April 28, 2024 5th Sunday of Easter Mark 7:24-30

Our gospel reading today is one of those Bible passages where scholars have spilled untold gallons of ink trying to make sense of it. No matter how you look at it there is no way to get a clear and concise meaning from it, or even multiple meanings layered together.

And it is so unsettling! Does Jesus really refuse to cure this woman’s daughter? Does he really call her a dog? (Or perhaps some other word we’re not supposed to use in the polite family friendly setting of a sermon?) Is this a sign of Jesus’ humanity that he is so tired that his compassion is down? Or, does this woman really best Jesus in an argument? She, a woman; a non-Jewish woman; a non-Jewish uneducated woman… does she really outthink Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, in an argument while the brilliant religions leaders perpetually fail to do so?

I think that last question puts us on a path that does help us understand what is going on.

Before we turn to that, I want to say what this text clearly is not. I have heard this text interpreted to say it is about sexism and racism, and that Jesus’ systemic sexist and racist attitudes are challenged and broken by this strong uppity foreign woman. But interpretations like that are pure nonsense. They are imposing current day arguments and categories onto ancient texts, and then interpreting those texts to give you a meaning you can use to support your own pre-conceived conclusions. That’s bad biblical interpretation and bad logic.

Let’s be clear. The author of this gospel has no reason to include a text that would make Jesus look anything other than good. He had plenty of material to choose from. He didn’t have to include this. He did include it because he wants to teach us either something about Jesus or something about ourselves. This text was probably problematic right from the beginning. A different version of the same story is included in Matthew’s gospel. There Matthew tweaks it a bit and uses it as a story to teach about the strength of faith. Luke’s gospel, which like Matthew’s gospel, uses Mark as the foundation to tell the story of Jesus, leaves this story out completely.

No, Mark chose to put this story in the gospel for a reason. We may never know exactly, but I think we can make some pretty logical guesses. And I think those logical guesses teach us something.

Last week in worship we read the passage just before this one. You may remember that some Pharisees and some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus. So far so good. There is nothing problematic about them wanting to see what Jesus is up to. But they noticed that some of Jesus’ disciples were not observing traditional Jewish cleanliness rituals before meals. They question Jesus about this. Let’s remember that these scribes from Jerusalem aren’t just locals with petty grievances. These are the top people.

Scribes were not the same thing as lawyers. They may have been similar but weren’t the same. Lawyers dealt with the law. Scribes may deal with the law, or deal with scripture, or deal with economics, or hold government offices, or the like. These scribes from Jerusalem were not just local guys who dealt with wills and deed transfers. These guys were like high end corporate executives. They knew the law frontwards and backwards. They knew both the letter of the law and the intent of the law. They knew the nuances of the law. They knew precedents. They are the top in their field. So when they challenge Jesus they are posing quite a challenge indeed!

Let’s not turn them into sour faced disagreeable legalists either. They are people who care about their faith and genuinely want to live out what God wants.

If you can remember last week you’ll remember that Jesus does not throw out the religious laws at all. He roots the religious laws in God’s constructive purposes. From there he challenges their beliefs. In that way he takes down a number of barriers: barriers about food, barriers about religious rituals, barriers about intentions, and barriers about righteousness. That same theme continues on in what we read today.

It must be said that this Syrophoenician woman is bold! Or perhaps she’s desperate. Make sure you picture the scene correctly. Jesus has left Jewish territory and is in the region of Tyre. He has gone into a house and he doesn’t want the public to know where he is. Presumably he wants to rest from the constant demands of the crowds. Anyway, Jesus is not out walking in the countryside. He’s in private. She disregards this. She barges in anyway. Can you imagine having an important guest in your house… say, a famous person who just wants to come and have a quiet peaceful time? You do not want the local news stations, or tabloid reporters, or the paparazzi barging in. But that is just what this woman does.

She does deserve credit that she bows down at Jesus’ feet. So she does show him honor and respect. She’s not so bold as to come in and be confrontational and demanding. But she is still bold.

