Koonung Heights – Surrey Hills Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Maundy Thursday – 17 April 2025 – 7pm or whenever possible
You may like to light a candle during your time of worship.
Feel free to text the Peace to other members of the congregation.
Candle Lighting:
In lighting the Christ candle this evening
we remember that Christ came to be the light of the world,
and that no matter how hard the darkness tries,
it is never able to extinguish the light.
Acknowledgement of Country:
As we gather in God’s presence tonight,
I acknowledge that this land is God’s land
and God’s Spirit dwells here.
I also acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land,
the Wurundjeri WoiWurrung People of the Kulin nations.
I pay my respects to their elders, past and present,
and acknowledge all generations to come.
Welcome:
Everyone who answered Jesus’ call to follow him found their lives upended. Leaving their livelihoods behind, they leaned into an upside-down way of thinking, one that centres impoverished and oppressed people in place of the rich and powerful.
On the fateful night when Jesus gathered his closest friends for one last meal, the disciples’ lives were upended once again. Jesus invited them into a liminal space, a threshold between his life of teaching with them at his side, and the approaching reality of his arrest and death. In this space, they were called to reimagine supposed opposites: power and weakness, fear and hope, innocence and guilt, life and death.
We too, will linger in the in-between spaces and challenge dualistic thinking. Just as the disciples did, we will share a meal together and we will sing. This service’s songs are simple meditations created by the monastic community of Taizé, France. They may be new to you but their repetitive lines are easy to pick up. Or you can simply listen if you choose, allowing the music to wash over and into you.
We will follow Jesus from the Table to the Mount of Olives, and wait for all that is to unfold.
Come, let us walk with Jesus.
Call to Worship:
We have come to worship the Trinity,
one God, three persons,
beyond our understanding
yet constantly revealing themselves to us.
We have come to worship an infinite being
who took on finite flesh: fully human and fully divine –
a being who is love itself,
yet loathes injustice;
who is almighty,
yet let go of power
to be in solidarity with outcasts and criminals.
We gather to worship the living God
who died.
We Sing: “Holy Spirit, come to us” – (Jacques Berthier – © Taizé 1998)
Holy Spirit, come to us, kindle in us the fire of your love.
Holy Spirit, come to us, Holy Spirit, come to us.
Bible Reading: Luke 22:7-13
– The Preparation of the Passover
7 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it.” 9 They asked him, “Where do you want us to make preparations for it?” 10 “Listen,” he said to them, “when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house he enters 11 and say to the owner of the house, ‘The teacher asks you, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” ’ 12 He will show you a large room upstairs, already furnished. Make preparations for us there.” 13 So they went and found everything as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.
Invitation to Christ’s Table:
The Last Supper shows us who is welcome at Christ’s table:
people who sometimes trust, and sometimes question,
who are sometimes fearful, sometimes bold.
Liars and backsliders, doubters and deniers,
and those who still struggle to get free of what the world calls power,
but commit to revolution anyway.
Impulsive people. Imperfect people.
People who mess up over and over – but try again, and again, and again.
In short: each and every one of us.
So let no one ever tell you that you are not welcome here:
Jesus wants you at his table, exactly as you are.
A Litany of In-between:
Here in this place,
we join Jesus in the sacred space between
his last supper and his last breath.
We’ll stick with him through his suffering
just as God is present with us
in our own liminal moments,
sharing our pain, feeling all we feel with us.
Trusting in God’s eternal solidarity,
let us pray:
In the limbo of uncertainty,
when all we can do is wait –
with those between payslips,
between jobs, between meals,
with those in hospital rooms or prison cells,
ever present Jesus, abide.
With those who fight to be believed by doctors,
who wait for diagnosis, treatment or results,
and with those who are living with serious health conditions,
Jesus, the Suffering Saviour, abide.
For those who are sick of waiting:
First Nations people whose loved ones suffer and find no relief,
communities urged to wait for justice,
and those who find themselves burning out in the endless efforts to resist injustice,
Jesus, native of occupied lands, abide.
With all who scramble between life and death, survival and thriving:
immigrants and refugees,
and those in war-torn countries displaced and denied aid,
Jesus the refugee, abide.
With those enduring the worst of climate change,
and whose homes or whole communities
have been ravaged by natural disasters,
Creator God, abide.
With all whom our society falls to protect:
those who are unhoused, and those whose homes are fractured,
and all those who are shoved to the margins,
Persecuted Christ, abide.
