Maundy Thursday

 Maundy Thursday is my favorite day of the liturgical year, even though the typical Maundy Thursday service is boring, dry, old, and confusing.  But here's why I love it:  on this day, we remember that Jesus ate with rowdy, strange people he called friends, he gave us the commandment to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and he showed us what it's like to be nourished by community so well that we can go serve others with a love that is humble but not demeaning, because of true relationship!

  I've always wanted to see a Maundy Thursday service where everyone sits around the alter in a sanctuary, laughing, joking, gnawing monster sized bites out of a huge, crumbly and messy loaf of bread, and passing bottles of wine around for everyone to share.  I imagine the feeling of love and relationship continuing as the meal is finished and people begin to walk around with lavender scented wet wipes and wash the splashes of wine from the cheeks and chins of one another, and brush crumbs off of one-another's laps and shoulders.

  

 Then the community would sing the Lord's prayer while they all gathered brooms and made the mess from the floor disappear before the evening janitor shows up - because when we eat together, love one another and ourselves, and serve alongside one another for mutual benefit, we are more fully prepared to go out and remember how to be Jesus in our otherwise broken world.  And the breaking of Jesus on Good Friday and rising of Christ on Easter morning feel so much the richer when we have spent time remembering why and how we are who we are - Jesus-following friends.