She implores Jesus for help. He refuses. This is not intended to be a test of her faith. This is about Jesus staying true to his purpose. His purpose is not to run all over the countryside fixing people’s problems. Sure, this woman’s daughter is suffering. But hundreds, if not thousands, of women had suffering daughters. Was Jesus to just hop from place to place healing them all? No. That’s not his purpose. He points that out to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Ouch. That hurts. But I don’t think it was intended to. Look at all aspects of early Christianity. Jesus was a Jew. He focused on Jews. Jewish scripture and faith was then and is now the foundation of what Jesus was doing. By far the biggest portion of the writings we Christians consider to be scriptures are not our own, but are Jewish. Judaism is the core. Jesus knew the connections to the core needed to be firmly established before things moved outward. Jesus is not at all against women or foreigners, or against helping people. But if he is going to accomplish in his ministry what he needs to accomplish he needs to stay focused. This woman was breaking that focus.

He gives her very valid logic using an easy-to-understand image. The children are to be fed first. But unlike Jesus’ highly educated opponents, the Jerusalem scribes, who we met previously, she fully accepts the strength of Jesus’ argument. Then she counters with her own. “Yes, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

She has not outwitted Jesus. She has not out argued him. She has simply countered Jesus’ sound logic with a different line of sound logic. Jesus acknowledges that. He has no logical reason to deny her request. So, he grants it despite it not being his focus.

If we look at this scene in the context Mark puts it, in the scene we had last week the barriers of food and tradition have been broken. Here barriers of race, education, and status are broken too. This woman stands at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the educated elite who challenged Jesus previously.

What does the whole collection of scenes mean? It means to us, who read it centuries later, that in the faith of Jesus there aren’t stratifications. Intelligence, educational level, gender, race, etc. don’t ultimately matter. That may not be news to anyone who grew up in Christian faith. But it was a radical idea then. No one gets to say they have an inside track into God’s favor, nor an inside track on doing God’s will. In eternal life no one gets a superior seat, or an inferior seat.

That also means that no one gets a pass on responsibility. You can’t say, “Someone smarter or more holy or with a better personality should do the work of faith. I don’t have to do it.” Not so. You do what you can, whatever you can. It is everyone’s privilege and everyone’s responsibility.

Let us, like the Syrophoenician woman, be bold in our faith, but also respectful. For despite her boldness of entering the house, she also made her request of Jesus by kneeling before him. And may God give us energy and creativity in all that we do in his name.

April 21, 2024 4th Sunday of Easter Mark 7:1-23

Jesus’ remarks in our gospel reading that, “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come,” reminds me of the story the head chaplain at the University of Tennessee Medical Center told while I was working as a chaplain there. He said that one day he was working from his home office. He had two daughters and the younger of the two came to his office and asked, “Can I have a bowl of ice cream?” This was an unusual request but he decided there was no harm in it, so he said yes.

Some time later when he stepped out of the office he found his two daughters in the living room watching TV. The youngest, who had asked for a bowl of ice cream did not have any. But the older, who did not ask, was sitting there eating ice cream. He said to her, “What are you doing? I never said you could have ice cream!”

“No, you didn’t,” was her calm reply.

“So why do I see you here eating ice cream?”

“Well, I knew you’d never say yes if I asked to have ice cream. But I knew you’d say yes to her. So I had her ask for me. And she did. And you said yes. But you never said she couldn’t give the ice cream to me.”

I don’t know what his daughters do in adulthood, but there’s the making of a good lawyer there! He could have punished both his daughters for their deceptive shenanigans, but he decided they had outmaneuvered him fair and square. He also knew to be on his guard in the future, for both parents and children know how to play that game!

And that’s just it. From the time we are little we learn how to,…perhaps not be outright deceptive, but to be strategic. You know how to get what you need, and what you want. You learn how to do quick calculations in your head about how you will act. Quite likely there’s at least one person in your life that you consider to be a friend, but he or she says things that you disagree with, or even find offensive. You decide not to confront them because you’d rather have the friendship than have it be broken.

Hopefully there’s nothing in our hearts that rises to the level of evil intentions that Jesus talks about: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and folly. Although some of those things may seem less destructive than others. I certainly don’t put folly and murder on the same moral level. Yet, they do both speak to a depravity of the heart that is destructive. And certainly each and every one of us is caught by at least one thing on that list.

We’ll come back to that in a few minutes. Before that we want to look more at the specifics of what Jesus is being challenged over.

