The Man Murdered on a Tree

Good Friday Sermon 4-2-21

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Christ our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Last night, Jesus broke bread with his disciples in his last meal before his death. In Gethsemane, he prayed in agitation and dread of this very day. His closest friends could not keep awake with him, and later deserted him altogether. Judas, one of his hand-chosen twelve, betrayed him to the religious leaders who sought his death. These chief priests and scribes, in turn, handed him over to their Roman oppressors, who in the end were all too willing to put him on a cross.

Here was a man, cut off from every imaginable means of support. Here was a man, abandoned by his people, abandoned by the rule of law, abandoned by his own friends, abandoned seemingly even by his God.

Many of us, especially in the past year, have felt what it’s like to cry out to God by day and night, but receive not answer. Our friends betray us, our family abandons us, and God seems nowhere to be found.  We have been living in year-long-Good Friday.

This year we witnessed the deaths of more than half a million people in our own country by Covid-19, sacrificed on the altar of the economy. This year we witnessed the known and unknown deaths of African American people, handed over and betrayed by a nation who forced their ancestors into bondage. Then there have been the recent deaths from gun violence.  This year, we witnessed so much trauma, so much death.  

But really, is this year any different than other years, expect for the order of magnitude? The first victims of the coronavirus were the elderly, who in my experience are often sequestered in care facilities, out of sight, by their families who rarely visit, already isolated and cut off before the cruel realities of quarantine. And before the pandemic, mass shootings were scarily commonplace.

And while we do not have crucifixions dotting the landscape as the Romans did thousands of years ago, we still live in a nation where capital punishment has not been outlaw across the country. There is progress – the state of Virginia very recently made the death penalty illegal – the first state of the former Confederacy to do so. However, we are still burdened by a criminal justice system that is laughably unjust, especially for many of our fellow citizens.

And while this nation never executed someone on a cross, we have our own version of murder on a tree glaringly in our history, which really was not all that long ago, in living memory still. There may not have been nails involved, the there was a tree, and some rope, a jeering crowd, and more often than not, an innocent victim of an oppressed race of people, executed for the crime of simply being at the wrong color in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Jesus was also the victim of senseless, state-sponsored violence. In his ground-breaking book “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” theologian James Cone reminds us that, in a similar way “… Jesus was an innocent victim of mob hysteria and Roman imperial violence,” and this is not all that different from what happened at the hands of white mobs in “in the name of God and in defense of segregation… and white supremacy…”

The cross was a humiliating torture reserved for slaves, criminals, and insurrectionists. The cross, along with the lynching tree, sends a clear message: fear, intimidation, as a deterrent, a sign that speaks without words: “This is what happens when you step out of line.”

This is the symbol we decorate our churches with and wear around our necks as jewelry. As Cone writes, “one has to be a little kind of mad… to find salvation in the cross, victory in defeat, and life in death.” (25)

The cross was not always one of them most recognized symbols of our faith. As we read about what state-sponsored violence did to Jesus, we remember that this era in our own history is not over. As we hear about Jesus being murdered on a tree, we remember, Jesus told us that what we do to the least of these, we do to Jesus.

When we behold the cross, we behold the wounds of Jesus, but also all the wounds of the least of these who are disempowered – those on death row, the wrongly accused and unfairly imprisoned, those who can’t get access to the vaccine yet are dying record numbers, those denied adequate medical care, the harassed and the raped, the homeless, all those who’s suffering we’ve minimized, denied, or looked away from in discomfort. It is only by seeing their wounds in the wounds of Jesus that we can see the true revelation of the good news – Jesus chose to be found THERE. On the crosses of our own construction.

Theologians Duo John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg reflect that it is Jesus’s passion that caused his death. “[Jesus] was filled with passion – his passion was spreading the message of the kingdom of God, and God’s justice. His passion led to his ‘passion’.”

Behold Jesus’ passion, and his passion – us. When Jesus told his disciples to deny themselves, to take up their crosses to follow him, those were not just idle words. And so, to show us the way, he went first, alone, taking up his own cross. He cleared the path that he calls us to follow.

Tonight, we remember that we worship this suffering God, and we follow this man murdered on a tree. Jesus shows us that God is willing to take on the worst the world has to offer, and Jesus is willing to take on the worst that WE have to offer – our selfishness, our fear, the broken mess we’ve made of our lives and the lives of our fellow human beings – to transform that too into something beautiful and precious and to be repurposed as beloved by God.

