Yes And (Sermon)

Sermon for 18 July 2018, Feast Day of Mary Magdalene

Some of this sermon was inspired by this book: God, Improv, and the Art of Living.

The person who helped with the sermon works for this theater company: https://www.tbatheatre.org

Prayer on the Feast Day of St. Mary Magdalene

Holy Mary of Magdala, Apostle to the Apostles, Friend of Jesus, Soul Freed from Seven Demons, pray for us.

Brown-skinned prophetic sister, comfort those who are grieving and exhausted. Bring the consolation of company, rest, and return for their labor.

Watcher at the foot of the cross, give us the strength to bear witness to those falsely imprisoned in jails or by systems. Grant us the willingness to speak against a culture of fear-mongering and death.

Weeper at the tomb, strengthen us by your example and knowledge to keep walking, keeping speaking, keep singing, and to demand, still, that we want to see Jesus. And help us to radiate joy when he speaks our name.

Holy Mary of Magdala, Apostle to the Apostles, Friend of Jesus, Soul Freed from Seven Demons, pray for us.

This prayer was originally written for and posted at RevGalBlogPals.

Caterpillars, Butterflies, and Resurrection

John 20:1-18

            Have you ever thought about butterflies and Easter? Do you know why they are associated? Until very recently, I assumed (like many others) that the caterpillar went into the chrysalis, something, something, grew wings, and became a butterfly. That’s not what happens.

            Recently, listening to the program Radiolab, I learned that in the 1600s- theologians and scientists had cut open pupae and discovered a white- yellow goo inside. The caterpillar is gone, but no butterfly was yet formed or seemed even evident in any shape, form, or fashion.

            They believed that the caterpillar died. In dying, it represented our bodies. The butterfly stood for our souls, light, free, and beautiful. Fortunately, they were wrong about the relationship of the caterpillar to the butterfly. I will assert that they were also incorrect about the body and soul’s separation, since the bodies are also beloved and prized by God.

            There is just pale goo in the chrysalis, even one day after the caterpillar forms it. The caterpillar seems gone and there isn’t yet a sign of what will be. So what happens? How does this longtime symbol of death to resurrection actually do its thing?

            As it turns out, the caterpillar is growing the thin, light skeleton of the future butterfly in its body for its entire life. The caterpillar carried and fed the form of its future self. When it forms the chrysalis, the caterpillar dissolves, but the delicate butterfly parts- carried into the chrysalis- are pressed against its papery inside, with the goo- the proteins and amino acids of the caterpillar- forming the center. Butterflies will turn away from distasteful smells they experienced as a caterpillar. Some sense memories of their previous life exist within them.

            Thus, a caterpillar to a butterfly is not a story of death and decay. Instead, it is a story of resurrection as transformation, of new life, above the fullness of the possibilities that were always within. The caterpillar’s future self was inside it all along.

            When I think of Peter, Mary Magdalene, and the Beloved Disciple running back and forth to the tomb on that first Easter morning, I cannot help but think of them as being like caterpillars. Their insides probably felt like goo, as they panicked about the location of Christ’s body. Even in believing who Jesus was, God among them, among us, they did not understand what happened.

            Mary Magdalene, in her caterpillar state, also was overwhelmed. She did not recognize Jesus speaking to her, mistaking him for a gardener. But then he spoke her name, “Mary.” Christ called her by name and she knew who he was. She realized what had happened.

            Jesus urges her forward, with work to do. She is to speak to his brothers. She is to carry the news of the risen Savior. She is to proclaim a new familial relationship with God, by declaring him the Father of Christ and the Father of all. In these moments, Mary transforms. The shape of an evangelist (one who brings good news) has always been inside her, that’s why she was following Jesus.    

            The same thing happens for us. When we have a new life in Christ, what is old passes away. Our insecurities, our fears, our prejudices die. They enter the primordial ooze. The new life we have burst forth, with the help of the Holy Spirit. So many people expect to feel very different. Life in Christ, though, isn’t about feelings. The butterfly doesn’t feel different. It is different.

            Alive in grace, because of God’s work in Jesus on the first Easter and every day since, we are fundamentally changed, yet the possibilities of that new self, of that new life, of that transformation have always been inside us. The shape of our future self, the person that God is calling us and forming us to be, is always within us. We know what we know, we have been forgiven, we step forward… and there is transformation and resurrection… Easter, Easter, Easter… every step of the way.

