<You are welcome to listen along to the sermon here. Sermons are like food for the soul, best ingested by the ear…>
Mark 16:1-8
1When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint [Jesus’ body]. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
On the Smallest Details and How God Doesn’t Send Anonymous Notes
My sons, Findley and Alistair, have taken to naming every insect they come in contact with. The names are not elaborate, mind you. It usually just involves adding a “y” to the end of the biological name: worm becomes wormy. Roach becomes roachy. Ladybug becomes Ladybuggy…which is fun to say, actually, and conjures up interesting pictures of 1800’s women in long dresses in horse and carriage for me.
The only exception to this seems to be spiders which just become dead in their presence because their mama isn’t raising no fools…
But this naming of things has become sort of a problem because, well, if you wondered about the lifespan of a worm on a driveway, I can assure you it is but the blink of an eye. And this small detail of a Y on the end of their names has become indicative of a deep connection, a relationship, for these kids who love to pay attention to these small details in God’s world.
So 3 year old Alistair one morning cries out, “Where is Wormy the Worm?” who they had cordially met and, crouching down on the driveway for a good long while, had a conversation with the previous day.
Finn, 5 years now, broke the news: “He’s dead.” And because he’s the product of his biologist mother he said, “All of his three hearts are dead.” Which is technically not true, Rhonda reminded me when I relayed this story to her, because worms have 5 hearts and they’re really just pseudo-hearts and that doesn’t really matter because Finn went on to say, “All things die. But he’ll be ok.”
All things die. But he’ll be ok.
There is not a more profound statement to be said on the other side of the empty tomb on Easter Sunday then that statement.
The assurance of Okayness in this world is no small assurance, Beloved. And not just in this world, but even past it. Because while the rest of the world will tell you to seek after fame, and fortune, to store up for yourselves treasures and large houses with many rooms and to eat drink and be merry because tomorrow you die, Jesus comes along and says to store up treasures moth and rust can’t touch and that God’s house has enough rooms for everyone so you don’t need to go on House Hunters and demand a room just for your house and Jesus says eat this bread that is me, drink this gift of my life, and that is all you need.
Because you will be OK, by God.
Opt out of the rat race, Beloved because you are not a rat, and though you might be a small detail in the expanse of the universe, God in your baptism has named you. Which means that God has developed a relationship with you and promises that, although you will die…and probably more than once, because we all experience mini-deaths all the time: deaths of relationships, deaths of status, deaths that look like addiction and depressions and poor choices and illness and mental illness, and the nastiest death of all, self-righteousness and even deaths you don’t choose because people kill us with words and actions and inactions all the time, right?…God promises on the other side of Easter that although you will die, in those little deaths and that final one, you will be OK.
You. You in your doubt and your fear. You.
And here’s the thing: although Mark’s Gospel this morning ends in this head-scratching way, with these women supposedly not telling anyone, here we all are on this Easter morning, knowing the story full well. Which means they obviously told someone! Which means, Beloved, that women were the first preachers and shame on those who say they shouldn’t be.
Jesus chose them to bear the Good News first…and if you want to talk about something that wasn’t expected by anyone in the world, it was that God would show up to shepherds and fisherman and a bunch of women and not the powerbrokers of the ancient world.
Which, for all of us who long to be powerbrokers or who are powerbrokers should give us pause; as I said before and I’ll say again, the story of God in Jesus is about powerless love winning over loveless power in the world.
But that resurrection love wasn’t anonymous; we know who those first witnesses were. They were not nameless, but rather a slew of Mary’s (and a Salome) who, although two thirds of them share the small detail of a Y at the end of their name, are obviously known personally to the writer, and, we can surmise, to Jesus.
Those names might seem like a small detail, but that’s only true because they are not you.
But what if they are you? Replace those names with yours and your family this morning, because we’ve all arrived at the empty tomb today, friend. Whether you were dragged here by your parents or partner, or whether you couldn’t wait to come, here you are now: a witness to the resurrection love of God.
