Maundy Thursday

 

In the Church calendar, we are in the days leading up to Easter. These are among the holiest—that is, set apart for a special purpose—days of the year (this is where we get our word ‘holiday,’ days set apart as special, different from everyday days). On Thursday evening, I will be speaking about Jesus with his apprentices on the night of his betrayal and arrest. You can read the text, from John’s biography of Jesus, below. My attention is caught by these words: ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean.’

I don’t know how often you have a bath, and for what purpose. I have a bath about twice a year, not to wash my body—I do that in the shower, and also have a basin in my bedroom—but as an act of self care, running the bath as deep and as hot as possible, and soaking in it.

In the Instructions of Moses, we find that there are certain states of being that cause a person to be ritually impure, and that their restoration to the wider community requires a ritual bath.

Being ritually impure has nothing to do with moral wrongdoing. It is, rather, a codified way of engaging with the reality of death. Certain states of being are, psychologically, rehearsals for death, including ejaculation and menstruation—not because these things are ‘dirty,’ or even shameful, but because in both instances, the person loses mastery of their bodily life-fluids. Contact with a corpse, and being a corpse, also result in ritual impurity. Ritual washing marks the restoration of purity, symbolising the limit to which death cuts us off from life.

Dying made a person ritually impure; but the community handled the corpse in such ways as to make the person ritually pure again, ready to meet their Maker. In Jewish tradition to this day, this begins with gently washing the body, removing anything that is not a natural part, such as jewellery or nail varnish, while saying certain prayers and psalms and other passages of Scripture (holy writing). Then the body is fully washed, either by submerging it in a mikvah (ritual bath) or by pouring a large amount of water (the equivalent of 48 pints) over the corpse. Finally, the body is dressed in linen, ready to return to the earth from which it came.

We should not assume that contemporary Jewish tradition is the same as first-century Common Era Judaism; but neither are they unrelated.

When Jesus says that Peter has had a bath—in fact, not washed himself but that he has been washed—he is referring to the washing of a body after death. Though this is not described, in relation to Jesus’ blood-streaked corpse, in the Gospels, it is implied. This practice is mentioned by the church historian Luke in his Acts of the Apostles, where he notes that the deceased Dorcas is washed by the women of her community, and also that Paul and Silas have their bloodied backs washed by the jailer in Philippi immediately before he himself is baptised.

Jesus is saying that his apprentices have been joined with him in his death. They have been washed, made ritually pure again, in preparation to stand before God—symbolising the real but temporary separation from God that death demands. Having been full-body washed, all that remains needful is to have their feet washed. In Genesis, God visits Abraham in human form (that is, in a form Abraham can see, and relate to) and Abraham welcomes God by washing his feet. An act of welcome and hospitality. The tradition later arose that Abraham welcomes the dead into Paradise (and Jesus tells a parable, or micro story that gets under the skin, where Abraham does exactly this). So, Peter is already made ready to enter Paradise, and Jesus now takes the Abrahamic posture of welcoming him.

This is what we enact in baptism, the candidate dying with Christ (Jesus, the One sent by God to rescue his people), united with him in his death and in his mighty and glorious resurrection.

This, then, is the drama of both our baptism—a one-off, unrepeatable event—and the Thursday of Holy Week—to which we return annually—that we rehearse our physical death, that, when it comes, we might die in the confidence that this parting is temporary; that the community of faith, and the God whose faithfulness we look to, will take us in their hands and hold us with dignity and love. As we, in turn, are to do for our brother's and sisters.

By such love, confident in the face of death, we shall be known.

John 13.1-17, 31b-35

‘Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

‘After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord-and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

‘When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’’

 

Holy Wednesday

 

Wednesday of Holy Week

Today, the Wednesday of Holy Week, is sometimes known as Spy Wednesday, recalling the contract between Jesus’ apprentice Judas and the chief priests, by which he becomes a double agent for them.

Money has been a recurring theme across the week—whether or not to pay the tax due to the emperor; whether to pour out fragrant ointment or sell it and give the money to the poor; and now thirty silver coins.

