Mary Magdalene Knew Darkness: April 20

Year C, Easter                                      John 20:1-18                                                                                                   Mary Magdalene is probably one of the most misrepresented and misunderstood people in the bible.  Part of the problem is that the name Mary, was the most common female name in the New Testament.  It is understandable that people might confuse her with the Mary of Bethany who is Lazarus’ sister and is the same Mary who poured perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped it up with her hair.  But it’s not the same Mary. 

A good example of common misperceptions 

Mary Magdalene is commonly described as a prostitute even though there is no evidence to indicate this is true.  It was mostly likely an accusation that was used to discredit her because people didn’t want women leaders in the early church. However, what really sealed her fate was the claim that Pope Gregory the Great made in 591 that she was the same Mary as Mary of Bethany, as well as the unnamed woman who was caught in adultery.  He based this on…absolutely nothing but his own assumptions.

The other common accusation is that she had some sort of romantic relationship with Jesus.  Because obviously a single woman could only be important to Jesus if she was romantically involved with him.  The only slightly negative thing in the actual Biblical text about Mary Magdalene is that she was someone who Jesus released demons from, which could mean any number of things.   

What we know about Mary Magdalene---because it’s in every single Gospel—is that she was at the empty tomb.  In three out of the four gospels, she is also present at the crucifixion, even when every other disciple (except one unnamed disciple who is only mentioned in John) abandoned Jesus to die alone. She witnessed him suffer on the cross, was there to mourn him, and then spread the news of his resurrection. That is the truth of Mary Magdalene. 

It would be hard to be a woman in ministry and not spend some time thinking about Mary Magdalene.  I have studied her over the years, but admit that I forgot she was the same Mary who Jesus banished demons from.  That story wasn’t convenient to the narrative I created for her, so I forgot it.  I wanted to focus on her strength and her role as a leader in the early church. Yet this week, as I considered  her place in the story of the resurrection, I realized that her demon possession made her role in the resurrection that much more profound. 

One of my favorite details of John’s Easter story is that it starts in the dark. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb….”  My day started in the dark today because of our 5:30am service, but I had electric lights to guide me.  I knew that when I got to the church, there would be people around.  Mary Magdalene walked where there were no street lights, no flashlights.  She was going to a tomb of a man who had been killed by the Romans. It was a dangerous place to be. We know this because in the Gospel of Matthew, there were guards posted at the tomb to ensure no one stole the body.

  In the other gospels, multiple women went to the tomb and they went with a purpose. They went to anoint Jesus. But in the Gospel of John, Jesus was anointed by two of his secret disciples right before he was buried. Mary didn’t seem to be going there to anoint his body. She was going there to grieve, to grieve alone.

The Gospels include many stories of Jesus exorcising demons.  Many biblical scholars have concluded that those who were considered possessed were probably suffering from a mental or physical illness, something that could not easily be described or understood. Mary was described as having 7 demons.  We can’t know exactly what that looked like, but I am willing to bet that this woman had known darkness on many levels.  She knew what it was to be controlled by something, to be alone, to be ostracized. She knew darkness.

 We in the church love to talk about light in the darkness, about light conquering the darkness. That is how the Gospel of John begins. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” Yet I wonder if in our desperation for light, we have lost the beauty and the wisdom that can come in the darkness.

When Mary went  to the tomb and saw that the stone was rolled away, she did the most logical thing. She went and told the disciples that Jesus’ body was gone.  She assumed someone had taken it. Because really, that was the most logical assumption.  The disciples needed to see it for themselves.  Peter and the beloved disciple (who by the way, we don’t know who it was) ran to the tomb. The text says, “(the beloved disciple) saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” That’s a confusing statement. What did they believe? It would appear, they just believed what Mary told them as they had now confirmed it.  The tomb was empty.  They did not yet know that Jesus had risen from the dead. They returned to their homes, but Mary stayed. She stayed alone outside an empty tomb because she was the kind of person who understood darkness.  She might not have liked it, but she was willing to sit in it for awhile.

            When the other disciples ran to the safety of their homes, she stayed and wept. No one knows how long. The text makes it seem like it was brief, but I imagine her staying for hours. Then she looked in.  When she first came to the tomb, it doesn’t say she looked in. It just said that she saw the stone was rolled away and immediately went to the disciples to let them know.

I think it took her some time to garner the strength to look in that tomb. It’s not easy to look in the place where your dead friend is supposed to be. It is not easy to confront our own grief. Because she took that time and stayed in that dark place, angels appeared.  Angels appeared and asked her why she was crying.  God bless her, she answered them kindly. (More than I would have done.)  She told them she was crying because someone took away her Lord and she didn’t know where he was.  Then another man, who she assumed was a gardener, asked the same inane question.  She accused him of taking the body.  She was bold. For a woman to be alone with men at that time was a risky thing. 

