Today is Good Friday, the difficult day of Holy Week when the betrayal, arrest, abandonment, trial, condemnation, torture, and crucifixion of Jesus result in his death. I know it is difficult for many of you to make your way to a Maundy Thursday or Good Friday worship service; and we were unable to stream last night’s Maundy Thursday service for a variety of reasons, so for today’s entry I want to send my reflection from last night. Then, at the bottom, is an invitation for you.
Throughout this season, we have tried to follow Jesus’ work of turning over tables. It is holy work. It is necessary work. It is the kind of work that has been needed throughout human history. Tables have often been places of exclusion, where some are welcome and others are forbidden; with clear demarcations between the servants and the served. Tables have often been lavishly plated for some, while others go hungry. Tables have often been places where decisions are made by the few and powerful, while the effects of those decisions have been devastating for those who are not at the table. Tables have often been a great prop for those who would pound it in order to exercise the implied violence behind their authority. The table is the tableau that shows who is who in our world. In that sense, we can say, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus, and lead us, because so many tables in our world need overturning.”
When we think of turning over tables, we think of that story when Jesus brought havoc to the temple court, but throughout his life Jesus demonstrated many ways of overturning tables. Jesus had the gall to sit publicly at a table with notorious sinners. He ate with them; drank with them; laughed with them; loved them, while the sanctimonious and proper folk stood apart and criticized him. Jesus let a woman, a woman of ill-repute as everyone knew, wash his feet while at a table, and even broke all the customs by declaring her clean. Jesus sat at a table with a diminutive chief tax collector and all of his tax collector buddies, much to the chagrin of the pursed-lipped religious folk. And, of course, Jesus overturned the tables on this night when he wrapped himself in a towel – a “tool belt for washing feet” – and served each of his disciples, one by one. When the Lord becomes the servant, the tables are turned. Time after time, Jesus overturns everything we have been taught to think about tables as showing who is who in our world.
And that is what makes our invitation to this table tonight so intriguing. For those who have bought into the culture of hubris, where we are here to be served and not to serve, who have bought into notions of success, notions of privilege, notions of who belongs among us and who does not – those are the notions of people who sneered at Jesus’ table, not those who joined it. When we have been trained in the culture of hubris, all of our presumptions get overturned at this table.
And when we have been told that we do not belong at this table, that we are not good enough, not holy enough, no clean enough, not straight enough, not white enough, not male enough, not housed enough, or simply not enough – those assumptions are also overturned at this table. This is where betrayers, abandoners, deniers, fearers, and failures are treated as honored guests. Even in this last meal, as Jesus dons himself with a towel and washes each person’s feet, he was overturning tables. As we come forward to be part of the Lord’s Supper, we come to the table of overturning.
Mark of St. Mark
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