Thirty silver coins is the worth placed on a slave in the discussion of recompense in the Instructions of Moses:

‘If [an] ox gores a male or female slave, the owner shall pay to the slave-owner thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.’ Exodus 21.32

This transaction makes Jesus Judas’ slave, and the chief priests the owners of the ox that gored him to death—that is, responsible for the actions of the Roman auxiliaries who would torture and execute Jesus.

And Jesus is, indeed, Judas’ slave, for he comes not as master but as slave of all. Even of Judas, who will prove to be a wicked master, one who would trade his slave’s life for money. ‘Jesus, you are a worthless slave; worth more to me dead.’

And here, again, Judas is right; for Jesus is better to him dead than alive—having absorbed and neutralised he sting of death; having descended into hell, broken its doors from the inside, and returned victorious, never to die again. For Judas will deeply regret his betrayal, and take his own life; but Jesus will go looking for his lost sheep, even through the darkest valley, the shade-realm of the Dead, and—surely—bring his torn-limb-from-limb lamb back on his shoulders.

 

Matthew 26.14-16

‘Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I betray him to you?’ They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.’

 

Holy Tuesday

 

Tuesday of Holy Week

Holy Week continues, as we walk the way of the cross with Jesus. Yesterday, I reflected on Jesus’ handling of money, of the difference between the coins that bear the image of the emperor and the human beings who bear the image of God.

On this day, Jesus’ biographer Matthew tells us of a woman anointing Jesus’ head with a very costly ointment. From his perspective, she was preparing his body for burial. From her perspective, it is perhaps more likely that she was acting as a prophet, symbolically anointing a king. Both are true: he is the king who comes to lay down his life.

But the disciples—Jesus’ apprentices—were angry at the waste of money, which they would have given to the poor. Elsewhere we read that Judas was the keeper of the purse, and helped himself from it; but Matthew does not mention this, and, rather, records that all the disciples were angry at the woman. In effect, they were saying, how we would choose to act is more important than how the woman has acted. In effect, they are saying, we are of more value than she is.

What monetary value do we place on a human life? Certainly, the world works not on the basis of everyone having what they need, to life a good life, but on the idea that I am worth more than some and less than others. Wealth breeds wealth, and with it, worldly value.

The woman does not play the game. She relinquishes her stake in it. In this, she does not only prepare Jesus for his burial, but united herself to him, to his death, and to whatever may come after.

Matthew 26.6-13

‘Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, ‘Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’’

 

Holy Monday

 

On what we call the Monday of Holy Week, the biographer Matthew tells us that Jesus spent the day in the temple in Jerusalem, teaching, and being confronted by different factions from among the religious leaders of the people.

One such encounter focused on taxation. Noone liked the Romans, but some wanted to see them driven out, while others owed their position of power and authority to Roman patronage. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, as the saying goes. So however Jesus answered the question, he was likely to spring the trap and alienate people.

I have in my hand a coin bearing the image of a woman. She is dead now, but for most of my life, she was Queen. Over the course of her reign, five images were made to represent her on coins, from youth to old age: this coin happens to bear the fourth of the five, the coin being made the year before the final image.

I cannot tell how many hands this coin has passed through, from person to person, some of whom might have known each other, others who will never have met before or since. But this coin can be exchanged for something else, anywhere in the United Kingdom—even now, after the woman is dead. It has no currency in the USA, or France, or other places: there, we must enter into a negotiation, establish an exchange rate, what it is worth.

Most people pay little interest in the coins in their pocket; they are more interest in the things the coin can be exchanged for. But for some, coins have a value in and of themselves, are collectable, have a story to tell.

Jesus replied, give to the emperor the things that belong to the emperor, and to God what belongs to God. The implication being that human beings bear God’s image. Not the image of one woman, at different stages of life, but countless faces, male and female, young and old. Not just within one realm, but all across the world. Not simply exchangeable for something more valuable, but of inherent value.

What might it mean to give such images (back) to God? It might look like prayer, bringing people before God, asking God to bless them. People we know well, people whose paths have crossed our path today, people we have never met and in all probability never will.

