Jesus kneels at our feet, inviting us to be part of the fierce and incredible love of God. All we have to do is receive it and pass it on. 

Vicar Lauren Mildahl 
Maundy Thursday, year B 
Texts: Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35 

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Jesus knew that his hour had come…”

He knew this was the Last Supper. His last hours with his disciples. And, though also he knew that God had “given all things into his hands,” Jesus still had so much to give. So much he wanted to pass on.

And what better time to do it than at Passover? When he and his disciples were themselves participating in a tradition that had been passed on through generation after generation – that is still observed faithfully by our Jewish siblings. The specific rituals of Passover, the foods that are eaten, the words that are spoken, even the way it’s eaten – loins girded, staff in hand, sandals on feet, all of these rituals were given by God as remembrances. And as long as they are passed down, the people remember.  They remember the fierceness of the love that God showed God’s people, doing whatever it took to rescue them from slavery in Egypt. 

And Jesus wanted his followers to remember. 

And so, at this very supper, already laden with memories passed down, he passed the bread and the cup and said: “Do this in remembrance of me.”  Remember the fierceness of my love for you.  Remember that I did what it took to rescue you from sin and death.  Remember this love. And pass it on.   

Ten years ago, at a Starbucks in Florida, someone, I don’t know who, started a pay-it-forward chain.

The idea is pretty simple – as you pay for your item, you tell the barista that you’d also like to pay for the next person in line.  A small, thoughtful gesture to put a little kindness in the world. And sometimes, the next person decides to do the same thing, passing it on, adding a link in the chain. And that day in 2014, not only did the next person decide to pass it on, but so did the next. And the next and the next and the next and the next and next  – and this went on, incredibly, for 10 hours. 457 people passed it on! 

They did it without knowing. Without knowing how much the person behind them was ordering. Without knowing whether the next person in line deserved it. Without knowing whether the next person would also pass it on.  But 457 people accepted a random act of love from a stranger and chose to pass love on to another stranger. And it’s kind of beautiful.

Now, I should say that there are a lot of people who don’t like pay-it-forward chains, including many baristas and food service workers because it does make their job more difficult and confusing and the generosity is often only directed at other customers and not at the employees who are actually doing a lot of the work to keep the chain going and who are often underpaid in first place.  So the point of this message is not to encourage you to start more pay-it-forward chains at coffee shops. 

The point is to invite you to ponder – what do you do with the fierce and incredible love of God when it is given to you? 

Do you accept it?  And do you pass it on?

As Simon Peter could tell you, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Jesus had barely begun to show them how deeply he loved his own who were in the world, loving them to “the very end” and had barely begun passing on this love by tenderly washing their feet – and the chain nearly ended right there and then. 

“Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Peter asked. He didn’t get it, couldn’t understand, and he tried to stop it. 

“You will never wash my feet!” he said.  You could also translate that “never” idiomatically as “not in a million years!”  He really didn’t want to accept the love that Jesus was offering.  Why? Well, maybe because he thought it was all wrong–Jesus was the most important person in the room, he shouldn’t be kneeling at anyone’s feet–Peter should be kneeling at Jesus’ feet!  Or maybe Peter thought the whole thing was just unnecessary and a waste of time–Peter could clean his own feet well enough, thank you. Or maybe he said it because Peter didn’t want to take off his sandals, didn’t want Jesus to come close enough to see how dirty his feet were, didn’t want him to have to bear the stench.  

You know, funnily enough, the 458th customer at that Florida Starbucks that day was also named Peter.¹  He had driven there because he had heard about the pay-it-forward chain. He had come there specifically to end it. To be fair to him, he did leave a very big tip for the baristas, $100!  But still, he came there on purpose and when asked to pass it on, he refused.  In an interview after the fact he gave lots of reasons: “it was unfair” and “it’s just a marketing ploy” and “they should have given money to people that needed it, like the homeless” and “I just don’t want to be forced into doing something.” 

We always have our reasons, don’t we? 

There are always reasons to break the chain, to refuse to accept love or to pass it on.  Especially when we are afraid that love will never win, never in a million years. 

