Today the King will toss out a few specially minted coins today as a symbol of charity to fellow man. Of course, he can afford it, and it might be a nice distraction from his troubles.
The origins of the word ‘Maundy’ seems to be obscure, but one thought is that it derives from the Middle English and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” which many of you will of course already have correctly translated (!) into these words from John chapter 13;
‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this shall men know you are my disciples.’
The story comes to us that Jesus gathered with his friends for a last meal together. One of them was going to betray him, another would deny him before the night was over. After all the parables and obscure teachings he offered something unequivocal. He distilled his hopes for his friends into this one simple phrase. Then he demonstrated it as well by washing their road stained feet.
There are so many other things he could have said– stuff about saving souls, striving for correct doctrine, worshiping correctly, fighting to defend the true faith, condemning sins, particularly sexual sins, etc.. In other words, all of those things that became the preoccupation of his followers over the years to come; he chose not to mention.
So, being people who strive for integrity, how do we demonstrate love for one another? What does this look like? Can we (or others) really recognise it when we see it?
I think of my own community- a loose ragged group of people on a parallel journey. Our love is sometimes tinged with irritation, pride, ignorance. There are undercurrents that even when unacknowledged leave stains on our gatherings. The quality of our loving is imperfect, certainly less than Christ-like. I fear it might not be convincing to others who might observe from the outside.
Then I remember that gathering that Jesus had with his followers – incuding the betrayer and the denier. There was probably a grumpy and a greedy too and the odd know-it-all. The measure here is not perfection, not even excellence.
Love is not a legal transaction, it is the persistence of kindness.
