Closer and Closer, Part 1: The Stories Women Tell

John 20:1-18               

I heard a story this past week, about a church organist who was fired; in the middle of an Easter hymn he broke into an interlude of “Staying Alive,” that old BeeGees song.  Apparently, playing interludes – or flourishes, as they are called – between hymn verses was a breach of etiquette at this particular church.  But furthermore, it was reported on ChristianFunnyPictures.com, the choice of “Staying Alive” was theologically problematic, because Jesus did not “stay alive.”  He was crucified, died and was buried, before rising from the dead.

And that last part is, of course, the one true part of the story.  Most of the story is not true; but it’s a good story, right?

***

Many years ago, my parents moved into a nice rental house in a nice neighborhood.  This was shortly after I graduated high school.  Most of the years I was growing up, we had lived in town houses, in neighborhoods where they were all rentals.  They were ok; there was nothing wrong with them.  But this place was different; it was pretty nice.  I don’t know how they found this place, probably from an ad the owner had put in the newspaper.  And we didn’t know why he was renting out the house, he just was.

But nothing abhors a vacuum like the imagination.  My mother was great at developing stories, and she went to work on this one.  She asked aloud, “I wonder why he and his wife don’t want to live in this house.”  There must be a reason.  Perhaps this woman is his second wife.  Perhaps he lived here years ago with his first wife.  This was the house they bought together.  But then they got a divorce – it was very sad. 

He probably lived in this house after the divorce – she moved away, out of the area.  It was for the best.  Then he met another woman, and married again.  But she couldn’t, wouldn’t live in this house, the house of his first wife.  Even though it’s a really nice house, there were just too many memories here.  Of course, they couldn’t live here.  It was she, the new wife, who insisted that they find a new house that would be their home. 

And when she finished this story, it was a drop-the-mic moment.  Boom.  Her work was done.  Now we had a good story to fill in the gaps.  And it was such a good story; how could it not be true?

So, I’m thinking, this might be part of the reason women have been thought to be untrustworthy witnesses. 

Historically, we know, the words of women have not been taken seriously.  This is true.  In ancient Jewish history, an authoritative list of ten categories of people who are not competent to testify, women are at the top of the list.  Women were not believed to be reliable witnesses – And it wasn’t just a Jewish thing – it was a human thing.    

Throughout most of human history, women’s stories have been laughed at, scoffed at, and brushed off.  Sometimes for unfair reasons – the idea that women are too emotional, or too easily confused and led astray, for example.  But, it occurs to me, it might also be because women are good storytellers.  Stories are, in fact, important to women.  It is through stories that women tell their truth.

Very often, it is not enough to just state a fact.  Many truths need to be told as stories, so we can hear it and see it and feel it.  With a story, it’s like you are there, you know this truth intimately.  Joe Friday might want “Just the facts, ma’am” but women have stories to tell.  And the women had quite a story to tell about that Sunday morning outside Jerusalem.  So sit back and let me tell you the story.

Jesus was gone – his body was gone from the tomb.  It wasn’t something that anybody had been expecting.  Just the Friday before, his body had been taken down from the cross.  It was about mid-afternoon.  Joseph of Arimathea, along with Nicodemus, collected his body.  Nicodemus, you might remember, is the one who had once paid a late-night visit to Jesus because he wanted so much to understand but couldn’t understand, at least not then.  These two men carried his body out to a tomb where they would lay it, along with the myrrh and aloe for the embalming.  Some say Nicodemus carried more than 100 pounds of myrrh and aloe.  Most people would say that you don’t really need that much, 40 pounds will do the job.  But 100 pounds of myrrh and aloe – well, that is quite a burial, one fit for a king.

And so they carried the body and the herbs and spices and clothes to the garden where the tomb was.  It was Joseph’s tomb, actually.  He assumed he would be buried there some day, but on this day he could think of no better use of it than to lay the body of Jesus in it.  By the time they arrived at the tomb, it was near sunset.

The Sabbath was coming.  Even with all the events that had transpired this day, it would not be acceptable to violate the Sabbath laws. They certainly couldn’t be handling a dead body on this holy day, and they needed to be getting home on time for the evening prayers.  So Nicodemus and Joseph left Jesus’ body in the tomb, covered the entrance to the tomb with a stone, and they left.  There was nothing more that could be, or needed to be, done that day. 

Sunday, after the Sabbath, Mary rose very early so she could go to the tomb.  She was awake well before sunrise, in fact, so urgently did she feel the need to go and finish the work that had been started on Friday.  There were some other women there in Jerusalem too, women who had, along with Mary, accompanied Jesus throughout his ministry.  A lot of people think it was just that band of 12 men who followed Jesus, but there were women too – women who used their own resources to provide for him and the disciples. These women had been there at the very beginning, and they were there at the bitter end.  Some say that it was a few of them who went to the garden that morning – the other Mary and perhaps Joanna.  But, it might have been Mary Magdalene, all alone, who made the trip that morning.

