Maundy Thursday, Year A | John 13:1-17, 31b-35
St. James’ Episcopal Church - Las Cruces, NM
April 6, 2023
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
“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.” – John 13:34-35[1]
My first encounter with Maundy Thursday took place at a tiny Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Carolina. Having grown up Baptist, we never paid much attention to the Church Calendar apart from Christmas and Easter. I was familiar with Palm Sunday and Good Friday, but I had never heard of this other oddly named day during Holy Week. I can’t recall if they did foot washing—probably not, as that would have been something totally new to me as well (and something I still find awkward and weird, to be honest). But I fell in love with the celebration itself. Coming from my Separatist background, setting aside an entire day to focus on Christ’s commandment to love one another, to embrace this singular mission and the unity of the Church, was strange and beautiful.
Two plus decades later, I still love Maundy Thursday, largely because of that very first encounter. I do have to admit, though, that I prefer that Lutheran-style observation over our own Episcopalian one. Our service feels like it wants to scoot past the “Maundy” aspect (the name comes from a shortened version of the Latin word for “command”) so we can get all moody and solemn for Good Friday. But this is a special day in its own right, and tonight I’d like to allow our thoughts to linger on the wonder of this celebration.
Over at St. Andrew’s we occasionally talk about the different words for “love” that the Bible uses behind the scenes. Of the three terms available in the Greek language of the time, the New Testament records Jesus and the apostles ever only using two: philos and agape. The philos kind of love runs closely along our ideas of friendship, comradery, or endearment. Agape, which is a rare word outside the New Testament, appears to be rooted in a verb form of the word for “good” or “useful.” The best translation I’ve found for it is “love as action.”
The Bible never commands us to have philos, because philos is something that can only happen naturally as people get to know one another. But there’s a choice built into agape, which is the kind of love Jesus demands from his followers. Jesus never tells us we have to be friends with our enemies, but he does tell us we must respond to them with loving action. Likewise, even within the Church we may not always like each other, but we choose, as a family, to do good and to help one another. We set aside our individual differences and preferences, together taking on the form of a servant, so we can act and move forward spreading the Good News as one body.
On Ash Wednesday, I always like to remind our congregation that there is one Great Commandment, not two. That means there is never going to be a situation requiring you to either agape God or agape your neighbor. If ever you feel a conflict between the two arising, choose to lovingly serve your neighbor, because in showing love to/seeking good for other person, you are, in fact, loving God.
On this night of the Last Supper, Jesus made that even more clear, reducing the seeming dualism of “lov[ing] the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength”[2] and “lov[ing] your neighbor as yourself”[3] to the unity that it truly is: “love one another.” Tonight we remember and celebrate that truly great Command.
“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.”
“If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”[4]
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[2] Mark 12:30
[3] Mark 12:31
[4] John 13:17