Though we are tangled up in the fraught history that is being a Christian in the United States, all Christians tonight are bound by a common faith and a common hope: that Our “beauty is more enduring than our brutality,” and that Jesus’s death shows us death is not the end.

The cross is not an end. It is a beginning. Because the cross is empty, just as the tomb will be. Just as death and everything the leads to death in our lives is empty of their ultimate victory over us.

Good Friday was a long time ago, but it is also today and every day. It takes courage to see the cross and to follow where it leads … but we have what it takes. Jesus is already there. Jesus makes a way from no way, even in a year of Good Fridays. Thanks be to God. Amen.

"When our Claws Scratch the Body of Christ"

 Sermon 3-21-21

Grace and peace to you from God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Believe it or not, there a lot of steps involved when cats travel. The carrier, the litter boxes, the food and water… and also a specific order to each step, to get from place A to place B with happy cats. After more than the 11 years
of the lives of my two cats, I now have this down to a science. But I didn’t always.

One move, a few years ago, did not go so smoothly. Everything was all packed up at my new place, except the cats As I put one cat in the carrier, her claws left a long bloody grove down my pinky. Naturally, I had packed up all the bandages, and they were currently in a box at my new place!! I did find a spare tissue, and so I drove to my new apartment, with a bloody pinky up in the air, angry cats in their carrier in the back seat.

Needless to say, this last move with them to our new home went flawlessly. That OTHER time, though, my cat was scared and didn't understand what was happening…. and her long groove of protest happened to intersect with my hand. But I was willing to risk her claws and losing a little blood - if that’s what it took to bring her to her new home, where she belonged. 

 You all are familiar with the “Footprints in the Sand” poem, right? Man, dream, beach, sand, walking with the Lord, his life flashes before his eyes… one set of footprints, happening at the lowest and saddest times in his life.  The Lord’s reply - “During those times…. when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

For some of us, this poem is our reality.  Some of us have been so overwhelmed with these lowest times – many likely being in the past year.  We may feel we cannot take even take one more step forward, and the only way we make it is to be carried by God.

But at other times, our walk with the Lord may leave behind a different kind of trail in the sand. 

I once found an alternative take on the footprints poem in a comic strip…. The first panel, is the familiar end to the poem. But in the second panel, God points off in the distance and says to the dreamer, “Now, THAT long groove is where I DRAGGED you, kicking and screaming.”

Jesus makes a lot of promises to us, including to never leave us. Where Jesus is, we are there, as he says in verse 26. This can be incredible comforting in our most difficult times. However, the first part of that verse reads “whoever serves me must follow me…” Yikes. Did I sign up for THAT part too? Because Jesus and I don’t exactly have the same taste in hang-out spots.  Sometimes where Jesus goes are not places that I am exactly eager to be. 

Even after all this, the late-night conversations and the cleansing of the temple, the Greeks in our Gospel reading were still drawn to Jesus. As Jesus said, “I will draw all people to myself.” But the drawing that Jesus is doing here has less to do with being attracted to something, like magnets or love at first sight. In this case, being drawn to Jesus is more like dragging heavy nets full of fish across a sandy beach. 

The word that Jesus uses here – he draws all people to himself – is the same word used to describes how fishermen “draw,” or rather, drag, pull, or heave heavy nets full of fish onto the beach. Probably leaving behind them a long groove in the sand.

Like the Greeks, we may THINK we want to see Jesus… but do we really? Seeing Jesus is seeing the cross. Seeing Jesus means following him TO the cross, to suffering, humiliation, and death.

This is not exactly a journey where we are keen to go on... even if we know that, because of Jesus, there is resurrection on the other side. Like this coming spring, as we emerge from a long year dominated by Covid, we may have felt buried by the amount of change, loss, and grief we have experienced every day. As we navigate lives that are different, we are going to desire the familiar so badly… to dig in our heals and hang on to some parts of the way things were. And some of these parts were not so healthy, and now might be the time to let these things go.

And it seems to be becoming more clear, every single day, what things are long overdue to be left behind – the dangers of purity culture, the dehumanizing of women and people of different backgrounds than us, the glorification of violence and gun culture, and our own complicity as religious people in each and every one of these things. All things that converged so clearly and so tragically this passed week. And I do mean tragically in its literal sense – a disaster that could have been avoided.

