Maundy Thursday - no excuses.

John 13:34 - "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."

I never knew what Maundy Thursday was supposed to be. I'm pretty sure I never bothered to go to a Maundy Thursday service, unsure of what to expect. What in the world does "Maundy" even mean?

Google is a wonderful thing, because today I learned that in Middle English, the version of English commonly spoken a few centuries ago, the word maunde meant commandment. Thus, today is literally "Commandment Day." What commandment, you might ask?

"Love one another."

As we journey through Holy Week, we are meant to fix our eyes on Jesus as he journeys towards the cross. We spend our time looking at what Jesus does, where Jesus goes, and how Jesus lives as he (quite literally) walks to his death.

This is good. Don't stop doing that.

But Maundy Thursday is, at its roots, a day to think about how we interact with one another. We ought to take time to think about the implications in our day-to-day interactions of Jesus' last days. We are commanded, once again, even in the midst of conflict, heartache, confusion and fear, to love one another as Jesus loved his disciples.

Just let that sink in for a moment. Remember that Jesus spent three years teaching, correcting, eating with, and listening to his disciples. Remember that he washed the feet of the one who sent soldiers to arrest him in exchange for cash and even fed him at his table.

But that raises a brand-new question: what does that love look like for us?

For Pope Francis, "love one another" looks like celebrating the Maundy Thursday mass in a high-security juvenile prison outside of Rome, washing the feet of teenage inmates.

For some, "love one another" means standing outside of the Supreme Court building with signs supporting marriage equality.

For many pastors, "love one another" means sitting with the sick in hospitals, homes, and hospice houses. It means planning and tweaking and pouring that love into liturgy, songs, and sermons to edify and teach the people of God this week.

But for many, it means absolutely nothing. Nothing changes. We look at the cross, just like we did last year, and say "oh, how nice of Jesus to die so that I could really live." We might even shed a tear or two.  But still, we go home ignorant of the millions of unwashed feet, empty stomachs, and fearful hearts that fill the world. We still throw out our leftover food, never thinking that perhaps we ought to set a few more places at the table tomorrow and invite some strangers over for dinner. We still leave that extra bedroom empty, just in case someone eventually visits, while our childrens' classmates go 'home' to another new place and another new set of foster parents. We still buy our Hershey's chocolate and buy our Nike shoes, even though they were likely produced with child and/or slave labor. We still think "maybe when I'm less busy, I'll volunteer somewhere."

The world still revolves around me, my family, and my needs.

We don't often stop to ask what family really means, who we truly are, and what needs we really have.  Is family fundamentally biological? Is our identity in where we live, the things we do, and the roles we play?  Who gets to determine what 'normal' means?

After spending a week on the US/Mexico border learning first-hand what life looks like for undocumented immigrants (both in the US and those who were deported back to Mexico), one of my professors told our Systematic Theology class that "as people training for ministry, you have no excuse for ignorance."

I would argue that no Christian has an excuse for ignorance, because Christ commands us to "love one another, just as I have loved you."