Maundy Thursday Love Neighbor Like Jesus

Sermon 2023.04.06 Maundy Thursday

Jesus says that if one is clean, then they do not need to completely wash, but only the feet. Everyone was clean, apparently, except for one: Judas.

Judas isn’t named, but he is indirectly referred to. This is the night that Jesus was betrayed by Judas. And this is also the night when Jesus washed Judas’ feet and shared with Judas the Last Supper. Why include Judas? 

Jesus really loved his enemies. Jesus had an extraordinary faith in the goodness of people. Jesus also had a realistic view of the potential depravity of people. 

It’s complicated being a human being. We are a different kind of animal. Our brains have the ability to imagine and decide on courses of action. This opens up a much larger range of possibilities that we could take. We can do really wonderful things; and we are capable of such terrible things. I don’t know if there are evil people. But I do wonder if everyone is capable of evil deeds.  

Was Judas an evil man? He certainly did an evil thing. What was the evil that he committed? He thought it was more important to get silver coins than protect the life of his friend. So if we want to avoid the tragic mistake and evil that Judas did, it’s really quite simple: make the well-being of life our highest priority. 

Consider the story of passover; the story of the Hebrew people living as slaves in Egypt. In that story the villain is Pharaoh. He refuses to let the people go out as free people. There are increasingly destructive plagues that befall Egypt until finally Pharaoh relents and permits the people to be set free. A man who regularly committed atrocities could relent and do something right. 

If a depraved tyrant is capable of doing the right thing; then how much more can we accomplish? 

Traditionally there are two main things that believers in God are to do:

1. Love God
2. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. 

To these two Jesus adds a new commandment. Jesus said, “Love one as I loved you.” 

We practice communion on a regular basis to internalize the Word of God, to internalize Jesus inside of us; so that we can love like he did. So communion isn’t just for good people, it is for all people. 

My uncle was a Presbyterian pastor. He lived with his wife and daughter in Scottsdale, Arizona. One time my family was visiting their family in the summer. It was late in the afternoon and the temperatures were scorching! Just sizzling! However there was a little bit of relief on the way. As the son sank lower on the horizon a very big shadow was cast onto their front yard and front window, so it was kind of pleasant to go out into the front yard. Indeed many neighbors were coming out and enjoying the first signs of dusk. But here’s the thing. The big shadow that was cast on their lawn. Did it come from their tree? No it did not. It came from the neighbor’s tree. And as I looked up and down the street I saw how almost every neighbor’s house had a big tree in the front yard that cast a shadow not on its own house but on the house next to it. This was a simple practical way of loving each other like Jesus loved us. 

We actually do benefit from loving our neighbor as Jesus loves us. The more of us who do it, the better we all will be.