            That is the hope of this Easter day. Not that we have blech little bodies that will die one day and then there will be something else somewhere. No! The Easter message, the one that calls us by name in the gardens of our griefs and frustrations, is that God resurrects, even here, even now, even you, even me. In Jesus’ own body was the Word that had always been and the Christ who will always be. Within us, by God’s own power, is the resurrection for today and the shape of who God will make us to be for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Amen.

Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles

            This past spring, a mom from the preschool came back into the church after dropping off her child. In the corner of our parking lot, she had found a woman bent over and crying. Bringing her into the church office, the mother said that the woman was in pain from a broken tooth. The woman was obviously in a lot of pain and had sores on her face and her hands.

            She said that she had been in so much pain she wasn’t able to work. When we asked what she did, she looked at us and said, “I’m a working girl.” She waited for the judgment we didn’t have time to give because we were trying to figure out how to help her. The mom offered to drive her over to Safeway for some Orajel (pain killer) and some food. In the meantime, I made calls to find some help. I tried the Mary Magdalene center, but got no answer.

            I called LSSA and received the names of some dentists who might do low-cost or pro-bono work. However, we concluded that the entire situation might be better if we could get the woman to go to the emergency room and perhaps receive care, food, and contact with a social worker. I did not think we would end her professional career that day, but I hoped we might offer some light.

            Eventually, the mom came back to the church alone and very upset. After receiving the medication to make her tooth stop hurting, the woman wanted to go back to work. She was worried about the people who had her things and to whom she owed money. It was tough to console the mom who returned, who had been so hopeful that we would be able to save the woman. She cried to me, “How could she want to go back?”

            Because she does not know anything different right now, I said, but you helped her see a little something different today. And that will stay in her mind. It is hard to watch people who really want to help feel rejected and confused, but it happens in the work of reaching out to people in a broken world.

            I kept thinking about both those women this week when I was pondering Mary Magdalene in my heart- the bruised “working girl” and the very clean-cut preschool mom. As most of you know, I have a personal crusade to make it known far and wide that in the gospel accounts, Mary Magdalene is NOT (NOT!) a working girl (prostitute). In church history, she’s often been conflated with Mary of Bethany and the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet. While this did narrow down the number of characters in the Scripture, making it easier to keep everyone untangled, it gave Mary Magdalene a reputation she didn’t earn and threw into the shadows the one she did.

            In Luke 8, Mary (called Magdalene) has seven demons cast out of her by Jesus and then she, with several other women, begin to follow him as disciples. There is no mention of what the demons were. Presumably, like other demons encountered in Scripture, they are afflictions that prevent her functioning in society. They could be things like depression or anxiety, things we might recognize as psychological. They could be physical ailments- bleeding, epilepsy, screaming fits. They could be Satan trying to prevent her from becoming the instrument of God that she’s about to become.

            Nevertheless, she is freed from these demons and follows Jesus. Imagine what that was like for her. She had been invisible to society and now, suddenly, she was seen and known by the eyes of God in Jesus. She was restored, not only to wholeness, but to companionship, to community, to communion. Her body is whole because the body of Jesus, the body of God, came near and brought her consolation and healing.

            After her exorcism, we next see Mary Magdalene at the tomb. And she’s there in all the gospel accounts. She will not abandon the body that brought her own self back to life. Sometimes she’s with other women, sometimes she’s the first one there. I occasionally wonder if she ever left after Good Friday- after they laid him in the tomb. Maybe she never went home, but lingered in the shadows, in fitful waking and sleeping and sobbing, until Easter morning.

            This is the story that people need to know about Mary Magdalene. That she encountered the risen Christ and that she, she, carried the good news of resurrection to the other apostles- who were hiding in fear. That Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors are facts that we can get from other stories and other characters. We do not need that good news from Mary Magdalene.

            What we need from her is the tower of faith that stood in grief by the tomb. The pillar of strength that recognized the face of her teacher, her rabbouni! The urging of the Spirit that hurried her feet over packed roads, singing, “He is risen! He is risen indeed!” The truth people need to hear about the story of Mary of  Magdala is not an exaggerated claim about what she might have been, but the bare facts of who she was- the Apostle to the Apostles, the first post- Easter evangelist, the foundation of the church because of the story she carried.

            If we elevate her too much, we risk her seeming too saintly, too out of reach. Yet, with Mary Magdalene, I do not think that will happen. When the other apostles seem uncertain or bombastic, unfaithful or confused, the eyes of the church turn to Mary Magdalene- who had real, physical experiences of healing, forgiveness, and hope.

