Vicar’s sermon: Maundy Thursday 2026.

Maundy Thursday 2026. Note: Please copy and paste into your browser the link in the text to find the poem which was read in church

A poem by Robert Hayden, written in the 1960’s describes a child waking up on a Sunday morning to the sound of his father getting the house ready for the day. The poem is featured in a collection by Janet Morley, The heart’s time’: a poem a day for the season of Lent. It reads like this:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46461/those-winter-sundays

Hayden’s poem was written before most houses had central heating. Most of us here can remember those days. I can remember ice inside my bedroom windows on some mornings. There was a Calor gas fire in my bedroom that my mum would set going when she came into the room to wake me. Getting dressed for school wasn’t a leisurely affair back then: speed was of the essence it could be so cold.

Hayden’s poem ‘remembers’. It remembers the poet’s father. It remembers him quietly ‘just doing what he always did’. Sundays were no exception, for the poem’s first line tells us ‘Sundays too’ his father got up early. It remembers also the child’s ingratitude. ‘No one ever thanked him’ read one line. The child ‘spoke indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well’. Perhaps the child had an excuse, he was too young, he had much to learn: ‘What did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?’ An ‘office’ here referring here to a daily discipline of prayer – prayer as work.

As we hear again the Maundy Thursday Gospel reading that speaks of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet we are challenged to recognise and to emulate Jesus’ service. ‘He got up from the meal, took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself, poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet’. Of course He did. It is what He did, always. It is what He does, always. He serves. John records the event because it had such a profound impact upon him, but I do wonder why only John records it? The other gospels focus solely on ‘the last supper’, the command to ‘Do this in remembrance of me’. John heads in a different direction. ‘Do this’, wash one another’s feet, ‘I have given this as an example, that you also do as I have done for you.’

Some churches literally do ‘Do this’. I get it, sort of. I suppose I am full of western squeamishness about other people’s bodies, let alone my own. And to do it just once a year seems powerful but also performative. If we’re to ‘do this’ shouldn’t we be doing it every week as with Holy Communion?

Just imagine. Ana would have a field day studying the archaeology of churches: they would take a very different shape if this was the action we had decided to perform at the heart of our worship rather than the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine. We would have bowls of water and laundered towels around the sides of the church. Running water in every church building; places to put our shoes and tuck away our socks. Perhaps the reformation would not have happened in quite the same way. Instead of fighting over the nature of the bread and wine we could have argued with one another over whether the water should be hot or cold; who washed whose feet, whether we washed the left foot first or the right and whether foot washing extended beyond the ‘regular’ congregation to occasional visitors.

All of which would have missed the point, because though the action is significant it is the attitude from which the action springs that we are to emulate. Speaking of Holy Communion Saint Augustine said ‘become what you see’ – the broken body of Christ given for others, the poured out wine, shared for others – ‘become what you see.’. So too, this foot washing is an invitation to imitate Christ in every part of our lives: to be as He is, to do as He does.

In his poem, Robert Hayden saw (albeit belatedly) the love that motivated his father’s actions. Everyday love. Everyday service. Nothing showy. Caring for his family and expecting nothing in return. This kind of love is all around us. I see it in you. Parents who carry heavy burdens for and with their children and grandchildren. Children who bear the weight of their parents’ failing powers. Husbands and wives who have learned the many different faces of love down years of faithfulness. People who have served and continue to serve this place and this congregation: tidying up, ensuring the bins are out and the kitchen surfaces clean, who (behind the scenes) have prepared and served and cleared away the meal in the Parish Hall this evening or have been preparing for our Easter celebrations , its music, its flowers and decorations, the Easter family Drop in on Saturday.

Beyond your families and this place you serve in the community. You sit and listen to children read in school. You turn up every week to ensure that there is a place for our toddlers in town to come and be with others, to learn to socialise. You serve as Trustees on charities and raise money for good causes. You call on your neighbour when they are unwell and call round with your car if they cant’ ‘get’ to an event. You send a card when someone needs encouragement. You are there. And sometimes thanks are offered and sometimes they are not. We struggle to say ‘thank you’ as much as we might struggle to strip off our socks and shoes every week. Why do we serve? Because He did. It’s what Christians do. Faithful, unshowy, constant.

I looked up the Muslim practice of washing and prayer: there’s a lot of teaching about it, different schools of thought. In Islam the believer washes themselves: their arms (up to the elbow), their feet, their face, nose, mouth and hair. The meaning of the ritual is different so I don’t mention this to put down another’s faith but Christians are called to wash, to serve, one another, having first been made clean by Christ. One Muslim writer asserts that the Almighty will recognise those who have purified themselves through prayer: ‘You will have a mark which other people will not have. You would come to me with a white blaze on your foreheads and white marks on your feet because of the traces of ablution.”

Maybe, maybe not, but I am sure that there is a particular beauty that marks those who have learned how to serve, that sets them apart. You see it. I see it. A strength. A dignity and (let’s use the word) a ‘Grace’ that doesn’t thrust itself forward, doesn’t need to be lauded or celebrated (though there is no harm in doing so) but sees the need and serves others.

Where we see this we are in the presence of Christ and this night above all nights we recognise His presence amongst us and with us and in us. And when we live this way we can be Christ to others. Sometimes recognised, often not, but loving and serving like Him, always, and to the end.