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Maundy Thursday
March 24, 2005 Sermon
by Rev. Sue Deetz, Deacon
Central Park in New York
City was wildly transformed for 16 days last month. Artists Jeanne
Claude and Christo installed over 7,000 steel gates with free flowing
saffron colored fabric panels inside each one. They call it ‘The Gates
Project’. It was an amazing sight with a parade of color marching
through the otherwise February drab of Central Park. All of their major
pieces are only temporary, they say it “lends an urgency that encourages
us to bear witness and drink in the art as much as we can, while we can,
all the while knowing it may well be gone the next time we visit.”
Jeanne Claude and Christo have all the pieces recycled after closing,
they want the art to speak within the context of it’s environment and
ultimately help us to see things in a new way. If fragments of the work
were left out there, they would only be that, fragments, and in some way
lessen it, or more bluntly, blot out it’s life. The Christos look on
their work as living, with an integrity of it’s own. Now that the work
is gone, they go on to say, “Our memories of this experience are how the
artwork changes us, perhaps the most powerful force of art, that the
changes made are not in the site, but in us.”
Art, like the Gospels, takes on a life of it’s own and reveals truths
that we do not have words for. I don’t know why we don’t listen closer
to art. I wonder what the world would be like if all the leaders of the
nations consulted regularly with artists.
I have yet to meet someone who isn’t familiar with DaVinci’s famous
‘Last Supper’, but have you looked at the faces in the painting lately?
Since the restoration, they are much clearer, and strangely familiar.
They are full of anxiety, fear, sadness, betrayal, denial, and
suffering. Those faces are all around us. Especially lately. I see the
people of Red Lake in those faces, the sorrow of those interviewed on TV
is so deep, it transcends the TV screen. I encounter those faces every
day in our adolescents, navigating through this confusing and troubled
world. I see those faces in us. That night so long ago must have been
intense, the air charged with a heavy sense of urgency, tensions running
high, and I daresay, it was an atmosphere of self importance.
In the midst of this tension, what does Jesus do? He got up from the
table, took off his robe and laid it on his chair. He then tied a towel
around himself and went over to pick up a basin and pitcher of warm
water. He then slowly poured the water into a basin, taking time to
listen to the waters as they cascaded into the bowl. He began to gently
wash the disciples feet. He wiped them dry with the towel he had with
him. He moved from person to person, washing each of their feet taking
his time, washing gently and thoroughly drying each foot as he went
along. The disciples were confused as to the meaning of what had just
happened and protesting their worthiness. Eventually, they were all back
at the table to continue their dinner, cleansed, and I can only imagine,
feeling calmer and basking in the warmth of feeling cared for. Jesus
then told them that they are to wash one another’s feet.
So there you have it-Jesus brought the footwashers to the table.
This is where I keep stopping. It’s the faces that keep stopping me. The
agonized and emotion filled faces in DaVinci’s painting keep running
through my mind, and the faces of today I see in them. There are not
enough footwashers at the table. Why are there not more people of color
in the board rooms? Why are there not more single mothers as policy
makers? Why are the working poor not on the legislative floor? Why is
there such poverty amongst people of color?
Here it is, the night before he is to be turned over to the authorities,
and Jesus is calling us to celebrate our humanity. He’s calling us to
get to know one another as individuals, and come together as a
community. When we interact in a mutual setting, we begin to see each
other with respect and we see something in each others faces, could it
be Christ? Here at St. Paul’s, our collaboration with Patch, and
Episcopal Community Services, called Neighborhood Connections, focuses
on bringing everyone to the table. On of the activities is, once a
month, the director Toni Thorstad coordinates a meal and movie for
Seniors. It is a gathering of people from many different socioeconomic
and cultural backgrounds. They eat together and watch a movie, all the
while getting to know one another.
In a recent interview about Anglican issues, The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson,
Bishop of New Hampshire spoke of our loss as a community if we are not
all at the table. He spoke about his experiences working with the church
in AIDS education and peer counseling in Uganda. This is what he said,
“What I was struck by in the religious people there was their sense of
gratitude to God. On the surface, they looked like they had nothing, but
I don’t know if I have ever experienced a group of people coming out of
a place of abundance rather than scarcity. They were forever thanking
God for all the ways God had blessed them. We have so much to learn from
the African Church, it is astounding, and we can’t learn if we’re not in
communion with them, and that would be the greatest loss if in some way
the Communion begins to pull apart.”
An interesting thing happened in New York City. People started dressing
in saffron colors to walk through the park. They started carrying
saffron colored purses and umbrellas, and even dressed their dogs in
saffron colored ribbons.
Jesus went on to be turned in to the authorities, and you know the rest
of the story.
The faces of the people of Red Lake, will still carry their sorrow, yet
last night there was a gathering, actually many gatherings. People came
together to pray in community, to honor those who died, who were
injured, and all those whose lives will never be the same. It was a
spiritual gathering where people told stories in their native tongues,
burned cedar, shared the Eucharist, and then went out into the world
carrying a sprig of cedar with them.