How might we hold other people in our hand, behold them? Whose image might we see reflected there—the devil? some sub-human creature? or, the God who longs to be One with us?

Matthew 22.15-22

‘Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.’

 

Palm Sunday

 

Today is Palm Sunday, the day we remember Jesus arriving at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, days before he will be put to death. He comes as one of a crowd of pilgrims. Passover, one of the three great festivals of the year, could be observed at home, in any place, but to do so in Jerusalem was special. Jesus comes with others from Galilee, in the north, and those who have joined them on their way. Many in the crowd have seen the things that Jesus has done—the way his interpretation of the Instructions given by Moses captured the attention; the way he healed the sick, brought deliverance to the demonised, restored the marginalised to full participation in the community—and wanted to see what he would do next.

With Jerusalem in sight, Jesus stops, and instructs his apprentices to bring him a donkey and her foal, a colt not yet used to carrying burden. He will ride the rest of the way, down the Mount of Olives. And the crowd interpret this as fulfilling Scripture, the words of the prophet Zechariah:

‘Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’
(Zechariah 9.9)

The prophecy being referenced continues:

‘He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the warhorse from Jerusalem;
and the battle-bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.’
(Zechariah 9.10)

Prophecy is not a foretelling of future events. Prophecy is a poetic form, that holds out a combination of what is and what could be, and invites us to step into the story. A prophetic word about an individual, for example, may combine what the seer sees in them, and how that might play out. To fulfil prophecy is to allow our character to be shaped by it, in some way or other. But to overly-interpret prophecy makes a fool of us. We see this over and again in the ancient Greek tragedies; and in modern stories such as Voldemort’s obsession with Harry Potter and, hence, failure to recognise the danger Neville Longbottom poses him. We see it in the folly of the current US administration seeing the Revelation—a work concerned with events at the end of the first century CE—as licence to wage war today.

The crowd sees Jesus as coming to liberate Jerusalem from the Roman Empire, from an external threat of warhorse and battle-bow. But there is a far older prophecy at play here.

Long ago, at the very end of Genesis—the first of the five books of Instruction of Moses—the patriarch Jacob spoke words over his twelve sons. Words that both gave description to the character, and the actions that flowed from that character, and also held out a future possibility, one that might shape their descendants.

Of Judah, Jacob says:

‘Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
your hand shall be on the neck of your
enemies;
your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
Judah is a lion’s whelp;
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion,
like a lioness—who dares rouse him up?
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and the obedience of the peoples is his.
Binding his foal to the vine
and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he washes his garments in wine
and his robe in the blood of grapes;
his eyes are darker than wine,
and his teeth whiter than milk.’
(Genesis 49.8-12)

Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes.

On the night of his arrest and mockery of a trial before the Sanhedrin (the religious leaders of the people) Jesus will describe himself as the true vine, an image of the people of Israel. And here, picking his way down the hill on a colt accompanied by its mother, Jesus binds the foal to the choice vine, as he comes, knowing that his garments will be soaked in his own blood.

But immediately before speaking words over Judah, Jacob had spoken these words over his brothers Simeon and Levi:

‘Simeon and Levi are brothers;
weapons of violence are their swords.
May I never come into their council;
may I not be joined to their company—
for in their anger they killed men,
and at their whim they hamstrung oxen.
Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,
and their wrath, for it is cruel!
I will divide them in Jacob,
and scatter them in Israel.’
(Genesis 49.5-7)

The priestly caste—those in whose presence Jesus will be tried, whose council will condemn him to death—saw themselves as the descendants of Levi. A tribe so violent against their own kin (when Moses was gone for over forty days and nights and the people made for themselves a golden calf as a sign of the presence of the gods among them, the Levites went through the camp putting thousands to the sword) that they were not allotted their own territory where they might live in concentration, but had to live scattered in small towns across the territories governed by the other tribes.

For good reason Jacob declared, ‘May I never come into their council; may I not be joined to their company—for in their anger they killed men.’

