MINT ICE CREAM AND MEMORY

Taste and touch trigger memory. 

A couple of personal memories, having to do with mint chocolate chip ice cream, and memory.

When I think of mint chocolate chip ice cream a couple of memories stand out. In the earlier one, Bambi told me about the time Dave was driving a bunch of people (all around age 19) down the road in his VW microbus, and they stopped to buy ice cream. But then it began to melt. And Dave said, hand me the carton. And he dipped his hand in, scooped some out, and ate. And then passed along the carton, so others could eat. Imagine the mess when he shifted gears.

There was another memorable occasion. After the burial of someone’s grandmother, her family gathered at a nearby house. There wasn’t much preparation, but what was in the refrigerator was, yes, mint chocolate chip ice cream. Enough to go around, and then some. And as they ate, cousins, sons, grandchildren, all began to hear and tell stories, of those who had gone before, grandmother, grandfather, and all. The stories remind and revive those who mourn. 

Taste and touch trigger memory, famously in the case of writer Marcel Proust who took a bit of madeleine, a small cake, into his mouth, and then sipped a cup of tea. This triggered memories of how France, and Paris, had been before the first world war, and he wrote about it in a series of novels, called in English, In Search of Lost Time, or, earlier, Remembrance of Things Past.

Remembrance. Do this in remembrance of me. Remember this day, said Moses, on the first Passover. Do this in remembrance of me, said Jesus, at his last meal with the disciples, the first Eucharist of the Lord’s Supper. 

Remember. 

That is what Maundy Thursday’s service is about. Remembrance. Memory. Or, in Greek, anamnesis. But it is more than remembering in the nostalgic sense. And it is better than William Faulkner’s dour observation, “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”―Requiem for a Nun.

It is about bringing the past into the present. As Massey Shepherd, who taught at my seminary, reminded us, the Lord’s Supper, and indeed the washing of feet, are meant to make the past effective and actual in our lives, as they are meant to make the work of Jesus our own. 

Father Fuller, late of St Frances Cabrini parish in Tucson, said that in the Eucharist our Lord gives us the most precious of gifts, himself. Note,  gives us, not just gave us. For the gift of the Lord’s Supper is ongoing. And the gift Christ gives us in it is one that continues. 

As the apostle Paul said, it is something we receive from the Lord and something we also hand on. 

We pass on more than just the memory of a man serving his followers, of a master serving his disciples. In doing that, Jesus had upended the natural order of things. As he said, the servant is not greater than the one he serves. But do you get it? Whom he was serving? Not just the one before him, but the God who made and loved and redeemed him. 

And it is more than that. Jesus said, go and do this yourself. Not just physically washing feet, though that could come up, but in the spirit of his act, serve others, not yourself.

The washing of feet, that apostolic act, can take many forms. You may do it when you visit a stranger in the hospital or in jail, you may do it when you pray for someone in need and offer your assistance and your company, you may do it when you speak up for somebody mistreated or given the short stick in the justice department. There are many ways you and I serve others.

The church, German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer is said to have said, is the only institution that exists for those who are not its members. 

“My body for you” - Jesus said. And we are his body. Our body - however broken or imperfect - for you. For you whom Jesus loves, even now, as the past becomes present, in the washing of feet, in the Eucharist, in our work in the world as the people of God.

May we, as the body of Christ in the world, as we receive the broken bread and the poured out wine, as we get the tingle of wet water on our cold feet, remember who we are, and become present at the Lord’s Supper and in the Lord’s world, as those who do love’s redeeming work.

Maundy Thursday 2023

• Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

• 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

• John 13:1-17, 31b-35

• Psalm 116:1, 10-17

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/HolyWk/MaundyTh_RCL.html

Prayer of the Day

Holy God, source of all love, on the night of his betrayal, Jesus gave us a new commandment, to love one another as he loves us. Write this commandment in our hearts, and give us the will to serve others as he was the servant of all, your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

Prayer of the Day (Alternate)

Eternal God, in the sharing of a meal your Son established a new covenant for all people, and in the washing of feet he showed us the dignity of service. Grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit these signs of our life in faith may speak again to our hearts, feed our spirits, and refresh our bodies, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

(From Sundays and Seasons, Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis, Minn.)

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The Rev. John R. Leech, D.Min., serves as a priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson, Arizona.

