Entering the Easter Mystery [OR Life, Joy and Suffering] Luke 24:1-12

**sermon art: Resurrection by He Qi

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

Luke 24:1-12 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

[sermon begins]

Oh, these women – “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James and the others.” The things they’ve witnessed as part of Jesus’ ministry, especially in the last few days. They watched Jesus hang on a cross.  They watched Joseph of Arimathea take Jesus off the cross and put him in the tomb. They made a mental list of the spices and ointments with which they’d return after resting on the Sabbath “according to the commandment.”[1]  The women were faithful, courageous, and diligent through the previous days of tragedy, confusion, and grief.  When so many disciples fled, or otherwise fell apart, these women remained.  Here, Easter Sunday, at the tomb they face more confusion.  They had seen Jesus’ body laid in the tomb so they were ready for the dismal task of using those spices and ointments. Instead, they encounter a couple of razzle dazzle dudes of the divine kind. Luke uses the word dazzle to convey their divinity.  The women’s reaction signifies the same thing.  Rather than looking at the “two men in dazzling clothes,” the women bow their faces to the ground.

What the two dazzling men do next is fairly ordinary. They remind the women about what Jesus told them when he was alive.  Their reminder connects the women’s experience to and from the cross.  And, ohhhhh, now the confusion begins to clear a bit. The women witnessed ungodly violence and sift their experiences through what Jesus said before he died and through what the two dazzling dudes in the tomb are saying now which starts to help make some sense of things.  Which is the way that life generally works.  We hear something that gives our experience a new or different meaning– not explaining the grief away or making heinous suffering magically better, but reframing suffering and grief in a way that feels like a gift.

This gift is no small thing.  An old friend of mine recently gave me The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, in which they reflect on joy and suffering from their respective traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and Anglican Christianity.[2]  Neither they nor any of us here has to go very far personally or culturally to find tragedy, confusion, and grief. From arson destroyed black churches in Louisiana, to the immigrant crisis, to the 20th anniversary of Columbine, to whatever you’d like to add to the list, we totally get tragedy, confusion and grief.  We get it deep in our guts. The point of the book, besides the sheer delight of listening to these two wizened elders, is to help the reader see the possibility of living in deep joy even though we experience suffering. Sounds nice.  Actually a little better than nice.  And lots better than how we often handle suffering.  Suffering makes it easier to indulge in the sizzle-and-fizzle cycle of dopamine by way of food, alcohol, nicotine, or online zines.  The problem with the sizzle-and-fizzle cycle is that, by definition, it becomes repetitive.  We wrap ourselves up in them and entomb ourselves in the very things we think bring comfort.  Tombs of our own making that isolate us from each other and steal our joy.

Take Jesus’ apostles who weren’t at the tomb with the women.  Having been through the confusion and grief of the last three days and thinking Jesus was still in the tomb, the apostles were hiding out, wondering if they were next up for the death penalty.  When Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the others shared what they had heard, the apostles called it an “idle tale” (the G-rated translation of that Greek word, by the way). Except…except…there’s the apostle Peter.  The very same Peter who denied that he knew Jesus three times during Jesus’ crucifixion trial.  It doesn’t add up that Peter would run to the tomb if he thought the women were telling an idle tale.  Or perhaps he was more concerned that the women were telling the truth.  Peter would likely wonder what his friend Jesus would have to say about Peter falling apart during that time of trial.  It could be hope or fear or maybe a little of both that sent Peter running.

Regardless, Peter’s room to tomb dash was dependent on the women’s story.  That can be a frustrating thing about resurrection faith.  We have no access to it outside of the witness of other people, the witness of the wider church.[3]  Like Peter, we’re dependent on other people for resurrection faith.  Like Peter looking into the tomb himself, ultimately the witness of the church is not enough and people have their own encounters with Jesus and the empty tomb. The point where our individual experiences connect with the resurrection faith of the church is part of what the empty tomb is about. Like Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Peter, we do not solve the mystery, we enter the mystery of resurrection faith – God bringing us through cross and tomb into new life because we are God’s children, broken and beloved.

New life literally abounds as Easter and Spring happen simultaneously this year.  Perennials pop up green and budding while birds fly back to our latitude for nesting.  Perhaps your suffering, confusion, and grief make it difficult to see life at all.  Sometimes our lives don’t align with the season of the earth or the season of the church. The prayers, practices, and people of the church’s resurrection faith cocoon us while we grieve or heal. Siblings in Christ pray for us when we can’t pray at all – as the risen body of Christ for each other and for the world. The good news of Easter reminds us that God does not leave us alone – the dazzling men in the tomb reminded the women that Jesus had told them this good news already; the apostles heard the good news of the resurrection from Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the others; and today, Easter Sunday, we share the good news with each other.  Our suffering is joined by the risen Christ who knows suffering, who rolls open the tombs we make for ourselves, and draws us into new life given to us by the risen Christ.  God brings us through cross and tomb into the joy of new life solely because we are beloved children of God.  Unconditionally beloved.  There is nothing we can do or not do to make God love us anymore or any less. This is how it works. Thanks be to God for new life!  Alleluia!

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[1] Luke 23:50-56

[2] Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World. (New York: Avery, 2016).