The warhorse and the battle-bow Jesus comes to remove is not the mighty of Rome but the violence at the heart of his own people. And he will do so, not by leading a violent uprising—for violence can never rid us of violence—but by absorbing the very worst that the violence can muster, and cursing it—utterly neutralising it—as he lives into the story in a particular way, holding together humility and authority, laying down his life and being raised up to a kingly rule that will never end.

This, too, is prophecy; is a story to be stepped into. A story that shapes those who respond, laying our tribute before him.

This is where we find ourselves again this Palm Sunday, caught up in the reconciliation of all that has been estranged, that is accomplished in and coming into being through Jesus.

May we, therefore, renounce all violence against our sisters and brothers, against those who live around about us, not least all violence done in the name of God, who stands opposed to any such claim.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

on unbinding

 

Some things are a storm in a teacup. Some things are a weather front rattling and entire dinner service. There has been much sound and fury of late claiming that our Christian heritage is being lost to Muslim immigrants. This is racism trying out new clothes. If we are losing our Christian heritage, it is not because some of our neighbours faithfully attend the mosque on Fridays, but because we have become disconnected from the stories that inform and shape Christian faith. There are complex reasons for this, including two World Wars in the last century, the rise of individualist self-expression, suspicion of institutions, scandals within the Church; very little to do with immigration, which has brought us many Christians, who happen not to be white. But a core part of my own vocation is to help people make and strengthen connections between their own lives and the Christian story.

Two weeks out from Easter, the Church tells again the account, found in John’s Gospel, of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. This is the moment he goes too far, crosses a line, from which there can be no going back: the event that seals Jesus’ own murder. On Sunday, my colleague Katherine Cooper-Young spoke from this text, focusing on the end of the account, where Jesus, having called Lazarus out of the tomb, instructs the witnesses to remove the grave clothes from him so that he can go free.

Katherine asked us to imagine Lazarus’ life post- this event, an event which changes everything. Though his sisters Martha and Mary are highly articulate, Lazarus himself does not speak in the Gospels, not one word. Yet there are two traditions that claim that, after he was raised from the dead, Lazarus became an evangelist—one who proclaims the good news of Jesus—and a bishop. The Eastern (Orthodox) Church claims that he was run out of town, fleeing to Cyprus, where he was eventually made Bishop of Kition (today, Larnaca) by St Paul. The Western (Catholic) Church claims that the three siblings were pushed out to sea in a boat without sail or rudder, whereupon the winds carried them to France; there, they went three separate ways, proclaiming the Gospel as they went; Lazarus becoming Bishop of Marseilles.

The veracity of these stories does not depend on their historicity (see also: the bones of St Andrew were never carried to Scotland) but on communities of believers making connections between their lives and the story they read together. Communities that saw some transformative hope they wanted to claim for themselves too.

Katherine invited us to call to mind the things that bind us, that tie us in knots, preventing us from experiencing freedom—the life God longs for us, in reaching in and lifting us out from the graves we make for ourselves. To acknowledge those things in the presence of Jesus, who weeps for our pain and who, in compassion, speaks a new life—not merely a restoration of what has been lost, but new possibilities—into being.

Neuroscience would inform us that many of these grave clothes—acts of self-preservation—are wrapped around us in the first seven or so years of life; and though they serve us well at the time—the best we can do—they become unhelpful later on, constraining our ability to respond to other relationships. It is fascinating that Jesus enlists the help of a community—those who have borne witness to grief with tender compassion—in bringing progressive freedom; and that this involves physical touch and movement.

This is a vision of what the church could be.

 

what Lazarus does for Jesus

 

Today marks the start of Passiontide, the two-week run-in to Easter. In this context, passion refers to things that are done to us (Greek: paschō) as opposed to things we do by our own agency (Greek: poiō). Through much of the Gospels we see Jesus doing things—as he describes it, doing (only) what he sees the Father doing. But as we reach the climax of the story, as time slows down (with as much ink dedicated to days as has been dedicated to years of ministry) there is a shift from things Jesus does to things done to him by others. Some of these are loving things; some are hateful, or treacherous, or tragic; and some are deeply mystical.

