Sunday, April 26, 2015

That 4-Letter Word

April 26, 2015
Kim Kardashian at her daughter's baptism.  
1 John 3:16-24
16We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
18Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before God 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything. 21Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
23And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.


Sermon: “That 4-Letter Word”
I am so excited, y’all.  I’ve found a new role-model in Christianity!  She went all the way to Jerusalem to have her son baptized, and even visited the place legend says Christ’s was buried.  She mentions God sometimes, and definitely knows her Bible: she can quote John 3:16 and everything!
Do you want to know who my new faith role-model is?  Kim Kardashian.  Yep.  That celebrity made famous from a less-than-reputable video once-upon-a-time, whose family is reality show royalty, follows Jesus.  Well, I mean she took an Instagram photo at her son’s baptism, so I think that means she’s a Christian.  It’s really easy in our country to say you’re a Christian in a very public way.  It’s easy to recite John 3:16 like the password to get into a members-only club.
Kim actually is a role-model for many.  (I’ll admit this makes me a little sad.)  She recently released a book called “Selfish” which is made up entirely of 365 selfies (that is a self-taken picture) of her, one for every day of the year.  The first 500 autographed copies sold out in under a minute for $60 each.  That’s $30,000.  She lives up to that title, too, because she recently bought herself a $407,000 2015 Rolls Royce Phantom.  As you do.  But she knows John 3:16 by heart.
Clearly, knowing John 3:16 just isn’t enough.  Our text today reminds us that John 3:16 also needs 1 John 3:16.  You see, if John tells us what the gospel is, 1 John tells us why it matters: how it changes the way we live, now in this life.
We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

It’s certainly good to know that God loved the world so much that Jesus would come and die and rise again that we would have eternal life.  But if that knowledge becomes only something we wave like a golden ticket into heaven – or something that gets us more Facebook friends or instagram followers-- we miss the abiding, heart-changing truth there. 

If we are worth Jesus laying down his life for, so is every single person on the planet.  And if God thinks they’re worth dying and rising for, so should we.

1 John makes it clear:  How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
In the Greek it is stated even stronger, asking how God’s love can possibly abide in someone who sees their brother or sister in need and shuts their heart to them.  Not helping when we can goes against the heart of the gospel.  But closing our hearts to need and injustice to the extent that we don’t even see it or feel it: this makes a mockery of the gospel. 

Like a patient teacher wanting to be sure we really get the point, 1 John urges us,

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

It is not enough to say we’re a Christian, no matter how publicly we do that.  Words and speech: our world has plenty of this.  Too much, actually (says the preacher as I preach!).  Truth and action is what we really need. 

All the words we say in this place: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…the peace of Christ be with you, and also with you”…these words have no power if we don’t translate them into loving action.

If we think we can love God without loving our neighbor, we might as well write our own “Selfish” book. 

Embodying that 4-letter word requires much more of us than just reciting a Bible verse (even if it is a great one).  It requires much more than just wearing our Christianity like a label on our ballot or a hashtag on our instagram.  It requires that we actively love as completely as our Risen Lord does: laying down our wealth, our privilege, our pride, our very lives for others. 

Sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it?  Sure, I can let someone into my lane in traffic, I can say “good morning” to a stranger and I can even be intentionally pleasant to someone who drives me crazy, but laying down my life?  I’m not sure I could do that for my dearest friends, much less the patronizing person who says scripture reveals that I should, as a woman, be silent in church.  You can all picture that person for you: the voice of criticism and frustration. 

If we’re called to hold John 3:16 and 1 John 3:16 together, as I believe we are, this means being willing to lay down our lives for that person.  For the Kim Kardashians of this world.  For our vocal political opponents.  For those who’ve hurt us with selfishness and for those whom we have hurt with our own.

Loving in truth and action means laying down our lives for them.   Because as 1st John reminds us, “we know love by this: that Jesus laid down his life for us”…all of us. 

That is our example (not Kim Kardashian).  And that is our path: the constant reorientation of our lives in every moment away from our own selves to others.  And like flowers instinctually turning toward the sun, we will see that it is in turning to those around us – even the most trying of people – that our hearts are turned to God once more. 

This level of relationship is not an easy task.  For every person who selflessly and sacrificially shows their faith through loving action, there are a hundred others telling us that we should look out for number 1 because no one else will look out for us, that our words and speech matter more than the truth and action of other people’s lives and experiences. 

1 John 3:16 will probably never have the popularity of John 3:16, because it requires so much of us.  It requires everything we have in the service of others.