Some of us seem to keeping our claws digging into the passed more than others. But the truth is, this week these claws harmed our Asian communities and siblings in Christ. And violence against one beloved of God is violence against God, too. 

It’s a good thing for us, then, Jesus thought that facing our claws, our dragging feet, our reluctance to the point of turning our back on Jesus, was worth it. Because Jesus will stop at nothing until Jesus draws all people in to God’s family, even if WE are the ones who don’t want to go along with Jesus’ way of going about it and drag our feet.

If you grew up on a farm as I did, or have someone in your family who gardens, you know what a long, straight groove – or furrow - in the ground is perfect for: Planting a row of seeds. You see, God has a way of even making our long grooves in the sand into something that God can use for good.

Like the cross, a seed is a vehicle for life. By itself, a seed looks dead and lifeless, but once it is buried in the earth, it can become what it was created to be – to burst open and bring forth new life, many times over.

We may not know yet exactly what kind of seed we will be – but we know the One who has planted us here in this place at this time. It is the same God who gathers us every week to sustain us … only to send us out again into the world. It is the same God who will not leave us behind. It is the same God who commands us not to leave OTHERS behind. We are drawn in and welcomed to God’s table of love, and we in turn help in the work in drawing in others too…. there is a place for ALL here with Jesus.

Jesus refuses to leave us behind. Jesus WANTS us to be with him, because he loves us and desires that we would not perish, but have life…. abundant life, now AND in the future. And that is only possible if we go where Jesus leads us.  Some days we walk, and some days we have to be carried. But no matter what, the promise remains. Where you are, Jesus is. Where Jesus is, you are. Thanks be to God. Amen.

"Sweep and Ye Shall Find"

 Sermon from Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

These stories of the “Losts” here in Luke – lost sheep, lost coin, lost son – especially the last one – are probably some of the most familiar in the entire Bible. A few years ago, Lutheran pastor Emmy Kegler wrote a book called “One Coin Found,” from her experience as of falling in love with the Bible, including these stories, and other passages that Christians have used against her and the queer community throughout her life. This may be familiar, because I believe many of you read this book not all that long ago.

Pastor Kegler was always deeply drawn to the story of all the “Losts,” and she rightly points out that people and sheep have agency. The sheep could wandered away elsewhere to find some food because she was hungry. The lost son (or sons, since both seem lost in their own way), choose to do what they do. But what is the coin’s excuse? It can’t move by itself. What’s the deal then? How did it get lost? Is God to blame for losing us, if we indeed are the lost coin in the story?

Emmy reminds us “God has never been careless with us, but those who claim to speak for God have.” Church leaders, not God, cause some of the most vulnerable sheet to be lost - to be disregarded and left to get dusty like the coin or starved for love like the sheep.

I really like Kegler’s description of God: hitching up her skirts to get down on the floor to search for her lost coins. Kegler writes of how “God has taken up a broom and cleared each corner, untucked and re-tucked each sheet and quilt, turned over pitcher after pitcher to see where we have landed.” 

Our own found stories probably look a little bit different from Pastor Kegler’s. But I think all of us have experience what it means to be hungry for something – for empathy, for acceptance, for someone to see our worth, for someone to love us for all of our flaws and brokenness, and the disappointment we feel when our deepest needs are not met by the very people that we believed cared about us. Most of us, I believe, HAVE felt the sting of rejection when those who seem to have everything – power, influence, comfort, privilege – sneer at you and judge you when you leave the “correct path” they have laid out for you, and judge you by using some misguided interpretation of God’s words.

Listen closely here to the words of Jesus, then. How then can we stand in the way of Jesus, when he very clearly stands in for the shepherd who abandoned the ninety-nine sheep to find the lost one, and the woman who stayed up late into the night to find her coin that had gone missing?

Perhaps we don’t have a lot of tax-collectors floating around anymore, but we all encounter people that we deem “undeserving,” and want to begrudge a seat at the table. The good news is that Jesus eats with everyone. …. all are given a spot next to Jesus.

The body of Christ is not complete until all of us are found in God and loved with dignity by those of us who call ourselves Christian. And yes, that might not just include feeding them…. But eating WITH them, at the same table, side by side, elbow to elbow… because that is where Jesus chooses to be found. With ALL of his flock.

