Learn, Practice, and Perform

Jody Winston
Maundy Thursday – March 24, 2005

Sermon
Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.1
In High School, I participated in One Act plays that ranged from Geoffrey
Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.
Through the process of learning my lines, practicing with others, and performing
the play, I learned a universal way of putting thoughts into action. Perhaps you
have also learned the same lesson through art, music, sports, education, or life.
When we started a new play, everyone had to learn not only their lines but
also the lines of everyone else in the play so that we would function as a single
unit. After we had learned our parts, we then practiced in order to combine our
individual ideas along with the director’s interpretation. Finally, we placed our
learning and practice into action by performing the play in front of others.
If you have played organized sports, this routine of learn, practice, and perform
will be familiar to you. One must learn not only the rules of the game but everyone
on the team also must learn their individual parts for all the different plays. The
entire team needs to practice together so that everyone learns how the players and
the coaches work as a group. All of this learning and practicing only pays off
when the team gets to perform against other teams.
The method of learn, practice, and perform is found in today’s Gospel reading.
Jesus tells us that we must know His will,2 that we must practice His command-
ment,3 and that we must perform acts of love for the entire world.4 We do all of
1
Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians
1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3.
2
John 13:12, 15, 17.
3
John 13:15, 17,35.
4
John 13:35.

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these actions to give God the glory.5
When Jesus gives His followers the commandment to love others as He first
loved us, Jesus expects us, His followers in this age, to learn this commandment.
On one level, to learn how to love as Jesus loved means that all of Christ’s follow-
ers need to know this commandment. This knowledge can be obtained through
rote memorization. We can practice the sentence over and over again: “Just as
I have loved you, you also should love one another.” On another level, learning
this commandment means that we need to understand Christ’s love for everyone.
When we look at the depth, the breadth, and the height of Christ’s love for us, we
will soon realize that our entire life needs to be devoted to others so that we can
love as God has commanded us. The learning of God’s command to love others
as God has first loved us does not imply in any way, shape, or form that we need
to comprehend God before God accepts us. Peter’s insistence that the L ORD not
wash his feet and Christ’s answer that bathing was required simply tells us that
we do not have to understand God because God will, if God desires, in God’s own
time, explain His actions to us.
Jesus not only tells us that we need to love others, but He also shows us one
specific example of this type of love by becoming our slave and serving us. In
this action, which is upsetting because we have the God serving creation, God
illustrates to the universe the kind of love that God has for all of creation, including
those who will betray His only Son.
Because God knows how hard it is to serve those around us, God has given
us the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Church. The Holy Spirit is the One who
teaches us how to serve and leads us to those who need our love. The Church is
where we learn about God and it provides us a place to practice showing love to
others.
The final part of this process is performance. For many of us, performing the
play, whether on the stage or the field, is frightening. This fear is normal because it
shows that we understand the consequences of our actions. But just like any good
director or coach who works us through our fear, Jesus Christ is there helping us
in our darkest hour.
To perform Christ’s command, we must take what we have learned and what
we have practiced and put it into action outside of the saftey that these four walls
bring us. All of us need to “just do it.”6 We need to take what has been given to
us and give it away to others.
5
John 13:31b-32.
6
My apologies to Nike for using this advertising phrase with out their permission.

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 The results of a well executed play could be fame, fortune, and your name in
lights on Broadway but the more likely outcome will be the knowledge of a job
well done. Likewise, the results of a well-played game could be a Super Bowl ring
and a commentator’s job on ESPN but the more probable result is the satisfaction
of a well-executed game. Jesus tells us that we will be blessed for knowing His
commandment and doing it.7 Just like with the play or the game, our reward might
bring us recognition or money but a more than likely ending is that we will know
that we have done the L ORD’s will and have given God the glory.
In acting, the director knows that the play will fail if the actors do not follow
the time tested process of learning, practicing, and performing. In sports, the
coach knows that the team will not win games if they do not first learn how to
play and then practice playing the game. If you try to practice before you know
how to play the game, all that you will learn are bad habits that you will have to
unlearn later. The same pitfalls apply for followers of Christ. If we just learn that
we need to love others but then do not do it, we have fallen short and we have
not kept the L ORD’s command. When we only do what ever we want, instead of
doing what Jesus has taught us, the world will see our bad habits and they will
know that we are not following Jesus. And if we do not perform acts of love in
the world, the world will not know God’s Passion for the world.
Even when we fail and betray Christ when we do not perform Christ’s com-
mandment to love others as we are loved, Christ still loves us.8 Even when we are
too weak to practice this love in the safety of the Church, Jesus has chosen us to
be with Him.9 Even when we do not learn His commandment, He still accepts us.
He loves us to the end, even though He knows that we all will fail Him.10
For a play or team to be successful, they must continually learn what they
are to do, they must practice this action over and over again, and then they must
actually perform in front others. God is asking Christians to do the same things:
to learn God’s commandment to love others as we are loved by Jesus, to practice
this commandment, and then to perform this commandment so that God may be
given the glory.
We know that in the end, we will be successful because God has promised us
the Scriptures will be fulfilled. But this success will not come from our own doing
because we are too weak to keep up the routine of learn, practice, and perform.
7
John 13:17.
8
S.D.B. Francis J. Maloney; S.J. Daniel J. Harrington, ed., The Gospel of John, Vol. 4, Sacra
Pagina Series, (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1998), p. 384.
9
John 13:18; Ibid., p. 380.
10
John 3:11; Ibid., p. 381.

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Just ask any director or coach about willpower if you do not believe me. Instead,
success will come because God will give us the power to do God’s will.
“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.”

References
Francis J. Maloney, S.D.B.; Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., ed.. The Gospel of John.
Vol. 4, Sacra Pagina Series. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press,
1998. ISBN 0-8146-5806-7.