SERMON, MAUNDY THURSDAY C

Today, as we all know, is Maundy Thursday; Maundy being the Anglicanized version of the Latin word "mandatum," or "mandate." This is the new commandment given by Jesus to his disciples, to love each other as he loved them. But today is also the first day of the Triduum; the time when, as the disciples saw it, everything fell apart.

John, remember, is adamant that in all things Jesus is in control. He knows his time on earth is running short and he knows that Judas would betray him. In effect, Jesus holds all the cards, but nobody else knows it. Jesus uses this time to instruct his disciples.

All of his followers are looking for something permanent. They want the Messiah to come and free them from the bondage of Rome. They want a king in the line of David to be seated on that throne. They want Israel's independence and a return to the strong, sovereign nation that ruled in David's time. And they want this kingdom to reign permanently on earth.

Isn't it funny that we equate permanence with what we can see and/or touch? Various people have tried to establish permanent kingdoms on earth, some more successful than others. The Huns, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, English, Nazis, Americans, the list is extensive. But eventually the grass withers and the flowers fade. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

We began this Lent, like we begin every Lent, by recognizing our own mortality; our own impermanence. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Nothing we build -- houses, memorials, statues, kingdoms -- nothing we build lasts forever. Everything is subject to the effects of time and change. The only thing that truly lasts forever is the kingdom of God.

That kingdom is rather hard to pin down. Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is not from this world. He tells his followers that the kingdom of God is among them, or within them. The kingdom is everywhere and it is nowhere; and that is very hard for us to understand and hold onto.

We would like to always be focused on the kingdom. We would like to not be distracted by the cares and concerns of this world. But we do get distracted. Sometimes we are distracted by things tangible -- our job, our hobby, our family or friends. Sometimes we get distracted by ideas that seem to have more immediacy than God's long-range plan -- like the idea that if we just put the Ten Commandments up on a courthouse wall then God will have no choice but to bless us and pull our nation back from apostasy.

Not all of these distractions are bad. More often than not, I would think, these distractions fall under the heading of that thing we call life. You could go the route of the Desert Fathers and find a desolate cave somewhere; but you'd still have to cope with your own personal distractions.

As much as we want to work towards the kingdom of God, we seem to get easily distracted. And sometimes we get distracted by our own sense of permanence. We want to see the kingdom, but we want to see it in ways we understand and on our own terms.

Peter at first refuses Jesus' offer to wash his feet. He is distracted by his "full steam ahead" attitude. He insists that Jesus wash his entire body. This is the all-or-nothing Peter whom we know and love; and that is how he understands things. For him, there is no doing things halfway. Think about his jumping into the water, or the desire to build three tents, or brashly saying that he would follow Jesus no matter what. But here he misses the point. It is a model of service that we should imitate. We should be willing to lower ourselves to the role of servant. We should be willing to serve all people, saints and sinners alike; for that is what Jesus did. He washed the feet of all the disciples, including Judas. On the flip side, we should also be willing to submit to Jesus' offer to cleanse us.

Judas may have been distracted by his desire to see Jesus' mission in the world succeed. But that success was determined by his own ideas of what the kingdom on earth would look like. A popular theory about Judas is that he really wanted Jesus to succeed, saw the mission spiraling out of control, and thought that if he could force Jesus into action it would all come out as Judas had envisioned it.

There was no shortage of distractions at this meal, and nobody but Jesus understood what was about to happen. Are we any different? We work for our own goals, or our own ideas of what the kingdom should look like based on our own sense of permanence, forgetting that the kingdom isn't of this world and that it is within us and among us right now.

While we are being distracted, Jesus is taken away from us before we know what has happened. And all our plans and schemes and demands suddenly fall by the wayside. Jesus washing our feet? Jesus welcoming the outsider? Jesus caring for the sinner? How can this be? When we try to make sense of it, Jesus is gone. He's hung on a cross and left to die while we try to figure out what just happened. Not only what just happened, but what was the point of his entire ministry?

We have been distracted. We've let our ideas of permanence block what the kingdom is really about. We've allowed ourselves to let others define who Jesus is rather than doing the work of trying to get to know him ourselves. And that distraction led to his death.

In a few moments, we'll go upstairs and have the final Eucharist before Easter. We will strip the altar. We will allow Jesus to die. As you participate in this service, ponder how you become distracted from the kingdom. How do those distractions allow you to let Jesus slip out of your life?