She should have run as soon as random men showed up asking her stupid questions.  But she stayed.  She stayed and spoke up, as she had no doubt done before.  Because of that…Jesus called her by name.  Then she saw him for who he was, not just the man who had freed her from demons, but her Lord and savior who had now defeated death.

            We all come to the tomb in different ways.  Maybe we come like Peter did.  We run as fast as we can, look in and see the emptiness and then run home and wait for a clearer invitation.  Maybe like the beloved disciple we find the courage to investigate but also return to our homes to wait for Jesus to barge in our front door.  Or maybe we have the courage of Mary to approach in darkness, get the wrong idea and then argue with people who try to help…but eventually drop our defenses enough, cry long enough— to hear Jesus’ voice break through the darkness. 

What I hope and pray, is that you will consider what your own approach to the tomb looks like, feels like, and sounds like.  What does holiness and rebirth look like to you? Where in your life do you need resurrection? Maybe it takes you awhile.  That’s ok.  If it does, I hope you will find some peace in the darkness because God comes to us in all kinds of places.  The more comfortable we are in the darkness, the more likely we are to find Jesus while those around us curse the darkness— the more likely we are to believe that there is hope, long before we see the light.  Light and darkness live side by side and as Christians, we find ways to live with them both.

Icons aren't meant to provide an accurate representation, but they do imply that this is someone who deserves respect, which is why I prefer this over most images. 

Learning to Change: August 20, 2017

Year A, Pentecost 11                                                 
Matthew 15:10-28                                                     

            When I was little and I heard the story of the birth of Jesus, I thought he simply dropped out of heaven. There was no real birth.  One minute the manger was full of hay and the next minute there was a baby.  I never thought of him growing up, being a toddler, or an adolescent.  Part of the reason is that the Bible tells us almost nothing about Jesus before he turned 30.  He was a baby.  Then he was 12.  Then he was 30.  Some people believe that there were stories about Jesus as a child, but they did not make it into the Bible because he was a child, doing childish things.  For instance according to these stories, when a child spurned him, he retaliated.  When he got in trouble for making clay pigeons on the Sabbath, he turned the clay pigeons into living birds, because he could.[1]  These stories speak of a child learning how to handle his power. It makes sense.  If Jesus was fully human, then he had to learn and grow.  He had to change. He was not born in the body of 30 year old, nor was he born with the mind of a 30 year old man.

There were also occasions where other people encouraged him to change. One example is the wedding feast.  It’s a familiar story.  They ran out of wine.  His mother asked Jesus to turn water into wine.  He said, no this is not my time. He did not think he was ready. His mother persisted and he agreed. He performed his first public miracle at the request of his mother.  Another example is our reading from today. Jesus had left his home turf and was in the region of Sidon.  This is important because this is an area that was populated by Gentiles, not Jews.  These were people that good Jews did not interact with.  The disciples had probably never been in a place like this. 

            As soon as he got there, a woman came to him, shouting “Have mercy on me Lord, Son of David, my daughter is tormented by demons.”  I am sure that he noticed that she was using the Jewish title for him.  “Son of David.” She knew who he was.  Despite that, he tried to ignore her. That was the easy thing to do, maybe even the polite thing to do.  He did not want to have to tell someone that he could not help her. 

Yet this Gentile woman, was relentless.  She could not take a hint. She kept coming at him and by now she had everyone’s attention, even the disciples.  They wanted him to just get rid of her. He tried. He told her the party line. He was just there for the people of Israel.  She could not be deterred.  She knelt at his feet…his feet.  There was no avoiding her.  He said, “It is not fair to take the children’s crumbs and throw it to the dogs.” That was what they called Gentiles.  Jews called Gentiles dogs because dogs were dirty.  They did not keep the purity laws. The children were the Jewish people, the chosen people.  His first duty was to the children—the Jews. 

            Instead of acting offended or lashing out, this woman chose another tactic.  She responded, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” She understood and acknowledged what no one else had. That even if he was meant to tend to the Jewish people first, there was more than enough mercy to meet the needs of the rest of the world.  Even the crumbs, the tossed off waste of his abundant love was enough….enough for her, her daughter, and the world. 

