+Z’ev

Today’s Assigned Readings:

1 Samuel 16:1-13, Acts 10:1-16, Luke 24:12-35

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.
Luke 24:30-31

This may be, as some think, a description of a Eucharist in the Lukan community. It may be, as many believe, a recording of a resurrection appearance of Jesus. The Orthodox Church posits Luke, himself, as one of the men on the road - because how else would the Author of this Gospel know this story not recorded anywhere else? Or it may be, as some others think, a kind of combo deal, a Eucharistic meal where, it was almost as if Jesus was present, you know? Like wow.

My first Holy Week at the Episcopal Parish in SF, St Gregory of Nyssa Church, I attended the Maundy service. It was held on a Tuesday night (see citation at the end of this post for a reason on that one) under a huge tent, suspended from the ceiling of the rotunda, the main worship space in the Church. Eucharist was served in the context of a dinner, following the Didache Liturgy (the Maundy liturgy is here in a pdf). After supper came the foot-washing. It was not the staid, liturgical drama of the Rector and 12 people with their one-shoe-off as offered by the Book of Common Prayer and the Roman Catholic Church. (Such a re-enactment is usually only done in monasteries in the Eastern liturgical tradition.) It was an “everyone washes everyone’s feet” sort of thing, as practised in Anabaptist tradition, and in the Early Church.

This was the first time I’d ever been to such a service and the only thing I was certain of was the knowledge that I’m highly ticklish. The idea that I might let someone touch my feet was most troubling. That was not how it turned out, however, as I have previously blogged.

after dinner the man next to me got up from our table and went to the kitchen to get one of those huge bowls and the towels, and he came back to our table. He came to me, and I saw Christ kneel down and wash my feet. And then Christ got up out of my chair and turned around, and knelt down, and washed the feet of Christ who was sitting right next to me.

It wasn’t “as if” he were present. He was. I saw him, felt him and for the briefest of moments was him. I don’t need to decide which of the possible meanings of this passage from Luke is the “real” one. I can honestly say it doesn’t matter and yet all of them can be True - even all at the same time. Christ is Risen!

Today, coincidentally, is the feast of Benedict, the man who is considered the father of monasticism in the Western Church. The Rule he wrote for his monks continues today as one of the classics of Christian Spirituality, read often by laity as well as monastics, men and women. In Chapter 53 he lays out these direction for the reception of guests:

Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ,
for He is going to say,
“I came as a guest, and you received Me” (Matt. 25:35).
And to all let due honor be shown,
especially to the domestics of the faith and to pilgrims.

…In the salutation of all guests, whether arriving or departing,
let all humility be shown.
Let the head be bowed
or the whole body prostrated on the ground
in adoration of Christ, who indeed is received in their persons.

…and let both Abbot and community wash the feet of all guests.

…In the reception of the poor and of pilgrims
the greatest care and solicitude should be shown,
because it is especially in them that Christ is received;
for as far as the rich are concerned,
the very fear which they inspire
wins respect for them.

The random man on the street in Emmaus, the Risen Christ present as a stranger, is welcomed into the house of Christians as Christ himself, and the presence of Christ is revealed in the breaking of bread, in the Eucharistic Fellowship one might share. (As a side note, it’s interesting to me that these men would allow a stranger to preside at their table.)

Samuel learns in today’s lesson that the outward appearances are unimportant. It would be easy to see Christ in that beautiful, sexy and rich person over there. In fact, one might want to see Christ there. The hard part is seeing Christ where we don’t want to see him. The random person in one’s life - the annoying blogger with the wrong politics, the radical political activist, the stranger on the street, the business meeting over lunch, the smelly fishmonger on the subway, the irritated bank manager, the inept cashier at the grocery - these are all the Risen Christ present; breaking bread or not. It is not our duty to see him so much as to serve and worship him, to let him led us deeper into burning hearts of love: the outward and visible appearance of someone who drives us bonkers, but the inward and spiritual reality of the Risen Christ.

Peter gets this lesson, too, in his vision recorded in the reading from Acts, although the meaning will not be revealed until tomorrow. Paul knew it well: that guests are often Angels. The word in Greek can mean divine messengers or the message itself, and the message is always the Word of God, Jesus. Christ is Risen!

On Maundy Tuesday evening (not the traditional Thursday), we read John’s version of the Last Supper. G. Diekmann and others argue that this timing, which suits John’s passion story and earliest Christian calendar of fasts, is the likeliest actual date for the event-but in fact we adopted it for pastoral reasons. (See Worship at St Gregorys.)