The Church of the Advent - Sermon by Deacon Daphne Noyes, March 20, 2008, Maundy Thursday

Anyone with a vocation to one of the healing professions has studied, or will study, what is called gross anatomy. Over the course of an academic semester, future healers roll up their sleeves to delve firsthand into the architecture of the human body. Building on the accumulated wisdom of many centuries, they explore the complex mechanisms that make us who we are: the circulatory system, the central nervous system, the skeletal framework with its muscles and tendons, the digestive tract, the reproductive system, the brain. This painstaking examination is done by stripping away the human body’s outer coverings to reveal what lies beneath: the universal, yet unique, fabric of human life.

This evening we, too, engage in the act of stripping away. Shortly, some of us will sit in this chancel and strip away socks and shoes to engage in the ritual footwashing that marks this holy day. Later, some of us will strip away the elaborate coverings of the altar and many of the church’s other furnishings, to reveal what lies beneath. This is followed by the ritual washing of the altar that marks this holy day.

Let us look at these acts and see if there is any connective tissue between them.

First, our feet. They are resilient shock absorbers, hardworking yet sensitive. Our feet are designed to carry us where we need to go. Miraculously, the entire weight of our body is borne on just a few square inches of flesh – on our soles.

In the same way, the altar is a resilient shock absorber, accepting the swirling currents and crashing waves of human strength and frailty, the soaring ascents and plummeting descents of our fallen nature and our desire for God. The weight of humanity is borne on the rock of the altar.

You have heard the expression “vote with your feet?” We vote with our feet every time we approach the altar to be fed with the spiritual food of Jesus’ body and blood. The altar is the place to which we travel; it is the place from which we are sent out to love and serve the Lord.

But: week after week we come to the altar without thinking too much about what lies beneath its elaborate garments; and week after week we are here without catching a glimpse of each other’s naked feet.

Our feet aren’t very good at keeping secrets. They may reveal more than we want them to about us. The calluses and scars of many miles may signal how tired you are, or how close you are to the end of your journey, or they may carry memories of the places you wish we hadn’t gone, or where you once went and can no longer go. Each one of us may have our own reason for feeling that our feet are best kept under wraps.

Yet here, this evening, Jesus is calling us to bring ourselves, all of ourselves, to the altar, and to unabashedly reveal to him, and to each other, all the history and hope written in the flesh of our feet.

We are about to strip the altar, as well. What might be revealed in this action?

Perhaps for you, the altar is the central place where the Christian family meal is prepared and shared. Week after week, the table is set with fine linens and gleaming silver, as if to welcome an honored guest or to celebrate a great occasion. People are on their best behavior as they wait patiently while the bread and wine is taken, blessed, broken, shared: the fourfold action that is central to this meal, this ritual. The congregation of brothers and sisters in Christ approaches the table with open hands to receive a portion. There is no squabbling about who is fed first, or who got more, or who cleans up. People are fed, return to their seats, say a prayer of thanksgiving, depart. It’s all very orderly, very polite.

But I suspect that on some level, each one of us knows that there is much, much more to the Eucharistic meal than a pleasant family dinner. And if this knowledge has been lost or dismissed or denied somewhere along the way, Holy Week – especially this evening’s ritual of stripping the altar – sends a powerful message that this a place of sacrifice. And as a place of sacrifice, the altar is not a place of orderliness and good manners. It’s a place where blood is spilled and emotions are high.

And yet, despite the seductive presence of low-impact, easy-access, user-friendly, new-age spirituality all around us, this evening you have chosen to join with millions of Christians around the world and through the centuries who gather at their altars to commemorate and participate in the mysterious wonders of the Word made Flesh. As we approach the high drama of Good Friday, we face the inescapable truth that the “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” we make at each Eucharist is not a bloodless sacrifice; that we were bought with a price.

Family meal? Mystical sacrifice? Both? Each one of these carries its own perspective on the divine mandate to love one another. Are you here for the family gathering? I ask you to remember those who can not, who will not, be present. Perhaps there is someone dear to you who can not, or who will not, join us for the meal we share. As you partake of this meal, I encourage you to carry in your heart, to lift to God with each beat of your heart, those absent ones.

Or are you here to participate in a holy sacrifice? Perhaps you are recalling sacrifices you have made, or that have been made for you, sacrifices that have brought you here this evening, that have drawn you into a community of faith. Maybe in your life there is someone who has stuck by you no matter what, who again and again has offered you the gift of love even when you turned away from them, or turned on them. Or perhaps you have prayed and prayed for someone who is distant, or suffering, or lost, and you have yet to see how those prayers have been answered. But despite the discouragement and frustration you are feeling, you continue to pray. You’re tempted to give up, but the bonds of love mean that you continue. This is a kind of sacrifice – a giving over of a most precious and tender piece of your life to God on the altar of your heart.

Remember, too, that the altar is also a birthplace. And like all birthplaces, it has seen its share of tears and blood, joy and pain, love and sorrow. The altar is a birthplace because it is where one of the foundational systems and structures of our faith comes to life. It is here and it is now that we commemorate the institution of the sacrament of Holy Communion. It is here and it is now that we remember Jesus’ words to his disciples, and to us: “Do this.”

These two words – “do this” – contain the essential genetic code of our faith.

If we were to strip away the ritual of the Eucharist, the two words “do this” would remain pulsing at the center. “Do this.” Here are the bones and marrow that support us, the muscles and sinew that propel us, the breath and blood that sustain us, the flesh that enfolds and reveals us. “Do this.” Here we uncover our heritage and our inheritance; here is revealed our history, our healing, and our hope.

Amen.