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Reading: Matthew 26.17-35
On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Where
do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ He said,
‘Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, “The Teacher says, My time
is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.”’ So the
disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal.
When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve; and while they were
eating, he said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ And they became
greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, ‘Surely not I,
Lord?’ He answered, ‘The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will
betray me. The Son of Man gos as it is written of him, but woe to that one by
whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to
have been born.’ Judas, who betrayed him, said, ‘Surely not I, Rabbi?’ He
replied, ‘You have said so.’
While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he
broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ Then
he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from
it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for
many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will never again drink of this
fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s
kingdom.’
When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Then Jesus said to them, ‘You will all become deserters because of me this
night; for it is written,
“I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.”
But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.’ Peter said to him,
‘Though all become deserters, I will never desert you.’ Jesus said to him,
‘Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me
three times.’ Peter said to him, ‘Even though I must die with you, I will not
deny you.’ And so said all the disciples.
Picture: The Last Supper by Emil Nolde, 1909 (Copenhagen)
The artist and the painting
The painter of this week’s picture is Emil Nolde. Nolde’s real name was Hansen
and he was born near the town of Nolde, in the border territory between Germany
and Denmark in 1867. His family had worked the same farm for nine generations,
but the young Emil was clearly artistic, so he was apprenticed as a furniture
carver. As a young man his passion for drawing and painting, and his work as a
carver, took him to Berlin, Switzerland and Munich; but in 1900 he returned to
northern Germany and then to Denmark to try to find his own style.
His upbringing had been intensely religious and he was steeped in the Bible and
in the traditions of northern Lutheranism. By temperament he was a loner, and a
man of visionary and mystical character. At first he worked mainly with scenes
from nature, landscapes and portraits:
I had an infinite number of visions at this time, for wherever I turned my eyes
nature, the sky, the clouds were alive, in each stone and in the branches of
each tree, everywhere, my figures stirred and lived their still or wildly
animated life, and they aroused my enthusiasm as well as tormented me with
demands that I paint them.
Although he spent a great deal of time in isolation, living in a lonely
fisherman’s cottage on the remote island of Alsen, his work was highly regarded
by radical young artists in the major German cities.
He worked, as he described it, ‘without any prototype or model, without any well
defined idea… a vague idea of glow and colour was enough. The paintings took
shape as I worked.’ In other words he became utterly fascinated by a particular
subject and totally absorbed in the process of painting it: not eating, not
sleeping until the work was done. He had no careful plan; colour, composition,
everything came spontaneously from deep within his mind and heart and was worked
out on the canvas as he went along.
Most critics regard his best work as being the great series of biblical subjects
he painted in the period between 1905 and 1913, and our Last Supper is one of
these major works.
His later career is controversial. His leanings were always nationalistic and
politically conservative despite his radical approach to art, and like many
Germans in the 1920’s he was attracted by the Nazi movement and supported Hitler
in his rise to power. The new regime did not, however, approve of Nolde’s work,
which was banned from public display in 1937 and he himself was ordered not to
paint again. He continued to work in secret; and following the second world war
his persecution by the Nazi regime allowed him to distance himself from his past
as a supporter of Hitler and enjoy a high reputation in his last years. He died
in 1956.
Nolde himself said that his painting of the Last Supper had been particularly
traumatic:
I painted and painted hardly knowing whether it was night or day… I saw the
painting when I went to bed, it confronted me during the night, it faced me when
I woke up.
Often he no longer painted with brushes but simply used his hands or a rag
dipped in paint to smear the colour on.
He had no interest in recreating a historical scene. Nolde wanted to paint he
spiritual meaning of the scene, what was going on inside, beneath the surface.
Much influenced, as were many artists of the day, by so-called primitive art
from Africa and the pacific islands, his figures often have mask-like faces with
powerful staring eyes. His use of colour was intended in his own words to convey
‘the mystical depths of human-divine being’.
In the Last Supper he has brought all the figures very close to us. We have no
sense of a setting in space or time. We are drawn by the intense expressions on
the faces, an d above all by the central figure of Christ holding the chalice.