An edited version of this meditation appears online at https://tucson.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/bringing-the-past-into-present-day-actions/article_e69c28a6-d7be-11ed-94a3-4705199d383e.html

Maundy

Episcopalians are a peculiar branch of the Jesus movement. We follow Jesus, yes. He is the Word. 

We speak the Word, sing the Word, pray the Word, eat and drink the Word. 

Jesus is 'our meat and drink' - in him is the source of life, and to receive him is to be fed by the staff of life that is the Word.

He is the Word come into the world. And in him we find the ultimate self-revelation of God.

So what is peculiar about that? It infects our worship. We center on the table where we eat and drink. Everything that happens in the service leads up to that, from initial prayer and praise and proclamation, through confession and word of grace, to the celebration of the goodness of God in bread and wine.

The focus of our worship is obvious from the shape of our gatherings. Central - where all eyes follow - is the table and on it the cup and the plate, the bread and the wine, the elements of the Eucharist, that is, the Great Thanksgiving. On one side you may see the clergy and on the other the choir or servers. The people may look at them from time to time, when they are reading or leading prayers or singing or preaching. But all the time the eyes of all are turning to the prize - the holy Eucharist, God's presence among us - and we seek no distraction from that. Once we have each as many of us as can gone up and taken bread and wine, we go out, sent by a deacon's dismissal and a priest's blessing, to carry the Word into the world.

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/HolyWk/MaundyTh_RCL.html

• Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
• 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
• John 13:1-17, 31b-35
• Psalm 116:1, 10-17

Maundy Thursday

May the Lord who served be the one we follow; may the One we serve be honored in our service; may we, as we serve one another, and those we once called stranger, become servants of our Lord.

Traditionally, most years, it is our custom both to wash feet and to share communion on this holy Thursday. But this year that is not to be. Instead, we may well find ourselves returning back to the Word, to the relation of the events of that first Maundy Thursday night as they presage the events of that night and the next morning. That is, the celebratory aspects of the traditional get-together may be overwhelmed by the memory of what is to come: Good Friday.

In the old Book of Common Prayer that was first published in England in 1662,  and is still in use in that realm today, the emphasis is on the Passion, in the Gospel of John. The Epistle, granted, is of the Last Supper: and how we use it to proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 

So the hope is beyond time. And yet it is now.

Somehow in all these events of Holy Week, Easter and Easter Week, we are to see beyond our own difficulties and sorrows, and the sorrows of Jesus and all his loving followers, then and now, to the hope beyond hope that the Resurrection demands. That it imposes on us, if we take it seriously.

Can we? Is that even possible?

Some seek to tell us that in past catastrophes, epidemics, plagues, and the familiar California litany of drought, rainstorm, flood, mudslide, earthquake, and drought again, "nobody helped anybody else, it was every man (sic) for himself." Well, no. I am reminded of those early Christians within the Roman Empire who became known for self less nursing of the sick, in times of famine and plague. And of those in brave London who looked after one another in the years just following the publication of the old prayer book, that is, in the Great Fire and then the Plague that hit that town. 

And I think of the self giving (there are the terms self-donative and kenosis, again) of the clergy and people who stayed in the city of Memphis during an outbreak of yellow fever in 1878. They included: 

The Martyrs of Memphis: Sisters Constance, Thecla, Ruth, and Frances of the Community of Saint Mary, the Reverend Charles Parsons, and the Reverend Louis Schuyler.

We remember them on September 9th, every year, and this year, perhaps many more days than one. 

Serving as relief workers at the Episcopal cathedral of Saint Mary in Memphis amid sweltering heat and scenes of indescribable horror, they gave relief to the sick, comfort to the dying, and homes to the many orphaned children.  

See how these Christians are, as Pliny the Younger and other Roman officials wrote in perplexion to Caesar, as they give of themselves, to each other surely, but also to others, even strangers. What shall I do with them?


Flog them if they persevere obstinate. That's one answer. And sure enough, they persisted. 

See how they love one another. 

But that's not it, not all of it, not by a long shot. 

For Jesus died not just to save the people of his own tribe, but that all might find hope and healing and salvation.

I don't think you have to sign up for anything. I don't think you even have to know or care much about him, or certainly not his followers. 