             A working girl on Spenard doesn’t need to know, yet, that Jesus was a friend to prostitutes. She needs to know that the people who claim to follow Jesus are. People who are struggling, looking for hope, lingering because change does not seem possible need to know that the people who claim to follow Jesus are on their side. And in as much as we help anyone, we should never be doing it because it is what we think Jesus would want us to do. We should be doing because of what we know has been done for us through Jesus. And how did we come to know of this grace, this Easter hope, this work of forgiveness?

            Through the words of the first preacher, Mary Magdalene- who dared to follow Jesus, who dared to stay at the foot of the cross, who was prepared to honor the body of her Lord fallen- but met that body risen. Her story needs no embellishment or conflation, but it is powerful through the test of time. And if we dare to be like her, to trust in the healing that we have received and to seek the risen Christ, our story will stand as well.

            People want to know God’s history, and how will they hear it unless someone speaks it to them? People long to know that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not, cannot, will not overcome it.

            With Mary Magdalene, like Mary Magdalene, I tell you, “Christ is risen.”

He is risen indeed.

Amen. 

Mary Magdalene: Witness to the Crucifixion

 Our Lutheran Community Good Friday service for this year was themed: "Witness to the Crucifixion". As the story was read, we heard from Judas, Pilate's wife, Barrabas, Mary (Jesus' mother), the Roman centurion, and Mary Magdalene. It was unbelievably powerful stuff to hear the words of the characters pour forth with emotion: anger, grief, glee, resentment, curiosity, expectation, loss. 

I spoke as Mary Magdalene and I was the last witness, lingering at the tomb. It's been an emotional week, but in those moments when I was thinking as the Magdalen- I thought of having such deep love for Jesus and knowing nothing of resurrection, of believing all on which I had built my hopes was gone. I was devastated and the following words are what I spoke, through tears and some sobs. At one point, I tore my wrap- rending my garments- until I laid down in the dried palms from Palm Sunday- slain in grief. Ah, Mary Magdalene- a hero to me on Good Friday and in the days to come... 

           I am the last one at the tomb. I cannot leave. There are two Roman guards, but they don’t see me. They could- I’m not hiding. But they don’t want to.

            The other disciples have left. The other women have left. Only me- hovering around, unseen and unacknowledged. There are the visible disciples- Peter, Judas, Andrew, James, and John. And then there are the invisible disciples… the ones the visible disciples and others tried not to see.

            Do you know what it’s like to feel invisible? To know that you are in a crowd of people who do not know you and, therefore, do not see you. Worse can you imagine the feeling of forced invisibility? When you know people can see you, know who you are, but choose to ignore you… choose to “not” see you… decide that you do not merit acknowledgement… you are invisible.

            And if you are invisible to people, you may as well be invisible to God. This is how I felt, constantly, before Jesus… before he cast out the demons that plagued me. When that pain and torment fled, I felt my body re-appear. My eyes came back… because Jesus met them and then so did other people. My hands came back… because Jesus would pass food to me and take food from me… and then so did other people. My feet came back… reappeared because I could walk next to someone, with the others who followed Jesus. My voice made noise again… words that were heard, received, responded to… by Jesus and by others. My face came back- as it was touched and kissed by Jesus.

            Slowly my body reappeared and I was no longer missing, no longer unseen. I was made visible by Love, by living words of hope… I was made visible by Jesus and when Jesus saw you, everyone around him saw you. More, though, and this is the part that’s hard to explain… when Jesus saw you, it felt like God saw you. Saw right through you and not only were you visible, but you were bare and exposed, not naked… just visible and… known…

            Now… now… Now the eyes that saw me, saw everything are closed. The hands that touched and cradled and fed are pierced and still. The feet that led and walked beside and nudged… the feet are still. They stopped bleeding before we got to the tomb.  The mouth, the mouth that poured forth words of love… words like no other… words of welcome… of hope… of God with us right now… that mouth is silent. Silent! The warm lips that offered a kiss of peace are cold and still. His mouth! Rabbouni!

(Clothing torn here)

            How can the world exist without him? How can this be the same place that beheld and held that body?

Who will see me? Who will see us?

Who will speak of hope and of God’s love?

Who will feed the people that no one sees?

Who will heal?

Who will stay awake in the night with those who cannot sleep?

            How can we live without Jesus, without his body among us? How can we go on without him? How will I live without the One that made me visible? Does my body exist without the Body that made me whole?

            I cannot leave this tomb. How can I abandon his body? As long as I stay here, at this tomb, he is not alone. If I stay, he is still visible, even behind the stone. I know he’s there. If I stay, Jesus’ body is still real. And as long as his body is real, so is mine.