Our gospel reading starts with Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathering around Jesus and noticing his disciples are eating with defiled hands. We should note that the fact that scribes have come from Jerusalem shows that the ministry Jesus is doing is becoming known in high places. He’s had disagreements with religious leaders before this but they were on a more local level. As we enter Mark 7 we realize the ministry of Jesus has been expanding greatly. It started in Capernaum. Then it spread throughout the region of Galilee. Then it continued on into some non-Jewish areas. Last week we read the end of chapter six where we learned, “And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” (6:56)

So Jesus has come to the attention of the religious bigwigs. They’ve sent out some scribes to see what is going on. They challenge Jesus about food and purity laws. Although note that they do not say Jesus is breaking any of the codes. It is that he is not teaching his disciples to follow them. That difference is subtle, but significant. All of the gospels note that Jesus himself obeyed the Jewish religious laws. However he did not impose them on his followers.

That teaches us that the laws themselves are not bad. Jesus doesn’t reject them. Not at all. But he does question the reason why people follow them; or more specifically the way following the religious laws was used judgmentally and to cause divisions.

Judaism was not united in its following of the religious laws. Other historical accounts of the times show there were variations among Jews. Many practiced different things. When the religious leaders challenge Jesus about them they are trying to put he and his disciples into a category. Perhaps think about it like the hot button issues of today. People talk about pro-life or pro-choice. We have divisions about race, and gender, and capital punishment, and policies about poverty, and policies about wealth, and policies about guns, and policies about immigration, and policies about how to handle Israel, and Palestinians, and Ukraine, and Sudan, and Afghanistan… and I could make this list go on and on.

Any of these things are used to create labels for people, and then to either see them as being like oneself, or being an opponent. Few, if any, discussions that I’m a part of with all of this stuff are actually constructive.

Where does Jesus land in the debate over food and food purity laws? Jesus refuses to be categorized. He refuses to let other people define issues in a way that he then has to take sides. Jesus does here what he always does. He roots things in God’s original intentions, not in technicalities of the law. For just like one girl asking on behalf of her sister for a bowl of ice cream, and not being explicitly told by her father that the ice cream cannot be given to her sister, so too will people find loopholes that allow them to do what their heart desires.

Before the scribes and Pharisees Jesus refuses to be defined. And then he goes on the offensive. The debate about things being an offering to God, or “Corban,” appears to have been another hot issue of the time. Though the exact nature of this is no longer clear, it appears it had something to do with making a vow attached to goods, which meant they could be no longer use for any purpose other than the temple.

This is an oversimplification, but maybe think of it this way. Let’s say we have a major campaign to pay off the mortgage of the church. You make a sizable pledge of money to the effort. But then something happens with a family member’s finances and they are in need. You can’t afford to both help them and maintain your financial pledge to the church, so what should you do? Which is more important, help of family or support of church? Under what circumstances could you break your pledge to the church? What would God think of you for it?

It seems that in Jesus’ day things were leaning pretty severely on the side of keeping your pledge to the temple. Your family would just have to suffer. There were few if any ways of backing out.

But Jesus roots the argument back into the old law given through Moses about honoring family members. That is a connection of the heart, and not a connection based upon technicalities. So we conclude with a return to idea of a depravity of the heart.

I don’t think it’s possible for any of us to ever have absolutely pure motives on anything we do. There’s always going to be some hope or desire connected to what we do that will benefit us, even if it is a very selfless seeming act. But Jesus is not trying to beat us up for those technicalities. We want to look at the bigger picture of our hearts.

Are we driven by greed and desires? Is who we present ourselves as in public basically true to who we are on the inside? Do embellish things, or leave things out, in our conversations and in our dealings such that we look artificially good and other people unfairly bad? Do we do things to make our lives easier for ourselves when we really need to shoulder greater responsibility for our actions? Would we rather point the finger at other people rather than work harder ourselves?

Jesus invites us to have our lives rooted, not in human dynamics of definitions and justice, but in God’s saving and enduring love. That puts our hearts in the purest place. It removes us from all the distinctions and judgments humans create. And it frees us to most fully be our true selves.

