Most of us like our religion clear and orderly.
We seek clear answers to our questions
and orderly practices
that give structure to our lives.
But as we embark upon
these most holy days of the Christian year
our Scriptures point us toward
a region of human experience
that is mysterious and messy,
a wilderness in which we lose our bearings
and must trust the Lord himself to lead us.
We seek clear answers to our questions
and orderly practices
that give structure to our lives.
But as we embark upon
these most holy days of the Christian year
our Scriptures point us toward
a region of human experience
that is mysterious and messy,
a wilderness in which we lose our bearings
and must trust the Lord himself to lead us.
Our first reading
places us in the midst
of what might seem
the most mysterious and messy
element of human religion:
the offering of sacrifice.
An animal slain:
its innocent life given as an offering
to the power that has given life to us,
bearing away the sins of the guilty;
a lamb’s spilled blood
daubed on doorposts
as a protecting sign
that keeps at bay
the destructive blow that falls
upon the first born of the land.
This is a mystery the Israelites
are called to enact and remember,
not a puzzle that they
are expected to explain.
Indeed, if we try to explain it
we will tie ourselves into fruitless
and probably blasphemous knots
as we seek to make
the messy mystery
of God’s justice and mercy
fit into our human categories.
places us in the midst
of what might seem
the most mysterious and messy
element of human religion:
the offering of sacrifice.
An animal slain:
its innocent life given as an offering
to the power that has given life to us,
bearing away the sins of the guilty;
a lamb’s spilled blood
daubed on doorposts
as a protecting sign
that keeps at bay
the destructive blow that falls
upon the first born of the land.
This is a mystery the Israelites
are called to enact and remember,
not a puzzle that they
are expected to explain.
Indeed, if we try to explain it
we will tie ourselves into fruitless
and probably blasphemous knots
as we seek to make
the messy mystery
of God’s justice and mercy
fit into our human categories.
Saint Paul raises the stakes
on mystery and messiness,
as he recounts Jesus’s words and deeds
at the Last Supper,
for now we begin to see
that the life-saving lamb is Jesus himself;
the blood that will seal the saving covenant
and provide shelter from the power of death
is the blood that Jesus himself
will shed on Calvary;
the lamb we are to consume
is his true flesh and true blood.
His disciples are not called
to puzzle out how this could be,
to explain how this man
is the true lamb who bears away our sins,
to grasp how the horror of the cross
is somehow the true Tree of Life.
They are simply called,
like the ancient Israelites,
to “do this in remembrance of me”:
to enact and remember
this mystery of salvation
that has been handed on to them.
on mystery and messiness,
as he recounts Jesus’s words and deeds
at the Last Supper,
for now we begin to see
that the life-saving lamb is Jesus himself;
the blood that will seal the saving covenant
and provide shelter from the power of death
is the blood that Jesus himself
will shed on Calvary;
the lamb we are to consume
is his true flesh and true blood.
His disciples are not called
to puzzle out how this could be,
to explain how this man
is the true lamb who bears away our sins,
to grasp how the horror of the cross
is somehow the true Tree of Life.
They are simply called,
like the ancient Israelites,
to “do this in remembrance of me”:
to enact and remember
this mystery of salvation
that has been handed on to them.
Our Gospel presents us with what might be
the most mysterious and messy thing of all:
the Lord of the universe,
who holds in his hands
our life and our death,
to whom we offer sacrifice
for forgiveness and protection,
strips off his garment of glory
and stoops to wash
the filthy feet of his followers.
This too is not some puzzle
they are expected to untangle
so that it yields a clear moral lesson
about how to be of service to others.
Jesus tells them: “What I am doing,
you do not understand now.”
Light will only begin to dawn
once he has loved them to the end,
through the cross and into resurrection.
Only then will they be able to glimpse the truth
that this is the mystery of God made human,
of the creator become a creature,
of glory emptied into humility
in an intimacy that disturbs and transforms,
a mystery that they can never explain,
but are called to remember and enact:
“as I have done for you,
you should also do.”
the most mysterious and messy thing of all:
the Lord of the universe,
who holds in his hands
our life and our death,
to whom we offer sacrifice
for forgiveness and protection,
strips off his garment of glory
and stoops to wash
the filthy feet of his followers.