            And here is when it gets tricky.  Jesus, the all-knowing, all powerful Messiah learned something in that moment.  All along, he believed that he was there for the lost sheep of Israel.  They were his primary mission. Yet he saw something in this woman. He saw perseverance, courage, faith and knowledge.  She understood him and his ministry better than the Pharisees, perhaps even better than the disciples. She knew that his love was so great, so powerful, that there was enough to go around.  She helped him see something that he had not yet seen.  Because of that he saw not just a woman kneeling at his feet, but a beloved child of God who was ready to hear his message and experience his mercy. 

            The reason people struggle with the idea of Jesus changing his mind is that implies that he not was right to begin with.  It means he was imperfect, that he was not all-knowing. Yet I believe that he was that much more powerful because he was open to change.  He was willing to learn, willing to learn from a woman, a Gentile, willing to let go of a belief that one ethnicity was better than another, willing to accept that his love was without limit.  There was enough to go around. He did not have to wait for the Jews to accept him before moving on to the next group. He could start his ministry to the Gentiles now.

As a church, we are called to be disciples of Christ, to follow his example.  Part of following this example, is being willing to change and to let go of our prejudice and fear.  Our world is a scary place.  Just this week, ISIS killed 13 people and wounded 100 in an attack on a popular street in Spain.  They gave no reason.  You don’t need a reason when your heart is full of hate.

Before that we experienced our own terror right here in Virginia.  We saw a display of hate that while not unprecedented, was certainly a wake-up call for those who thought that kind of racism was a thing of the past.  When I was a on a mission trip in Appalachia several years ago, I was driving alone looking for one of our groups. I was lost because GPS did not work there.  I drove down a stranger’s driveway hoping I could get some directions. Instead I ran into a member of the KKK.  He was not wearing a white hood, nor was he burning a cross.  He just wanted to share that I had wandered onto the property of a clansman. I was terrified, and I am a white Christian.  I kept thinking, what would have happened if our African American youth was with me in that car. I told myself that this man was just some crazy guy in the hills of West Virginia. 

Yet just last week, we saw it on a college campus.  We saw in on our newsfeed, twitter, facebook.  Hate was on full display.  The root of that hate is the belief that one group is better than the other, that one group is more deserving of God’s love.  Two thousand years ago, Jesus started something. He started to dismantle prejudice.  He told people that they were loved, no matter what they looked like, or who they were related to. He told people that they were to love their neighbor and their enemy.  As his disciples, we are called to continue his work.  Much like the woman who was seeking mercy, we cannot relent.  We must persist.  Like Jesus, we have to look at the prejudices within ourselves.  While we cannot produce miracles, we can bring healing to our community and our broken world. The first step in that healing, is acknowledging the brokenness.  In our Eucharistic Prayer for today, the priest says, “But we turned against you, and we betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another.” Then we break the bread as a symbol of Jesus broken on the cross, as a symbol of our own brokenness. That is not how it ends.  The way the prayer ends is that we all come to the altar. We all partake in the love that Jesus shared.   We become vessels of his love and grace. 

As those vessels, we have a responsibility to carry that love and grace.  While God’s love and grace has no limit, each person has a limit to the pain that they can bear.  No Jew should have to see someone wield a swastika, a symbol of their intended annihilation.  No African American should have to hear racial slurs hurled at them. Sometimes God’s grace looks like us, standing between hate and the recipients of hate. 

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[1] The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: http://gnosis.org/library/inftoma.htm

 

September 4, 2016: Hard Truths

Year C, Pentecost 17                                                                       
Luke 14:25-33                                                                                    

             If you have read the September newsletter, you will know that we are starting a campaign here at St. John’s called the “Come and See” campaign.  It is based on a very simple concept, invitation.  The idea is that if you love your church and you love Jesus, you will want people to come and see what we are all about here.  It is our call as Christians to share the love of Jesus Christ.  That is what Jesus told us to do. After his resurrection and before he ascended to heaven, Jesus told his disciples to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”  They did and as a result this small group of people touched the entire world.  Christianity spread across the continents in a very short period of time.   Clearly, Jesus wanted and still wants the church to grow.

            However, if you read our Gospel reading for today, that does not seem to be the case.  It seems as though Jesus was trying to make his group of followers smaller, not bigger. The first line of our reading said that large crowds were travelling with Jesus. That sounds like great news.  People liked him.  People were following him.  His message was spreading.  This is what was meant to happen.  This is how we make disciples of all nations.  Jesus must have been thrilled by this.

 He did not seem thrilled.  Remember where we are in Jesus’ life. He was on his way to Jerusalem, on his way to his crucifixion.  He knew what was happening.  He had been trying to explain it to his disciples, but even the disciples, the people who were closest to him, did not appreciate what was about to happen—the horror they would soon experience.  Jesus knew that this large crowd was probably not in it for the long haul. 