At the end of our traditional funeral service, we hear these words: “Into your hands we commend your beloved servant. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive them into the arms of your mercy.” Nothing can separate us from the merciful arms of God. In life, and in death, we are loved, and we are known, and we are found. Because God will stop at nothing to gather those who are lost.

Some of us are feeling really lost right now. And there are a lot of lost people right now, in need some finding. Now it’s our turn, to tuck up our own skirts, find the lantern and broom, and join in the search, and also join in the rejoicing when one of us has been found. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

"This is The Way"

 

2-28-21 

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Six years ago, a group of women pastors, including myself, met for a retreat at a camp in NJ. For a fun craft to do together, I brought small wooden crosses and some crazy glue and suggested that everyone in the group bring – not a dish to pass, but a dish to break.

We all brought with us something that was meaningful for us to smash, so that the broken bits might be transformed into a unique mosaic cross. Some of us brought dinnerware from marriages that ended in broken vows.  Some brought worries about toxic situations at home and in their churches. Some brought personal grief, challenges, and questions.

I thought I was prepared - We went outside, and I brought a tarp and a hammer. But I overlooked one thing…Band-Aids. So, of course, one of us ended up bleeding, and much to my surprise, it wasn’t me! Fortunately, this camp was well stocked in first-aid kits, and all was well. No stitches needed.

But despite the bleeding and the big mess we made - we were able to make beautiful art out of our brokenness. We exchanged broken bits of our own mess and together we created something new.

At the start of every Lent, we receive the cross of ashes on our foreheads, to remind us that God can do something beautiful with us, who are so limited and flawed. Just a little bit ago we saw little George receive the sign of the cross on his forehead too. That cross also reminds us that our lives do not belong to us. We do not belong to ourselves. Like George, we belong to God.

This means our lives are to be spend in the service of the world. We are to care for and carry one another, especially those suffering, rejected, and vulnerable. We are to walk and live the way of the cross, which for me, means that I need to set my mind on the things that are important to God, not get caught up in the things that the world sees are important.

Every day, but especially now, need to ask ourselves, as people of God – What way will we follow? What do we see as most important: Our personal choices or the health of our neighbors? What is more important - Our “right” to bear arms….. or our call to bear one another’s burdens? What is more important, our maintaining the veneer of normalcy ….or addressing and healing our trauma, in whatever messy way that may look like?

During this pandemic winter, we caught up on a lot of shows, including Star Wars’ “The Mandalorian.” More than just “a man in a cool suit,” the Mandalorian, has a story - like his people, he follows a strict code of conduct. It binds their people together, but also sets them apart as different. For every strange choice they make, they respond with the refrain: “This is the Way.” And there is one particular thing that a Mandalorian should NEVER do. While these rules are strict and pose their own challenges, in a way, they do make life simple for their followers.

Life may have seemed simple for the Mandalorian at the center of this show. But then he meets a child, and everything changes. Life is no longer simple. He is thrust into adventures that challenge him and challenges the way of life he is used to. And that one particular thing a Mandalorian should never do? It turns out that he will face a choice – keep to his strict code, or to that one thing – in order  to save the universe, and to save the people that THIS Mandalorian has come to care about, including this unexpected child. It turns out, he will have to forge a new way.

For Mark, and for Jesus, the way of the cross is a way of life - following Jesus will cause us to live our lives in such a way that the powers and empires of the world will try to get rid of us, as they tried to get rid of Jesus. The cross is both the consequence and the symbol of this life, “the way” or path of death and resurrection, the way of transformation. As followers of this way, we witness God transforming an instrument - specifically designed for cruel execution - into a symbol of new and abundant life.

Peter thinks that there is one thing that a Messiah has come to do, a “right way” to be the messiah – ride in “on a white horse” and save the day with power and might. So, when Jesus said, “my way of life and my actions will lead to suffering and rejection by the people in power. They will kill me for this, but I will rise again 3 days later, all for your sake” …. Peter obviously did not take it well. After all, this is the one thing that a true king would allow himself to suffer a humiliating death, right?

Peter hung on to that one thing he thought was important, and so he almost missed the entire “way of Jesus.” Instead of learning from the teacher, Peter tried to do some teaching himself, which got him into some hot water. Like Peter, we all would rather be the leader, or at least have some input in the way Jesus is headed.

