Rev. Debra McKnight's Sermon
Easter, 4.12.2020
Every
year we gather for the same story, not because we are boring, but
because it roots us in the essentials of who we are as people of faith.
We gather every year and share the story of Easter and the first lesson
is that different voices are essential. Mathew, Mark, Luke and John tell
the story of Crucifixion and Resurrection with the same truth and
different details. Every gospel begins Easter with Mary Magdalene at the
tomb; in Matthew, Mark and Luke she is not alone. It’s always Mary and a
group of women, many of whom are also named Mary. Sort of like Barbie
and the Rockers, these women hit the road together. In all of these
gospels they have women’s work to do, the caretaking of Jesus’ body -
because that’s what women do from birth to death is the tender, hard
work of caretaking. These women have been there for the crucifixion,
they have done the heavy lifting of grief, witnessed the violence - and
these women care for the body in love. Each gospel has angels; sometimes
there are two and sometimes just a solo artist; beings in dazzling
robes…sometimes they are sitting, standing…talking…chilling in the tomb.
But all of them, no matter how many or what they are up to, point to
the divine presence as boldly as an airplane being signaled in to land.
And yet…Mary and the Mary’s often miss them.
I
have come to love John’s story most of all. His Mary doesn’t have any
work to do, she just goes to the tomb in the morning like any one of us
would. She goes in grief. The men, actually powerful men, have done the
women’s work. Joseph of Aramathea used his connections to have Jesus
buried in a tomb, taken down from the cross. And Nicodemus, the one who
came at night, brought spices and ointments fit for a king. Even in his
burial, Jesus undoes the normal hierarchy. Mary arrives free to be
there, with no obligation. Mary Magdalene is a capable, brilliant
leader, and if you take nothing else from this sermon please take my
annual PSA: Mary has been sexualized by history probably because we have
so much trouble with women leaders...especially in the church. Mary is
not a sex worker and frankly it would be fine if she was. Pope Gregory,
apparently not great at fact checking, conflated two stories in
scripture and the narrative took off from there, which you can now find
in church windows and Dan Brown novels. But some historians like, John
Dominic Crossan, imagine her not as an age contemporary/love interest
but as a wise elder, perhaps funding Jesus’ ministry with money and
knowhow; an independent business woman from the fishing regions Jesus
was organizing. A woman with some experience and wisdom. Perhaps this is
why she is always at odds with Peter. Her presence pushes the disciples
and is perhaps why Paul said there is no male or female. Mary has been
sexualized over history, like capable women before her and ever since,
so we don’t have to take her so seriously. But we should take her
seriously or we miss out.
Mary
arrives in John’s gospel with her grief, free to be present rather than
driven by a to-do list. We arrive with her if we listen. Grief makes us
tired and weary; we can understand her loss and her eyes wet with tears
and her heart heavy. Easter begins with Mary’s grief; we can understand
this perhaps more deeply than ever as we are woven together with a
collective grief. Every evening we see the numbers of people infected by
COVID-19, the numbers of people dying, and the numbers of folks
recovering. Daily we see the brokenness of our systems and the violence
of crucifixions laid before our eyes with the stories of heartbreak.
Even if we are not personally grieving a loved one, we are heavy,
anticipating such a moment, and we certainly grieve a diversity of
changes and limits we previously could not have imagined. We gather with
Mary, weary with grief, heavy with loss and our eyes swollen with
tears. This Easter we know what it means to visit the tombs.
Mary
goes to the tomb and notices the stone; sensing something is not right
she runs for help and perhaps another set of eyes. The Gospel takes a
short comedic break on a dreary morning. Peter and the Beloved Disciple
race to the tomb like middle school boys and the Gospel of John has to
point out that Peter is slow, literally and figuratively slow. The
Beloved Disciple wins the race but pauses with care at the door before
crossing the sacred ground. Peter, true to form, barges right in with
total disregard for the boundaries he is crossing, I imagine him every
year, panting to catch his breath, hands on his knees as he looks around
and says, “Yep.” These two, presumably men, look around and confirm
Mary’s eyesight is working and then they leave. It floors me every time.
The man they love is gone, crucified by the most powerful empire on
earth, and now his body is missing and they are like, ‘Meh’ and head
back to the others. They don’t ask questions; they don’t try to make a
plan to recover Jesus’ body or strategize; it’s like they shrug and move
on to breakfast. Mary stays. Maybe she stays because she is always the
one who makes the plans, she is the one who has brought them this far,
maybe she stays to think, to ask for help and to investigate how to set
it right. Maybe she starts to wonder if Joseph and Nicodemus were really
trustworthy because they were closeted in their following…maybe she
should have just done it herself. There, in her grief and loss and
worry, two angels show up and she don’t even notice them until at long
last she sees a stranger she presumes to be the gardener and she begs
him for help. “Do you know where they have laid him?” she asks,
desperate for any information about the man that she loves, the teacher
she has followed and the person who has changed her life. And she hears
her name, “Mary.” Suddenly the stranger is transformed. She sees Christ.