We notice too the powerful sense of fellowship, of community. The twelve are as
close to Jesus and to each other as can be: or rather eleven of them are. One
figure, Judas, is alone in the top left corner, turning away from the rest. But
the others are as one: they have arms around ach other, they hold hands, they
are totally absorbed by Jesus, who in turn is totally engaged with God, deep in
prayer as he gives himself to the Church in the Eucharist.
Matthew’s account of the Last Supper
All four gospels describe the last supper, the final evening meal Jesus shared
with the Twelve before his arrest. There are significant differences between the
four, but this evening we only have time to focus on the ways in which Matthew’s
account is distinctive.
The first thing to notice is the part played by Judas. In all four gospels Jesus
lets the Twelve know that one of them is about to betray him to the authorities.
In Mark and Luke the words of Jesus provoke a bewildered reaction from the
disciples, but Matthew and John make particular reference to Judas at this
point. Matthew describes all the Twelve saying to Jesus, ‘is it I?’ or, perhaps
more accurately, ‘surely you don’t mean me, do you?’ At first Matthew simply
mentions this as a general reaction: one after another each turns to Jesus and
asks whether or not he meant to refer to him. Then after a pause, Judas is
singled out, and Judas alone is mentioned by name. Judas asks the same question,
but there is a striking difference in what he says. The other eleven have all
addressed Jesus as ‘Lord’, ‘kyrie’, the Greek word which could simply be a
polite expression, but is the word which Greek speaking Jews used to refer to
God. But when Judas turns to Jesus he calls him ‘Rabbi’, ‘master’ or ‘teacher’,
a word you might properly use to address any religious leader or holy man, but
which is pointedly different from the way the others have spoken. Matthew
distances Judas from the rest. He is outside the circle already, and Matthew
draws particular attention to him as the one who hands his master over to the
authorities. Judas is the only one to have a personal reply to his question:
‘Surely you don’t mean me, do you, master?’, says Judas, and Jesus replies, in
effect, ‘You tell me’.
On the same theme of betrayal and desertion, Matthew ends his account of the
supper with Jesus telling the disciples that they are all about to … about to
what? The problem is that the Greek is hard to translate. The NRSV says ‘become
deserters’, other modern translations say ‘fall away’. The root of the Greek
word Jesus uses is connected with snares and traps, but it’s a rare
construction. It’s hard now to recover the precise ‘feel’ of what Jesus says,
but it is clear that he is saying that something is about to go badly wrong.
Their fellowship will be broken, they will all be scattered, and Peter, the one
who protests loudest that this will not happen, is even going to deny that he
knows Jesus or has ever had anything to do with him. Before the night is out
Judas will have betrayed him, Peter will have denied him, and the rest will have
run for their lives.
Matthew makes particular play on this breaking of fellowship. When Peter
protests, he has all the others back him up:
Peter said to him, ‘Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.’ And
so said all the disciples.
And when Jesus quotes from the prophet Zechariah, Matthew adds to the words of
Mark. Mark says:
I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.
But Matthew says:
I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.”
The twelve are not just sheep, but sheep who belong to a flock, a fellowship.
Similarly in Mark Jesus says, ‘You will all fall away,’ but in Matthew he makes
it more personal: ‘You will all fall away because of me’. The Greek may be
awkward to translate, but the point is clear: there is a fellowship, a
communion, bound to Jesus, but it is about to fragment. They will desert Jesus.
When their relationship with Jesus exposes them to danger, they will not stand
with him.
If Matthew emphasises the breaking of the personal bond between Jesus and the
Twelve, he also emphasises the power of the bond in his description of what
actually happens whilst they are eating.
Again we can contrast Matthew with Mark. Mark says that Jesus first took some
bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to ‘them’. Matthew says that he gave
it to ‘the disciples’: he underlines the fact that this is an action which
creates and consummates their relationship as his followers, an event which
defines and makes tangible their fellowship.
Mark has Jesus say of the bread, ‘Take; this is my body.’ But Matthew says
‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ It’s a tiny difference, but a significant one. The
disciple not merely takes the bread, but eats it and so allows the body of
Christ to become a part of his own body.
