To Be Continued...

Here is my Easter Sunday Sermon, I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to get it up here, but I've responded to the business of late March/early April by slowing down for the last week or so, and haven't gotten around to getting things posted. It's title is "To Be Continued..." and the passage is Mark 16:1-8.

     

In the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, there’s a funny exchange about the famed pirate ship the Black Pearl. Upon hearing the ship arrive and attack, Captain Jack Sparrow says,  “I know those guns! It’s the Pearl…”

The man with him replies: “The Black Pearl?  I’ve heard stories. She’s been preyin’ on ships and settlements for near ten years. Never leaves any survivors.”

            “No survivors?” Jack replies. “Then where do the stories come from, I wonder?”

            In the earliest manuscripts of Mark, the book ends with our passage for today. Two women, fleeing from the tomb, and the phrase, “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” This is a particularly unsatisfying ending. It’s a paradox, of course, for if the women really didn’t say anything to anyone about it, then how did Mark come to know what happened to tell us? But Mark leaves the story right there. Like when you are watching a television show, and just as they seem to be about to resolve the drama, it freezes, and “to be continued…” show up at the bottom of the screen. This drives me crazy, the realization that I’ll have to wait until next week for them to resolve this plot line.

But in this case, it’s even worse, because in spite of the incomplete nature of Mark’s gospel, this giant “to be continued…” at the bottom of the screen, nothing else is coming.  It’s unsatisfying, to us, because the story seems unfinished. 

            So unfinished, in fact, that later scribes added their own endings, which you will find in your Bible in brackets, the shorter ending of Mark, and the longer ending, which began appearing on copies of Mark about a hundred years after it was first written. Each of them wraps the story up a little bit, adding on resurrection appearances which occur in the other Gospels, and closing up the loose ends given in Mark’s “to be continued…”   

            I can see how this would happen. A scribe, laboriously copying the Gospel by candlelight, gets through verse 8 and looks for the next part and realizes this is the end. And he says, that can’t be right, and adds a few verses, based on what he remembers from the other gospels. These later endings relieve us of the tension, relieving us of the logical paradox and giving the story an ending so that it wouldn’t seem so incomplete, missing any appearance of the resurrected Christ. But I think Mark wants to leave us with an unfinished story. I think Mark wants us to be a little bit uncomfortable. Mark wants us to feel the tension of the unfinished “to be continued…”

            See, this kind of uncomfortable situation happens often in Mark.  The people who ought to see and believe somehow do not. In spite of being told over and over again, Jesus’ disciples didn’t get it. [Peter, the first disciple mentioned in the book of Mark, denies Jesus three times. James and John, who were brought up to the mountaintop to see Jesus transfigured with Moses and Elijah, request extra glory in the kingdom of God. ]

            It’s not as if Jesus is unclear about the plan. In chapter 8, verses 31, it says, “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Immediately after that, Peter pulls him aside and rebukes him, telling him not to spout that kind of nonsense around.

             

            Jesus tells the disciples again, in Chapter 9, verse 31, which says, “for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’” But the disciples spend the next few minutes arguing over who is the greatest, as if their teacher hadn’t just declared that he would be rising from the dead sometime in the near future. 

            It happens a third time, and I’m not even sure I need to tell you about it, because by this point it is so clear to you, but it is not to the disciples, so here goes. Jesus, in Chapter 10, verse 33, says, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” Immediately after this story, the disciples still don’t understand. James and John come to request extra glory in the kingdom of heaven.   

            It’s like when I was a freshman in high school I had to read the Charles Dicken’s novel, Great Expectations. And I hated it. It wasn’t Dicken’s writing, wordy and hard to understand, though it was. It was that every single time the main character, Pip, would come to a point in his life where he needed to make an important decision, he would make the exact wrong call. And it was incredibly frustrating. As I worked my way through the book, I got angrier and angrier at Pip, watching him make mistake after mistake, almost yelling at the book, “Pip! Are you kidding me! There’s no possible way that could work out for you! What are you thinking!” 

            Or when watching a horror movie, and someone is alone in the house, and the power goes out and spooky things start to happen, and then they hear a noise and decide to go down into the basement to check it out. Don’t go down into the basement! How can they not see what we see? How can they not understand what is so obvious to us?

            This is what the disciples do over and over again in the book of Mark. It’s almost frustrating to watch, as Jesus becomes more and more clear about what is going to happen, and the disciples still manage to misunderstand or ignore it. It makes you want to grab them by the shoulders and say, “Peter, come on, dude! He’s telling you the answers!  It shouldn’t be that hard!” 

            But this is how Mark writes his gospel, all of the ones who should see, do not. And the ones that do see, are exactly the ones you wouldn’t expect. There are the demons legion, who proclaim, “I know who you are,” as Jesus casts them out. But they can’t exactly be counted on to proclaim the story of Christ. There was the Roman centurion, who said, as Jesus was being crucified, that truly this is the son of God. But he was crucifying Jesus when he said that. And as a Roman soldier, he’s not exactly the one to go proclaiming to the world that Christ is the Messiah. 