But at the Last Supper, love does win. 

Because whatever the reason was that Simon Peter didn’t want to have his feet washed, Jesus isn’t having it. “Peter, unless I wash you, you have no share with me,” he says.  His response seems harsh – almost like Jesus is threatening to leave Peter out of the will, to take away his share.

And that seems to be how Peter takes it, because immediately, he goes full Peter:  “Oh then, of course Lord, if that’s the way it is, don’t stop at just my feet, wash my hands, wash my head – wash all of me!”  It sounds to me like desperation. Like Peter was so afraid that he was out, so afraid that he could lose it, that he started begging: “Whatever it takes to clean me, Jesus, please do it. Just don’t leave me with no share!” 

But Jesus wasn’t cutting Peter out, he was inviting Peter in. 

That word “share” in Greek, also means a “part.” Jesus was saying:  “Peter, unless I wash you, you won’t be part of what I’m doing. I want you to be a part of it.  And don’t worry, Peter, you are clean. It’s not about the water–it’s about the relationship.  Let me wash those beautiful feet so I can pass my love to you.  All you have to do is receive it. And pass it on.”

And finally, Peter accepts. Jesus washed his feet, and washed the next, and washed each and every one of them. Even though he did know.  He knew exactly what was about to happen. He knew that they didn’t deserve it. And he knew that one of them would never pass it on.  Even though he knew, he washed them all, even Judas, because he wanted them to be part of it. To be part of his love. 

Jesus wants us all to be part of this love.

“So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done for you.”  These words are for you. Your invitation today, and every day, to get your feet wet!  Maybe literally in just a few minutes, but more importantly, figuratively, as you dip your toe in or take a running leap, feet first, to be part of the chain of love and kindness and service that our Lord and Teacher started for us. 

The first step is to remember and receive the fierce love of God that kneels at your feet and gently tends to the parts of you you’d rather keep hidden.  

All you have to do is receive it. And pass it on. 

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

^{1. “Meet the man who stopped the 11-hour Starbucks pay-it-forward: ‘I had to put an end to it,'” ABC News, Aug 22, 2104.  https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/meet-the-man-who-ended-the-10-hour-starbucks-pay-it-forward-i-had-to-put-an-end-to-it–106360}

 

 In the care given to Jesus’ body after death, we glimpse how God comes close to us in the every death. 

Vicar Lauren Mildahl 
Sunday of the Passion, year B 
Texts: Mark 11:1-11; Mark 14:1-15:47

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

By now the palm branches should be feeling strange in your hands.

Were we just celebrating?  It seems like a long time ago – like a dream. How did we get here? How did we get from Jesus, vital and assured, riding into Jerusalem to the sound of cheers and singing, all the way to the dull thud of the stone being rolled in place, enclosing the corpse of God? 

I can’t stop thinking about that.  Because of the beautiful and tender conversations we’ve been having in Adult Forum for the last few weeks, I can’t stop thinking about the corpse of Jesus – and about how preciously it was cared for. I keep thinking about the unnamed woman with alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and how she did what she could, she broke it and poured it out to anoint Jesus’ body for its burial.  

And I keep thinking about  “Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council who was himself waiting expectantly for the reign of God,” and how he “went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.”

He asked for the body of God.

God’s body, which was completely–and unfathomably–helpless. God’s body which, as we heard in Mark’s brutal account, had been beaten and bound and spat upon and mocked and flogged and struck and derided and nailed to a cross until it was just limp flesh, without breath or warmth or life. Just a broken body.

But Joseph went to Pilate “boldly” and asked for it —perhaps out of that stubbornly hopeful expectation that it still wasn’t too late for the reign of God. Or perhaps because he just couldn’t bear to see that broken body hanging there. He had to care for it. To tend it. To wrap it in linen and lay it to rest in a safe place.  To respond to the love of God–shown at its most extreme—with his own love in return. 

And imaging those moments of tenderness and care for the remains of a loved one revealed a new depth of this story for me.

