My seminary education began in the fall of 1980. It was shaped in many ways by the prevailing scholarship across all of the theological disciplines that had developed for Western Christians after the Second World War. New work would be done. For example, by the end of the century, liturgical scholars Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell Johnson would show that a fifty-day Easter Season was limited to a few regions of the Mediterranean world and was never as universal as we were taught.[1] It doesn’t follow that it is a bad thing, but it suggests that study and reflection should be an ongoing part of our lives.

It’s the supper before the passover. Jesus, having washed the feet of those who were with him, while all of them were eating said, to Judas, “ ‘What you are going to do, do quickly’ . . . [Judas] immediately went out; and it was night.”[1] After speaking to the men and women[2] who were with Jesus about his departure, he speaks of the vine, the vinedresser, and the branches, of abiding—remaining—and bearing fruit. Then he says, “These things I have spoken to you-all in order that my joy may be in you-all and your joy may be fulfilled.”[3]

We heard the beginning of the John’s narrative of the supper before the passover on Maundy Thursday. The passage ended with these words, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”[1] Two Thursday ago, April 30th, our gospel lessons at these Easter weekday Eucharists have continue with the rest of John’s supper before the passover narrative. At the end of the first day of this continuation, Judas, “went out, and immediately it was night.”[2]

Looking back, my own spiritual journey with John’s gospel and today’s gospel lesson really began a few months after beginning work as rector of Trinity Church, Michigan City, Indiana. I arrived in December 1988. In the spring, I attended a workshop at our cathedral on formation programs for children. There I was introduced to the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, an approach to Christian formation for children that evolved from the collaboration of a Hebrew scholar, Sofia Cavalletti, and a Montessori teacher, Gianna Gobi, in Rome in the early 1950s.

It’s the supper before the passover. Jesus, having washed the feet of those who were with him, while all of them were eating said, to Judas, “ ‘What you are going to do, do quickly’ . . . [Judas] immediately went out; and it was night.”[1] After speaking to the men and women[2] who were with Jesus about his departure, he speaks of the vine, the vinedresser, and the branches, of abiding—remaining—and bearing fruit. Then he says, “These things I have spoken to you-all in order that my joy may be in you-all and your joy may be fulfilled.”[3]

Let me begin with the good news that, when I sat down at the desk in my study this morning, there was an email from our church’s bank with the documents to be signed for the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. The board of trustees will know soon how the parish’s finances were affected at the end of April. The loan, and the expectation of loan forgiveness, will be a great help to our parish.

In the rectory there is an important collection of service records dating back to the late 1870s. The oldest volumes are now too fragile to be handled. There are also bound copies of the parish’s monthly newsletter Ave, that was replaced early in my tenure by the weekly Angelus. There was no mention in the May 1965 issue of Ave about the change Father Donald Garfield would be making to parish worship three months after becoming rector on February 1 of that year.

Saint Philip is named as one of the twelve in all four gospels and in Luke’s second book, the Acts of the Apostles. Today’s gospel lesson is from John’s narrative of the supper before the Passover. Philip and Thomas who, in the end, will doubt the words of resurrection that he hears, will see, and will believe, team up with Jesus with questions, demands, for Jesus. Where are you going? Show us the Father. That will make everything all right. They do not believe as they will come to believe.

I recently watched a documentary on PBS called “Inside the Vatican.” At two hours long, it covered a fair amount of ground, but it was only two hours long, so there were many things it didn’t discuss. I yearned to hear more about the role of women in the church. But the film didn’t shy away from controversial issues: it dealt extensively with Pope Francis and his reforms; and it talked frankly about clerical sexual abuse.

There were no, what came to be called, “lesser feasts” in the American Prayer Book until 1979. Quite honestly, I was surprised early this morning to discover that the commemoration of Catherine of Siena, who died on this date, April 29, in the year 1380,[1] was included in the first edition of the book we commonly call Lesser Feasts and Fasts, published in 1963.[2] There are only two commemorations in that calendar that are included with no description, unlike for example, Saint Luke the Evangelist or Francis of Assisi, Friar. One is Saint Joseph, the other, Catherine of Siena.[3]

In the first years I was here at Saint Mary’s, I had many more contacts with Roman Catholic clergy than I would come to have as the years passed. Local priests retired; some were assigned to parishes away from the city. Jesuits move. And I was in touch with several Roman Catholic liturgical scholars. So, when on Maundy Thursday 2003, when Pope John Paul II issued what his church calls an “An Encyclical Letter,” its Latin title was Ecclesia de Eucharistia—Church of the Eucharist,[1] I looked forward to reading it.

Sometimes I have two copies of the same book because I’ve lost track of my first copy—and very annoying when it reappears. There are a very few books I have chosen to have two copies of because I want one copy by my desk in my study on the third floor of the rectory on 47th Street and one copy on my desk in my office on the third floor of the Parish House on 46th Street.

This morning the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles is an excerpt from the speech Peter gives, when on the day of Pentecost, devout people have rushed together to observe the phenomenon of the Holy Spirit falling on the apostles, including the new apostle, Matthias. The people are amazed because all of them hear the apostles speaking in tongues in their own languages—the apostles are speaking Aramaic, with a vocabulary and accent contemporaries would recognize as making them Galileans.[1]

It is only in Matthew and in John’s gospels that the Risen Jesus speaks on the morning of the resurrection. In this year of the lectionary cycle, we heard Matthew last night and we hear John this morning.

My mother survived a car accident in which my stepfather Bill was killed on Valentine’s Day in 2007. She had Alzheimer’s disease. After being hospitalized for her serious injuries, she was in a memory care home near my sister and her family in Fairfax, Virginia, for the rest of her life. She would die there just over six years later.

I want to begin by thanking the Presiding Bishop for recording a sermon for us tonight. I’m sorry that we don’t have the equipment to screen it for you at this point in the liturgy. It’s a deeply pastoral sermon. I hope many will have the opportunity to hear his words and feel his presence and care for us. I know I am not the only person who has a hard time thinking of Holy Week and Easter Day without churches being open.

Saint Mary’s Lectionary Project was started by Father Matthew Mead, when he served here over a decade ago now. Monday through Friday, our congregations for the daily 12:10 Mass include many people who are on a break from their jobs. Very early on, we started to shorten appointed psalms and, when appropriate, appointed lessons. We marked the changes with an asterisk in the footer appointed scriptures were given.

The story of the anointing of Jesus’ feet is found in all four gospels. For Luke, you may recall, it is part of a story of a Pharisee named Simon who had invited Jesus to dinner.[1] This Simon became upset when Jesus allowed a woman who was a sinner to wash his feet with her tears, wipe them with her hair, and to kiss them. Jesus said to him, “I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”[2] The woman’s sins were forgiven.

Yesterday morning, a parishioner from my Indiana days circulated an op-ed from Friday’s New York Times that a friend of hers, Simone Hannah-Clark, had written.[1] Simone is a nurse in an intensive care unit in New York City. She wrote about her life and work during this pandemic. The workdays are very long days; the work that she and her colleagues do is physically and emotionally draining. She cares for new arrivals. She cares for those who are starting to heal. She cares for the bodies of those who die.

Today’s appointed gospel lesson begins abruptly with these words, “The Jews took up stones again to stone [Jesus].[1] There’s a context for these words that we haven’t heard at the daily Eucharist this week. I’ll get to that and to today’s lesson, but first I want to remind you and me that the stories of Jesus’ visits to Jerusalem in John and are very different than in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. One might say, it is John’s Jesus who lives out the words to Mary and Joseph of Luke’s twelve-year-old Jesus, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”[2]