When she arrived, she was shocked, numb, to find the tomb a dark, gaping hole.  The stone had been removed, the grave was open, and the body was gone.

What this could mean, Mary didn’t know.  She only knew that the body of her Lord was gone, and that she did not know where he had been taken and she was frantic.  More than anything else, she wanted to know where they had taken him so she could go find him.  Mary was not ready to let go of Jesus yet. 

And she ran back to the house where they had all been staying, and she burst through the door where the men were all gathered, and she said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”  Now, some say that they didn’t believe her, that the men just dismiss it as “idle tales.”  You know, the kind of stories women tell. And perhaps some of them did.  But not all of them.  Not all.

Peter and one of the other men followed Mary back to the garden.  And they saw what Mary had seen – an empty tomb.  They left, but Mary remained.  She still didn’t know what happened to him.  She looked into the tomb and saw two angels – they had to be angels.  Not everyone agrees about exactly what angels look like, but when you see one, you know.  She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Where is he? Mary wanted to know.  She asked whoever she saw, where is he?  Because Mary was not ready to let go of him yet.  Mary would not go.

And because Mary remained she was the first to see Jesus in the garden, in the flesh. Mary was the first evangelist, the first bearer of the good news, the apostle to the apostles.  

She immediately reached out to touch him, because Mary was not ready to let go of him yet.  But he said to her, "Mary, don’t hold on to me."  She had to let him go. 

She had to let him go so that that he could visit other people in other places and spread the good news widely.  She had to let him go so that he could ascend to the father – his father and her father in heaven.  She had to let him go so that she, and every one of us, could have him and hold him in our hearts, know him as our redeemer.

Eventually Mary went back to the disciples, her face shining brightly, and told them, “I have seen the Lord.”  She told them everything she had seen and heard.  Yes, the men did confirm what this woman had seen and heard, with their own experiences of Jesus.  But let us not discount the fact that this woman had been the first to bear witness to the resurrection.  Perhaps it was necessary that it be this way.  Because women are storytellers, and this is a story that had to be told.

 photo: Pueblo Storytelling Doll

Boot Camp for the Soul, Part 6: Celebrate and Wait

Psalm 118  

Matthew 21:1-11

Once I participated in a YMCA Boot Camp.  It was a five-days-a-week 6:00 am class, in which I had to do all kinds of things I don’t like to do.  Run, push-ups, sit-ups, run.  On the last day of boot camp, we celebrated: we got t-shirts.  That was our prize.  That was our celebration.  If you stuck it out and had no absences, you got a boot camp t-shirt.  It wasn’t much, but that was the reason I hung in there.  I just kept thinking about how I wanted that t-shirt.

I don’t even like t-shirts.  I rarely ever wear them.  And I think that particular t-shirt went in the next pile of stuff we took over to the Salvation Army.  But at the time I wanted that lousy t-shirt so bad.  It meant that I had accomplished something. It meant that I had done something hard and I succeeded.

The psalm we heard today prays for success.  The psalmist writes, “Lord, save us; Lord, grant us success!”  And we wondered a bit, at the roundtable, just what success means to the psalmist, to Israel.  Even, what does it mean to us to succeed?

It is a word we use quite a lot in our culture.  We talk about dressing for success, being successful in business.  The first definition of success in my Merriam-Webster is actually “achieving wealth, respect, or fame,” which surprised me.  It does say something about our culture, doesn’t it?  But even if your goal is not wealth or fame, success still means getting what you want, achieving what you set out to achieve, whatever that is.  If we don’t get what we want, we feel that we have experienced not success, but failure.  We put things in binary terms – something is either a success or it’s a failure.  Getting my t-shirt at the end of boot camp meant success for me.  But if I had not received my t-shirt, I would have felt a failure.

For those of us who are competitive by nature, it’s not success unless we are more successful than anyone else – first in the class, winner.  I have a nephew who was a star athlete and also a pretty good student.  Once he participated in a district-wide spelling bee and came in second place.  On the drive home, he quietly stared out the window.  His mother suggested they stop for ice cream to celebrate.  He turned to her and said, “I don’t celebrate second place.”  His standard for success was very high.

However you define it, you probably do celebrate, in some way, when you succeed.

The psalm describes a kind of celebration – a festive procession, a parade that begins at the gates of the royal city and ends in front of the altar.  There is thanksgiving to God, and the proclamation that God has been their strength and their salvation.

