Holy Thursday, 4/1/21
Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14
Ps. 107, Our Blessing Cup
1 Cor 11: 23-26
John 13: 1-17, 31, 33-35
By Helen Weber-McReynolds, RCWP
We Catholics tend to call today Holy Thursday, but many Protestant communities call it Maundy Thursday, I recently learned the reason why. It’s related to the word mandate- mandatum in Latin, translated “commandment,” because of Jesus’ words in the Gospel we just heard- “I give you a new commandment. Love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus was about to perform the ultimate act of love, for all of us, and gave us all a mandate at the Last Supper to love one another in the same way.
We find ourselves in a highly symbolic moment on this particular Maundy Thursday. Our situation tonight in the midst of a pandemic spurred at least in part by climate change is uniquely appropriate to the stories foundational to our celebration of Holy Thursday. There are some Old Testament scholars who conclude that the Exodus story is symbolic of a slave revolt against the cruel Egyptian Empire, touched off by an ancient catastrophic climate event which created its own public health emergency. They theorize that an aberrant El Nino Southern oscillation brought unseasonable warming to Egypt, causing a red algal bloom which poisoned the waters of the Nile. This killed fish and drove frogs onto dry land, causing insects to proliferate, which then infected cattle and people with various diseases. In other words, “a cascade of arthropod-caused and –born diseases,” as hypothesized by an article in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.
Jesus found himself immersed in a resistance movement against the tyrannical oppressive Roman Empire. In fact this story of people trying to escape exploitation by corrupt government had been repeating itself again and again throughout human history, and continues to do so today. Jesus stood up for those most singled out for abuse by the Romans, because they were Jewish, women, blind, or lame. The Realm of God Jesus preached was, like all apocalyptic movements, an ideal of equity, freedom, and mutual social support. It was and is a goal to shoot for, and an ideal of how to leave the suffering of injustice behind. That’s why the Exodus of Israel, renewed by Jesus as the “New Moses,” has been adopted by generations of oppressed peoples as a spiritual template, such as by enslaved Africans in the US, and exploited farmers in Latin America.
Tonight’s Scriptures describe so beautifully how Jesus symbolically crystalized two essential elements of the Realm of God. First, he tied a towel around his waist and washed his disciples’ feet, ritualizing his service to us, and how we must pass it on to one another. Then he gathered his friends to break bread, giving us all a liturgy of mutual sharing, and gratitude to God, which can unify us with God and one another, over and over, to strengthen us for our own continuing Exodus journeys. Service and Communion with one another and God, to help us learn how to grow in love and liberate ourselves from human greed and selfishness—that’s what our Holy Thursday readings add up to. A mandate to witness how God loves us, how Jesus made that crystal clear in human flesh, and then to love one another in the same unselfish, non-violent, honest, liberating way.
Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14
Ps. 107, Our Blessing Cup
1 Cor 11: 23-26
John 13: 1-17, 31, 33-35
By Helen Weber-McReynolds, RCWP
We Catholics tend to call today Holy Thursday, but many Protestant communities call it Maundy Thursday, I recently learned the reason why. It’s related to the word mandate- mandatum in Latin, translated “commandment,” because of Jesus’ words in the Gospel we just heard- “I give you a new commandment. Love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus was about to perform the ultimate act of love, for all of us, and gave us all a mandate at the Last Supper to love one another in the same way.
We find ourselves in a highly symbolic moment on this particular Maundy Thursday. Our situation tonight in the midst of a pandemic spurred at least in part by climate change is uniquely appropriate to the stories foundational to our celebration of Holy Thursday. There are some Old Testament scholars who conclude that the Exodus story is symbolic of a slave revolt against the cruel Egyptian Empire, touched off by an ancient catastrophic climate event which created its own public health emergency. They theorize that an aberrant El Nino Southern oscillation brought unseasonable warming to Egypt, causing a red algal bloom which poisoned the waters of the Nile. This killed fish and drove frogs onto dry land, causing insects to proliferate, which then infected cattle and people with various diseases. In other words, “a cascade of arthropod-caused and –born diseases,” as hypothesized by an article in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.
Jesus found himself immersed in a resistance movement against the tyrannical oppressive Roman Empire. In fact this story of people trying to escape exploitation by corrupt government had been repeating itself again and again throughout human history, and continues to do so today. Jesus stood up for those most singled out for abuse by the Romans, because they were Jewish, women, blind, or lame. The Realm of God Jesus preached was, like all apocalyptic movements, an ideal of equity, freedom, and mutual social support. It was and is a goal to shoot for, and an ideal of how to leave the suffering of injustice behind. That’s why the Exodus of Israel, renewed by Jesus as the “New Moses,” has been adopted by generations of oppressed peoples as a spiritual template, such as by enslaved Africans in the US, and exploited farmers in Latin America.
Tonight’s Scriptures describe so beautifully how Jesus symbolically crystalized two essential elements of the Realm of God. First, he tied a towel around his waist and washed his disciples’ feet, ritualizing his service to us, and how we must pass it on to one another. Then he gathered his friends to break bread, giving us all a liturgy of mutual sharing, and gratitude to God, which can unify us with God and one another, over and over, to strengthen us for our own continuing Exodus journeys. Service and Communion with one another and God, to help us learn how to grow in love and liberate ourselves from human greed and selfishness—that’s what our Holy Thursday readings add up to. A mandate to witness how God loves us, how Jesus made that crystal clear in human flesh, and then to love one another in the same unselfish, non-violent, honest, liberating way.
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