Maundy Thursday-the Rev Melanie Lemburg
Maundy Thursday 2023
April 6, 2023
“Miranda
works the late night counter
A
little joint called Betty's Diner
Chrome
and checkered tablecloths
One
steamy windowpane
She
got the job that shaky fall
And
after hours she'll write till dawn
With
a nod and smile she serves them all”[i]
It’s the opening lines of one of my all
time favorite songs titled Betty’s
Diner by Carrie Newcomer, and the song looks through Miranda’s kindly and strangely-knowing
eyes to tell us about the regulars who frequent Betty’s diner in the late-night
hours. She gently names some of their
past sins or hardships and tenderly paints a picture of this gathering of souls
in need of communion, which she emphasizes over and over again with the chorus:
Here
we are all in one place
The
wants and wounds of the human race
Despair
and hope sit face to face
When
you come in from the cold
Let
her fill your cup with something kind
Eggs
and toast like bread and wine
She's
heard it all so she don't mind
I’ve loved this song for years, and I
think it’s because it reminds me of the best of what the church has to
offer. At our very best, we are the gathering
of the friends and followers of Jesus, each bearing the burdens and joys of our
own humanity, who come together to find the comfort and the challenge that Jesus
offers us in the awareness that this way is too hard, too burdensome to walk
alone.
And this night, as we begin this journey
through the next three days, we remember especially Jesus’s invitation as he
kneels before his friends and disciples.
The invitation is to walk this path with our hearts wide open and
undefended—open and undefended before God, and even open and undefended for
each other. It’s why we wash each other’s
feet, sharing this strange and startling intimacy with each other; it’s to
remind ourselves that this awkward openness is how Jesus invites us to move
through this life and how even with all its risk, it enriches and fills our
lives with more meaning than we could ever ask for or imagine.
It’s why we’ll pray our prayers and kneel
side by side at the altar rail tonight, holding our own wants and wounds in our
open hands to be received by Jesus and replaced, our hands filled with the gift
of his very self, the gift of God who gently names our past sins and hardships,
God who tenderly names our wants and our wounds, God who embodies hope in the
face of our despair, God who grants forgiveness, who continues to sit with us,
and who invites us to live and walk and dwell within his love and service,
which is so much larger than our very small selves.
Here
we are all in one place
The
wants and wounds of the human race
Despair
and hope sit face to face
When
you come in from the cold
Let
her fill your cup with something kind
Eggs
and toast like bread and wine
She's
heard it all so she don't mind
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