We say so often that the story of the cross is the story of Christ coming close, meeting us in our very deaths.  But our deaths–those are still abstract for us – we don’t know what experiencing death is like yet.  But the story of the cross is also the story of Christ meeting us in the deaths we have experienced, the deaths of those we love.  When we tend their bodies, when we anoint them with costly ointments, when we attempt to memorize their faces, when we sing them to their rest.  When we wash and arrange and bury their bodies – Jesus is there.

Every dead body is also Jesus’ dead body. 

Christ is there in the body that has died in peace, surrounded by loved ones, and Christ is there in the ones that have died alone in fear or pain. And Christ is there in every single body strung up or blown apart by violence and cruelty and hatred.  And Christ is there in the bodies of those taken too soon. Every dead body is also Jesus’ dead body. And every single body is a site of sacred love come close. 

God came to us in a body and God still comes to us in bodies.

We bear the life of Christ to one another and we hold the death of Christ in one another as well.  In the care and kindness we show one another in life and death and in the memories and wisdom that are passed down from our loved ones. One of those souls whose beloved memory we keep in our congregation is Susan Cherwien, whose words in so many hymns and writings still soothe and challenge us. And her words about death have been echoing in my mind as well.  She once remarked that the soul does not inhabit the body, the body inhabits the soul.

And in Christ, we are not souls inhabiting separate bodies, but bodies inhabiting one soul – the very soul of God. 

The soul that holds us all in astounding love – that comes near and meets us where we are – that loves through life and death.

In a few minutes we will celebrate the Eucharist.  We’ll see the bread and cup, Christ’s body and blood for us, wrapped tenderly with linen.  We will hear Christ’s words, spoken once more, “Take; this is my body” – the body that lived and died.  The body that cared for others and was also tenderly cared for.  That came close and still comes close to us in every death and holds for us the promise of the resurrection and restoration of all creation. The body that showed us the love of God at its most extreme. 

Today, like the unnamed woman, we respond to love with love.  And we join Joseph of Arimathea, as we come boldly and ask for the body of Christ and we wait expectantly for the reign of God. 

In the name of the Father, and of the  ☩  Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

Midweek Lent, 2024 ☩ Love One Another ☩ Week 4: Encourage One Another

Vicar Lauren Mildahl
Texts: I Thessalonians 5:4-14, John 16:12-15, 32-33

Beloved children of God, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For the last three weeks, we’ve been diving into some of the tougher aspects of the command to Love One Another. 

We’ve talked about agreeing with one another, confessing our sins to one another, and not judging one another. We’ve been dealing with brokenness in our relationships – broken by conflict, and isolation, and superiority. 

But this week, we finally get a fun one: “Encourage one another!” 

This is the kind of instruction that a smiling, optimistic, positive person like me can really get into. I even like all the different ways that you can encourage. You can give compliments, reminding people of their unique gifts: “You’re amazing! You’re so strong!” You can offer optimism, sharing your faith in the restoration that God promises: “Everything will turn out all right! It gets better!” Or you can really lean into the confidence we have as God’s beloved children: “You’ve got this.” “You can do it!”

These are nice things to say and really nice things to hear.  Who wouldn’t want to spend their time offering encouragement and being encouraged? It almost seems silly that we would need to be commanded to do it. And even Paul admits that the Thessalonians are already on it:  “Encourage one another,” he writes, “as indeed you are doing!” 

So what am I going to preach about?

Well, unfortunately, there is a darker underbelly here.  

Because just like you don’t need to be told to agree unless there is conflict, and you don’t need to be told to confess unless there is violation, and you don’t need to be told not to judge unless you are judging, you don’t need to be told to encourage one another unless there is discouragement. 

Because even in a community of faith–even as we are experiencing the love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ and the communion of the Holy Spirit–we sometimes feel discouraged. Dis-courage-ment. 

Sometimes we are robbed of our courage. 

Often by fear–fear of losing the people or the things we love. Fear of the unknown, fear of pain, fear that there won’t be enough, fear of guilt or fear of judgment–we are anxious and afraid and dis-couraged. 

