("The Thankful Poor," by Henry Ossawa Tanner.)
Maundy
Thursday C—March 28, 2013—Trinity Episcopal Church
Exodus
12:1-4(5-10)11-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17,
31b-35
Maria L. Evans
“For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I
have done to you.”
Something that was
said at our weekly Eucharist and Text Study over at Twin Pines really caught my
attention Tuesday. I heard someone
describe our Gospel reading we just heard tonight as a parable of action. Usually Jesus’ parables are stories; but in
this one, it is his actions, not his words, that create the paradox. One of the commonest forms of hospitality in
those days was to see that a guest had clean feet after a long day on the
road—but it was usually a servant, a slave, or the woman of the house who
performed that task. Certainly not the
Lord and Master! Yet it is exactly the Lord and Master who is the one kneeling
with the water and the towel at the feet of the disciples, in the hopes that
they learn by example and do likewise.
On our bulletin cover
tonight, Henry Ossawa Tanner illustrates this in a different way. Even though the house in this painting is
rather bare, and the meal a meager one, the grandfather is setting an example
by giving prayerful thanks for it.
Certainly his hope is that his grandson will follow this example. It’s a safe bet that the grandfather learned
this from someone in his life with a similar hope.
Many of us can look
at the stories of our lives and think fondly of the people and situations where
we learned by example. We can probably
also think of the times when we were a little slow on the uptake with those examples. This slowness is captured in our Gospel
reading through the interchange between Jesus and Peter. (Poor Peter, he’s always the fall guy in
these stories!) We, of course, have the
benefit of knowing the plot spoiler in advance—we can see that Jesus is trying
to teach that serving in love—even serving at the most mundane or ordinary task—sends
an extraordinary message about where God’s power actually lies. Peter can only see his own discomfort in
being the recipient of this gift.
“Dude! You are not going to clean
off my gnarly, toe jam-ridden feet!
That’s a job for underlings, not a great teacher and prophet like
you! Let the help do it!” He totally misses the message until Jesus points
out that Peter’s refusal is a refusal of Jesus, rather than just a refusal of a
foot bath.
When I look at our
picture on tonight’s bulletin cover, the posture of the grandson makes me
wonder if he may not yet totally understand his grandfather’s message. The grandfather’s prayer posture seems to
reflect a slightly deeper sense of gratitude.
The grandson is obediently following his lead, but his left hand seems
to be pushing against the table a little.
Perhaps the grandson simply is hungry and wants to eat—or perhaps he
hasn’t yet learned the lesson about gratitude that is best expressed by an old
saying of the Hausa tribe in Nigeria—“Give thanks for a little, and you will
find a lot.”
Lessons about
gratitude aren’t always the easiest lessons to learn. Maybe it’s because poverty and abundance are
so hard to define in a way that is consistent in our lives and at the same time
unclouded by judgments and assumptions.
Take the title of the painting on our bulletin—“The Thankful Poor.” Would we think the title appropriate if the
grandfather had a smart phone sitting on the table? Would the title fit if the man and his
grandson were a little on the portly side?
What if they were giving thanks over a McRib, a Happy Meal, and a pair
of giant sugary Cokes? It’s not always
easy to sort out, is it?
Even the kinds of
images the Bible uses for “abundance” are a little problematic. At first glance, they seem great--lands
flowing with milk and honey; cups overflowing; vats of wine bursting at the
seams. That said, God’s abundance is not
particularly neat and tidy. There’s
probably a sticky residue with all that milk and honey. Overflowing cups stain the tablecloth. Bursting wine vats most certainly leak all
over everything.
In a world where we
are told that we can never be too rich, too thin, or have too many electrical
outlets, it’s almost impossible to believe that the simplest and commonest acts
of humble service can amount to much.
Yet it’s equally impossible to predict their delayed reaction. Jesus points that out when he tells Peter,
“You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Even if the grandson in our painting doesn’t
totally understand his grandfather’s gratitude, he might get it later. All of us know lessons we didn’t get the
first time, but the example stayed with us somehow.
Acts of humble
service, when performed in love, also create a window for others to be opened
to even more opportunities to express their own callings and to respond to
their own nudgings from the Holy Spirit.
Many of us who volunteered at the food drive Saturday heard several
donors relate times when they had to be the recipients of assistance and the
difficulties of having to accept help.
Our food drive gave others the chance to reflect on their own stories
and respond by being participants in even more acts of humble service. You can bet that others were watching their
example, too. This was especially
evident when donors were either letting their children pick out a food item to
donate, or allowed their small children—some as young as toddlers—place the
food in the truck. No, they really
didn’t understand it now—but the hope, of course, was that someday they would.
I imagine God hopes for
the best in us every day—even in the midst of humanity at its most evil—wars
and hate and greed—and in those times God truly grieves and hopes that someday,
we’ll understand. I like to imagine God
smiles at us when we manage to get something—anything—right, much how we smile
when toddlers are imitating our good examples.
Sometimes, it’s hard for us to see the good examples in this torn and
hurting world. We are reminded in our
Epistle, though, that Jesus still teaches us by example, because we always have
an opportunity to receive, reflect, and repeat his example by sharing in the
Eucharistic feast. Tonight is an
opportunity to reflect upon this in a way that we only get one time a year.
Many of you know that
one of our traditions on Maundy Thursday is the stripping of the altar—the
removal of all things related to Christianity and the liturgical traditions
that evolved from it. I’ve often sat here on Maundy Thursday and wondered,
“What if Jesus had simply never happened?
What would be missing from my life if this never existed? What stories from my life would be stripped
from my memory? Would I have ever
bothered to know any of the people sitting here with me? What would sit on this piece of ground
instead of this building? How would the
absence of all this change who I understand myself to be?”
In short, this night
invites us to temporarily experience an extreme poverty that we never have to
fear in real life, because the truth is that we can strip the church of all its
trappings, but God can’t be stripped from us. It calls us to a deeper
understanding that when we are asked to “lift up our hearts” in the Eucharistic
Prayer, we are already lifting up something stripped of all of our pretenses,
and stripped of the judgments everyone else has put upon them. We are holding up our hearts to God as only
God sees them. On this night—Maundy
Thursday—we are invited to become one of the thankful poor. AMEN
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