Amidst all the hateful words and meaningless babble of our time, that call to action rises above it all, urging us to love as we have been loved.  John 3:16 is made complete by 1 John 3:16.  Our abiding faith in God is made complete only when we abide in one another.

I came across a video that I think embodies this sort of selfless love, a counter-narrative to the sort of self-focused faith Kim Kardashian proclaims.  I hope it inspires us all to hold John 3:16 and 1 John 3:16 together, and put our faith into loving action.


Alleluia!  Amen. 

Sunday, April 19, 2015

A Snack and a Story

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April 19, 2015
Luke 24:36b-48

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence.
44Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things.”


Sermon: A Snack and a Story

It’s no secret that I like to eat.  I write a food column for the Sanford Herald each week, my instagram and facebook feeds are clogged with pictures of food, and I read cookbooks for fun.  I’ve always been this way.  Growing up, every night at the dinner table, I would ask the same question.  Mouth stuffed full of green beans or chicken, I would eagerly inquire, “So…what’s for breakfast?”  You need to be sure it’s worth getting out of bed for, right?

I love food.  And so I appreciate the significance of food in scripture. 

Eve and Adam were offered the abundance of food in the garden of Eden, with the exception of the fruit of one tree.  Have you ever told a toddler not to touch the cookies cooling on the counter?  You know what happens.  They ate that fruit, sinning through their stomachs.  Food matters.

Unleavened bread came to indicate the precariousness of life for the people of Israel, where there was no time to settle and wait on bread to rise.  God fed them in the wilderness with manna, even throwing in some quail and water from a rock to be sure they had enough.  And they sought a promised land described in culinary terms: flowing with milk and honey.  Food matters.

Jesus’ first miracle involved sustenance too, turning water into rich wine for a wedding feast.  He ate with sinners, he fed thousands, and had a whopping number of dinner parties, including the last supper where he explained once more what was going to happen to him using, not flowery words or mighty actions, but bread broken and a shared cup of wine.  Food matters.

God continually, it seems, speaks to us fretting, fragile human beings through food.  We see this in our Luke story today.

Jesus had risen from the dead, and showed up to Mary Madgalene.  He’d appeared to his fearful disciples, and finally to Thomas, speaking peace.  He walked with them along the road to Emmaus and revealed himself to them through the scriptures, and through broken bread shared once more.  You’d think the resurrection might have sunk in after all of those appearances.

Apparently not.  Because when Jesus showed up to his disciples while they were actually talking about him being alive, they were still startled!  Talk is cheap, you see.  Their first thought was not joy, it was terror.  They thought he was a ghost.  I’d imagine Jesus might have become a little impatient at this point.  Just how many times would he have to show up speaking peace for them to get it?!  Luke tells us he said, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.”

With all due respect to the writer of Luke, I get the feeling he softened things in this scene a bit.  Because I imagine Jesus actually saying, “Seriously, guys?  You really think I’m Casper right now?  Don’t you see my scars?  How long is it going to take for you to believe I’m alive?”

Those disciples were looking at Jesus like how my dog Fifi looks at me when I’m holding a piece of bacon.  You know, that look of being totally thrilled and thinking it’s all too good to be true.  Jesus needed to make things abundantly clear.  So he asked for a snack of some fish. 

Now maybe he was legitimately hungry.  Maybe Jesus had a thing for tilapia or trout.  Or maybe, once again, food was being used to prove a point.  Ghosts don’t eat.

Jesus had a snack, and told a story.  The story of prophecy and incarnation, of suffering and resurrection, of repentance and forgiveness.  He told his story.  But he ate with them while he did it.  And, as we continue to see through scripture, food matters.

Luke ends with a snack and a story.  So does John.  The risen Jesus, after finishing breakfast with Peter, asks him if he loves him more than these.  Simon Peter responds, “Lord, you know I love you.”
And Jesus replies, “Defend my church.”
Wait, no.
He says, “Prove you’re right.”
No.
“Acquire lots of wealth.”
“Plead my case.”
No, he didn’t say any of that did he?

Do you know what Jesus did say?
If you love me…feed my sheep.

It all comes down to food, y’all.  Charles Dickens, in Oliver Twist, wrote, “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”  Gandhi said the same, “To a man with an empty stomach, food is God.”

The disciples couldn’t believe that Jesus was alive – that God was alive – until they shared food together.  There’s a reason that Dot makes muffins for frequent visitors to our church.  There’s a reason we show love to one another in tough times in casserole form.  Food conveys care more than most anything else can.  And so, if we are ever going to be witnesses to the resurrection, people who proclaim a living, loving God, it begins and ends with that simple call, “feed my sheep.”  It begins and ends with food. 