But Jesus does not reject Peter outright for his errors. Instead, Jesus tells him to “get behind me.” Not necessarily to kick him out of the group or to get out of Jesus’ sight… but get behind Jesus… because you need to be BEHIIND the person you are following in order to SEE how to follow them. We can’t walk the way that Jesus would have us walk if we are not behind Jesus, following his lead.  

Eventually though, after a LOT of mistakes, Peter does eventually get “back in line.” He is not rejected, even when he rejects Jesus, because he comes back to walking the way, however imperfectly. He puts down his ego and takes us his cross. He let go of that thing that was holding him back, and it got smashed to bits…. but it also turned into something beautiful.

This is the cross I made with those dear friends. It has some of my broken bits, and some of theirs. It’s rough around the edges, and it was a challenge to make. But it’s my favorite cross (and I own a LOT of crosses). Here are pieces of brokenness, death, and loss. But together, they represent the way forward - together. This is the way. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Putting our Hearts in Lent

 Ash Wednesday - 2-17-21

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In “the before times,” I feel most of my pastor colleagues – and myself included – often started our Ash Wednesday sermons with some version of “I’m not ready for Lent!” But this year feels different. Because the original lockdown from Covid-19 happened during the season of Lent last year, we joked at first that we were just in one long Lent until we could come back together again. In fact, some proposed delaying Easter (for just a few weeks) to be celebrated when we could all be “back.” How naïve that feels now, almost one year later.

Ash Wednesday is truly one of the “Last big things we did together in the before times.” Everything else from here on out, we will have done before in lockdown. Thank goodness for the gifts of previous experience! But almost one year later, it certainly does feel as though we have had a year of Lent. So, this year, I’m not ready to start a season we really never left. 

But ready or not, Lent happens. Just like life. Like Lent, life arrives like an unwelcome guest. Our lives have been interrupted when we become marked by death, grief, and pain. When we are suddenly not the person we were before, but aren’t yet the person we will become. And this is a very uncomfortable place to be.

This has been the human story from the very beginning, as we heard from the story of Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden. After they had eaten from the fruit of the tree, they were no longer the same. God asked them a lot of questions about what happened – “Where are you? Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree? What is it that you have done?” And, instead of exploring these questions, our first parents chose to blame one another… the snake… God… anyone but themselves for their own actions.

In one of her songs, Sara Bareilles describes the scene in Eden from Eve’s perspective: “Walking in the garden was a serpent-shaped heart and he told” her a lie about God: “What is broken cannot show,” and “less than beautiful is worse than unholy.” She did not trust that God had created her good, just as she was. Like for our first parents, it’s hard for us to see ourselves as God sees us. It’s hard to image that God actually does love us for who we are.

I’m guessing, if you are human and have lived on this planet for more than a few seconds, your heart is not pristine red, shiny, or intact like the decorations for valentine’s day just a few days ago. Of course, we all know that love and other feelings don’t originate with this blood-pumping muscle in our chests. But we CAN feel so full of love our hearts feel as though they might burst. Our hearts can ache with compassion and empathy, or with longing or loneliness. Our hearts can sting from being hurt. Our hearts can get bruised. Our hearts can even get broken.

We have a saying that we “put our hearts into” things that we care deeply about. Some of these things seem innocent enough – family, friends, country, our jobs, living a comfortable life, freedom. But, as Jesus says about what happens to these treasures after a while … these things we think we should love above all else WILL fail us. Our homes and our cars, our careers, our health, all the stuff we bought online out of boredom…. They will let us down.

We are human. We love what is bad for us – and I’m not talking about chocolate or giving up sugar for Lent. I’m talking about how we hang on to what feels comfortable and normal. And how trying to go back to these things is one of the reasons we are still here, almost one year later. We love what is comfortable, familiar, and convenient, because – let’s face it! Change is hard! Altering our behavior is hard! Even when – ESPCIALLY WHEN – it would be for the best.

We’re not in Eden anymore (as if we ever were) but we are definitely in a strange and unfamiliar place. Our efforts to ignore this wilderness only prolong our time here, until we cannot keep it out any longer, and this reminder knocks us off our feet. Like Ash Wednesday, the start of our 40 days in the season we call Lent.

