The people of Parkrose Community United Church of Christ joined in fellowship and worship tonight to commemorate Maundy Thursday (when we remember the Last Supper Jesus shared with his Disciples). Our New Testament reading was John 13:1-17, 31b-35. My meditation notes are below:
My earliest thoughts about the Disciples (or memories concerning stories about them) are that they were sort of bumbling fools. They never understood Jesus. Over and over again Jesus tried to instruct them and over and over again they failed to understand.
Of course, as the years march on I’m all too aware of the failures that have accumulated in my own life – those times when I have failed to do as God wants. All of us fail from time to time. We are, after all, just human.
In fact, each week during Sunday services we offer up our confessions to God.
God, I’m sorry that I didn’t see your face in the homeless man I passed up on the street today. God, I’m sorry that hatred crept into my heart…or jealousy…or pride. God, I’m sorry that by Tuesday morning I’d forgotten all those promises I made to you on Sunday in worship.
So when, as we heard in our reading this evening from the Gospel of John, Jesus tells the Disciples that all they need to do is love, I get a little frustrated. Love came so easily to Jesus. He was truly his father’s son.
The problem for me is that I’m my father’s son and love didn’t always come easily to him. And I know from some of your stories that there have been times in your lives were love has not been offered up freely to you either. It becomes easier for us to build up walls, to shut down, even to offer up hate then it is to freely offer the kind of unconditional love that Jesus presented.
So what do we do? Well, we simply keep trying. We admit we are no better then the Disciples and that we – like them – have something to learn from Jesus.
Finding ways to truly love – to love your spouse, or your child, a parent, a friend…even your church and your God – is something that takes practice. When we love we open ourselves up to the possibility we will be hurt. The flip side of that is that when we love it brings us closer to the divine. And we are fortunate that God’s grace is available. Because even when we fail God we know that God never abandons us. We are God’s children as well.
