to prayer in the garden of Gethsemane where the disciples cannot stay awake, to the betrayal by one disciple, to Jesus’ arrest, to his denial by another disciple to a brutal interrogation and condemnation, and then the abandonment by all of the disciples. All this in less than 24 hours!
There is one thing, though, that doesn’t happen on Thursday that I want to make very clear. The Jews did not kill Jesus! When Jesus is taken to the temple authorities to be questioned by the high priest along with the chief priests, the scribes and the elders, he absolutely was not condemned by the whole Jewish nation! First of all, remember that the gospels were written years after the events happened and it is unlikely that any bystanders beyond the high priest’s circle were present so it is impossible to know exactly what happened. It has been called Jesus’ trial but it could more likely be an informal but deadly hearing rather than a formal trial following accepted rules of procedure.
Secondly, we also need to remember that the high priest, the chief priests, scribes and elders – in other words, the temple authorities – did not represent the Jews but were local collaborators with the imperial authority, the oppressors of the vast majority of the Jewish people. Therefore, as we think about what happened on Thursday, we need to be scrupulously careful to avoid any anti-Semitism in blaming the whole Jewish population for Jesus’ death as has been done over the centuries by a less than careful reading and speaking of what happened on this Thursday of Holy Week. (I cannot emphasize this strongly enough – one of our tasks as faithful Christians is to not remember our history at the expense and denigration of another faith tradition. We need to mitigate anti-Semitism whenever we can.)
Now if you were here last week as John dealt with Wednesday of Holy Week, you heard how he described that one of the reasons the Roman authorities and the Jewish collaborators were able to move forward with their arrest and trial of Jesus without inciting the crowds is because throughout this last week of Jesus’ life the disciples utterly failed to stand by Jesus. Nowhere is this failed discipleship more true and more abundantly clear than on Thursday where the disciples let Jesus down at every point.
Whether it was the sharing in the bread-as-body and blood-as-wine with Jesus using those words to speak openly of the violence of his death but also as his invitation to bring them with him through execution to resurrection, or whether it was his request that they stay awake while he prayed in Gethsemane and they slumbered away; or whether it was the movement from Peter’s fervent pledge that he would never deny Jesus to his threefold vehement denial and the fleeing of the other disciples; at every opportunity the twelve who had been closest to Jesus and knew him and his teachings better than anyone, still totally abandoned their Teacher in the end. Instead of full and total participation in Jesus’ life and ministry, in his living of and proclamation of the servant life of human transcendence, the disciples were unwilling and unable to move away from what Borg and Crossan name as ‘the domination life of human normalcy.’ (p. 120) In other words, in the face of fear and confusion, it was easier to sleep than to wait up with Jesus. In the face of arrest and terror, it was easier to run and save one’s own skin than to stand resolutely with their dear friend and leader. The disciples had been willing to eat with Jesus but not to risk their lives for him. The power of might was too strong for the power of love.
Had you and I been there, who knows how we might have responded? For as intriguing as it may be to ponder that question, our answers can only be speculative. And what’s more important is to consider how we respond here and now. For example…
Whenever we share in Communion, that meal which Jesus made abundantly clear was for all people – a meal not just about food but about justice and dignity and equal access to resources for all – do we simply chew the loaf and swallow the cup and leave the table and never think twice about who is missing from the table, or all we have that we are holding onto so tightly and where are we obstructing access to others?
When someone we know is in crisis, when we see a homeless person pushing all their possessions out in the cold, when our neighborhood, our country, our world is in crisis and Jesus asks us to pay attention, to ‘sit here while I pray’; do we quickly get distracted and turn our attention to other things or to nothing?
When there is an occasion to address an issue of injustice be it insensitive, pejorative speech, or a hate crime, or systemic wrongdoing, do we speak up; do we act? Or, do we just let it slip by?
And, if claiming that we follow Jesus meant we too might lose our life, would we run? Are we, too, willing to eat with him but our participation ends when it comes to doing something that might risk our life?
I don’t have answers to these questions. I only know that Jesus invites our full participation and Maundy Thursday opportunities from table to trial happen all the time. May we meet such dilemmas with boldness and humility.
Amen.