            The reason Mark does this is to call us to a greater response to the resurrected Christ. Mark intentionally leaves us in these unsatisfying situations so that our dissatisfaction might turn into action. He uses the failure of those who ought to see, and the unlikeliness of those who do see to call us to the realization that someone must see, and understand, and follow. And who is left? If the ones who ought to see and understand do not, and the ones who do understand are Romans or demons (which, at the time of Christ, were roughly equivalent in social stature for people living in Palestine), who is it that can tell of what happened there? If the women who saw the empty tomb do not tell of what they saw, who can proclaim it? If Mark leaves his gospel unfinished, with a “to be continued..” who will finish the story?

Us.

This is the point of Mark’s gospel. This is why it ends abruptly, unfinished, with a sort of “to be continued…” that does not get resolved. Because Mark is calling on us to see and understand, to recognize the significance of what has happened and to act on it, to continue the story. 

            It is our calling to finish the story that begins with the empty tomb. It is our calling, to proclaim what we have seen and heard, to be the resurrection in the world, to go out into the world with Christ in our hearts and on our lips, forever praising God that Jesus Christ is risen, and so shall we be also. 

            Listening to the declaration from the man in white, sitting inside the tomb helps direct us as to how we should do it. . He tells us to go to Galilee, and expect to find the risen Lord. The end of Mark’s Gospel points us back to the beginning. Galilee is where Jesus did ministry. Galilee is where people who were blind received their sight, where demons were cast out, and people were healed by the touch of Christ’s hand. Galilee is where Jesus preached a Kingdom of Justice, Righteousness and Reconciliation. 

            This is what we are called to. We are called to go to our Galilee, and continue the story. To give sight to those who are blinded to the ways of salvation. To cast out the demons of sin and selfishness and despair. To heal people with loving hands and warm embraces. To preach Christ’s message of justice and righteousness and reconciliation. To proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand.  We are called to go out to our Galilee, the place in our lives where we are called to minister, and be Christ’s body to everyone we meet, continuing the story that begins in the empty tomb.

            We’re called to go to Galilee and prepare ourselves for the arrival of the risen Christ, and fill you up with the glory of the resurrected Christ, with joy, and power, and passion, and eternal life, for just as the stone was rolled aside from Jesus’ tomb, so have the stones been rolled aside from all that entombs us in our lives, from sin, and death, selfishness and weakness, hopelessness and despair. 

            Friends, Mark’s gospel ends abruptly with the empty tomb, but this is where our story begins. Christ is Risen. The Stone has been rolled away. The kingdom of God is at hand. Believe it, and proclaim it to the ends of the earth. Continue the story of Christ in your lives, in wonder and amazement, in excitement and joy, in celebration of what happened on this day thousands of years ago, that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and we will meet him in Galilee.

Holy Week

This is a homily I gave on Holy Wednesday. It comes out of a story by Carol Howard Merritt on Christian Century (or really on www.christiancentury.org) . You can access that story here: http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2012-03/love-and-lent. The text that I used for this particular homily was John 13:1-20.

Carol Merritt was 15 years old. It’s that age where you’re old enough to know that something is going on, but not old enough that anyone would ever consider telling you what it is. But there was definitely something going on. 

Carol hadn’t been in church that morning, but she knew that people at church were very upset. Her mother was on the phone all afternoon. She heard snippets of conversation, and slowly began to piece together what had happened. “I think he wanted to get caught” she overheard her mother say on the phone. 
“I saw him in the parking lot with her the other day.”
“What are we going to do?”
“He said in the sermon that he wants to “move on” 
“There’s a meeting tonight, elders and leaders. No, I won’t be there. But my husband will.”
Slowly, Carol began to piece together the story. Their pastor had had an affair, and confessed it in his sermon that morning. He said that he’d succumbed to “temptation,” as if it were just another obstacle in his path, instead of the reality, that he’d thrown his family and his church family into chaos. He said that he was ready to move on, but the congregation was only learning what had happened. They wanted facts, details, explanations. The scandal would not soon be over.

Carol wrote about this experience in the Christian Century magazine a few weeks ago. She talks about how her mother paced around the kitchen that Sunday, after her Dad had gone to the elder’s meeting. And then, she says, her mother picks up a big basin, and puts some of the family’s plushest towels in it. And she shouts. “Car-o! Let’s go!” And piles the kids into the car.

The parsonage is about 30 minutes away. Her mother let herself in. Margaret was sitting in the living room. She’s sitting quietly in the dark room, breathing deeply. Carol’s mother silently goes into the kitchen and fills the basin full of water. She sets it down beside Margaret, and takes off Margaret’s slippers, placing them gently on the floor beside her. Without a word, her mother takes Margarets feet, slips them into the warm water, and begins to wash.

