Maundy Thursday
At our Maundy Thurday service, we handed out a smallish piece of paper and coloured marker as well as the order of service. The scripture reading was selected verses from John 13, including verses 34, 35 "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I hve loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Please take your piece of paper and draw the outline of a heart on it.
We each have a heart. Our physical hearts clean and pump our blood, nourish our bodies. Our physical hearts are strong or weak or somewhere in between.
"Love one another as I have loved you."
There is a folk song, the recording I know best is sung by Peggy Seeger, and one of the verses goes like this:
The first time ever I lay with you, and felt your heart beat nearer mine
I thought our joy would fill the earth and last till the end of time.
Lovers lie so close together they can feel and hear the other's heartbeat. Babes in the womb hear and feel their mothers' hearts beat. So we have a physical heart, but also talk aobut our hearts filled with love, or our hearts breaking.
"Love one another as I have loved you."
Our hearts can be felled with love, or feel empty or aching. And we love not just romantically (eros love) - but filial love - family, friends, neighbours, the person in the next pew.
Please take your heart outline, and exchange it with someone else - and colour in the heart you've received.
It is in these relationships that our hearts fill up... in giving love that we receive. The love we give away fills our hearts, the love we receive over-brims our hearts like water spilling out of an overfull pail, our hearts fill up with love.
Jesus said: "Love one another as I have loved you."
Paul tells us that without love, all our other gifts are in vain. So we could have the biggest church, the most crowded pews, the smartest preacher, the most melodious choir... but if we don't love one another - as Jesus loves us - our hearts will not be filled and sheltered here.
"Love one another as I have loved you."
Please exchange hearts with a neighbour again, and this time trace around the outside of the heart.
Through connecting with each otehr, we build the ties of community. We shelter and care for one another, watiing to hear the answers to the question "How are you?" Or asking about family, or remembering an re-thelling how community members are connected. I know I've heard, and participated in, a number of conversations this week that went something like "So who was that? And how are they related to this other person? And which farm did they live on? Next to...? " - And I've heard these conversations all my life, around my grandmothers' kitchen tables, they tell and reinscribe the bonds between us.
"Love one another as I have loved you."
Exchange hearts again, and draw another outline around the heart you've received.
In this way our hearts fill up, and become layered. And love is not reduced to a connection between two people, or received only by the "saved", but becomes more vibrant as it is shared and shaped and changed.
It is risky. And messy. And imperfect. Just like Jesus commanded.
"Love one another as I have loved you."
Please take your piece of paper and draw the outline of a heart on it.
We each have a heart. Our physical hearts clean and pump our blood, nourish our bodies. Our physical hearts are strong or weak or somewhere in between.
"Love one another as I have loved you."
There is a folk song, the recording I know best is sung by Peggy Seeger, and one of the verses goes like this:
The first time ever I lay with you, and felt your heart beat nearer mine
I thought our joy would fill the earth and last till the end of time.
Lovers lie so close together they can feel and hear the other's heartbeat. Babes in the womb hear and feel their mothers' hearts beat. So we have a physical heart, but also talk aobut our hearts filled with love, or our hearts breaking.
"Love one another as I have loved you."
Our hearts can be felled with love, or feel empty or aching. And we love not just romantically (eros love) - but filial love - family, friends, neighbours, the person in the next pew.
Please take your heart outline, and exchange it with someone else - and colour in the heart you've received.
It is in these relationships that our hearts fill up... in giving love that we receive. The love we give away fills our hearts, the love we receive over-brims our hearts like water spilling out of an overfull pail, our hearts fill up with love.
Jesus said: "Love one another as I have loved you."
Paul tells us that without love, all our other gifts are in vain. So we could have the biggest church, the most crowded pews, the smartest preacher, the most melodious choir... but if we don't love one another - as Jesus loves us - our hearts will not be filled and sheltered here.
"Love one another as I have loved you."
Please exchange hearts with a neighbour again, and this time trace around the outside of the heart.
Through connecting with each otehr, we build the ties of community. We shelter and care for one another, watiing to hear the answers to the question "How are you?" Or asking about family, or remembering an re-thelling how community members are connected. I know I've heard, and participated in, a number of conversations this week that went something like "So who was that? And how are they related to this other person? And which farm did they live on? Next to...? " - And I've heard these conversations all my life, around my grandmothers' kitchen tables, they tell and reinscribe the bonds between us.
"Love one another as I have loved you."
Exchange hearts again, and draw another outline around the heart you've received.
In this way our hearts fill up, and become layered. And love is not reduced to a connection between two people, or received only by the "saved", but becomes more vibrant as it is shared and shaped and changed.
It is risky. And messy. And imperfect. Just like Jesus commanded.
"Love one another as I have loved you."