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| The baptism of Sarah Fedaie, St. James Episcopal Church, San Francisco |
The author of the Gospel According to Mark ends with the story
of an unexpected anointing. Mary
Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome come to the tomb to anoint
Jesus’ dead body. Mary Magdalene, Mary,
and Salome – say their names with me – Mary Magdalene, Mary and Salome – they are
the only women disciples of Jesus who are named in Mark’s Gospel. This means we need to pay attention to them.
They were part of the group of women who had accompanied
Jesus throughout his ministry in Galilee.
They supported the movement he was organizing, and followed him along
with the crowd who had marched with him triumphantly into Jerusalem just a
short week ago. Jesus had chosen the
Passover Festival, the annual celebration of the Jewish people’s liberation
from oppression in Egypt, as the time to occupy the Temple and shut it
down. It was to be his final
confrontation with the authorities to protest the sacrificial violence of the
Roman Empire and in support of the alternative to empire: what Jesus called the Kingdom of God.
Then, it all went wrong.
Jesus was arrested, tried on trumped up charges, and executed by the
state with the full-throated support of a mob carefully cultivated by the
authorities. Jesus died outside the gates of the city, crucified between two
insurrectionists, a punishment reserved for the crime of sedition. Jesus’ support for the victims of the
regime’s greed and violence, his nonviolent advocacy for a new form of
community based on justice and dignity, was perceived to be too great a threat
to go unaddressed. Jesus had to die
because he resisted empire.
The disciples – the twelve men in Jesus’ inner circle –
betrayed, denied, or abandoned him. The
previously supportive crowd turned against him and became a lynch mob. Perhaps Jesus had failed to meet their
expectations of a violent revolution. At
any rate, it was only the women who persisted, witnessing his crucifixion,
death, and now burial. Their coming to
the tomb was in its own way an act of resistance. It was forbidden to provide victims of
crucifixion the normal burial rites to honor and remember the dead. Unjust regimes are in the business of making
bodies disappear and obliterating memory.
But the women refused to forget, despite the pain and the risk. They defied the authorities one last time and
brought spices to the tomb to anoint his body.
In this very act, we see the seeds of an alternative memory
of Jesus that contradicts the official record.
The minority report that would become the Gospel According to Mark was
born in this refusal to accept business as usual. But in that moment, I suspect that Mary
Magdalene, Mary, and Salome were just trying to find some closure, some relief
from the trauma they had suffered. They
came to anoint Jesus.
Imagine their shock upon discovering that the stone was
rolled away and the tomb was empty. There
was no body to anoint. Even the dignity
of burial, the usual rituals of grieving, was denied them. This was when the crack in their world really
came apart. There was nothing left to
hold on to. They had finally hit the
wall. And in that moment, rather than
anointing Jesus, it was they who received an anointing.
It was an unexpected anointing, and not particularly
welcome. It would have been so much
easier if the body had been there. Then
they could have grieved, and raged, and lamented – let all out and let it all
go. They could have moved on, holding
their pain and their resentment inside like a tight little ball, said, “Well,
at least we tried,” admitted defeat and called it a day. Sometimes, it seems so much easier to just
give up.
But instead of leaving behind a body, Jesus left behind a
messenger who said, “Don’t be afraid.
Jesus has been raised; he is not here.
He has gone ahead of you back to Galilee; just as he told you. Tell the other disciples to meet him there.” When someone tells you not to be afraid, you
probably have good reason to be afraid! Mary
Magdalene, Mary, and Salome were terrified – and amazed – scared into silence.
They came for a funeral and received an anointing; commissioned
to share the good news that Jesus has been raised and has gone ahead of
us. He isn’t an inspiring memory, a
painful loss in the past, but rather the one who opens a way to the
future. But to get there, Mary
Magdalene, Mary, and Salome must go back to Galilee, to the place where it all
started. They must go back to the
beginning, pick up the pieces, and renew the movement for justice and dignity
that Jesus continues to empower through his Resurrection life. The thought of starting over terrified these
women – at first. They got over it, else
we wouldn’t be telling this story. Scared
silent at first, just as the empire hoped, they eventually found their voices.
The Gospel According to Mark refuses to make Resurrection
easy. It isn’t all rainbows and unicorns
or Easter bunnies. It isn’t about
skipping down streets of gold hand in hand with Jesus after we die. It is about being willing to choose life when
it would be easier to give up.
Resurrection is about being vulnerable enough to allow who and what we
love, and the love of Jesus for us and for all, to empower us to keep on
keeping on.
Mary Magdalene and Mary and Salome came close to the pain in
their community, the pain in their own hearts, and it brought them to their
knees. But they got up again because the
tomb is empty. There is no future
there. Jesus has gone ahead of us and is
calling us to catch up. The Risen Jesus is the triumph of sacrificial love over
sacrificial violence, but we aren’t done yet.
There is so much more life and so much more love left to share.
You would do well to be a little afraid to discover the tomb
is empty. Meeting the risen Jesus is not
a get out of jail free card. It is an
anointing to continue the work of love and justice that Jesus was just getting
started. It is more likely to be a go
directly to jail card. I imagine Mary
Magdalene, Mary, and Salome could identify with a story that Lutheran Pastor Nadia
Bolz-Weber tells.
Nadia is the founding pastor of the House of All Sinners and
Saints, a new expression of church in Denver.
She is not your usual pastor – unafraid to sport really cool tattoos and
speak, shall we say, in the vernacular. Content
warning for the next part of this sermon!
Anyway, she recalls Andi, a radical young queer woman, raised Unitarian,
who started hanging out at All Sinners and Saints.
One morning Andi called up Nadia and said, “Hey Rev, I need
some pastoral care.” “Sure,” said Nadia,
“what’s up?” “I think I’m having a crisis of faith.” Nadia thought to herself, “Huh, I wonder what
a crisis of faith looks like for a Unitarian,” but set a date to meet for
coffee. When they sat down together,
Andi said, “I think I’m starting to believe in Jesus.” Nadia just shook her head, “I am so
sorry. You’re, like, really screwed
now. Sometimes Jesus just hunts your ass
down and there is nothing you can do about it.”
That is what encountering the Risen Jesus is like. It can turn your world upside down. Just when you thought you were comfortable,
or at least willing to accommodate your discomfort; just when you thought you’d
arrived, or decided to give up; Jesus hunts your ass down and you have to go
back to Galilee and start all over again.
The difference is that held in the loving gaze of the Risen One we know
we have everything we need. No matter
how challenging it may be, God’s anointing is sufficient. God isn’t done with you – or us – yet. The movement Jesus inaugurated is still in
need of recruits. The work for justice,
human dignity, and now care for the planet still goes on. That is the church’s work, the work of the
movement Jesus continues to empower.
The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is not the end of
the story, all tied up in a nice bow. It
is just the beginning. Mary Magdalene,
Mary and Salome persisted to the end – and beyond – to a new beginning. They persisted and so must we. That is what it means to share in the
Resurrection life of Jesus. Amen.