This too is not some puzzle
they are expected to untangle
so that it yields a clear moral lesson
about how to be of service to others.
Jesus tells them: “What I am doing,
you do not understand now.”
Light will only begin to dawn
once he has loved them to the end,
through the cross and into resurrection.
Only then will they be able to glimpse the truth
that this is the mystery of God made human,
of the creator become a creature,
of glory emptied into humility
in an intimacy that disturbs and transforms,
a mystery that they can never explain,
but are called to remember and enact:
“as I have done for you,
you should also do.”
We hear these words of Scripture
calling us forward,
out of our religion
of clear answers
and orderly practices
and into the wilderness
of mess and mystery,
where God will purify his people
of their idolatrous desire
for a God they can control.
God commands the Israelites at Passover:
“You shall eat like those who are in flight.”
You cannot eat this in a place
where you are enslaved to your desire
for clarity and order.
And this is no less true of the Eucharist
that Jesus institutes on this night.
This is not a meal at which you settle in,
but food hastily grabbed
as you flee toward freedom
in a future that you cannot see.
calling us forward,
out of our religion
of clear answers
and orderly practices
and into the wilderness
of mess and mystery,
where God will purify his people
of their idolatrous desire
for a God they can control.
God commands the Israelites at Passover:
“You shall eat like those who are in flight.”
You cannot eat this in a place
where you are enslaved to your desire
for clarity and order.
And this is no less true of the Eucharist
that Jesus institutes on this night.
This is not a meal at which you settle in,
but food hastily grabbed
as you flee toward freedom
in a future that you cannot see.
It is perhaps fitting that we conclude tonight’s Mass,
in which we eat like whose who are in flight,
with a procession through the streets of Baltimore
to repose the sacrament at Corpus Christi.
It will be a mysterious and messy journey:
some will straggle and some will surge ahead,
some passersby will stare
and wonder what we’re up to;
some may think that we
are simply wayward pedestrians
with no idea of where we are going.
And they won’t be entirely wrong.
Because we wandering walkers
don’t really know our destination,
for it is glory beyond our imagining.
But we do know Jesus,
and in knowing him we know the way,
for he will lead us on this journey,
this mysterious and messy journey of our life.
in which we eat like whose who are in flight,
with a procession through the streets of Baltimore
to repose the sacrament at Corpus Christi.
It will be a mysterious and messy journey:
some will straggle and some will surge ahead,
some passersby will stare
and wonder what we’re up to;
some may think that we
are simply wayward pedestrians
with no idea of where we are going.
And they won’t be entirely wrong.
Because we wandering walkers
don’t really know our destination,
for it is glory beyond our imagining.
But we do know Jesus,
and in knowing him we know the way,
for he will lead us on this journey,
this mysterious and messy journey of our life.
To follow Jesus is to take
what the novelist Graham Greene called
“a short cut to the dark
and magical heart of faith—
to the night when the graves opened
and the dead walked.”
It is a journey out of clarity and order;
a journey in which we remember and enact
lambs slain and feet washed,
bloody sacrifice and disturbing intimacy,
glory cast aside and glory taken up again.
It is a journey mysterious and messy
and it is really the only journey worth taking.
So let us follow him where he may lead,
even into the wilderness,
even to the cross.
And may God in his mercy
have mercy on us all.
what the novelist Graham Greene called
“a short cut to the dark
and magical heart of faith—
to the night when the graves opened
and the dead walked.”
It is a journey out of clarity and order;
a journey in which we remember and enact
lambs slain and feet washed,
bloody sacrifice and disturbing intimacy,
glory cast aside and glory taken up again.
It is a journey mysterious and messy
and it is really the only journey worth taking.
So let us follow him where he may lead,
even into the wilderness,
even to the cross.
And may God in his mercy
have mercy on us all.
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