Preternatural now there s a term we don t use every day. What does that mean?

Transcription

1 The Weirdest Thing The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring Eden United Church of Christ Hayward, California April 2, 2015 John 13: 1-20 (NRSV) I wonder, what s the weirdest thing you ve ever done? Think about that question for a moment. What s the weirdest thing you ve ever done? If you are able to answer the question quickly, you may be hoping that I won t be calling on you to share your story, because the experience that comes to mind for you makes you feel uncomfortable, and because you may be afraid that having had this particular experience may make others (or even you yourself) think that you are weird. Do you know what the definition of weird is? Sometimes we use a term without knowing precisely what it means. I have certainly used words that I thought I knew the meaning of, but then later discovered that there was more meaning to the term or that there were more alternate meanings for a term than I had previously realized. Just for fun the other day, I decided to look up the definition of the term weird. As it turned out, the first definition surprised me. According to the Free Dictionary, the definition of weird is: Of, relating to, or suggestive of the preternatural or supernatural. 1 Preternatural now there s a term we don t use every day. What does that mean? I had to look it up myself to be sure. Preternatural means something unnatural, or out of this world, or transcendent. 2 In other words, by definition, weird stuff comes from God

2 II There is no getting around the fact that the Maundy Thursday is weird. Everything about it is weird. The foot washing is weird. The Last Supper is weird. The Garden scene is weird. It s all weird. Weird. Weird. Weird! Who goes to church to get their feet washed? Well, Roman Catholics, and some Evangelical and Pentecostal Protestants, but not so many Mainline Protestants like us. People like us might wash our hands before we go to church. We might wash them after we get there. Or we might have had parents who spit on their hankies and tried to clean up our faces at the last minute before we walked into church when we were small. But nobody at least nobody most of us knows washes their feet or anyone else s feet when they go to church. Foot washing is just weird. Ask our teenagers at Eden if you doubt me. A few years back, Michael Stuber and Theressa Collier co-taught the Mid-High church school class on Sunday mornings. Since I knew that Michael had a theatre background, and I wanted a way to involve our youth in the Maundy Thursday Service that year, I asked Michael and Theressa to help the class develop a dramatic interpretation of tonight s gospel passage, while it was read aloud by the sole student in that class who was brave enough to speak in public, Jared Smith Bove. Michael and Theressa gladly accepted my invitation and worked with the students on the design and production of the drama during the Sunday morning class that preceded Maundy Thursday. They helped the youth plan their blocking and they helped Jared learn how to pronounce the difficult terms. They also explained the larger Holy Week narrative in which the foot washing story was set, so that the experience would be more meaningful for the students. Because of my regular Sunday morning responsibilities with worship, I wasn t able to join the class until the end of their rehearsal. After the kids left the chapel, I asked Michael and Theressa how the class had gone. Michael said, Oh the kids thought the foot washing thing was really weird! But I told them to just get over it, because we were all going to do it on Thursday night. Oh, no! I said. You told the kids that everyone in the church was going to have their feet washed?! Now they ll all go home and tell their parents, and everyone will be too freaked out to attend the service! Michael looked a little surprised by my reaction, so I went on to explain that even though foot washing is part of some Christians liturgical traditions that it is not commonly The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring, The Weirdest Thing, 4/2/2015, p. 2 of 5.