Get involved with Church World Service and their programs across our nation and around the world to help those who go hungry.  Support our Presbyterian missionaries who are sharing the gospel through full stomachs, educated minds and peaceful communities.  Volunteer at the Sandhills Coalition giving out food to those who are hungry in our community.  Spend time with Manna of Moore County that serves free meals at area churches weekly.  Keep a box of water and nonperishable food in your trunk to give to a homeless person you might otherwise drive by.

Encourage fresh produce to be made available in urban “food deserts” of our state, through calling our legislators to support the bipartisan bills currently before them.  Advocate for support for our farmers and safe, humane conditions for the migrants who work to harvest our food.

Take a neighbor dinner just because that’s what neighbors do.  Break bread together in Dine Time groups, or simply by asking the person next to you in your pew to have lunch.

Remember what actually happened when Jesus appeared to his disciples to show them he was alive.  He told his story, and so should we.  But he told that story with a snack, and so should we.  We experience the resurrection – life abundant -- through our stomachs as well as our hearts. 

“If you love me…feed my sheep.”
The rest is just icing on the cake.  Alleluia!  Amen. 

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Trusting Thomas

Jesus and Thomas painted by a Christian group in Cameroon.  www.jesusmafa.com
April 12, 2015
John 20:19-31
19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Sermon: “Trusting Thomas”
Late have I loved thee, beauty so ancient and so fresh.
Late have I loved thee.
Behold, you were within and I was outside,
and I was seeking you there.
I, deformed, was pursuing you in the beautifully
formed things that you made.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
Those things held me far away from you,
things that would not exist if they were not in you.
You called and clamored and shattered my deafness;
you flashed and gleamed and banished my blindness;
you were fragrant and I drew in breath and now pant for you.
I tasted and now I hunger and thirst for you;
you touched me and I have been set ablaze
with longing for your peace.

This confession of Augustine, the 4th century Christian theologian, sounds to me like it could have been written by Thomas. 

Thomas, the one who needed proof.
Thomas, the one who needed to see, to touch.
Thomas, the one who missed the resurrection party the first time.
Thomas, the one whom Jesus returned for, inviting him to see,
to touch.
Thomas, who has been labeled the “doubter”, but who might better be called the rationalist, the scientist, or the skeptic wanting evidence.

We’ve always been afraid of doubts in the church, which is perhaps why Thomas has been kept at arms-length.

We label him “doubter” and distance ourselves from him for a very simple reason: he reminds us too much of ourselves.  We, too, want to place our hands in the wounds of Jesus and know he is alive.  Or, perhaps more honestly, we want Jesus to place his hands in our wounds, to know we are still alive. 

We can talk about faith and hope and peace and love, but if they are not embodied, given real flesh-and-blood, the words fall empty.  Perhaps this is why Christ-followers so cling to the incarnation – God with us.  We don’t need an idea.  We don’t even need a dream.  We need proof.

We are Thomas. 
But let’s look at this Thomas character again.  Who was Tom, really?
Like Augustine’s words, Tom might have loved late.  But when he did love, it was all-consuming.  When his beloved friend Lazarus died, the other disciples told Jesus to not go to see his body.  Those who locked themselves away in a room for fear of the Jews after the resurrection were often driven by fear.  Jesus would have to go near to those who called him an enemy to see Lazarus’ body.  They urged him to stay away from Jerusalem, to play it safe. 

Not so with Tom.  He cried out, “Let us go also, that we may die with him!”

He loved late, but he loved completely.  Jesus listened to Tom, and they went to Jerusalem, where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  New life followed after Tom’s powerful words of honesty.

And then later, when Jesus told his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.”  Tom, the rationalist, needed more information.

“But, we don’t know where you’re going!  We don’t know the way!” he cried.   Once again, new life followed after Tom’s powerful words of honesty.  Do you remember what Jesus said in response?  “I am the way, the truth and the life.” 

And so, by the time we get to this scene of Tom needing proof of the resurrection, we see that perhaps it’s not because he’s less faithful than the other disciples.  Perhaps it’s because he takes these things more seriously than any of them.  For those other disciples didn’t believe the resurrection when Mary Magdalene told them she had seen the Lord.  They were still locked away in a room for fear of the Jews.  And then, after the risen Jesus appeared to them, speaking words of peace, showing them his wounds, they didn’t change their behavior.  They didn’t run and tell, but they continued to stay locked in a room, playing it safe.

