Maundy Thursday 2008 “Hear Them and Do Them”

²⁴Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. ²⁵The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. ²⁶And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell — and great was its fall!" ²⁸Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, ²⁹for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. [Matthew 7.24-29]

We’ve come to the end of another Lenten journey. This year we have been reflecting on the Sermon on the Mount. I’d like you also to hear the comment by Dietrich Bonhoeffer on this text: We have listened to the Sermon on the Mount, and perhaps have understood it. But who has heard it aright? Jesus gives the answer at the end. He does not allow his hearers to go away and make of his sayings what they will, picking and choosing from them whatever they find helpful, and testing them to see if they work. . . . Humanly speaking, we could understand and interpret the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. Jesus knows only one possibility: Simple surrender and obedience, not interpreting it or applying it, but doing and obeying it. That is the only way to hear his word. But again he does not mean that it is to be discussed as an ideal; he really means us to get on with it.

Well, as Shakespeare said, “There’s the rub!” He means us to get on with it, to do it, to be doers of the word—but how? If you are like me, we read this Sermon on the Mount with a bit of disquietude or unease. Love your enemies, be not anxious, judge not—all things that are great in theory, but what I want to know is how to do them. Or maybe what I really want is to have someone say, “Oh, don’t worry, you needn’t take it all that literally. It’s just an ideal, after all; no one can do it.”

But Jesus says, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like the wise man who built his house on the rock. . . . But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.” I want the rock, not the sand—but how do I do his words?

I have two ideas to share about this. The first is the observation that Jesus himself did these words. If we were to read on in Matthew, in the next chapter we see a picture of Jesus that is quite different from these chapters we’ve been reading. He stops his teaching, and starts acting. He heals, he forgives, he shows mercy and compassion—time after time. So we are confronted, not just with high-sounding words, but with the life of Jesus himself. He shows us how to do his words.

The same thing is so very clear in the gospel lesson tonight from John 13. It is John’s account of the Upper Room. It doesn’t include the institution of the Lord’s Supper, but instead focuses on Jesus’ action in washing his disciples’ feet. It is a striking vignette. “Having already loved his own who were in the world,” John writes, “Jesus loved them to the end.” Then John notes that “the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus.” Certainly Jesus also knew that Peter would deny him, and that the others would abandon him. And yet, John says, he got up from the table, poured water into a basin, and washed their feet. Does that teach us something about what it means to love your enemies? Does it speak to us about what it means not to judge? As John tells the story, Jesus acts so deliberately, so carefully; John describes each movement as he takes off his robe, pours water, washes the feet, puts his robe back on. Does that teach us something about not being anxious, as Jesus, right on the cusp of his arrest and death, goes calmly about the business of loving his disciples?

And then we hear his words: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 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 to you.” He has set us an example. We parents sometimes have to tell our children, “Do as I say, not as I do”—but Jesus says to us, “Do as I say, and do as I do.” He shows us. He demonstrates it to us.”

But there is more than that, and that is my second thought. In the passage I just quoted, he calls himself our Teacher and our Lord. It is the second part of that which is most important. He is more than our teacher, he is our Lord. And so when he speaks to us, commands us, directs us—he also gives us the power. Matthew concludes this Sermon on the Mount by saying that everyone was astonished at Jesus’ teachings, for he taught as one having authority. That’s the key concept here. By our own authority, our own power, our own effort, we cannot do his words. Try as we would, we still fail to love our enemies, we still find ourselves terribly judgmental, we still get bound up with anxiety and care. We are like St. Paul in Romans 7: We know what we should do, but we just can’t do it.

But the one who gives the commandment also gives the grace to act. To quote Paul again: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” And if he lives in us, then these words of his bear fruit in our lives. We can become doers of the words, and not hearers only—not by our own effort, but by the grace of our Lord Jesus.

And isn’t that at least one part of this meal we share tonight? I truly love the hymn we are going to sing in just a moment:

I eat this bread, I drink this cup,

Your promise firm believing;

In truth your body and your blood

My lips are here receiving.

Your word remains forever true;

All things are possible for you;

Your searching love has found me.

Lord, in this sacrament impart

Your joy and courage to my heart . . .

In this meal, you see, Christ comes to us, strengthens us, forgives us, and by his gentle hands, by his body and blood given for us, and to us, he forms us! He molds us! He makes us into new people! By our own strength, we can’t do these words he gives us. But we don’t rely on our own strength; we rely on him. And at this table, his joy and courage, his strength is given freely to us.

One of the traditional prayers for this Maundy Thursday contains these words: “May this sacrament of your body and blood so work in us that the way we live will proclaim the redemption you have brought.” That is a fine prayer for this night! Through this sacrament, he works in us so that we may do his words, and thereby proclaim our redemption in him. Let it be so also in us!