The Reality of Judgement and Service

Sermon by Rt Rev Ian Brackley Bishop of Dorking, Maundy Thursday 5^th April 2012

Readings: Exodus 12: 1-14; I Corinthians 11: 23-26; John 13: 1-17, 31b-35

It is a common phrase to hear someone say “O he’s in denial” meaning that that person is not facing up to the situation, he is denying what has actually happened, what is actually the case and pretending that all is well or that nothing has happened. But the events of this Holy Week should really bring us more face to face with the realities of life, not lead us to escape from them. We have set before us in the course of this Week’s events the reality of judgement and service, of self-acceptance and human love, of dereliction and the reality of death. All these unfold before us in the words and actions of Jesus as the week reaches its climax at the cross itself.

Modern psychiatry discerns that to deny the reality of the world around us will mean that we can never successfully be healed. No therapy will be successful until a person recognises that reality not only exists but that they must fulfil their needs within its framework. There are two basic psychological needs: the need to love and be loved, and the need to feel that we are worthwhile to ourselves and to others. That is true not only of patients in a psychiatric hospital; it is true of every one of us, just as it was true in the time of Jesus himself. We can look at the characters in the drama of Holy Week, who may be described as those who face reality and those who do not. Pilate could not face his own inner weaknesses, which prevented justice being done. Caiaphas and the Sadducean party and the Pharisees could not face another view of truth than their own. Herod presents a picture of such despotic self-indulgence that he has no capacity to make responsible judgement. Judas could not face the concept of a leadership with goals different from his own. Peter could not face exposure or unpopularity for the sake of truth. All these characters were into denial about themselves and the reality that faced them in the man Jesus Christ. We have heard of these characters in the Passion Story. All these characters may be found around us today and all probably found in one aspect or another within ourselves. This evening I want to concentrate on the reality of judgement and service.

The passage that we heard from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians records for us the first account we have of the Last Supper. Paul was writing in the mid 50s of the first century AD before any of the Gospels had been written. But he is also writing out of Christian experience of the Eucharist in the early Christian communities. A few verses further on in our passage Paul comments: “All who eat and drink without discerning the Body, eat and drink judgement against themselves.” The judgement it seems is upon those who do not perceive the reality of Christ’s Body. What do these words mean? How may we fail to discern Christ’s Body? To understand that we have to look earlier in that same chapter of I Corinthians. There seem to have been two ways in which members of the church in Corinth had failed to discern Christ’s body. The first was through factions and divisions to which Paul has already referred in the beginning of his letter to them. He says: “When you come together as a community there are separate factions among you”, having previously referred to some who said they followed Apollos, some Paul, some Peter, some Christ. Since the Body of Christ is one and the Christian community had to be distinguished not by its diversity but by its unity - not by each person contributing his or her own understanding of truth - divisiveness is thus a mark of those who do not discern the essential unity of Christ’s Body and therefore are judged accordingly. The second cause of judgement appears to be a lack of care and concern for fellow members of the community. At their meal together which preceded the Eucharist, the greed to consume their own food and drink seems to prevent some wealthier Corinthians even noticing that there are some hungry and some poor present who cannot provide their own food and drink. Self-interest, lack of care, insensitivity are another mark of judgement, because again the Body of Christ which is the Church is one. Within that Body there should be equal care and concern for all: rich and poor, black and white, male and female, sinner and saint.

Sadly both these areas of judgement are and have often been the marks of religious people. The history of the Church has been marred by people who are so convinced that their way was the only way, their truth the only truth, so that they were tempted to persecute, even to torture to death those who think differently. We are not just talking about events of past history. We have seen plenty of examples in the last decade of intolerance and conflict across the world where there has been a volatile mix of race and religion and culture. We have seen within our own Church of England and the Anglican Communion in general that divisions can be very marked over such issues as homosexuality, and the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate. Of course there can be different perceptions of truth. The difficulty is when we want to impose our truth upon others. We do not discern the wider and deeper truth that lies in Christ; rather only discern our own ideas and our own understanding of truth. There again we have to examine ourselves in respect of our concern for and sensitivity towards other members of the Church. How far do we really want to help support the church in its work with the underprivileged? How far does concern for ourselves take precedence over the needs of the Church elsewhere? We can all become so terribly parochial in our vision of the needs of the Church and our middle class culture can make us want to keep our distance from social involvement with those who might be an embarrassment to us. So that then is the reality of judgement.