On the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem, there was also a celebration; again, a festive procession.  The parade began at the gates of the royal city.  The people surrounded Jesus, threw down their cloaks on the path, and cried out hosanna, which means save us.  It is the same word the psalmist used: Lord, save us; Lord, grant us success. 

Think back to last Sunday for a moment, when we told the story about the death and resurrection of Lazarus.  At that time, Jesus was summoned to Bethany, which is quite close to Jerusalem.  At the prospect of making that journey, remember his disciples expressed concern.  They reminded him that the people in Jerusalem, the temple authorities, had it out for him.  This much was known from the many encounters he had with Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees. 

Entering Jerusalem at any time might have been dangerous for Jesus, for that very reason. But now, at this particular time, it was more dangerous.  It was near the time of the Passover, a time when the city would be teeming with Jews from all over the diaspora, all making their pilgrimage to the holy city. 

The Roman authorities dreaded the Passover.  With so many people milling about, there was greater potential to disturb the peace.  The Romans prized peace above all things.  But for Rome, peace meant something different than what it means to me and you.  For Rome, peace meant their unquestioned, unchallenged authority.  For Rome, peace meant that there was no dissent, that there was total obedience and loyalty to the empire.  Rome prized their peace, and was more than willing to use violence to keep this peace.   The irony of this should be self-evident. 

The Romans dreaded the Passover.  But this was not only because of the large crowds; it was also because of its meaning.  The Passover was, and is, Israel’s remembrance and celebration of their liberation story.  Many centuries ago, Israel remembers, their God freed them from the bond of slavery in Egypt.  Many centuries ago, God chose Moses to lead them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and to the promised land.  They remembered that God had given them freedom.  But how could they celebrate this freedom, while suffering under the oppressive foot of the Roman Empire, and not be inspired to resistance?  Rome dreaded the Passover, because they knew there was a heightened risk of uprising.

And just as Rome knew it, the Jews knew it.  Jesus’ disciples knew it.  They were aware that it would be risky for Jesus to enter Jerusalem.  So, when Jesus said to his disciples that he would go to Bethany, they discouraged him.  They said, “Lord, the people there want to kill you.”  The disciples were often wrong about many things, but this time they were correct.

Nonetheless, Jesus went to Jerusalem.  And if he was at all concerned about arousing attention, or raising tensions, he didn’t show it.  Because he paused before making his entrance through the city gate, and he sent his disciples in search of a donkey for him to ride into the city.  A donkey.

There is important precedent for this.  It is in the Old Testament book of Zechariah, which sings of the triumphal entry of a king:

Lo, your king comes to you;
   triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
   on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

And so the people surrounding him, the people who had followed him in his ministry, the ones who adored him, laid down their cloaks, and shouted their hosannas, Save us, Son of David!  Save us, our king! 

During the time of the Jewish Passover, King Herod also came to Jerusalem.  He made a grand entrance through the northern city gate, on a war horse, with his soldiers, armed and astride their horses.  He was not there to celebrate the Passover; his presence there was to ensure law and order. 

Imagine King Herod making his grand entrance on one side of the city, representing the might of the empire, while Jesus makes his entrance from the eastern gate, near the Mount of Olives, on a donkey. 

Which procession will find success?

On this day, there was a celebration surrounding Jesus of Nazareth, as the people shouted hosanna, and lay their cloaks on the ground, a royal carpet for their king. 

Five days later, Herod would have this king on a cross, crucified for the sake of the Roman peace.  Which one would have success?

Today we celebrate.  But we know that Friday is coming.  The important question we must face is: do we know what we are celebrating? 

Are we celebrating Jesus’ popularity on Palm Sunday?  Are we celebrating that Christianity wins, because we have the most people of any religion in our country, so we win?  Are we celebrating because singing praise songs makes us feel good?  Do we know what we are celebrating?

Are we celebrating making it through the season of Lent?  So we can have an I-survived-Lent t-shirt? 

But in our celebration we are reminded that Lent is not an end in itself.  It serves a larger purpose.  Our spiritual practices during this season of Lent were not undertaken so we could get a t-shirt at the end.  There is something more. 

We are entering the final stretch of our journey.  This week that we begin with joyful celebration, will give us ample opportunity to grieve.  We will encounter the closest intimacy with death that we can have on our spiritual journeys.  At the end of this week that started with a celebration of success, we will be face to face with something that looks very much like failure. 

Last week I asked if we could look past death with God and see life.  This week, the question is the same.

May you finish this Lenten journey strong.  May your spiritual practices nourish you well this week because you will need it.  And at the end, may you see success through God’s eyes.

 Photo:  Some kids don't need a special reason to celebrate.