Ready or not, Ash Wednesday is the time to take stock of our dusty, sore hearts. And we often find what we don’t want to find. We find our sinful and broken actions have left scars on our hearts, and left scars in the lives of others. We find we are lost in a wilderness we don’t want to be in.

But we are not left in our dusty, heartsick state. We are not abandoned to the wilderness surrounded by our comfortless treasures. Our damaged hearts are not cast aside and thrown away, like unwanted valentines on February 15th. We can show our broken selves to God and know that Love will find us there. God renews our hearts, minds, souls, our whole being. The good, the bad, the ugly, the parts that feel unlovable and unworthy. All of it. All of us. No matter how long it takes. 

And so, we wear the sign of the cross in ashes on the outside to remind ourselves of the work that God is enacting on the INSIDE Of us. The confessing our sins. The accepting and embracing of our brokenness and trauma. Acknowledging and processing the ways that we have been marked by death and loss in the last year. Beginning the slow and painful process of the transformation of our dusty and broken hearts into ones that are healed and whole…. All so that we might be better able to love the other dusty and hurting hearts out there in our lives and in the rest of the world.  To love one another with our whole hearts… with hearts that are broken AND beautiful. 

We know that will likely take more than forty days. It might take more than a year. It will likely take our entire lives. But together, trusting in Jesus, we will get through this Lent-within-Lent, hearts intact and ready to love, beautiful broken bits and all. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

The First Actual Disciple

 2-7-21

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

During this time of “Coronatide Winter,” I’ve noticed so many things being turned into Hashtag Challenges. Some are fun – go look up #TargetDressChallenge, you won’t regret it! But some are also serious.

I’ve seen my pastor friends doing the #danglingerringchallenge, which I assumed was for fun – until I heard the story behind it. Turns out, last year an African American woman pastor in the Methodist church named Chenda Innis Lee was repeatedly harassed by one of her members for wearing dangling earrings during their Zoom worship, and that member wrote multiple letters saying that her choice was “too distracting.”

As women in public ministry, myself and my female colleagues over and over again have been forced to defend our calls to other people. All women I know have experienced inappropriate comments about how much we weigh, how we do our hair, the clothes we wear, how young we look. I personally have been mansplained, stalked, harassed, and called names online and in real life. Our calls are belittled when the culture automatically assumes that the ONLY acceptable pronoun for “pastor” is “he.”

The words we use are very important. The Gospel of Mark isn’t wordy, but Mark knows what he’s doing. He’s painting for us a picture of Jesus who is a man of both words AND action. Jesus chooses his words carefully. He means what he says and leads by example. And when he calls us to follow, he expects us to do the same.

It's actually a little amusing to me that we are STILL in the first chapter of Mark, but there is so much going on here – healing one person, then healing a lot of people, then Jesus needs some down time. Then Jesus preaching and heals some more. But it all began with one person – the mother of Simon’s wife. I think it’s pretty cool that they told Jesus about her fever right away, and that Jesus got right to it and healed her.

And then she got up and began to make everybody some sandwiches… oh wait, what? That’s NOT cool! The feminist in me rankles a bit at first to her response to the gift of new life…. as she seems to repeat the broken systems in place in her old life.

But maybe, just maybe…. Simon’s mother-in-law does something in chapter 1 that none of the other disciples get around to doing in ALL of the chapters of Mark. She was the first disciple of Jesus who actually behaves like one.

This woman was healed and restored, to respond out of her gratitude as a mode of true discipleship, following in Jesus’ (Future) footsteps. Though Simon, Andrew, James, and John were CALLED first, SHE is first to live out her call. SHE, who was not even given a name in Mark’s Gospel. SHE is the one who shows us the way – opening her home and her doorstep to be the staging ground for the healing of an entire city in need.

She was the first woman in Mark, who followed Jesus, as arguable the first diaconal minister, and she certainly would not be the last.

Jesus is on the move, and these women keeps pace with him, more so than their male counterparts. Women ministered to Jesus and even stood vigil at the cross. Women were the first to witness the empty tomb on Easter morning. Women like Priscilla, Tabitha, Junia, and a pretty cool one from Greece named Lydia, and also many, many others worked solo or side by side with their male counterparts to help be midwives at the birth of God’s kingdom here on earth.

Female bodies are sacred, blessed, chosen to for this holy work, when the rest of the world, even in the church, would rather not acknowledge this, or even recognize all the ways we harm one another by not honoring this call from God comes to all kinds of bodies.