Or sometimes it’s doubt that discourages. Doubt in ourselves and our ability to bear the weight of living. Doubt in each other – will you all really be there for me? Or doubt in God. Doubt in God’s promises or God’s love or even uncertainty about whether God is there at all.  And when we doubt in this whole project of faith and hope and love and life, it seems a lot safer to look out for ourselves, to retreat from each other. Doubt robs us of the courage to believe that God will use the hands of those around us to catch us when we fall. 

And sometimes it’s despair that discourages.  On days when it’s hard enough just getting out of bed, how can we stand boldly in faith and face it all?  When everything seems so hopeless–we keep hurting each other and burning the Earth and we know we’re doing it but nothing ever changes–what’s the point of courage? It’s all lost anyway.

That’s the dark underbelly: Fear and Doubt and Despair. 

That’s why we need our courage back and why we need each other to be en-couraged.  

And we need real encouragement. En-courage-ment isn’t just plucky pick-me-ups or stock sayings about silver linings–maybe that can buck us up when our hearts are a bit faint, but what about when our hearts aren’t even in our chests anymore, but have fallen all the way to the ground?

Compliments and optimism and “You’ve got this”–those things don’t really work then.  Not when fear and doubt and despair shatter our illusion of control. Because no matter how many times I tell you that “you’ve got this,” the truth is, you don’t. And you never did.  No matter how many times you tell me “you can do it,” the truth is, I can’t. I never could.  We were never in control.  And no matter how many times we are told we are children of the light, we still fall asleep. 

But we have a God who never sleeps. And that’s where the real courage comes from. 

I remember two things about the summer camp I went to in high school. 1) I hated doing the high ropes course. 2) I loved rappelling. Which seems weird. Both of those activities involved heights, involved wearing a harness and a helmet, and all of your friends standing around on the ground staring at you, shouting, “You can do it! You’ve got this!”

In both activities you are up high, strapped in, and completely safe.  But I remember clinging to the high ropes course, shaking and trying to will my feet to move for what felt like hours, absolutely petrified, and then the next day, leaning over a cliff to rappel down the side of a mountain in seconds, with no trouble at all. 

Because the crucial difference is that with rappelling, you can feel the rope holding you the whole time.  From the very first moment you lean back over the cliff, you feel the rope tighten and support you. With high ropes – you only feel the rope when you fall off. The rope is the back up, to jerk you to a stop when you fail.  And most of the time you are supposed to pretend it’s not there, and just trust in your own strength and balance – and I hated that. 

Either way the rope was there. But only one of them gave me courage. 

And it wasn’t the one that held me so loosely that I was supposed to forget about it as I figured out how to get through the course under my own power.  It was the rope I could feel the whole time, trusting it with my weight as I descended.  That gave me courage.  

God is our rope – but much better than a rope. God will not let us fall.  And the best, real encouragement that I can give you, that we can give to each other, is not “You’ve got this!” but a resounding “You don’t got this! God’s got this.”  That was the encouragement that Jesus offered his followers, in their last conversation before he died: “In the world you will have distress and trouble, but take courage: I have overcome the world.” I’ve got this.   And it’s the same encouragement Paul offered the Thessalonians: “whether you are awake or asleep you live with him.” It doesn’t matter what you do – whether you’ve got it together or you’re falling apart – you live with Jesus. Who’s got this. Who’s got us. 

So, we need to offer one another better encouragement than just retelling each other the myth that we can do it on our own, that we can be in control. 

The myth that we’ve got this.  Because we’ll just need to be jerked back up again when we fall.  Instead let’s encourage one another, let’s hoist one another up in the Spirit, reminding each other that to lean back and feel the rope, to let the God that will not let us go take all the weight, until we feel lighter than air. 

Until we relax into the peace of Jesus, who has overcome – overcome all the fear, all the doubt, and all the despair that the world can throw at us. 

Dear siblings, this is your encouragement: You don’t got this. God’s got this. 

In the name of the Father, of the  ☩  Son, and of the Holy Spirit.