Maundy Thursday, April 17, 2025

On Maundy Thursday, we remember Jesus’ sacrificial love and vow to embody that love in our daily lives and professional and political responsibilities. We truly commune with Jesus as we share in the bread of life and the cup of salvation and in communing with Jesus seek to become Christlike ourselves.

While it is appropriate to read the Exodus Passover passage on Maundy Thursday, the passage needs to be reinterpreted to reflect love and not vengeance. The point of Maundy Thursday is God’s grace for those who abandon Jesus and his way and for those of us who try but daily fail to embody God’s love in our relationships. The disciples whose feet are washed will fall away, deny, and hide. They will disobey Jesus’ mandate to love one another within hours of their meal together, and yet they are loved in their waywardness.  There is no retribution or abandonment, no punishment, simply unending love that lures us to become lovers ourselves.

On Maundy Thursday, God is out to love us not to harm us.  There is nothing transactional here. No angry God lurking in the background, no theological bait and switch in which the loving Jesus masks a hidden – almost diabolical – God who requires violence to save us.  There is simply love.  While pompous and thin-skinned political leaders and moguls demand obedience or else, the God of Maundy Thursday serves and loves.  Maundy Thursday is about costly incarnation not about vindictive punishment.

Love inspires love. The response to God’s love is not fear or transactional obedience but generous love.

On Maundy Thursday, we see the vision of Jesus as the reflection of God as the fellow sufferer who understands.  Jesus reveals the relational God, who shares grace, and not the unilateral God who stands at the sidelines looking for infractions, ready to mete out the severest penalties to those who disobey God’s mandate or find it impossible to sign on to dogmatic statements of loyalty.

Jesus shows us what a loving God is like.  The Galilean vision of humility and empathy companions us in an uncertain world, seeking the best possibilities in difficult situations, never giving up the quest for wholeness, and ready to welcome every prodigal home with a banquet of love.

God’s love is counterculture in its humility and sacrificial service.  Too many gods provoke alienation, judgment, and retribution among their followers. African American theologian and spiritual guide Howard Thurman asserts that “The world is not finished yet; yet that men do worship god, yes; and they obey the gods they worship; but the gods they worship are unworthy gods…the tragedy of life is that persons become like the gods they worship.  These are not atheists. Men become like the gods they worship.  If they are bad persons, it means that they are worshipping bad gods.”[1]

On Maundy Thursday, it is fitting to remember Whitehead’s description of the evolution of our understanding of God from a distant object of fear and threat to the companion who inspires us to imitate God’s lovingkindness.  To the chagrin of many traditional Christians, God’s power is relational and non-violent. God embraces us even when we don’t believe the articles of faith and loves us even when we can’t say “yes” to the words of creeds and prayers.  In the spirit of God’s all-embracing gracefulness, we gather on Maundy Thursday not out of fear but out of gratitude.

As Paul notes in I Corinthians, we gather to remember and be fed.  We don’t remember sacrifices that involve the slaughter of the innocent.  Although crucifixion is violent, we don’t celebrate violence nor does God require violence for our salvation.  God’s wrath does not need to be satisfied by Jesus’ death. Rather, Jesus’ death reveals the extent of God’s love for us.

On Maundy Thursday, we gather to love. To feed each other. To imitate God’s mercy in a world of hard heartedness. To celebrate empathy.  Let us break bread, share wine, serve each other, love each other. Let us gather for this fully embodied love feast to be the God with skin for each other.

[1] Howard Thurman, Walking with God: The Sermon Series of Howard Thurman – Moral Struggle and the Prophets. Edited by Peter Eisenstadt and Walter Earl Fluker (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2020), 57.

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Bruce Epperly is Theologian in Residence at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, Bethesda, MD (https://www.westmorelanducc.org/) and a professor in theology and spirituality at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is the author of over 80 books including: “Homegrown Mystics: Restoring the Soul of Our Nation through the Healing Wisdom of America’s Mystics” (Amazon.com: Homegrown Mystics: Restoring Our Nation with the Healing Wisdom of America’s Visionaries: 9781625249142: Epperly, Bruce: Books) “Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet “(Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet: Epperly, Bruce: 9781625248732: Amazon.com: Books), Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet”( Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999215: Amazon.com: Books), and his most recent book, “God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality and Social Change.” (The God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality, and Social Change: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999291: Amazon.com: Books The God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality, and Social Change: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999291: Amazon.com: Books