April 14, 2024 3rd Sunday of Easter Mark 6:45-56

I hope the gospel reading bothered you at least somewhat, or perhaps quite a bit! Our gospel reading picks up right after the Feeding of the 5000 miracle. We can understand that Jesus is very tired after that event. Even if you were a full time caterer with all sorts of equipment and professional staff you’d still feel wiped out after feeding thousands of people. Jesus, with only the disciples to help him and no cooking staff at all, is certainly wiped out. He wants to be alone to pray and rejuvenate. So he sends his disciples away while he stays behind.

Actually, he doesn’t just send the disciples away. He doesn’t say, “Go, do what you want for a bit. I need some time to be alone and to pray.” No, he gives them specific instructions. The gospel tells us that after the feeding Jesus immediately made his disciples get into the board and go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to Bethsaida. The crowd is still there and only after sending off the disciples does Jesus dismiss the crowd. The disciples, then, are following Jesus’ specific instructions.

You think, or at least you’d hope, that if you were following God’s clear and specific instructions you’d get some help in the task ahead. Maybe you’ll accept that the task will be difficult and dangerous, but you expect God’s help. But the disciples set off in what appears to be calm water. It seems as if only later does the wind pick up and the disciples are straining to get across.

At this point we’re through six chapters of Mark’s gospel. Mark has told us, the readers, that Jesus has power over nature. Mark has also told us that Jesus can discern what is in the minds of other people. In other words, we know that Jesus is all knowing and all powerful.

With that in mind, shouldn’t the disciples have an easy time across the lake? Jesus hasn’t sent them out to do anything dangerous. And they aren’t doing anything particularly remarkable. They are just to row a routine trip across familiar waters.

But they face an adverse wind. We aren’t told that this is a particularly dangerous situation. You may remember from chapter 4 that Jesus is asleep in the boat with the disciples when a windstorm arises and the boat is being swamped. No, this time it’s just an adverse wind. The disciples can handle it. It's just hard. We feel a bit of compassion from Jesus when Mark tells us in verse 48, “When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning.”

Ah, good. Jesus sees their distress. Jesus is going to come and help.

That’s the way we want God to work. That’s the way we think God does work. Those who are doing God’s will will receive help in time of need. We’ll overlook that Jesus didn’t calm the wind, and we’ll overlook that Jesus sent them out there in the first place.

But then what does Jesus do? Verse 48 continues, “[Jesus] came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass by them.”

What!?! Jesus is going to just pass by them? Aren’t these guys doing exactly what Jesus has instructed them to do? Aren’t they fighting against the wind on his orders? …when he himself could have calmed the wind and made this routine crossing easier. Shouldn’t Jesus at least acknowledge their difficulties? Is Jesus really going to leave them alone to battle this on their own?

If I’m going to do God’s will, whether it be difficult and exciting, or dull and routine, I certainly don’t want God to just ignore me when I’m in distress!

Yes, there’s plenty about this text to bother us.

Let’s look at it more deeply as Mark intends.

First, once before Jesus has sent the disciples away when he went off by himself to pray. When he came back from that time in prayer he made a major shift in his ministry. He went from ministry in Capernaum to going on a preaching tour in Galilee. This time Jesus also makes a major shift in his ministry. The Feeding of the 5000 was much more than just showing he could fill the bellies of lots of people without much food to start with. The Feeding of the 5000 is Jesus revealing himself as the great shepherd of the sheep. Prior to that miracle Mark says they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then Jesus teaches them; and ultimately feeds them. In the Feeding of the 5000 story Mark includes the details that Jesus has them all sit down in orderly fashion on the green grass. All of this is shepherding care. It is God’s care for the masses. As readers of Mark, we see the role of Jesus expanding. He is teacher, healer, provider, shepherd, and more.

So then why the abrupt shift to sending the disciples into harm’s way and ignoring them in their distress? Because it is a way of revealing more about Jesus.

We need to turn to Job 9, which we had as our scripture poetry. In 9:8 we read, “who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea.” In 9:11 we read, “Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him…” And we didn’t read it, but also in Job 38:16 we find God challenging Job with the words, “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?” It goes on, “Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare if you know all this.”

In Job God shows that God is beyond what a human can ever understand, or ever hope to control. Mark probably has more in mind too. In our first reading from Exodus Moses says to God, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And God said, “I will make my goodness pass before you.”