Then Mark says that Jesus took a cup, gave thanks over it, and they all drank
from it. But Matthew says explicitly that Jesus gave it to them, and told them,
‘Drink from it, all of you.’ The narrative is made more vivid, and the action
more intense; the disciple drinks from the cup in obedience to a command: the
act of drinking becomes part and parcel of what it is to be a follower.
Again Mark says of the wine that it is ‘my blood of the covenant which is poured
out for many.’ But in Matthew Jesus says, ‘for this is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’ The disciple is to
drink because of the nature of the drink, and the drink is not merely symbolic
of a covenant relationship but the act of drinking, of entering fellowship with
Christ, brings the disciple into the new covenant, into the kingdom, into the
communion with God which sin cannot threaten.
Finally, Mark has Jesus say, ‘I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine
until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’ But Matthew has Jesus
say,
I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink
it new with you in my Father’s kingdom
Jesus both emphasises the intimacy of his relationship with God, and the
intimacy of his fellowship with the disciples. The kingdom is his Father’s; and
when he drinks again it will be with them: they are promised a place at the
banquet in heaven at the side of Jesus.
Again and again Matthew intensifies what Mark has written. Matthew shows the
depth and reality of the bond between disciple and Lord. This supper, and the
Eucharist which follows from it, establishes and illustrates the fellowship
between Jesus and his followers, between God and humanity. The relationship
which God offers cannot be broken by human sin or by our death: there will be no
feast in heaven until we have all taken our places at the table.
A story with a theological point
In his account of the Last Supper Matthew contrasts the possibility of profound
fellowship with God with the way in which the bonds between the Twelve and their
Lord fell apart. We often talk in church lightly and thoughtlessly of
‘fellowship’ and ‘community’, so here is a cautionary tale.
Once upon a time, or at least longer ago than I care to remember, I was working
in the catering stores of St Luke’s Hospital, Bradford. It was only a temporary
‘gap year’ job, but I loved working there, I almost stayed at the end of the
year. It was like living in a novel by Dickens, full of real characters:
motherly old Mrs Appleyard, the cleaner, who dreamt of a golden retirement she
wouldn’t live to see, in a rose-covered cottage she could never have afforded
anyway; flash Joe, the porter who always had a better car than his pay could run
to and bragged about his Saturday night exploits; old Stan whose back was always
giving out for as long as his sick-pay lasted. One day I might try to tell all
their stories. But tonight just this one. The story of Brendan.
Brendan came to join our elite staff team when old Stan’s back finally gave out
for real. Brendan was a couple of years younger than me. An un-co-ordinated sort
of a youth: graceful as a floppy puppy on a polished floor, with the same look
of cheerful confusion on his acne-scarred face. Brendan and life’s advantages
were not well acquainted. He’d learnt a lot at school, but not much of it in the
classroom. His style icon and role model was a certain Bryan Ferry (Roxy Music?
It was along time ago!), and he was desperate to be cool and deeply attractive
to women. It was all a bit sad really, especially when he fell for a tall,
elegant, glamorous and all round eye-popping staff midwife on one of the
maternity wards. I remember a long lunch time chat between our boss, a worldly
wise and whiskery ex-policeman with a pipe, and Brendan, deeply smitten. Brendan
had sought out a man wise in the ways of the world, the father he hadn’t had,
because he was looking for advice on the best way to ask her out: the boss in
the end, realising it was serious, had to let him down gently: ‘Brendan, lad,
she’s a lady of class, and a lady of class doesn’t fall for a spotty faced lad
such as you, she goes for a doctor, a man of means and substance, with a ready
wit and a posh car, his own house and a certain style. You’ve no chance. You
can’t afford her. Forget it.’ That passes for fatherly and gentle in Bradford.
But Brendan was the eternal optimist: ‘You ‘ave to ‘ave hope, chief; you never
know your luck. What do you reckon?’ And already in his head the woman of his
dreams was telling him how she’d always longed to be swept off her feet by a
Bryan Ferry look-alike with a careless disregard for personal hygiene.
