Lent 2025 Day 44

Karen Oliveto, Bishop and Leader
Acts 10:34–35 | John 13:1–35
 
On Maundy Thursday, we return to the table. We return to the towel and the basin. We return to Jesus, who bends low in love, kneeling to wash the feet of friends and betrayers alike. It is the night of the commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” It is the night of the meal: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Bishop Karen Oliveto knows what it means to be at the table and to be told you do not belong. In 2016, she became the first openly lesbian bishop in The United Methodist Church. Her election was historic—and controversial. Many rejoiced. Others sought to remove her. Through it all, Bishop Oliveto has remained committed to the Gospel of expansive grace and deep belonging, insisting that the Church is at its best when no one is excluded from the towel, the basin, or the bread.

In John 13, Jesus takes off his outer robe—his status, his dignity, his control—and kneels. He doesn’t ask who is worthy. He doesn’t make a doctrinal check-list. He serves. Even Judas, who will betray him, receives this act of love. Karen Oliveto lives out this Gospel of foot-washing service. Her leadership reflects Christ’s call to love with abandon—to welcome even those who resist our presence, and to bear witness to a kingdom where no one is too queer, too complicated, or too late to be loved.

In Acts 10, Peter’s eyes are opened to a wider Gospel. “I truly understand,” he says, “that God shows no partiality.” This is not a polite epiphany—it is a revolution of the heart. The Spirit has already been poured out on Gentiles, and Peter must catch up. Karen Oliveto challenges the Church to keep up with the Spirit. To see where God’s grace is already at work in LGBTQ+ lives, relationships, and ministries. To repent of the ways we’ve policed the table instead of extending it.

And yet, this work is not without pain. Maundy Thursday holds the tension between love and betrayal. It is a night of intimacy, grief, and holy defiance. Jesus, knowing what lay ahead, still chose to serve. Bishop Oliveto, too, continues to serve even as the institution debates her legitimacy. Her ministry bears witness to a cruciform love: poured out, misunderstood, and still rising.

She often speaks of the Church as a place where our differences are not just tolerated but celebrated—where all people, especially those historically excluded, are welcomed into the very center of communal life. Her vision is not one of assimilation, but of transformation. Maundy Thursday reminds us that the Church is not made holy by its purity codes, but by the basin, the towel, and the bread broken for all.

In a time when so many are questioning their place in the Church, Bishop Oliveto’s witness offers an alternative: a Church that kneels instead of judges, that feeds instead of fences, that washes instead of wounds. Her faith in a God of radical hospitality pushes the rest of us to ask: are we willing to love as Christ loved? Are we willing to be changed by the people we once thought didn’t belong?

Reflection:

• Where do you feel welcomed—or unwelcome—at the table of Christ? 
• How are you being invited to kneel, to wash, to serve in radical love? 
• What boundaries might God be asking you to cross in order to proclaim, “God shows no partiality”? 
• Who is still waiting to be seen, included, and fully honored in your community? 

Breath Prayer: Inhale: Love one another… Exhale: As I have loved you.

May this Maundy Thursday break us open to deeper love, wider grace, and the courage to serve without exception.

Amen.