The second insight related to judgement is closely linked with our Reading from the Gospel this evening. The symbol of foot washing is chosen by Christ as the symbol of the Church’s task both to serve the world and to identify with the poor, the unclean, as the world sees them. The Church is not just a community for itself; it is a community for the Kingdom of God. Its function is primarily to serve the world not to serve itself. But the Church is also a community, which does not separate itself from the poor, the outcast, and the socially unclean but identifies with them. You will know that the origin of the Maundy Service performed by the Sovereign on this day each year lies in washing the feet of the poor and indeed this was done by the Sovereign up to the reign of James II. In many ways that strong symbol identified the rich with the poor, the powerful with the powerless, the clean with the unclean. But for the last two hundred years or so we have gradually turned this into an occasion where the Sovereign can acknowledge the service of worthy people in our communities who have not quite made the Birthday Honours List. I do not dismiss the significance of that but just would point out how far from the original concept it has moved.

Bishop John Robinson wrote some years ago: “The Holy Communion is only the Holy Communion when it springs from a holy community”. And John Taylor, former Bishop Winchester, has described a holy or healthy community in terms of the foot washing of the world. He says this: “The Church is a redeemed community working through three models of service and fellowship. One is a therapeutic fellowship in which each member learns to be fearlessly open to the rest and so gives and receives healing and support. The second is an interpretative fellowship, in which the members help each other to reflect on some aspect of their human situation in the light of their faith, in order to have insight to share and questions to ask with their fellow men and women. The third is a dynamically responsible fellowship which enables its members to rise to their full human potential and to engage positively in changing that area of the world’s life, for which, under God, they take responsibility.” In other words the Church is meant to be in its foot washing of the world a loving and caring community, a thinking and searching community, a responsible and active community towards the world.

But foot washing means more than that. It means identification with and not separation from all that the world holds unclean and undesirable. It means caring for the incontinent elderly and washing their soiled clothes; it means nursing and embracing the sufferer with AIDS; it means welcoming into our country refugees; it means welcoming into our midst, homes and hostels for alcoholics, drug addicts, those with mental problems, because in a healthy community we do not turn away from defects and handicaps, distancing ourselves through fear, but we draw near and touch and work with what ever keeps us, visibly or invisibly handicapped, from loving one another to completion. And we do this because in this identification we share the humiliation and degradation of Christ who placed himself with the lowest of the low in His humiliation and degradation of crucifixion outside the city wall and therefore truly beyond the pale. This demonstrates that the God in whom we believe, whom Jesus reveals to us, is not the God of the powerful and successful in worldly terms, but a God whose power is the power of the powerless, helping us not through his omnipotence but through his weakness and suffering.

So the sum total of the reality brought home to us this evening is that the judgement of God is love. The service of God is love. St John of the Cross said: “In the evening of life we shall be judged by love on love”.

If I claim more for my truth than it is worth and am more willing to shout my truth than to hear the truths of others, I am judged. I do not discern the Lord’s Body. If I care more for myself and my needs than the needs of others, if I am lacking in care, sensitivity and compassion, I am judged. I do not discern the Lord’s Body. If I or the Church to which I belong are more concerned to be a respectable and secure community than a redeemed and servicing community, and we withdraw with distaste from those whose feet very much need washing, then we may celebrate the Holy Communion, but it will be a false communion, for it will not proceed from a Holy Community. St Augustine addressing his communicants said: “You are the Body of Christ, you are meant to be taken, blessed, broken and distributed that you may become the means of a grace and vehicles of the eternal charity to all people”. That is the reality of judgement and the reality of service, that the world may in me discern Christ’s Body, because I, having discerned Christ’s Body and this evening received Him, will be seen to do what we pray in that prayer that forms our post-communion prayer this evening: “Grant us so to reverence the sacred mysteries of your body and blood that we may know within ourselves and show forth in our lives the fruit of your redemption.”