Tom knew he needed proof – and wasn’t afraid to say it.  And Jesus didn’t rebuke his need for proof.  Jesus didn’t tell him he was faithless. 

Jesus came just for him and said, without Tom even asking, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”  Jesus welcomed his skepticism, and offered his very body as proof.  He invited Tom to touch him.  But here’s the intriguing thing (at least to this preacher lady):

Does our text say Thomas touched Jesus?  Actually, no.  Our text just says Jesus invited him to.  And that invitation was all the proof Tom needed.  He then cried, “My Lord and my God!”  And one more time, new life followed after Tom’s powerful words of honesty. 

Thomas loved late.  He believed begrudgingly.  His faith was as much his mind as his heart.  But that didn’t mean he was less a witness to the resurrection.  If anything, it means it meant more to him.  Yes, Jesus did say to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”   The word ‘blessed’ Jesus uses is also happy.  Happy are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  Happy are those for whom faith comes easily.  For that is a lighter journey than the one of rational proof.

Faith did not come easily to Tom.  It might not come easy to some of us.  There might be times that the resurrection seems like a pie-in-the-sky idea until we ourselves experience God bringing us out of darkness and despair.  There might be times that the resurrection sounds like a fairy tale unless we finally get good news from the doctor.  There might be times Easter seems utterly irrelevant to our lives unless we see proof it matters. 

This is not the happy journey of faith.  But it is the serious, difficult way of Thomas, a faith realized through wounds and doubts.

Maybe we should trust Tom.  Jesus did.  Jesus didn’t label Tom a threat to his truth.  Jesus invited him to touch his wounds, and that invitation was enough for Tom.  Touching these wounds is not happy work.  When we touch the wounds of Jesus in the news of mass murders in Kenya, in racial tension in our country boiling over, in our own bodies that begin to let us down, it is painful.  Maybe that’s why Jesus said “happy are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 

But like Tom, we do see his wounds.  They are also our wounds.  And when faced with such violence, we reply out of the aches of our souls, “My Lord and my God!”

Like Augustine, we say to our risen, wounded Lord:
You called and clamored and shattered my deafness;
 you flashed and gleamed and banished my blindness;
you were fragrant and I drew in breath and now pant for you.
I tasted and now I hunger and thirst for you;
you touched me and I have been set ablaze with longing for your peace.

And that same risen Lord answers us with those words he spoke over and over again, that they might sink into all the wounds of this world like a healing balm.  He says, “Peace be with you.”  Alleluia!  Amen.


Sunday, April 5, 2015

Outside Looking In

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April 5, 2015 - Easter Sunday
John 20:1-18
1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.

6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.

11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.


Sermon: “Outside Looking In”

Do you know what it’s like to be an outsider? 

I do.  I was labeled an outsider my whole life – and somehow, even more after my death.

You know me as Mary Magdalene, the woman often judged by history as an adulteress or a prostitute.  I was neither. 

But I was an outsider.  You see, from a young age, I had been what we called in my time “possessed by evil spirits.”  In your time, you might call this mental illness.

I’ve noticed how those affected by mental disorders are still treated as outsiders.  If someone has an obvious illness, like cancer or diabetes or heart disease, people rally around them to show support.  Not so for people like me.  I was kept an outsider because I wasn’t quite like everyone else. 

But then someone came along who changed all that.  You know his name, too.  Jesus, whom we called Christ.  He brought me healing – what we called casting out demons in my time, but what you might call therapy in your time.  He also brought me the one thing I never expected.  He brought me community, and I didn’t feel like an outsider anymore.  I, Mary from Magdala, belonged.

Now, I know you’re wondering, so let me set the record straight – this doesn’t mean Jesus and I were an item!  (No matter what Dan Brown says.)  A single woman is somehow threatening, and so people had to invent a romance between Jesus and me.  They had to twist our story until I was depicted as a red-headed lovesick puppy following Jesus around.  Love comes in many forms.  Just because my love for him wasn’t romantic didn’t mean it was somehow less than important.

And Jesus loved me just as I was, outsider and all.  He didn’t care if being associated with me made him an outsider, too.  In fact, he seemed to be drawn to us outsiders (something the insiders, namely the religious and political leaders, did not look too kindly on).