So, in this simple statement that Jesus intended to pass by them Mark is showing us a lot of things. He is touching on God being beyond what we can comprehend or control. He is touching on God’s goodness passing before them, just like Moses and the Israelites. And a sentence later we have this reinforced when Jesus says to the disciples, “Take heart, it is I.” Or more literally, “Take heart. I Am.”

We remember that God’s name in the Old Testament is “I Am.” So, what may have caused fear in the disciples and felt like neglect was really and ongoing and deeper revelation of who Jesus was in their midst. They were struggling. God was with them. God was not using supernatural means to protect them from harm, but God was in their midst through it.

So let’s look at the whole picture before us. You probably know well that I cringe whenever people say, “God has a plan for my life.” I get it. I understand the desire for your life to have a specific and unique purpose. And I understand the desire to feel God’s protection around you; especially as so much of life can feel out of your control. But that line of thinking runs into problems all too often. Why does one person get help and another doesn’t? Why do good things happen to bad people while bad things happen to good people? There is too much in life that is fundamentally unfair if you take that approach.

The “God has a purpose for me” approach is behind where I started today’s sermon when I talked about Jesus sending the disciples into difficulties and then walking by them in the midst of those difficulties. It feels unfair. It’s not the sort of things we want from God.

But this Bible passage encourages us to have a different approach. God has a plan, yes. God has a grand plan for the whole of the universe. And you get to have a part in it; an important part. So don’t feel left out or diminished. But God’s grand plan may not include you have an easy time of it.

The disciples were sent out onto that lake. Jesus knew they would struggle. He knew the wind would be against them. He knew his presence would frighten them. But all of it was a means by which God’s glory could be revealed. Jesus did not walk on water in order to show off. His ego didn’t need that. Jesus walked on water to show the disciples, and through them show the world, his saving power, his love, and his ongoing presence.

When something is unfair, puzzling, or perplexing, go ahead and let God know it. It’s fine to get upset with God. But don’t ruminate on it trying to make it make sense. As we find in the book of Job, much of what God does is beyond our ability to comprehend. We trust God anyway, not so that we understand, but because we know God is truly up to something good for the whole of the world.

April 7, 2024 2nd Sunday of Easter Mark 16:9-20

I believe most of us are familiar with the north end of Canandaigua Lake. Most of it is Kershaw Park but there’s also the city pier, country club, Lake House, and more. It’s a nice place. You can rent a luxury apartment that overlooks it all. Things are clear and distinct. If you walk in Kershaw Park you can walk on a solid dry trail almost at the water’s edge. There are rocks protecting the shore from erosion. In the swimming area there’s a sandy beach. The water is usually clean and clear.

I’m pretty sure most of us are not familiar with the south end of Canandaigua Lake. There you’re in the West River Area. Things couldn’t be more different from the north. The lake gets shallower and shallower; and then, you’re not quite sure where it ends. There are lily pads which transition into cattails and reeds. Sooner or later land forms, but isn’t not entirely clear where. The place covers some six thousand one hundred acres. There are channels in and among the reeds. Some of them you can get a boat through. Many you can’t. Duck Weed creates a green carpet over the channels. It’s hard to know what is land and what is not. Some places are dirt. Many places are like a peaty moss that you really can’t walk on. The place is rich with a diversity of wildlife: turtles, snakes, deer, beavers, various birds, and loads of insects. You never know what the place is going to smell like. It usually has a wet musty smell. There are no luxury apartments or hotels or country clubs.

I believe the north end of the lake used to be a lot like the south end, but over the centuries we have shaped the north into something definable and distinct. We humans like that sort of thing. We humans can find it meaningful to visit the marshy lands but we don’t want to actually live there.

Last Sunday on Easter we looked at the end of Mark’s gospel. It ended strangely. The women came to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus for burial. They didn’t do it on Friday because at sundown it was the Sabbath. The Sabbath went all the way through until Saturday night and Sunday sunrise was the earliest time they could get there. You can imagine the feelings of the women as they planned to anoint Jesus. Not only was it a difficult task, they also anticipated his body would also be starting to smell from the beginnings of decay. What a difficult time it would be for them to perform this service for the man upon whom they had put so much hope.