The tears begin to flow immediately. They all know what will happen tomorrow. Being the spouse of a pastor involves living in a spotlight that you never asked for, accepting attention and expectations that you never sought. Working through a spouse’s unfaithfulness is a daunting assignment. But when it happens publicly, in a spotlight you never wanted, the betrayal is much greater.

People would talk about Margaret tomorrow. The most intimate aspects of the affair would be public. People would wonder what was wrong in the relationship. They would declare themselves too smart for this to happen to them. They would imply that Margaret was too cold or uninteresting to keep the attentions of her husband. They would say that she was weak for staying, or cruel for leaving. Tomorrow. In the midst of a painful family drama played out for the whole world to see, Margaret would have to evaluate everything. His lies, her reputation, his job, her financial situation, her children, even who were her friends. Tomorrow.

But tonight, Carol’s mother took Margaret’s feet, lifted them out of the water and dried them of water and tears, then placed them on plush towels. Tonight, she wanted Margaret to know that she was loved, even in the midst of painful betrayal, cherished to the ends of her toes.

    On the night that Jesus died, he gathered a big basin and tied a towel around himself. He knelt down before each of his disciples, even the one who was to betray him, and washed their feet. This was a common practice in the Mediterranean world, where sandals were the most common form of foot protection, and the dust from roads and streets would cling to people’s feet. But it was for servants, or slaves to do, not teachers. The master of the house did not wash the feet of the slave, nor the teacher his students. But Jesus did. Though he was their master and teacher, he knelt down before them as a servant, and he taught them to do the same. Peter fought it, he argued  with Jesus, and I think we understand him. One of the hardest things to do in life is sit back, and let yourself be loved. And so Jesus washed his disciples feet. He knew what would happen tomorrow. The wounds, the suffering, and worse, the betrayal. But that night in the Upper Room he declared that they were loved, cherished to the ends of their toes.

Friends, we’ve seen what people can do to one another, even in church. We’ve seen people get hurt in the church, or be hurt by the church. In fact, I’d hazard a guess that most of us, at some point or another in our lives have been on both sides of it. We’ve been hurt, and we’ve hurt others. And if not, we’ve heard stories about it,
 “So-and-so doesn’t go to church anymore since they said that about her son” or
“We appreciate the suggestion but you know after what happened we can’t put those two on a committee together.”
And even more often you don’t hear about it, people bear their wounds silently, slowly drifting away from the community, until eventually their gone.

Why do we do this to each other?  I don’t know. The Calvinist in me says that it’s because we’re inherently broken. That as humans, we’re selfish, and we behave carelessly with each other’s feelings because in our limited human nature it’s hard to see beyond our own troubles to understand another’s. Or perhaps it’s that the world is just so dirty and messy, that we can’t help but track some mud into our churches. And perhaps, just as Mom would make my brother and I take our shoes off before coming into her house, Jesus is telling us to take off our sandals, and wash each other’s feet, because we are standing on holy ground.

There is an intensity and a power to what Jesus did in the Upper Room that night. He takes on the role of a servant, and tells us that we should follow his example. That we should wash one another’s feet. He does so not only for his favorite disciples, or the most righteous, but each and every one, including the one who was to betray him. Jesus tells us that in the midst of pain, in the midst of suffering, we are to wash each other’s feet. We are to serve each other, to love one another as Christ has loved us, even to the ends of our toes. If we do so, perhaps we can find it within ourselves to see past our own hurts to the incredible mercy of Christ’s saving grace.

There is an intensity and a power about the way Carol’s mother goes to Margaret’s house when the rest of the congregation is going to a meeting at the church. While others clamor to figure out what has happened, to piece together details into a story, to assign blame and judgment, she goes to where the wound cut deepest, where it hurt the most, bringing nothing but love, a big basin, and soft towels.

It’s a reminder, of what Jesus did for his disciples on his final night, of how we are called to minister to those who need it the most, to go where others do not think to go, to be reminders that no matter what happens tomorrow, you are cherished, down to the ends of your toes.

Carol says her faith was formed that night, a fifteen year-old-girl watching her mother wash Margaret’s feet. Not by sinfulness and accusation, but by the love between two sisters in Christ, and the reminder that no matter what happens tomorrow, you are loved to the ends of your toes. So let us also be formed by what has happened, in Margaret’s sitting room and in that Upper Room. As Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

No matter what happens tomorrow, let us serve one another as ministers of Christ’s grace to each other. Let us love, even in the midst of betrayal. Let us go to where the wounds cut deepest, tending the wounded in our church and in our world. Let us let each other know, through our actions today and every single day, that as God’s children we are cherished, even to the ends of our toes.