Just know that in Christ, in how he died and even more how he lived, God showed that there is hope, death is not the end: that love is strong as death, and when even faith and hope are gone, love endures.

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Revised Common Lectionary (Episcopal Edition)

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Psalm 116:1, 10-17

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The Book of Common Prayer, 1662

Thursday before Easter. The Epistle. 1 COR. 11. 17.

The Gospel. S. LUKE 23. 1. 

ALMIGHTY and everlaſting God, who of thy tender love towards mankind, haſt sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Chriſt, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility; Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection, through the same Jesus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

***

From Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 2008 edition, pages 465-466:

SEPTEMBER 9: THE MARTYRS OF MEMPHIS: CONSTANCE, THECLA, RUTH, FRANCES, CHARLES PARSONS, AND LOUIS SCHUYLER, 1878

In August 1878, yellow fever invaded the city of Memphis, Tennessee for the third time in ten years. By the month’s end, the disease had become epidemic and a quarantine was ordered. While more than 25,000 citizens had fled in terror, nearly 20,000 more remained to face the pestilence. As cases multiplied, death toll averaged 200 people per day. When the worst was over, ninety percent of the people who remained had contracted the fever and more than 5,000 people had died. 

In that time of panic and flight, many brave men and women, both lay and ordained, remained at their posts of duty or came as volunteers
to assist in spite of the terrible risk. Notable among these heroes were four Episcopal sisters from the Community of Saint Mary, and two of their clergy colleagues, all of whom died while tending to the sick. They have ever since been known as “The Martyrs of Memphis,” as have those of other communions who ministered in Christ’s name during this time of desolation. 

The Sisters had come to Memphis in 1873, at Bishop Quintard’s request, to found a school for girls adjacent to St. Mary’s Cathedral. When the 1878 epidemic began, George C. Harris, the cathedral dean, and Sister Constance immediately organized relief work among the stricken. Helping were six of Constance’s fellow Sisters of St. Mary; Sister Clare from St. Margaret’s House, Boston, Massachusetts; the Reverend Charles C. Parsons, Rector of Grace and St. Lazarus Church, Memphis; and the Reverend Louis S. Schuyler, assistant at Holy Innocents, Hoboken, New Jersey. The cathedral group also included three physicians, two of whom were ordained Episcopal priests, the Sisters’ two matrons, and several volunteer nurses from New York. 

The cathedral buildings were located in the most infected region of Memphis. Here, amid sweltering heat and scenes of indescribable horror, these men and women of God gave relief to the sick, comfort to the dying, and homes to the many orphaned children. Only two of the workers escaped the fever. Among those who died were Constance, Thecla, Ruth, and Frances, the Reverend Charles Parsons, and the Reverend Louis Schuyler. All six are buried at Elmwood Cemetery. The monument marking the joint grave of Fathers Parsons and Schuyler bears the inscription: “Greater Love Hath No Man.” The high altar in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Memphis, is a memorial to the four Sisters.

(Pliny, Letters 10.96-97. Pliny to the Emperor Trajan. https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html. accessed April 5, 2020.)

 

Maundy Thursday 2017

He took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, broken for you,” and ... “This wine is my blood, shed for you.”

This bread is bread for the world. It is our covenant bread, our daily bread, our food, what gives us life.

Simply, as simply as the Lord’s Prayer puts it, we depend on God for the bread we need each day.

And we depend on the Lord for the bread from heaven that sustains us unto eternal life.

This joyous meal, this solemn feast, comes on the eve of a great betrayal. For on the very night that he took the bread and broke it and gave it to them, one of the twelve men closest to Jesus sold him out.

Fearful, anxious, greedy - not sure what we know of the emotions of the betrayer. We know that he failed him. And from there the gift offering of Jesus’ life for humanity became inevitable. He had already given his life, day by day, but now he would not hold it back but yield it up when to try to save himself would have veered him from his course.

For Jesus’ whole life was given for our salvation. The collect for last Sunday, remember, was both about his Incarnation and his Crucifixion:

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

His great humility, celebrated in the hymn of Philippians 2: 5-11, is shown in his gift of himself, not holding equality with God as a prize to be hoarded, but freely taking on our nature, became one of us, that we all might be saved.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:5-8, KJV)

Tonight we celebrate what made every night different from its moment on: we remember the humility of the servant that Jesus became to humankind, as he took on servants’ tasks, and showed his followers that the way to glory led through the path of service, and even to Calvary.