Then of course, when they got to the tomb they found the stone rolled back, and it was empty! Jesus was nowhere to be found! A young man appears at the tomb and tells them they should tell the disciples that Jesus was raised from the dead. And that they should to go Galilee. There they would see him.

Mark’s gospel ends with the enigmatic line that we translated literally, “And nothing to no one did they speak. The reason they were afraid was because.”

That’s it. End of the gospel. Strange.

You may remember from last week that we said Mark’s gospel was actually circular. The final sentence is incomplete. So is the first sentence. So that when we put the final incomplete sentence into place with the very first incomplete sentence we get a good sentence, “The reason they were afraid was because the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.”

That’s all well and good. But the early Christians didn’t like that. What we read in worship today are the varied endings that have been attached to Mark’s gospel. I’m not going to preach on them specifically. If you study them you can see that they are derived from the endings of the other gospels and from Acts. But I want to focus on why there was the desire to give Mark’s gospel a better ending.

Did people not understand that Mark’s gospel was circular? Maybe. In fact, that’s probably quite likely. If we’re honest, it isn’t a sure thing that Mark’s gospel is circular. It is only a theory. It is a very good theory, and one with a lot of evidence to support it. But it is still a theory.

And Mark probably also has something else going on too. Mark’s gospel also has several layers of meaning going on simultaneously. The meaning you get is determined by the level at which you look. Mark’s gospel is a lot like the West River Area at the south end of Canandaigua Lake. It lacks crisp distinctions and solid definition.

Remember back to the stories of Jesus’ arrest and trail. Jesus and the disciples go to Gethsemane after the Last Supper. Jesus prays. The disciples fall asleep. Jesus is deeply disturbed and asks the disciples to pray with him. But they keep falling asleep.

When the crowd from the religious leaders comes to arrest Jesus the disciples become scared. One of the disciples, cuts off the ear of the slave of the high priest. The disciples flee in disarray.

When Jesus is on trial Peter becomes daring enough to hang around the courtyard to see what will happen. But as people recognize Peter and connect him with Jesus, he denies ever knowing Jesus. So much for the courage of the closest of Jesus’ disciples!

By the time Jesus is crucified there’s no one left. We’re told that some women are watching from a distance. Three of them were: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome. They don’t have the courage to come closer but at least they haven’t totally fled. Realistically they had little to fear. Women were of such low account no one would have cared if they were associated with Jesus, as long as they didn’t cause trouble. So by the time Jesus is dead the disciples have fled in fear but we still have a few women looking on from a distance.

But, according to Mark, what happens Easter Sunday morning? The women see the tomb and the young man. They are filled with terror and amazement. And they flee the tomb telling no one anything. End of story.

Who’s left? No one. The male disciples fled in fear on Thursday and Friday. Now on Sunday the women followers have fled in fear too.

Yes, Mark’s gospel is circular. But he also ends it here. There is no hope for the future of the Jesus movement. No one is left. It is as if Mark’s gospel has left us in the middle of the West River Area. 6,100 acres of undefinable swamp and marsh. What’s lake? What’s land? What’s a navigable channel? What is not?

We don’t like that. Neither did the earliest Christians. Historical study shows us that early in the second century the endings based on the other gospels and Acts were already being tacked on to Mark. We want something solid to stand on – whether that is literal land or scriptural certainty. The additions to Mark’s gospel are like the north end of Canandaigua Lake which has been drained, and filled in, and developed, and defined.

But uncomfortable as Mark originally leaves us, Mark has done us a great service that we are well to give thanks for.

How often in life are you unsure of things? What is right? What is wrong? What will work? What won’t? Which political party is the least-worst? Which philosophy is right? Should parents push their children do to all sorts of sports and music and drama so that they fit in, even as parents know their kids are overscheduled? Should parents force their kids to come to worship to show the right priorities, or is forcing them going to cause a rebellion?

What do you do when your employer does things that aren’t entirely ethical? Should you stay to try to improve things, and yet possibly perpetuate the problem; or should you go looking for something better? Nothing in perfect. No one is perfect. I could list things on an on.

The truth is, much as we don’t like it, a lot of life is like living in the West River Area. There just isn’t the clarity and definition that we want.