Jesus came to earth in a body. Jesus healed bodies – cast demons from them, restored them to health – and also fed them. …. And by the way, he also took care of his body with rest… all still within the first chapter in the Gospel of Mark. Not a bad beginning.

Unfortunate for us, we still seem to be at the very beginning of working on this particular justice issue. It is 2021, and little girls can grow up to be anything they want to be, including pastors, right? We sometimes forget that there are still denominations that call themselves Lutheran who do recognize women’s ordination. 18% of the member churches in theLutheran World Federation do not ordain women, and many ELCA churches still balk and calling a female pastor. In so doing, they are denying and rejecting vital organs in the Body of Christ.

While the rest of the society values only certain types of bodies are worthy, Jesus continues to insist that all bodies are loved and worthy of being seen as holy – bodies of all abilities, ages, colors, genders, sizes, and health levels. And all bodies deserve healing, rest, and care. In fact, Jesus put his own body on the line to get this point across. And God thought all bodies – including your body - are so important, that he raised Jesus up… in a bodily resurrection. Probably the best offering in the #resurrectionchallenge

Whether you wear dangling earrings – or not – you are loved and you are called. Whether you need to step back and make space for rest or are ready to lean in and eager for the work that is to come, you are still loved and you are called. And as we remember that God loves, creates, and calls all bodies to this work, we can create space for all the different ways that we all can follow Jesus. Thanks be to God, amen.

 

"Who is Worthy?"

Wednesday evening prayer - Narrative Lectionary 

2-3-10 “Who is Worthy?”

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh lord, our rock and our salvation, amen.

The centurion – a Roman citizen and military leader - is pretty close to the top of the food chain in Jesus’s time. Toward the bottom were all the people that the Romans had conquered, including Jesus’s people. So here we have this powerful man who answered to very few, ask for healing on behalf of his slave. He might have heard something about Jesus, since Jesus had been to Capernaum before, healing and cast out demons on his previous trip. He could easily have commanded or threatened Jesus. Instead, he asks the Jewish elders to intercede with on his behalf.

Presumably, the elders thought this centurion was a worthy candidate for Jesus because of he seemed like a “good guy.” It makes sense, since proximity to power is the next best thing to having power yourself.

But we know that that’s not how Jesus rolls. Jesus judges the worth of people from an entirely different criteria than that of the rest of the world. Because to Jesus – and to God – all people have worth.

I really like a quote from the show Doctor Who when he says, “In 900 years of time and space, I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important.” Afterall, not unlike Jesus, Dr. Who prefers to hang out with “normal” everyday people, and brings those people on their many adventures. Also, must like Dr. Who, Jesus seems to show up exactly at the right place at the right time, as he did for the widow who Jesus encountered next.

Imagine for a moment that you are the woman in this story. Though your husband has died and can no longer provide for you, you were fortunate enough to have had a son who survived to adulthood. It would have been his job to take you in and support you, since insurance policies, pensions, 401(k)s, social security, and Medicare did not exist. Now imagine you are instead attending the funeral of your only son, knowing also that now you are destitute.

When Jesus saw the widow’s grief, his heart went out to this woman who had lost everything. She was the complete opposite in every way to the centurion commander. And yet, she was very much the same in Jesus’s eyes.

Man, woman. Powerful, powerless. Member of the occupying army, part of the population being oppressed. And yet, both have worth, and Jesus helps both. Jesus healed the centurion’s servant long-distance. Then, in the next town over, Jesus got up close and personal, interrupting a young man’s funeral in order to make it unnecessary.  

I think Doctor Who (and Jesus) is right. You are important. But some people are treated by others as “worthless” - worth less than other people. We may not have slaves and centurions in this time and place, but we have questions of worth of our own to ask ourselves if we are paying attention.

Which kind of people have you seen that are treated as having more worth than others? We are seeing the answer play out every single day – some gets paid less for doing the same job. Some have access to getting the vaccine are not the same as those being hardest hit by Covid-19. Those who break the law for different reasons getting different bail amounts and being treated differently in our criminal justice system. While these things continue, we all suffer.

We need one another, because it is only together, we are whole. Together we are complete. Together we are the children of God. Together we are worthy, because it is God, not the world, who has given us our worth, and no one is not important. Thanks be to God. Amen.