The Mandate and Religious Freedom
Unable to sleep this morning, Jesus’s words to his disciples on his last night echoed through the darkness, “Are you still sleeping when I’m about to die?” In my drowsiness I realized it was not yet the evening of the Passover meal he would celebrate; no, there were yet hours to go before he left for a nighttime stroll and a blood, sweat and tear-filled prayer time. I tried to go back to sleep.
“Why are you sleeping? I’m being betrayed as you lie cozy in bed?”
I’ve wrestled with how I might respond to those who would say they are my brothers and yet reserve the right to refuse to serve me cake or pizza or invite us over.
“The one who has eaten with me….”
Doesn’t Jesus know how many people he has eaten a meal with? Any one of them could be a betrayer. Many of them have been spies all along. They never had plans to really hear the good news and listened only for clues by which to charge blasphemy. Surely he knew their hearts. Thousands of people have been fed by his miraculous providence. Hardly a one could claim true righteousness. And hundreds have been touched, some literally, by his hand, and healed, actually even cured, when they were cast aside by the holy people of the Temple. Yet, they still turn their backs. And I guess some of us just want to go back to sleep.
But I couldn’t. Today it makes sense, doesn’t it, that after what Jesus went through with one he ate with, that good Christians wouldn’t want to risk serving much less eating with a betrayer? Don’t they have that right not to mingle with someone who might cause them harm?
And Judas kissed him. One of the chosen ones sold him out and pointed him out with a kiss.
No wonder good Christians are afraid of men kissing men.
“But I give you a new commandment—to love one another as I have loved you.”
Jesus seemed to be speaking to me in my morning daze. And I heard this mandate: “Love one another. Eat together, even when you know there is the danger that one at the table will turn away. Wash each other’s feet for I came to serve and not to be served. Even if the stink and dirt of the day is overwhelming, be vulnerable to one another. Order the cake even if they will say no. Come close enough to shake hands, ah, go ahead, give each other a kiss, even if it might turn out to be the kiss of death. I always turned the other cheek. And I never said kiss my…..
Are you still sleeping? You who are being persecuted because somebody in the crowd thinks you are not worthy of a cake for your wedding? That you shouldn’t be allowed to celebrate your love and make a covenant of marriage and contract for better or worse? Well, follow me. I’ve been through the worst. And I was there at your wedding and it was just right, even without the cake. I’m sorry they missed it.
Now here’s the invitation to the best wedding feast you’ll ever enjoy. And I have plenty of cake. But no promises—I might just invite the good brothers and the baker too. I doubt they’ll come when they find out you’ll be there. But, maybe they’ll change their mind. God knows I’ve died trying to show them how to get along. All I ever wanted was for y’all to love each other as much as I love you. Time for work, wake up, sleepy head. And give your wife my love.”
bevfriedlander 