I believe that the gospel writer Mark knew that. Mark does not tie everything up neatly. Mark shows that the story of Jesus is not afraid to dwell with us in those uncertain places; or even when everything is uncertain. It is as if Mark knew that the followers of Jesus that were yet to come would have struggles. They did not need simple easy clean answers. They needed scripture to reflect the real messiness of a life of faith.

It is easy to look at the past with a nostalgic eye. Things looked simpler, easier, more definite. It is easy to read the scriptures and think, “If only I could have been there. If only I could have seen Jesus face to face. If only I could have seen Jesus’ miracles first-hand then my faith would have no doubts.” Matthew’s gospel, Luke’s gospel, John’s gospel, and the Acts of the Apostles could all create that longing in us. Indeed, we do need that definition for our lives. But Mark also dares to meet us in the reality in which we live.

Men fled. Women fled. No one left. Where’s the solid ground to spread the gospel? Now what? That probably feels real.

Mark’s gospel does not give us an easy way out, for that was not his intention. Mark’s gospel does show us solidly that God knows we will feel the way we often feel. And, that we are not abandoned or condemned for it.

When you feel uncertain, keep praying, keep struggling. Go through the way Jesus witnesses to the nature of God’s love over and over again. Use that as the guide to act. Will you be certain? No. Will you avoid mistakes? No. But that is the type of authentic faith that our gospel gives us, and promises where we will find God.

March 31, 2024 Easter Sermon Mark 16:1-8

Inside the back of the bulletin are two cartoons. In one of them there are two women at the empty tomb. The caption reads, “Well, I certainly hope you kept the receipt for those burial spices!” Indeed, those burial spices are quite irrelevant!

If you were here for worship last week you may remember we talked about another woman who anointed Jesus for his burial. That woman was unnamed but her actions of pouring quite a bit of expensive ointment on Jesus head were recorded in detail. She is to be a contrast to the women, all of whom are named, who come to the tomb having bought their own spices for Jesus.

Mark’s gospel is full of details and quirks; including things like whose name is given and whose name is not. The reason why the bulletin has my own translation rather than The New Revised Standard Version is because all the translations into English smooth over the quirks in an effort to read better. That’s good translating. There’s nothing wrong with that. But, when the details and quirks are important you miss them. Mark’s quirkiest bit of the entire gospel is the very last line of his entire gospel. It is a literal translation to say, “And to no one nothing did they speak. The reason they were afraid was because.”

That’s the end. He put down his pen. He stopped writing there. End of story.

Except that’s no way to end a story! They didn’t have grammar lessons in those days the way we might today, but still, no way did any teacher of his ever tell him it was okay to end a story with the because. The grammar is wrong, wrong, wrong no matter what language you use!

Plus, this is the story of Jesus. Jesus is resurrected from the dead. There are a number of stories of resurrection appearances. In them the resurrected Jesus meets with his disciples. He talks to them. They touch him. He eats with them. He even cooks breakfast for them. All of those stories are about giving the reads proof that Jesus did indeed historically bodily rise from the dead. He was no ghost.

The Bible is vague in many many places. In many places our scriptures could be called legends, or heroic tales; or even myths. But the resurrection is meant to be a reliable historical account. It is so absolutely central to our faith.

But Mark leaves us with an empty tomb. The resurrected Jesus never appears.

So we have a bad sentence, and a bad end to the story. We feel cheated, jipped. Mark’s gospel is like reading a great story only to have the ending fail miserably!

It has often been suggested that the original ending of Mark’s gospel has been lost. That’s why it ends so abruptly. But that is not the case. Mark ended where he ended very deliberately. He’s no fool. And he also knows how to tell a story filled with subtleties that convey deep meaning. Mark’s gospel is a masterpiece of literature, and among the most complex things ever written.

If you have very good memory you might be able to recall what I said about this gospel when we’ve had it as our Easter text three years ago. I know, it can be hard to remember breakfast, let alone a sermon from three years ago. But in case you do manage to remember, you’ll recall that Mark’s gospel is actually circular.

Mark’s final sentence is an incomplete sentence: “And to no one nothing did they speak. The reason they were afraid was because.” And Mark’s gospel also begins with an incomplete sentence: “beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” So you put both incomplete sentences together and they form a complete sentence:

“The reason they were afraid because the beginning of the gospel.”

