Unless You Receive You Cannot Give - Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-20 - April 14th, 2022

The Lord Be With You.

A parable on the Gospel …

There once was a man who believed that anything good that would come his way had to be accomplished by him. He didn’t think, or believe, that any help from others would assist him in any manner. So he tended to be alone most of the time because he busied himself with trying to achieve his goals. Some of those goals he finished and they turned out good. Others, he just couldn’t do because to do them was beyond his capabilities. So they either remained unfinished or done really bad. A friend of his offered to help one day and this man was reluctant. But after the two of them finished, the man saw that the end result was so much better than he could have done himself. More and more this man’s friend offered his help and more and more the man let go of the notion that he had to do everything himself. The end result, after a little while, was the man saw that it was through the gathering of others, all working together, that not only the ordinary could be the best but also the best could be shared. And this gave the man the idea that maybe he needed to help others too. And he did. And all benefited.

Here ends the parable.

Verse 16 says, in part, “no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” and I’ve focused on this because sometimes it can be so easy to shut our doors and retreat inward and become dark in our own views of our neighbors or the world. Jesus is giving a new Maundy – A new command He gives to you – which is the command to serve. No matter what this world puts on you, no matter what trials you may be facing, no matter what your health is, your financial health is, your relationships are, no matter what, He’s there giving you the command to serve. This day is our day to come to grips with that command and move forward.

You see, Jesus didn’t have to wash the feet of His disciples, He didn’t have to get down like a servant and bow to them, he didn’t even have to include Judas which He already knew was the one that was gonna betray Him in the end, He didn’t have to do any of that stuff but He did. He became the servant because, as He said, “no servant is greater than his master nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him”. In this Jesus is saying to you and me that when we set ourselves higher than our neighbor, the ones we’re supposed to be bringing the Good News to, when we bypass the person who is suffering, when we turn a blind eye to the world of our community then we’re trying to be the master all the while ignoring that we are, in fact, the servant. The servant like in 1st Samuel 25:41 where it talks of Abigail and how she went to David and bowed to him, “here is your maidservant, ready to serve you and wash the feet of my master's servants."

Jesus is calling us, giving a new command to us, imploring to us, to serve the other. Without receiving that relationship with Jesus and those you serve, you cannot possibly give to others because it is foreign to you. Service comes in different forms. Lending an ear, walking beside others, sending out e-mails about one who’s suffering, is in pain, letting someone get a little extra at Ruby’s, inviting someone you haven’t in a while to share a meal. There’s a lot of ways for service. There’s a lot of ways to have your world become too busy too.

We can all look at our world in unique ways that raise the light to others if we can just look hard enough. It’s like the ten-year-old art student who had just completed the painting of a raspberry pink stag with one blue antler and one yellow antler. An adult visitor to the art class looked at the picture and remarked, “But people don’t see pink stags with blue and yellow antlers!” The young artist looked at his painting critically, thought about it for a minute, and then said, sincerely and soberly, “Isn’t that too bad?”

I’ve called this message, “Unless You Receive You Cannot Give” because I don’t believe that we can fully give of ourselves, as we are commanded, unless we get in a relationship with the one who commanded it. Jesus. Foot washing is not about the water. It’s about the relationship between Jesus and us. Our neighbors and us. Our family and us. Cleanliness is the acceptance of Jesus. It’s the receipt of His grace and His mercy into our never deserved lives. It’s also an act of self-revelation. It removes the separation between the giver and the receiver. And it’s also a measurement of what we can, or will, do to fulfill that command. Serve one another.

1st Timothy, chapter 5 goes into what our duties as believers are to be. It talks about how we treat others. How we invite others into this God’s house. How we serve others. And because Peter is a prime example of how we can selectively tend to God’s message for the world through his view of propriety and the value he placed on the physical, we can also fall into that pit of piety and begin to put away why we came here the very first time. We find fellowship here. We find a family here. Friends here. Hopefully, we find the truth of the Gospels here too.

So, as we move into this sacred Easter season, where Christ has come back for us, maybe we can attend to this call of Maundy Thursday and come away from here with a renewed sense that we are really the community of faithful that provides for people to find rest. Rest and mercy. Rest and grace. We are not alone in this world. We do not survive in that world where we are set apart from others. Christ calls us to serve and in that serving we can receive His blessings and His light.

The parable of the man illustrates that we, ultimately, do not live in isolation and when we open our hearts and our lives to others then we’re able to help still others to achieve their dreams and goals. Jesus says that unless you can receive from Him you cannot give to others. It’s not about the physical but about the relational aspects of our lives together that enables us to work better and give more to others. When we’re gathered together, each receiving our share of blessings, we can then begin to pass what we have been given to others. Pass it on.

The man in the parable learned that when he opened his life to others standing there to help and to walk together was when he realized that all that he wanted to do, in order to do it more fully, had to be something that others could contribute to. Our lives are like that. We’re a compilation of all the people who’ve entered our lives and shaped them and directed them. Not all help is necessary and not help is positive but the sum total of our lives is like the disciples that had to be served by Jesus.

We must, invariably, receive our own blessings, in whatever form that is, in order to served which will allow us to differentiate the pieces and bits that lead to our own conclusions as to what we can walk away with. In other words, when we allow others to enter our lives is when we can begin to enter other’s lives so they can begin to see the truth and the beauty of the Good News whether we know we are spreading that Gospel or not. If we close ourselves off to others then we will begin to view our lives in a darker shade than what they really are. We can chose to go about and only look inward to what we’re facing or we can invite others to share and, thereby, live out the relationship that Jesus demonstrated to those at His table. We can, you know. It’s your choice. Choose wisely. Something to think about! Something to pray about?

Can we pray? …

Father in heaven, help us to use the blessings you have given to us to pass them on to others so that they might see you are the truth and the light. Help us to do as your Son did and create those relationships we might not know we’re called to enter into. Father, send down your Holy Spirit so that we can spread your Good News to others. Help us to be the disciples we are and show our communities that here is where they can finally rest. We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus the Christ.

And all God’s people said – Amen?!

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