And so when we break this bread, we proclaim his death and his victory over death, until he comes anew.

Come Lord Jesus come into our hearts and dwell there as sovereign: forever.

• Exodus 12:1-4 and 11-14
• 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
• John 13:1-17, 31b-35
• Psalm 116:1, 10-17
• Philippians 2:5-8

The gift of love in the sacrament of Christ's body and blood. (Dennis Michno)

Maundy Thursday 2013

 

Imagine one disciple there at the table.

Think about her. There at the meal. Maybe more people than food. But they are there for the celebration.

Remember:

Your father Abraham followed the way of the promise.

You were strangers once in Egypt, God told you he would bring out of there, and Moses led us out of bondage into freedom.

Again: God will bring you out of Exile and bring you home.

Remember – and celebrate.

There is some one young there, the youngest, who asks: Why is this night different from any other night?

And Jesus responds – but differently from what you expect:  Because this night the promise is coming into fulfillment.

Moses led the people to freedom. But that’s not it – that’s not the end of the story. That’s not the whole promise.

Return from Exile – a path through the desert – restoration, certainly, but that’s not it – that’s not the end of the story.

This Roman rule and its collaborators – surely that’s not it!

No – God’s kingdom is coming into being, as we speak, as we act, to remember, to celebrate, to bring forward into the present what was ancient history, lost time. That’s it.

Here it is – now beginning. Do you see it?

But wait. Before the day dawns on the new reality, something must happen, in between. This chalice cup – take it: with blessing it is no longer merely a remembrance cup. It is calling into our reality what is eternal.

Something has to be gone through first, something ugly and lonely. You won’t drink this cup again with me until it’s over. This very night... It will not pass by me.

I must accept it: if God wills.

And I fear

He wills.

And I obey.

Tears, sweat of blood, pain I cannot imagine: yet accept it.

I will be gone; you left behind. Drink this cup; eat this bread. You will never be hungry. You will never thirst.

For I will—

And have—

For you.

This bread, my body. This cup, my blood.

Take and drink. Now. If you can.

taste of wine

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Psalm 116:1, 10-17 

 

Once when I was looking for an apartment in Brooklyn a friend introduced me to her landlord. He showed me the apartment, above his own family’s apartment, and then we all gathered for tea. They handed me a chocolate – it had a symbol on it. You don’t have to eat it, they said. It had no sugar! It was special candy for a special day in the Jewish year.

What day does the taste of bread and wine bring back to us?

The feast of the Lord’s Supper – the Last Supper – that Jesus took with his friends – gathered in an upstairs room for Passover night. The bitter herbs they tasted, and the other flavors, reminded them as Jews of an earlier meal: as it was meant to. It reminded them that the people of Israel freed from bondage in Egypt were called out: into a period of seeking and formation in the desert, while they learned what it meant to be God’s people – before they could enter the land and possess it, the land of promise, they had to become the people of promise, the people of hope. They had to learn and to practice what it meant to live God’s love – to love God whole-heartedly body and soul first and foremost, and to love their neighbors as themselves. They had to become the people who love.

Jesus renews this understanding and adds to it in the gospel passage we’ve read tonight: love one another as I have loved you. That is how they will know who you are. That is how they will know you are God’s people.

How has he loved us? Totally and completely. He has given his life that we might live in God. He has held nothing back.

As Robert J. Allen asks,

           

            Whoever ran out of love

            by loving too much?

            The more love you give,

            the more love you receive, and

            the more love you have to share.

Christ gave himself away completely, out of love – love for a world he knew needed changing – and through love comes change. (Sue Yeaney)

He was not afraid of change,

he was unafraid of death,

he had hope for the future

and trust in God.

[If he feared anything ever it was that he would fail to receive, falter in his love or his giving; but he did not fail.] He accepted on his shoulders the weight of the cross that he bore for all.

Innocent victim, unqualified scapegoat, he brought to an end the idea you could tag another person with your guilt or sin or suffering. He took all that on himself and removed it from us.

On this dark night,

there is nothing left to fear

but fear itself.

There is one source left for hope,

there is only one source

                                    of life,

                                    of light,

                                    of love, —

and it is the one in whom we find salvation,

the one we remember tonight: Jesus Christ the Lord.