The empty tomb is not the end of the story. It is actually the beginning. Mark is up to something else that we don’t usually expect from what we read. But he’s not the only author to hint at that sort of thing.

The final lines of C.S. Lewis’ children’s book, The Last Battle, which ultimately concludes the seven book Chronicles of Narnia series, he writes, “… for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

I’m pulling in the idea from C.S. Lewis and imposing it on Marks, but I think it can be safely said that Mark is setting us up for the Great Story of God’s universe.

Mark’s gospel is just the cover and title page. The rest of the story is us, and in it we have a part that lasts a lifetime. We are called by God to live that adventure. And what an adventure life is intended to be!

Let’s get at how that works by coming from a different angle. The other three gospels in the Bible (Matthew, Luke, and John) take a very different approach to the story of Jesus after the resurrection. They record Jesus appearing to any number of the disciples any number of times. And then, at some point, Jesus ascends into heaven. For those gospels, the ascension is an essential part of the story of Jesus. They give it a definite conclusion. That then is the clear turning point for the disciples’ journey of faith. Up until that point they had followed Jesus. They had relied on him to answer their questions and to give them guidance. Then after the resurrection Jesus appears and disappears, on and off for a number of days. They can’t control him or contain him. He is real. They can touch him. Yet his resurrected body isn’t bound by the laws of nature the way he was before the crucifixion. And so between the time of the resurrection and the forty days until the ascension, the disciples were living in an in-between time. Would they see Jesus again? When? They didn’t know. When? Where? But the ascension signals to them that they will not see Jesus again. They don’t feel ready for that. But they discover that they indeed are ready. They do go out to preach and teach and make the word of Jesus a reality.

But that is in the other gospels. Mark’s coming at the situation differently. He does not want to give a closed end to the possible appearances of the resurrected Jesus. He wants to keep that possibility open. The young man in the tomb giving the women directions and a promise, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter, that he is leading before you to Galilee. There you will see him as he told you.”

My colleague, Rev. Andrew Gookin, pastor of Resurrection Lutheran Church in Rochester, says this of Mark’s gospel: “The way of Jesus, according to Mark, is a way of mystery and paradox. God’s Messiah is crucified… and yet he lives. Terror and amazement seize the women… and yet somehow(!) the good news is proclaimed. The disciples are nowhere to be found… and yet they carry the ministry of Jesus to Galilee and beyond.”

Andrew concludes by making the tie in with the beginning of Mark’s gospel: “Christ is risen, and this is only the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God.”

The chapters that follow have yet to be written, because those chapters are our lives. We are the living continuation of Mark’s gospel.

Will we see the resurrected Jesus in bodily form the way the disciples do as recorded in the other gospels? It’s been a long time. We might be tempted to say no. But Mark leaves it open.

Here on Easter as we celebrate the resurrection Mark does not want us to think that our time centuries later is in any way shape or form less likely to experience the presence of the resurrected Jesus than his time. This is not an old story from times past. This is an ongoing story.

The story of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is still only in its beginnings. The times are still exciting. Possibilities still abound. God is still doing new and unpredictable things. The time of the gospel is now, in and around us; for Jesus is not at all gone, but instead still in and around us here and now. Not diminished. Not weakened.

It seems to me that this is what Mark is up to when he ends his gospel with the word because…

Because Jesus isn’t done yet.

Let me conclude by reminding us of the origin of the word gospel. Gospel means good news. But good news of what?

Originally a gospel was the runner coming back from the battlefield with good news. The battle had been won! Victory had been accomplished.

So hear again Mark’s first and last incomplete sentences: “The reason they were afraid was because of the beginning of the good news that the battle had been won, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The battle is death. God has won.

That yanks the rug out from underneath everything that our lives are based upon. Our lives are based upon the idea that the world is a fragile place and death and destruction are always just around the corner. There are political elections that seem all so essential, ships hit bridges and they collapse, nations invade nations, people starve and die, people overdose from drugs, we may face financial or legal difficulties, family strife, medical problems, the list can seem to go on and on.

But Mark reminds us of the truth that puts all of that in proper perspective: …because the beginning of the battle victory, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Nothing now can change that. The story is only beginning. The chapters ahead are good.