The Gospel passage set for this Sunday is a long chunk (technical term) from John chapter 11. Here we encounter friends of Jesus, the siblings Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Luke also writes about the sisters in his Gospel (Luke chapter 10).

They are a fascinating family. They appear to live together, and Martha appears to run their home. Culturally, it would seem unusual that neither sister is married, and that Lazarus is not responsible for his unmarried sisters, in the absence of parents. Martha and Mary are both highly articulate, but Lazarus is silent whenever he is mentioned. (Some scholars believe that Lazarus is the ‘beloved disciple’ at the Last Supper—unnamed but traditionally identified as the disciple and later gospel-writer John—in which case he speaks three words, asking a simple question.) These observations lead some scholars to believe that Lazarus has some form of disability, and perhaps learning disability; that he may be unable to speak, or be situationally mute (that is, can speak, but doesn’t, whether by choice or defence mechanism).

Luke’s account of the sisters is almost universally misinterpreted. They appear in the context of Jesus sending out seventy plus disciples, or apprentices, ahead of him, to every village where he intended to go, sent to find persons of peace whose homes might become the hub of a community of disciples—what we would call a local church congregation. Martha is presented as a deacon, as the local minister to the proto-church in her village. Mary is presented as one who sat at Jesus’ feet, which is code for a disciple: which is to say, she is one of the seventy plus Jesus has sent out ahead of him. Martha tells Jesus that there is more work to be done ministering to her village than she can attend to alone, and asks Jesus to find Mary and send her back home to work alongside Martha. Jesus declines, affirming the different vocations—deacon, evangelist—of both sisters. This is a far cry from Martha being in the kitchen and complaining about Mary not helping prepare food.

In John’s Gospel, we meet the siblings again, this time including their brother Lazarus. Jesus has recently been in Jerusalem, but has withdrawn down into the rift valley that is the lowest point on the surface of the earth, crossing over the river Jordan, getting away from enemies who had attempted to stone him. Lazarus falls ill, and the sisters send word to Jesus, most likely through the network he had established across the countryside.

Jesus does not come to the sisters until after Lazarus has died. Their brother’s death turns the sisters’ lives on their heads. Martha, who had ministered in the context of her own home and village, now leaves her village behind to find Jesus on his way. Mary, who had been travelling ahead of Jesus to village after village, is unable to leave the family home. The vocation of each has flipped. Martha has become Mary, and Mary has become Martha. Such is often the way in the wake of death.

Both sisters know that Jesus could have healed Lazarus (could have acted to do so: poiō) but they still trust him. They present to him their faith and hope and need of consolation, a mess of co-existing emotions, feelings and thoughts. Jesus does not respond by doing, but by being moved with compassion, a visceral experience, something, in a sense, done to us (paschō). Jesus is not in mastery of this response, which wracks him like a wild animal. And that raw compassion enables Martha to return home, empowers Mary to leave home, and brings Lazarus back from the dead.

But there is another gem in this passage. Jesus asks the community that has come from Jerusalem to be with—to surround, with love—Martha and Mary in their grief, where Lazarus had been laid, and they take him to the tomb. This echoes what John records in chapter 1 of his Gospel, two disciples of John the Baptiser who were following Jesus: he turns and asks them ‘What are you looking for?’ and when they ask, ‘Where are you staying?’ responds, ‘Come and see.’ (Interestingly, this takes place at the same place where Jesus will first hear news that his friend Lazarus is sick.) Now Jesus asks to see where Lazarus is staying, and invited to come and see. And so the disabled man—the dead man—Lazarus becomes the one who shows Jesus what it is to dwell in a tomb—and to rise from the dead.

Lazarus does for Jesus what Jesus cannot do for himself, but needs to know. Paschō.

We are created to be inter-dependent. And agency matters, what we choose to do with our lives, with our bodies, matters. But we do not have unlimited freedom. Our actions are constrained by the existence of others—not only by what they do, their actions, but by the place they occupy in the world, in the grace of God. The good news is that poiō is only half the story: the other side is paschō. In entrusting ourselves to others, to how they might respond to us—for good or ill—and trusting God to work through all of this, the kingdom of heaven can break into this world through us.