Maundy Thursday Sermon by Felicity Thompson, Seminarian, 4/17/2025
Today is Maundy Thursday, the Thursday in Holy Week, the day before Good Friday. What is Maundy Thursday? The word "Maundy" comes from the Latin word mandatum, which means "commandment." Two significant events occurred on this day. Jesus shared a meal, known as The Last Supper, with His disciples. During this meal, Jesus taught the disciples how to break bread and share wine. He instituted the Eucharist (our Holy Communion) saying, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus also took on the role of a servant, washing the feet of His disciples declaring, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another" (John 13:34).
So Maundy Thursday is named after this "new commandment". Today, we remember with acts of service like foot washing and sharing Holy Communion. It's a day focused on love, humility, and caring for others.
This same spirit of love and service later inspired movements like the Social Gospel. The Social Gospel emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a response to the harsh realities of industrialization, poverty, and inequality in America. It called Christians, especially white Protestant churches, to respond to poverty, labor injustice, and inequality by applying the teachings of Jesus to social issues. Over time, the Social Gospel’s concern for society evolved into a kind of civic religion. It made some churches look more like country clubs because they focused more on their image, the emotional comfort of the congregation and respectability in the community instead of real transformation of the heart and real justice work.
The Black Church, however, had already been living a form of the Social Gospel. You see, the Black Church was already rooted in survival and liberation. A big part of what the black church did was to take care of its community. Church with these congregations was, and still is, a space of radical hospitality, resistance and spiritual refuge. These congregations responded to injustice not only through charity but through community organizing, protest and theological reflection. Black congregations were living the Social Gospel long before it was named. It provided sanctuary and resistance to oppression. For Black Christians, faith has always been both spiritual and political. Freedom of mind and body, dignity, and hope are not extras, they are essentials. For leaders like Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Pauli Murray, the gospel was never just about personal salvation. It was about freedom for the oppressed and dignity for all.
Today, we can learn from the brilliance and the shortcomings of both traditions. The challenge before us now is not to repeat the mistake of becoming comfortable. We must resist the temptation to settle for beautiful buildings, elegant liturgy, or social clout - these are all signs to the world of spiritual success. Instead, we must ask, "Are we feeding the hungry? Are we welcoming the stranger? Are we taking care of the outcast? Are we confronting injustice?" We are called to be a church that prays and marches, that sings and organizes, that worships and welcomes, especially those who have been pushed out!
Are we just having philosophical conversations to sound smart and show off what we know about love, like it’s some kind of academic gymnastics—or are we really doing the work, changing lives, and letting ourselves be changed too? Let’s build congregations that reflect God's justice, and stop creating religious spaces where the already comfortable feel more at home.
What else do we need to think about today? Our gospel reading reminds us that love is our identity as followers of Jesus. Love is not optional—it is the foundation of discipleship. Love means serving, forgiving, and sacrificing for others. Love is how people will recognize Christ in us.
In John 13:1-5, we witness Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. This is an act of humility, love, and service. As Jesus prepares for His passion, He demonstrates what it truly means to lead in God’s kingdom: not through power and domination, but through self-giving love and service to others. This moment anticipates His ultimate act of love on the cross.
Jesus’ actions here connect to the broader Gospel message, particularly His rejection of the belief that suffering is always a direct punishment for sin. In passages like Luke 13:1-9, Jesus addresses the idea that tragedies or hardships happen because of personal sin. Instead of assigning blame, He calls all people to repentance—a turning back to God, recognizing our dependence on divine grace.
By washing His disciples’ feet, Jesus shows that everyone—regardless of status or perceived righteousness—needs cleansing. This is not just about physical washing but a spiritual renewal, an invitation to turn back to God in humility and love. In doing so, Jesus reverses worldly expectations: rather than punishing sin with suffering, He takes on suffering Himself so that all might be restored.
As we reflect on this passage, we are reminded that repentance is not about fear of punishment but about drawing closer to God. We can build churches that are active in justice, rooted in community, and still grounded in prayer and tradition, drawing from the best of the Social Gospel and the Black Church.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us that the Christian life is not about shining personalities or public recognition, but about quiet, faithful service. As he wrote, “The church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren.” In a world that often values charisma and applause, Bonhoeffer calls us back to the heart of discipleship: serving others out of love, not ego. He warns us that if we're worried about our image, we can’t truly serve, saying, “One who worries about the loss of his dignity is no longer able to serve his brother…” Real service, he says, is hidden, humble, and doesn’t need to be seen. And at the center of it all is Christ, who chose the path of a servant. Bonhoeffer’s well-known words, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die,” reminding us that following Jesus means letting go of pride and self-interest so we can live in love for others. This kind of service doesn’t just help others—it transforms us, shaping us more and more into the image of Christ. Jesus calls us to something greater. Take the bread. Drink the wine. Let water wash away the weary places in you. Then … the act of foot washing becomes a living parable of the transformation we all need, inviting us to turn away from sin and toward God’s mercy.
Let us take this command seriously and live it out everyday.
Amen.