Make Believe -- Maundy Thursday

April 14, 2022

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

 

What do you think of when you hear the words, “make-believe”? Do you think of children playing games or vivid flights of fancy or even people acting on a stage or screen? Do you envision actors drawing us into their world of fantasy and fiction, their world of make-believe?
            Minister and author, Frederick Buechner, wrote that communion is an act of make believe. When I first read this, I was taken aback, even offended. Make-believe?! The Lord’s Supper is nothing of the sort! I can be relatively irreverent, but his words felt like sacrilege. But I went back and read his words again, and then again, and I started to understand them a little more. Hear for yourself what Buechner wrote.
            “The Lord's Supper is make-believe. You make believe that the one who breaks the bread and blesses the wine is not the plump parson who smells of Williams' Aqua Velva but Jesus of Nazareth. You make believe that the tasteless wafer and cheap port are his flesh and blood. You make believe that by swallowing them you are swallowing his life into your life and that there is nothing in earth or heaven more important for you to do than this. 
            It is a game you play because he said to play it. 
            ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’ Do this. 
            Play that it makes a difference. Play that it makes sense. If it seems a childish thing to do, do it in remembrance that you are a child.”
            Have you ever watched children play at make-believe? Specialists in child development and education state that play is a child’s work. Their play teaches them social skills like cooperation and sharing. It furthers their emotional and social development. And in their games of pretend and make-believe, they are often acting out the roles they may play when they are adults. Admittedly, not many of us grow up to be princesses, wizards, or cowboys, but when children play, when they make-believe, they are learning more about what it means to be a person in this world.
            Yet make-believe is not limited to the realm of children. What is that phrase? “Fake it till you make it.” I don’t feel it as much anymore, but when I was first ordained to the ministry, there were plenty of times when I felt like I was make-believing at ministry, pretending to be a pastor. The first wedding, the first baptism, the first time I presided over communion, the first time I stood before a family in grief and assured them of the certainty of resurrection. Yes, in those moments, I felt like I was pretending to know what I was doing and saying and preaching. It felt like play acting. It seemed like make-believe.
            But does all this mean that Buechner was right. When we partake of the Lord’s Supper, are we in truth just engaging in make-believe?
            In this familiar passage from John, Jesus and the disciples are gathering for the festival of the Passover. They have come together at the table for their meal, and Jesus knows that his time to depart this world is drawing near. He knows that Judas will soon betray him. He knows that he will soon face arrest and humiliation and pain, so much pain. He knows that soon he will face death and the grave.
            But in this moment, he does not speak of death or fear or the horror that lies ahead. In this moment, he takes a towel, wraps it around his waist, pours water into a basin, kneels in front of each disciple, and washes their feet. He does the most lowly, humble act of servanthood because he loved them.
            Jesus loved the disciples. And because he loved them, he served them. Because he loved them, he took this teachable moment to show them what love looks like. He showed them love by doing love, and then commanded them to love each other and all people in the same way. To use the grammar of John, he did to them this act of love, and commanded them to do likewise.
            This commandment gives us the name of our observance tonight. Maundy is Latin for commandment. Jesus’ command to the disciples to love one another and others as he loved them has reached down through the centuries to us. We are to love as Jesus loved. We are to show that love, enact that love, do that love to others.
            But do we love all people? Do we? Aren’t there people who annoy us, who anger and infuriate us? Aren’t there people who make being civil a struggle?
            Do we love all people?
            Probably not. Loving others, even when we let go of the idea that love is a warm and fuzzy feeling, is not an easy thing to do. Showing our love through servanthood can be extraordinarily hard to do. But maybe serving others as Jesus served is also about make-believe. In our acts of serving, we are making-believe that we love as Jesus loved. We are making-believe that we are trying to live and love and even die as Jesus did. And I don’t say this about make-believe to be flippant or glib about service. I say it, because if I understand the point Buechner was making, the more we make-believe, the more our play-acting becomes reality. We make-believe at loving until eventually we love.
            Maybe Jesus understood that. Maybe Jesus commanded the disciples to love as he loved, to do what he did, not because he knew that they would love everyone automatically, but because he knew that they wouldn’t. But even if they did not feel love for others, they were to do love for others. Even if they did not love the person whose feet they washed, they could make-believe until their heart caught up with their hands.
            So, maybe Buechner was right. Maybe he was onto something. At this table tonight, we remember Jesus in the act of sharing the bread and the cup. At this table tonight, we learn to do Love as Jesus did love. And at this table tonight, we make-believe that we can see one another and this world through the eyes of Jesus. We make-believe until we do see each other in just that way. We make-believe until finally loving and seeing and being as Jesus was becomes our truth too.
            Let all of God’s children say, “Amen.”