Years ABC

Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14 1^st Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-15

The Liturgy of the Word for the annual evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper always proclaims the same scripture texts. The first is the Exodus account of divine instructions to Moses and Aaron in preparation for their departure (their Exodus) from Egypt. The second is the oldest written account of what are called the “dominical words of institution” (the words with which Jesus blessed the bread and cup) at the Last Supper. The Gospel narrative is John’s account of the Last Supper which presumes we already know the supper details as recounted in 1^st Corinthians and in the Synoptic Gospels. John’s is the only Gospel remembrance of Jesus’ exemplary washing of his disciples’ feet. John directly connected the Eucharist of the Last Supper to the necessity of loving, ministerial service along with a further necessity of theological reflection on the meaning of Gospel life (“Do you understand ...?”). These connections are established not quite so explicitly by Matthew, Mark and Luke in their narratives, but they are made. In the Church’s healthiest theological evolution all three are crucially important even if still sometimes unnoticed by the over-attention given by some to the miraculous. Thus, sadly the Eucharist has been sometimes treated as an object to be possessed, detached from loving ministerial service and profound theological reflection. We must take care not to reduce the Sacramental Mystery to perceived physical reality. Eucharist is and must be, theologically, used as a verb before it is used as a noun.

The Passover Narrative from the Book of Exodus is essential for Christian theological reflection, just as it has been for Jewish theological reflection. As with other miracle stories, too much has been sometimes made of the story’s relatively few miraculous details. In spite of the story’s dearth of details, it is of mythic proportions. In other words, the meaning of the story is far more important than any of the described facts. It is about a loving God who willed that his Chosen People be free (not slaves), about that same loving God’s power to save his own from any such slavery, about how those Chosen People accepted such freedom both individually and collectively, and finally about how they repeatedly engaged and perpetuated that freedom by cultivating intelligent and faithful relationships with God and each other. From one direction, this story is about living life fully as an antidote to the evil, mortality and sinfulness recognized and explained in the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. After the ancient descriptive explanations of why human and earthly realities were as they were, the Book of Exodus purportedly authored by Moses, announced that there was great hope! Why there was hope in spite of moral evil, natural evil and other misuses of power? Because hope was God’s very purpose in creating humanity, i.e., that human life be actively engaged and enjoyed, that it be full of wisdom, fruitful and loving, free and responsible, and appreciated for all it’s essential goodness. Christians understand the divine preference for the Chosen People as a sort of first phase of revelation by God. With the advent of Jesus of Nazareth, by means of the Mysteries of the Incarnation and Paschal Sacrifice, this chosen-ness was extended to the entire human world. The Exodus narrative was about the first step in escaping slavery (a metaphor for sin and evil). Christians see the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt as the metaphor for escaping a place of slavery. Slavery was a metaphor for sin. The waters of the Red Sea foreshadowed the redemptive washing of Baptism. By passage through the waters of the Red Sea the Israelites initiated and engaged a communal religious identity. Still more nuanced religious identity would evolve at Mount Sinai, which foreshadowed Pentecost. The pilgrimage through the Sinai Desert became a metaphor for the tiresome messiness of the journey of human life. All this culminated with finally crossing the River Jordan, a Christian image for human death, and entering into the Land of Promise, the Christian metaphor for Heaven or the Kingdom of God. All these images were meant to remind, inspire and encourage disciples to have hope! God saves! A conscientious and responsible relationship with the God of salvation is a saving relationship. Hence, all this is heard as a metaphorical description of the life of the disciple in the Gospel.

The Gospel narrative tonight reminds us of the necessary context of the Eucharist in ministerial service. Without such service, our words of praise and thanks to God risk being hollow, empty and shallow. Such has been the case whenever gratitude to God has been separated from loving service to neighbor. Some believers claim to be holy because they multiply words, prayers, religious rites and very small acts of charity. Remember how Jesus critiqued these! May we never be so minimal or superstitious! Our God is larger than the 21^st Century’s scientific perception of the universe’s size. Our religious behavior must be of a mature, responsible, human scale to be genuine in such a large cosmic setting.

St. Paul’s very famous passage in 1^st Corinthians is the oldest surviving written account of what has come to be known as the Last Supper. In dictating this to the Corinthians, he was “handing over” (or “handing on”) to them what he had received. The phrase “to hand over (on)” is the fundamental definition of “tradition.” What is “handed over (on)” must be something of theological importance, not merely custom, current practice, or personal or cultural preference. Paul’s text presents to us the primitive Eucharistic meal narrative of the Last Supper just as John’s Gospel provides two other parts, i.e., the foot washing and theological reflection narrative. Note that Paul includes very few details, very few facts. That Jesus and his close disciples gathered the night before his crucifixion and that he could be so self-possessed as to be peace-filled and thankful paints a picture of one completely filled with God’s Grace. Such Grace in the face of immanent personal destruction hints at the depth of the love that he held for his own, and by extension, for others, including us. By means of his examples of gratitude and service, he “handed over (on)” that same Grace and peace to his disciples.

Tonight’s festival is a three-fold remembrance of the Last Supper as a prayer of thanksgiving, as a lesson in ministerial service, and as a practical exercise in theological reflection. Tonight’s liturgy concludes with a procession by all in attendance from the place of Eucharist to a place of Reposition for the Sacrament. The procession – with the singing, the conversation, and the low-level of chaos that processions generate – represents a metaphor for life’s messiness just as the disciples had on their way to the Garden of Olives after that original Last Supper. Spending some time at the Sacramental Repository after Mass is a practical occasion for theological reflection. By the way, conversation at this time is appropriate as long as one is not an agent of disruption and irritation to others! Let your mind and imagination wander and wonder about Jesus, his disciples, his Gospel, and you, us and the Church. Remember that we know the rest of the story! We already embody the hope which the Book of Exodus conveyed. Our Eucharistic life is the blessing cup of the Responsorial Psalm, the confident peace, the very Grace of God because we accept, embrace and live the Gospel by graciously engaging life’s messiness. Tomorrow, we must listen to that inevitable reality of pain, suffering, and death. Tonight we celebrate and think on life fully and happily!