Holy Thursday                        March 20, 2008

After Jesus said, "As I have done for you, you should also do," He continued, "I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another."  Jesus' example of humble, unselfish service in washing others’ feet, and Jesus’ words, “Love one another as I have loved you,” are the final standard against which our lives are to be measured.  Imitation of Christ is the Christian life. 

In Jesus’ words and example one thing stands out most clearly, his total and absolute rejection of violence.  Eating his final meal and about to be destroyed by religiously approved, rationally justified, and state perpetrated torture, Jesus responded with a love that was totally non-violent and totally non-retaliatory, a love that forgave, a love that drew good out of suffering.

"As I have loved you, so you also should love one another."  What kind of love is this that imitates Christ?  What kind of love is Christ-like?  What is the hallmark of Christian love?  The answer is non-violent love. 

Here in the central event of salvation history, at the heart of the Paschal Mystery, at the moment of Jesus passing over from death to glorious risen life, we have no clearer and more powerful witness to absolute non-violence than Jesus own passion and death.  Yet, for the last 17 hundred years the Church and Christians have tried to avoid dealing with Jesus' clearest teaching and example about love, instead looking for ways to compromise it and justify exceptions to it. 

Still, is not the strategy of Jesus also to be the strategy of Jesus' people?  At no other moment has our world been in such need of a Jesus' strategy as now.  We live in a society and a world which sanctions, practices, and experiences violence as a normal and expected part of everyday life. 

Our nation legally sanctions violence against the unborn and against those condemned to death, there are more murders in Philadelphia in a year than in all of Great Britain.  Teenagers carry lethal weapons to school, and our Supreme Court seems ready to confirm that possessing guns is a basic human right.  Where is the counter sign to all of this, if we Christians do not provide it?

To celebrate the Paschal Mystery by rejecting violence in all its forms in our attitudes and in our behavior would be a most powerful witness.  Listen closely and carefully to the words of Jesus tonight,  "As I have done for you, you should also do," and  "as I have loved you, so you also should love one another."  Look closely and carefully at what Jesus did on the night before and on the day he died.  Then, follow his example.  Boldly and proudly duplicate in your life a love that is totally non-violent and totally non-retaliatory, a love that forgives, and a love that draws good out of suffering.