When the in-between becomes permanent
with no going back to how things were,
in our moments of despair at the world’s pain,
we cry out, “How long, O Lord?!”
Abide with us, everlasting God. Abide with us.
Co-creating and co-suffering God,
we can count on your steadfast presence
even when we doubt and demand answers.
Teach us to share in one another’s pain,
becoming your hands and feet on earth.
And now, as we break this bread and drink from this cup,
may this meal nourish us.
Pour out your Spirit upon this holy feast,
the one you shared with friends and betrayers,
not long before you took your last breath.
May it give us courage,
just as it surely gave you courage on that night many years ago.
Amen.
Words of Institution (adapted from Luke 22:14-22):
On this very night nearly two thousand years ago, Jesus reclined at a table with this closest friends. He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”
After taking a cup and giving thanks, he said, Take this and share it amongst yourselves. I tell you that from now on I won’t drink from the fruit of the vine until God’s kingdom has come.”
After taking the bread and giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way, he took the sup after the meal and said, “This cup is the new covenant by my blood, which is poured out for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
Breaking the Bread:
The Last Supper was an intimate gathering of close friends, where anxiety for the future blended with conversation and song. As we share together tonight, let us share in singing too. I invite you, to sing together, before we come forward to receive, and then come as you are ready. You might continue singing after you have received.
We Sing: “Eat this bread” – (TiS 714)
Eat this bread, drink this cup, come to him and never be hungry.
Eat this bread, drink this cup, trust in him and you will not thirst.
Prayer:
As Jesus nourishes us with his very body,
we become the Body of Christ.
May this feast fuel us for the work of joining others in their in-betweens.
Amen.
Continuing the Feast:
As Jesus and friends continue gathering, they talk as they eat – and argue too. Jesus interrupts their debate to offer one last lesson to guide them for when they take on his ministry. Let’s listen to more of the story …
Bible Reading: Luke 22:24-27
– The Dispute about Greatness
24 A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. 25 But he said to them, “The kings of the gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. 26 But not so with you; rather, the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.
Reflection:
The story of the Last Supper has become many things – inspiration for many artworks, a historical tale reenacted, a sacrament that becomes the focal point of worship. Yet it is something else too. It was a meal that reminded people of God’s goodness to them, commemorating the ‘passing over’ of the Angel of Death on the Israelites’ homes, sparing them from the plague that struck Egypt’s firstborn. This came at a cost, that of the Passover lamb.
As Jesus and his friends dine together, they still haven’t worked it all out. After all Jesus had said and done and taught, after witnessing the miracles, healings, parables and teachings, there were still other guests at the table. Worldly temptations, lust for power and desire for prestige were there that night. Judas had made a backroom deal with the authorities, and there is arguing about who is the greatest. We might look at this and wonder why they behaved this way, but it could just have easily been the way any one of us might have behaved.
I can imagine that Jesus might have sighed deeply, wondering if he had done enough, and knowing something of what was to come.
Just as it was tempting for Jesus’ disciples to forget his teaching, it is the same for us today. We are hopeful of being better, and yet we still get it wrong. We want our own little piece of power, forgetting that the greatest are those who serve.
May we remember, too, that at the heart of our service lies the loving sacrifice of Jesus, the lamb of God, who took on himself the sins of the world.
Amen.
Journeying to the Cross:
After their meal, Jesus and his friends leave the haven of the upper room and make their way to the Mount of Olives. Once they arrive, Jesus will pray in deep anguish over what is about to happen, so much so that the bible describes him as “sweating blood”.
As Jesus moves ever closer to the cross, he invites his disciples to stay with him – to stay awake and stay close, yet they fall asleep.
As we sing, let these words be a reminder to us to continue to stay present, even as we enter the painful parts of Jesus’ final hours.
We Sing: “Stay with me” – (Jacques Berthier – © Taizé 1984)
Stay with me, remain with me, watch and pray, watch and pray.
Blessing:
Having eaten, we go,
into the night,
into a garden,
towards a betrayal,
a confrontation and an arrest.
The story continues
even as footsteps fade and shadows darken.
May we walk forward together, unwavering.
May we continue to love one another
as we have been loved.
Amen.
Thanks to all those who have assisted in preparation for this liturgy with encouragement, prayers and conversation. I have also utilised the following resources: Sanctified Art (Everything in Between).