We came to love Brendan. You had to love him. He had nothing; nobody seemed to
care about him at home; his life seemed to be going nowhere. But he always
bounced back with a smile and a hopeless dream. He never meant harm to anyone,
but was always getting into trouble. He was like a toddler, grown bigger, but
not a day older or wiser. And we came to love him.
Then we found out when it was Brendan’s birthday, and instantly we all knew what
we had to do: we’d show Brendan how much he meant to everyone, how much we all
cared: we’d give him a party at work, the best and biggest we could fit in a
lunch hour.
Cakes were baked, banners made, cards passed round for signing, drinks
stockpiled in secret places, decorations bought, invitations passed in whispers.
Then came the day. The Boss sent Brendan off on an errand to the far end of the
hospital. We got everything ready. When he got back…SURPRISE! We all cheered
‘happy birthday Brendan!’… and then we stopped. Brendan wasn’t surprised, he was
horrified; not at all pleased, not the least bit happy. He just shook his head
and looked awful. He was confused, frightened, he couldn’t cope…the poor lad
just turned and fled and we didn’t see him again for a couple of days.
Brendan didn’t really understand why he ran, all he could say was that no one
had ever done anything like that for him before: he didn’t like it and didn’t
want it. He couldn’t handle the attention, the love, the outpouring of real
affection, the acceptance of a real community. He’d lived all his short life on
the edge of anything like that, not being much noticed, picking up a few scraps
of care and concern, but mainly dodging life’s cuffs and kicks. The party was
all too much.
Brendan couldn’t cope with human love, his life had been too hard, too empty,
too cold, too dark. When love came, he couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t receive a
gift because he had hardly ever been given anything before. It was too much to
handle; it was too hard to let go, all in an instant, of everything that life
had taught him, all he had learned to be. He dreamt and talked endlessly about
being accepted, being loved, but the reality was beyond him, and scared him. He
couldn’t receive love, he couldn’t share it, and all his relationships, even
with people who cared about him, were distorted and damaged.
Drawing the threads together
Emil Nolde painted in his Last Supper an image of intense fellowship, a
fellowship between Jesus and God. The expression on the face of Jesus, a face
drained and almost skull-like, shows both the depth of his intimacy with God and
the agony of his self-giving love. This Jesus is being emptied, poured out in
service: there is a flow of energy and love from the Father through the Son into
the world. But nothing is being forced on anyone. Jesus says take, eat, drink,
but you don’t have to, and Judas can’t.
Judas had broken out of the circle and is turning away. Like Brendan he can’t
cope with what is being offered and reacts, in a sense, with some integrity. The
eleven are drawn to Jesus and through him to one another; but we know it isn’t
real. They too are flawed, damaged, unable fully to understand and fully to
receive what Jesus offers them. They will protest otherwise, but having eaten of
his body and drunk of his blood, they will desert and deny him within hours.
They will run away.
We talk about love, fellowship, communion and community in our churches; but
Matthew’s account of the Last Supper, and its counterpart in paint from Nolde,
poses a real challenge to us. Is our fellowship any more durable than that of
the Twelve? Is there really any depth of communion with Christ? Are we
sufficiently whole as human beings to begin to understand what God is offering?
Do we protest too much that our discipleship is real and will endure, when the
truth is that it regularly fails the test? Can we face the truth that in our
heart of hearts we all, like Brendan, struggle to make sense of real fellowship,
true love?
Questions for group discussion or personal reflection
How do you react to the story of Brendan?
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Studies tell us that in 21st century Britain most adults have at
most only 3 or 4 relationships of any depth; that men often have fewer, and
almost always fewer than women; that few people have a strong, sustained and
positive experience of community. Does that ring true for you? Do you think it
has an impact on how we experience church life? Should Christians model a
different kind of community living?
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Judas betrayed Jesus, the rest deserted him. What is the nature of
our relationship with Jesus? How easy do we find it to engage with the reality
of God’s love? Does our relationship with Jesus have any parallel with that of
Judas or Peter with Jesus?
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What does the Eucharist mean to you?
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‘I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day
when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.’ Jesus will not drink until
we are with him at the feast. What does that promise mean to you?
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