Remember

            Love

Remember Love

                                    Do not be afraid

                                                to Change

Change for Love’s sake

Remember what lasts is love.

                                   

O Christ, we live in a world filled with suffering and death, but you call us to follow you and serve you. May your abundant mercy open our eyes to new ways we can create hope and opportunity for hungry people. Amen. 

(Lenten Prayers for Hungry People, Bread for the World, bread.org)

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Perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18)

God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1 John 4:15-21)

Be a Constant Source of Change

by Robert J. Allen

(Camaldolese Tidings, Vol. 18, No. 1, Spring 2012, New Camaldoli Hermitage, Big Sur, California)

     Why do people fear change? Because, as human beings, we are too attached.

     There are many different fears: the fear of death, which is inevitable; the fear of success, which is to be who we are capable of being; and the fear of public speaking, which means we are willing to share openly ... but I propose that most people think they fear change and do not want to change because they fear success. Notice I have not said they do not want change, but that they do not want to change.

     Change comes in all walks of life. We do not start out this way, but we are taught first by our parents, by example, then our friends, by associates, and then by our own selfishness to keep what we think is ours, thus avoiding change, forcing us right back to the fear of change and not realizing we are attracted to false security.

     Jesus Christ taught us just the opposite in the way He lived; by the things He said, and most of all by His love. If we would make all of our judgments based on "love one another as I have loved you," we would not only accept change, we would change and be a constant source of change.

     Change should only be feared when it is selfish, when it is self-serving, and when it leads or prevents real change. You cannot fear change unless you lack the virtue of Hope.

     In order to understand who you are, you should begin with the principle that all we have is a gift from God. This being true, then the only thing to fear is the inability to give to others by sharing, by making sacrifices, by loving. And to do this, to do it in an accountable and opportunistic way, means giving of yourself without an expected reward. This means change. Whoever ran out of love by loving too much? The more love you give the more love you receive, and the more love you have to share. The unexpected rewards are immeasurable.

     Christ came to change the world and He did this by giving Himself away totally so that each person could change. We will be judged not by how much we have, but how much we gave away; both materially and through love.

     Do not fear change, but fear the false security, that being neither hot nor cold, will forever be your judge.

* * *

Maundy Thursday 2011

Tonight we celebrate the Last Supper – the Lord’s Supper.

We celebrate the last meal Jesus took with his disciples, on the night before he was betrayed.

Imagine how strange that was – to celebrate Passover – the freedom from bondage of the people of God – knowing that he would himself soon be led as a lamb to the slaughterhouse – and like a sheep dumb before its shearer – knowing that silence was the best course to take – until at last, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

You have said so.

Before that, at the same meal when he blessed the bread and broke it, took the cup and shared it, he welcomed his friends as guests, as a servant would: he washed their feet.

It was a practical act, a gesture of hospitality – and a symbolic act, revealing his priesthood, and the role of the servant of all believers he invites us to share.

We celebrate and remember – thinking, we look after ourselves, and each other – we care – we act like family for each other, both good and bad.

In a spirit of kindness we convey, you matter, you are significant, you are welcome here – not on our own do we say this, we say it in Christ’s love shown for us.

That love is shown us, as an example, that we also should do as he has done – by serving each other and the world.

Tonight he gives us a new commandment – a mandate – hence the word ‘Maundy’ and the action holy – that we listen and heed and carry out his mandate – love one another.

Love one another just in this way: as he has loved us. And what is this way?

What but to come as servants? How we serve the world, how we serve Christ in each other and the world, is how we respond to Christ’s command.

Love one another – for sometimes love is all there is. Hope goes; faith fades; love remains.

When at the end of the meal the table is cleared, the lamp lowered and the candles snuffed, the last of the bread carried away, and the people dispersed, love remains.

Love abides in the Darkness – and soon will kindle new Light.

We leave tonight in solemnity – a procession with the host goes forth; some remain in silent contemplation, remembering – the meal and the man. Remembering his death and giving him glory.

Today I talked with people who know: every day of life is a gift. The gift of light and life and love – from the One who gave All for us – the light of the world, the love of God incarnate – in a human person, who, in these holy mysteries, of bread and wine made for us his body and blood – the One who gave us the gift of life and the promise of eternity – even in his very death. He truly died that we might truly live. Come let us adore him.

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