He took an interesting tactic.  Instead of trying to encourage them or soothe their fears, he went for the unvarnished truth. "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”  Who here would want to sign on to that? Now you might think, well I am sure that there is something I am missing here and once Samantha puts it in context, well then I will be ready to sign on.

It’s true, Jesus was known for occasional hyperboles.  He liked to get people’s attention and speak on a grand scale.  He was a master story teller. I don’t think that was what was happening here. The word that seems to concern most people is the word “hate.”  God is love.  It says that somewhere in the Bible.  The Bible talks a lot about love and Jesus even said that we are to love God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  How can we love our neighbor as we love ourselves if we hate our family and our own lives? 

The word hate has a slightly different meaning than we expect.  It’s not an emotion.  When Jesus used the word hate, it probably meant something along the lines of detaching or turning away from. Jesus was not telling people they had to actually hate their family.  They simply had to detach from them.  They had to be willing to choose Jesus over their families. 

While that is better than hate, it’s still a pretty serious request, especially during this time.  Today, it is not uncommon to move away from your family for a job, a spouse, or just to start fresh.  In Jesus’ day, family was everything.  If you had no family, you had no support system.  If you left your family, you would most likely be ostracized by the community.  Not only was there a social and emotional impact, there was a financial impact. In these days, your economic well-being was dependent on your family.  Your family was you identity.

Why was he telling the crowds to detach from their very identity?  He must have known this was going to turn people away.  I imagine the disciples looking at one another and muttering, “There he goes again. This man is a public relations nightmare. We are never going to get more followers this way.” It’s true, most people shook their heads and walked away because this guy was just a little too intense.  We know they did. The crowds turned against him and demanded his crucifixion when that time came.  Even his own disciples were not able to follow him to the end.  Jesus was essentially saying, “Being my disciple, following me, is not an easy road. If you are not ready to choose me and make me the most important thing in your life, then walk away now.” That’s what they did. 

            I imagine that most mega churches are not preaching this text-- because they know it’s not popular. It will not appeal to the masses.  I have to admit that I was slightly relieved that this text was coming Labor Day weekend as opposed to next Sunday, Kick off Sunday, which is the day we have encouraged you to invite your friends.  These words of Jesus are not exactly a rallying cry.  These are Jesus’ words.  We cannot water down this text just because it is inconvenient to our hope for church growth and evangelism.  However, I feel like saying to Jesus, cut us some slack.  The church as a whole is declining.  Fewer and fewer people are coming to church at all and you want me to tell the people who do show up that they need to turn away from the people and things they love and focus on you? That’s not going to work.

            Here is the amazing thing, it did.  It had to or we would not be sitting here today listening to these words.  If these words turned everyone away, they would never have made it into the Bible.  We would not have a Bible.  It makes you wonder, what the secret sauce was.  How did Jesus create such a loyal following?  This answer is both simple and painfully difficult. He defeated death.  He was resurrected and after that happened he came to his disciples who had denied and abandoned him.  He returned to them and he gave them another chance.  Jesus was not the only one who was resurrected. 

When Jesus came back from the dead, he gave us all a second chance. He did not preach to the masses after his resurrection.  That would have been the easy thing to do.  It would have left no doubt.  No, he went to his disciples and he said, it’s your turn now.   He spent some time with them and then told them to make disciples of all nations.

            While that happened about 2000 years ago, in some ways we are in a very similar position here and now.  The church, especially in the United States gets smaller every year.  The fate of the Christian community rests with each us. We have the opportunity to live into the resurrection, this land of second chances.  You might think this is too hard.  It is hard, but it’s not impossible.  Consider the things that really matter to you. Perhaps you always attend your kids’ games, meets, recitals, or plays.  You never miss it because you care deeply about your child.  Or you rarely miss a sail boat race because that is what gives you joy.  That is what fuels you.  Or you take a walk or exercise almost every morning, or you never miss a Virginia Tech football game.  Most people have something in there life that is like that for them.  It’s part of their identity. 

Now imagine God being that important thing in your life.  This does not mean you do not have those other things.  It’s just that God comes first.  Here’s the thing.  If you are able to make God your number one priority in life, those other things in your life that you truly love, most of that will still happen.  Furthermore, those things will mean more than they did before.  If you choose God, you will not hate your family or your friends, your relationships will very well improve.  When God comes first, there less is space for anger, jealousy, and bitter emotions.  God fill that space with love. God is love.  By making God our number one priority, we share that love.  What could be more important than that?