So, I’ve been receiving anonymous notes lately. And usually I just throw all anonymous notes away. It’s something pastors learn early on: criticism that isn’t signed, or rumors and complaints with no name on them, go into the shredder. As Saint Beyonce (Saint Bae) said, if you like something put a ring on it, and if we want to complain we need to put a name on it. That’s true about everything in our life, by the way, not just church. The anonymity of social media is causing all sorts of death in this world, friends…
But these anonymous notes I’ve been getting lately I’ve been keeping…so if you’re the saint sending them, keep them coming…and don’t identify yourself, because this makes it all the better. Because these anonymous notes are like small confessions of one who claims they are trying to be a Christian, but have doubts about many of the doctrines and dogmas of the faith.
To which I say: join the club, sister (or brother).
Because here’s the thing that we learn about God on Easter: that while God cares about the details of humanity, God seems to not be so caught up with the details of their heads.
In other words: I trust that Mary and Mary and Salome had their hearts full of love, but they did not, it appears, have their heads wrapped around the idea that Jesus would resurrect, and perhaps Salome didn’t even really want to come and was dragged along by the other Mary’s like some of you (and dare I say, my own kids) this morning.
I mention all this to say to you that, in all reality, those first resurrection witnesses weren’t orthodox, weren’t believers, and yet Jesus rose for them, too…
These anonymous confessions are of one who feels unworthy, who feels they may not believe the right things, and their deep, heartfelt truth they type up grips me every time. Because in their questions they are closer to the women at the tomb than any super-believer out there who claim ultimate certainty and a steel tight belief system.
The women on that first Easter morning don’t show up believing any of it, and they appear to leave even more confused than when they arrived, and yet they found Jesus resurrected, too. And when you encounter resurrection like that kind that makes dead things live again it’s hard to be quiet about it.
But it’s possible. It’s hard, but possible.
Just because resurrection is for you and all the dead places of your life, including that last breath, you are under no compulsion to live like a resurrected person. You can continue to wallow in the death of gossip and greed and violence. We are perfectly free to love our conveniences more than our ecology, to give to our bank accounts and not toward the daily bread of others. We are quiet about resurrection by what we do not say and in what we do and do not do. Our lives usually speak volumes about death and whisper resurrection, if they whisper at all.
And, in fact, that can happen so often, we can internalize and take in stories of death in our lives and in this world so often, that we can forget that God promises something different for us; we can forget that we are loved and known by God, that we’ll be OK, and we can buy into the lies of death.
Perhaps that’s happened to you in this past year. It happened to me at times.
Easter is like a memory when we can’t hear the resurrection promise anymore. We become the people at Billy Joel’s bar singing,
“Son can you play me a memory? I’m not really sure how it goes. But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes…”
Well here you are, Beloved, in those younger clothes, your Easter best. And one of the reasons that we tell this story every. Single. Year. is because we too easily make resurrection into a memory instead of internalizing it as a reality. Resurrection life is for you. And it has nothing to do with always being happy and everything to do with remembering that the dead and resurrected one calls out to us by name, to raise us from whatever tomb we find ourselves in.
Jesus wasn’t just resurrected. God in Jesus resurrects. Which means Easter is not a 2000 year old memory, and it’s not meant for someone else.
In Jesus God has bent down to this driveway we call earth and named us all, and whether our lifespan here is short or long, or whether the space between little deaths that we experience is short or long, in the resurrection of Christ we learn that if there’s one thing that God specializes in it is making dead things alive.
On Easter morning we learn that God cares about the smallest details, small like Mary and Mary and Salome, and like Katy and Bobby and Ginny and Jimmy, and won’t let them go unknown by resurrection love.
Because God doesn’t send anonymous notes, Beloved. And all things die, but we’ll be OK.
Easter and resurrection is for you, and for this world.
Now let’s live like it and tell someone about it. Because it’s for them, too.
An Endless Falling 