I never left his side.  When others abandoned him at the sight of death, I didn’t.  I stayed with him at that cross the insiders put him on.  I watched as he took his last, weary breath.  I was there when his body was taken off of that cross and, though it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I, along with Jesus’ mother Mary and others, prepared his lifeless body for burial in the Jewish custom. 
He had told us he would rise again in three days, but that might as well have been an eternity away when I was in that moment of grief that made every single breath painful.  What would happen now?  Would those demons he had so compassionately casted out return to haunt me now that he was gone?  Would I ever find the sort of love I found in his friendship?  Would I be an outsider forever?  Could God really be dead?

I’m not sure what it was that led me to go to the tomb that dark morning on the third day.  Maybe it was that I felt closer to Jesus being near his body, even as I knew he wasn’t really there.  Maybe it was that I didn’t have anywhere else to go.  And maybe, somewhere buried deep within all of my sorrow and loneliness, there was a flicker of hope that he was telling the truth, that he would live again.  Ah yes, that absurd ability to hope in the face of despair might just be the greatest gift God has given us human beings.

As I got there, I immediately knew something was wrong.  The large stone door to the tomb had been rolled away.  But my first thought was not resurrection.   It was robbery!  I ran and brought some of the men who also followed Jesus to help.  When they got to the tomb, they immediately went inside.  They saw the empty grave, the empty grave clothes.  They didn’t really know what to make of it…so they left, and went home.

But I stayed outside the tomb, weeping.  I am used to being an outsider, remember.  Finally, though, curiosity got the better of me, and I looked inside.  When I saw two angels, I worried that it was all a figment of my weary, unwell mind.  But then they spoke, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

What a stupid question to ask!  Why was I weeping?  How could I not be?  My best friend had died -- no, not just died, but been murdered by the state.  And people who I thought were my friends – his other followers – had just left me all by myself at that dark tomb, not caring how dangerous that was for a woman in that time.  I was desperately, completely alone, the kind of loneliness that fills every part of you, until you feel invisible, an outsider in a world of insiders. 

I didn’t much feel like explaining all that was behind my tears, so I settled for, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where he is!”  Then I got a prickly feeling on the back of my neck that someone else was there.  I turned around and saw who I thought was the gardener.  Grief does funny things to a person.

That gardener asked me the same question, “Woman, why are you weeping?”  My sorrow turned to anger and suspicion.  “If you’ve taken him,” I yelled, “tell me where he is!”  That gardener just looked sad to see me in such a state. 

And then he said one word, the most beautiful word a person will ever hear, the first word we hear at birth and the last at death.  He said my name.  “Mary.”  Suddenly I realized that it was Jesus!  He was alive!  He survived!   I knew then that I could survive, too.  I hugged him and he told me to go and tell others.  I ran and ran, telling all who would listen, “I have seen the Lord!”

I, Mary Magdalene, am still telling that story – even after my death.  Because I believe it matters that Jesus rose from the dead.  But, just as importantly, I believe it also matters that I – an outsider – saw him first.  If he’d appeared first to someone more powerful, perhaps people would have believed his story immediately.  I’m certain many didn’t accept the resurrection because it was me who told them about it. 

But, you see, Jesus never cared much for fame.  He’d never have been my friend if he did!  He cared about bringing new life to those who most needed it – freeing outsiders from the prisons society kept us in.

And that’s what still matters to him.  My friend and Lord wasn’t raised from the dead to prove his power or divinity or glory.  The Son of God doesn’t have anything to prove!  He was raised from the dead to raise us all up from the dead with him.  To bring new life, to call us by name and not just by the labels people place upon us. 

In the end, I honestly don’t much care that history has labeled me as a prostitute, a sinner and an outsider.  But I do care that the church gets it right and realizes that Jesus himself was an outsider.  He associated with struggling people like me, breaking every barrier down, even the barrier between life and death itself. 

Because that’s what resurrection does.  That’s what Easter means – all those seemingly unmovable stones we’ve so carefully placed between the insiders and outsiders might as well be pebbles to skip along the seashore.  They have no power to divide.
 
All of you who feel like outsiders because of illnesses you keep hidden, or doubts you never voice, or vulnerability you never show – Jesus rose for you.  And he is still is in your midst, casting out the demons of isolation and judgment and fear.

And all of you who feel like insiders who hold the keys of heaven in your hands and whose lives are more certainty than doubt, oh Jesus rose for you, too.  He rose to show the insiders that the only “inside” you need concern yourself with is your own heart. 

He rose for us all, to turn this world inside-out, until we stop obsessing over labels and categories and instead call one another by name, forming a community of compassion where every person who encounters us says to anyone who will listen, as I have done, “I have seen the Lord!”  Alleluia!  Amen.