3 practiced in most United Church of Christ congregations, and that it is rare in the experience of most Eden members who come from other traditions. That s why I settled for a dramatization of the foot washing story that Maundy Thursday, rather than planning to wash everyone s feet. For those of you who may be wondering what the plan is tonight, and who are concerned that you should have scheduled a pedicure earlier today, I ll explain that I haven t planned a reenactment of the foot washing story tonight. I ll also explain that public foot washing seems a little weird to me too, especially in our time and culture. Despite the fact that foot washing may seem weird to us now, it was not weird in the first century or in Jesus home culture. Most people in those days, who lived in warmer climates or who were poor, went barefoot or wore sandals most of the time. So their feet got very dirty every day, and they had to wash them. So the act of foot washing that is described in tonight s scripture passage wasn t weird for Jesus or his friends. The weird part was that Jesus upset tradition and challenged the hierarchical structures of his day by washing his disciples feet. In first century Palestine, you see, slaves washed master s feet. Children washed parents feet. Wives washed husband s feet. Disciples washed teacher s feet. But the reverse rarely, if ever, happened except, as John explains, at the Last Supper, when Jesus washed his disciples feet. Jesus wasn t supposed to do that, but he did. It was weird. It was different. It was out of the ordinary. It was preternatural. III So Jesus washing of the disciples feet was weird, but come to think of it, the Last Supper itself was weird, too. According to the gospel accounts, Jesus and his disciples gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem for the Passover Seder. The Seder was and is a sacred meal in the Jewish tradition. It s a celebration which usually takes place in Jewish homes, in which a Haggadah, a Jewish liturgy, is recited around the dinner table describing the Jewish people s Exodus from Egyptian slavery. The story starts with the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt. It commences with their crossing the Red Sea, their trek through the Wilderness, and Moses reception of the Law, and it concludes with the Hebrew people s entrance into Cana. Rather than reciting a traditional Haggadah on the first Maundy Thursday, Jesus did something else, something weird. He gave two traditional elements in the Passover Feast the unleavened bread and the cup of blessing new meanings, and, in so doing, Jesus instituted what we Christians call Holy Communion. Through this Sacrament of Holy Communion, this sacred act, we remember Christ s commandment that we love one another as he has loved us; that we acknowledge our The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring, The Weirdest Thing, 4/2/2015, p. 3 of 5.

4 brokenness (like the broken bread), and our own need for grace (symbolized in the cup of blessing) in our lives. IV After supper, Jesus gets up from the table and he led his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, where yet more weird stuff happens. For those who might not have been paying attention in Sunday School, I ll explain that Garden of Gethsemane wasn t a park. It was either a place in an olive orchard where olives were pressed, or a cemetery. Talk about weird! Who, I ask you, goes to dark, deserted places like that in the middle of the night? Who says, You guys just hang out here, while I go over there to pray? Who does that? When I was younger, the only people who I knew who went to places like that were up to no good. They were playing Halloween pranks, fulfilling some kind of sorority or fraternity stunt, or drinking beverages that they were too young to legally consume or all of the above. So what do we make of all this weirdness? V Here s what I suggest: first, I think our youth are right. The public foot washing ritual is weird. In fact, the whole thing is weird: the foot washing, the last supper, and the garden scene everything about Maundy Thursday is weird. Second, I think that whenever we experience a high degree of weirdness in our lives, we should pay extra special attention to what s going on, and to be aware that things in that occur in these types of circumstances can be dicey. Things can quickly turn either way, to the good or the bad. Furthermore, how things turn out in circumstances like these most likely depends on the choices that we make. As you may recall, Jesus followers didn t make very good choices on the first Maundy Thursday. Peter denied Jesus three times before the rooster crowed. Judas turned Jesus over to the Roman soldiers for a bag of silver. And the rest of the disciples fell asleep, while Jesus prayed not my will but thy will be done. Jesus followers didn t make good choices. But we can learn from their mistakes and our own, and make better choices in the future. Finally, and most importantly, we can be prompted by these weird experiences that God is keenly aware of our discomfort, and that God empathizes with us in our struggles. The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring, The Weirdest Thing, 4/2/2015, p. 4 of 5.

5 This is so, because Jesus knew better than anyone how much courage it took to stand up and say what needed to be said and do what needed to be done, particularly when no one else was saying or doing what was right. Jesus knew better than anyone what we experience when we dare to fulfill the law and the gospel. His example is a constant reminder that the life of faithfulness will always, and in every time and place, be perceived as weird. He knew that neither he nor his followers would win any popularity contests for following his example. Despite these challenges, Jesus reminds his first followers and John reminds us that regardless of whatever worldly challenges we face, we can develop more resolve and more resilience, in order to say what needs to be said, and do what needs to be done, by heeding Christ s teachings, following Christ s example, opening our hearts and minds to the work of the Holy Spirit, and comforting and encouraging each other in the midst of life s struggles. So this is what all the weirdness is about. This is what our Maundy Thursday service and Holy Week are all about. They are about daring to be weird and do weird things, for the glory of God and the good of humanity. Amen. The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring, The Weirdest Thing, 4/2/2015, p. 5 of 5.