Suddenly she senses presence where she expected absence, connection
where she assumed a stranger, and hope where she was in despair. Her
eyes are open. She tries to hold on and Jesus sends her to tell the
story. She runs to proclaim resurrection to the disciples. Crucifixion
is not the end of the story, life rises up. Where there were tombs and
despair and death, Easter happens. She is the first preacher of Easter’s
resurrection, and they don’t believe her. She doesn’t even have a
history of fake news at a press conference and they don’t believe her -
at least not yet.
The
disciples start to have their own experiences. They are all different
and the same, they are hazy, strange and mystical. Folks can’t quite see
at first glance. Disciples traveling on the road to Emmaus have the
same heavy eyes as Mary, yet in their grief they do what Jesus taught
them, they see a stranger and include them in the journey and the
conversation; they make him less vulnerable. The day grows into evening
and they invite him to stay the night. They offer hospitality and keep
someone from being vulnerable…just like Jesus taught them. And when the
stranger breaks bread, they see Christ. Resurrection is eyes opening as
life is springing up from the tombs and companions gather on the roads
weary with grief. When you least expect it, life shows up. When you
expected crucifixion to be the end of the story, life rolls away the
stone and sings out a new chapter.
As
we gather with Mary and those disciples on the road to Emmaus, we
gather more familiar with Good Friday even though we have celebrated
Easter for 2000+ years. We gather this year and it is easy to see
crucifixion. If we are honest it’s not just this year. Our bodies are
weary, our brains are good at remembering hurts and wounds perhaps to
protect us, and this Easter like every other, we know the stories of
brokenness. We know crucifixion so well, it can overwhelm us and make us
indifferent. We know the violence of poverty; it may not sound like a
gun or cut like a knife, but we know it kills. We know about crumbling
public schools and economic disparity. We know about our history of
white supremacy, redlining people out of possibility, crowding in our
prisons and separating families at our southern border in detention
centers that make a profit. We know crucifixion. And this year the
brokenness of our systems is lifted up before our eyes; our sins are
laid bare as the world halts because a tiny virus requires it. And while
the virus may not care if you are the CEO or the janitor, the systems
of support that give you a fighting chance often do. We see the
brokenness of our healthcare system exposed, we see this in statistics
every night on the news; the tests needed, the equipment shortages and
the reality that we do not even have enough personal protective gear for
our healthcare providers. The vast statistics represent real life,
hundreds of thousands of hearts breaking, like the woman in Detroit who
lost her husband and her son and couldn’t even have a hug at their
funeral. The bruised faces of doctors pleading on social media for more
masks, the people who need tests and the exhausted nurse who shared a
patient’s last words as, “who will pay for this?” Business are closing
and people are losing their jobs and folks wonder why don’t they have
savings; but we live in a world where three men have as much money as
millions combined and we haven’t done much to change stagnated wages and
the math of real life just doesn’t pay for most families who work a job
or three on minimum wage.
We
see crucifixion everywhere. It is laid bare before us. The thing that
makes us Easter people is showing up at the cross, witnessing the
crucifixion, and then being a part of something new. It means we go to
the tombs and we look for the divine at work, where the stones are
rolled away and the glimpse of light shines through. We see this in the
fashion houses transformed into PPE workshops and home sewing machines
making masks and gowns for the fight. We see it in big checks written to
food banks and health systems and in everyday people writing bigger
checks because it is a greater sacrifice. We see it in folks cheering
each other on, in folks staying home, in teachers making lessons so the
most vulnerable students might have a fighting chance. We see it in
advocates for domestic violence and our homeless shelters that are still
doing everything they can to make safe space for our vulnerable
neighbors. We see it in distilleries making hand sanitizer, love notes
on windows and sidewalk chalk, Zoom family gatherings, and creative
solutions popping up everywhere like those resilient spring flowers that
break through winter’s crust.
Life
is springing up even in the tombs of death, and you might be tempted to
say this is just looking on the bright side - like Easter is just about
focusing on the positive and ignoring the rest. But Easter people are
not just people who show up in a cute bonnet, fabulous shoes and a great
outfit where everything coordinates. Easter people are not just sweet
and nice and positive. Easter people show up and witness the crucifixion
to be a part of proclaiming resurrection. Easter people show up with
the masks they have made, turning every scrap of fabric into something
that gives life. And they ask, “Why? Why can we not provide the most
basic protection for our healthcare workers?” Easter people show up with
food for people who are hungry and ask, “Why? And what are we going to
do about it?” Easter people show up at the shelter and demand a
different future. Easter people are not just nice church folks who help
out once a month and then go home. Easter people relentlessly pursue
resurrection; we proclaim it in word and deed. Easter people show up in
our grief, our weariness and our uncertainty and we let our hearts be
broken so we can make change. Every year we tell the story of Mary
coming to the tomb expecting death and becoming the first preacher of
resurrection because she can’t be the last.
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