[3] Matthew Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary. Podcast on Bible readings for Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019. https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1129

I’m Kinda Over Mean People [OR Jesus Isn’t Kinda Over Anyone, Even You] John 13:1-17, 31b-34; Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14 for Maundy Thursday, Holy Week

**sermon art: Luke Allsbrook, Jesus Washes the Disciples’ Feet (2018) oil on canvas

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver on  April 18, 2019 – Maundy Thursday, Holy Week

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

John 13:1-17, 31b-34   Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4 got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” 12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16 Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
31 Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14   The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2 This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4 If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it.
11 This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 14 This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

[sermon begins]

I’m kinda over mean people.  I’m so over mean people that I finally took Facebook up on its constant reminder to update my page and made it my bio line – I’m kinda over mean people.  I’m tired that meanness is celebrated as courage to speak truth.  That critique is venerated as intelligence.  That judgment is lauded as insight.  When I was in seminary, I made what I thought was an insightful comment about an author’s work.  The moment stays with me when my professor looked me in the eye and quietly invited me to immerse into the author’s thought and intent while reserving judgment on the author’s work, reserving judgment on what wasn’t there to be able to see what was there.  Because, of course, no person’s work – no person for that matter – can say all the things, hold all the things, and be all the things, we would wish them to say, hold, and be.  To be clear, there are times when critique is necessary and, as a society, we’re in the thick of deciding big moments in history without the benefit of future sight.  What I’m talking about, though, is meanness for meanness sake, meanness for power’s sake, meanness for our own sake.

Our young people who will be communing together with their families this evening, some for the first time, just went through Communion Instruction with the pastors.  They each received a book that tells the story of Jesus’s life in ministry along with his command to eat bread and wine while remembering him.[1] From just about the first page of the book, there are these crabby people that follow Jesus around.  Crabby, mean people who judge Jesus for eating with sinners who embezzle tax money, for healing people who don’t deserve it, for feeding people who are hungry, for, well, the list is endless for what these crabby, mean people are crabby about.  Ultimately, they’re crabby that Jesus threatens their power. How can they continue to hold onto power when Jesus keeps undermining their power with all that love stuff?  No wonder they were crabby and mean.  It’s tough to fight the power of love.  Weapons don’t work.  Even name-calling has a hard time against the power of love.

In the gospel reading from John, Jesus is all about the power of love. Make no mistake about the power he’s displaying in this foot washing scene. Power on display in his actions and how he moves.  He strips down much like a soldier did for battle in the first century.[2]  So similar were Jesus’ moves to that of a soldier: he stood up from the table to ready himself; took off his outer robe; and tied a towel around himself – girding himself around the waist with a cloth in same manner of a soldier of his time would do in preparation for battle.  However, he makes these power moves at the dinner table. So weird.  And, point of note, not a crabby person in sight.  Let’s take a look at who is in sight.  Judas and Peter are there.  Judas showing up with the other disciples, ready for dinner.  To all appearances, a good disciple and friend to Jesus. And Peter. Peter, faithfully enthusiastic, he says some kooky things and finally lets Jesus wash his feet. So do all the others. Including Judas the betrayer.

In the unseen verses around today’s reading, Jesus predicts Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial just before and after Jesus lays down the new commandment.  Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another…Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  If this section of scripture could be described as a sandwich, Jesus lays down the hummus and veggies of his love commandment in between the flat bread that is Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial.  Now we add betrayers and deniers to the list with the crabby, mean people, who stack up against Jesus.  We could try to say that we’re kinda over mean people, we’re kinda over betraying people, we’re kinda over denying people.  In the end, could we then say that we’re kinda over ourselves?  That’s where I am anyway.  Kinda over the ways I can be mean and critical, kinda over the ways that what I do and leave undone betrays other people to their fate, and kinda over my denials that exclude people from life.  So over it that today’s good news of Jesus lands right in the center of it.

To get at that center, sometimes we need to go to the edge.  In the edge of our view we can see Passover begins tomorrow for our Jewish cousins in the faith.  The reading from Exodus is the heart of the Passover story just before the Hebrews’ infamous hike through the Dead Sea on dry ground, from slavery in Egypt into freedom in the desert.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus washes the feet of his friends before the festival of the Passover.[3]  This week, 21 centuries later, we line up with that timing.

When we see only the crabby, mean people in Jesus’ story, we often decide they are not us.  We can make the mistake of scapegoating them to their fate which is dreadfully similar to denying and betraying them to death.  Rather than seeing what Jesus did as an expansion of the covenant given to God’s people through Moses, we can see ourselves as taking over the covenant and leaving the original covenant holders in the dust, or even worse, grinding them into the dust.  Holy Week has a violent history of Christians against Jews when it is really through the Jews, through Jesus the Jew, by which he expanded the original covenant into the new covenant in his love so that we can now celebrate at Holy Communion. [4]

During communion instruction with the families and young people who will commune this evening, I invited everyone to stand in a circle facing each other, putting one arm out in from of them.  Then I asked us to walk forward until our hands all touched in the middle of the circle (it got super cozy) as one example of Jesus connecting us with each other as we commune.  Connecting us with the people around us now, the people who will commune in the future, and the people who communed in the past but also connects us to those earliest ancestors, our Jewish cousins in the faith.

The good news is that Jesus isn’t kinda over anyone – not mean people, not crabby people, not deniers, not betrayers, not you.  Jesus gave the new commandment to love one another as he loved – smack in the middle of crabby, mean people who were out to execute him and his friends who denied and betrayed him to that fate.  When we commune together, this is the love we receive, the love of Jesus Christ who shows no partiality, the love of Jesus Christ that is for the world God so loves, and for you.

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[1] Daniel Erlander. A Place for You: My Holy Communion Book (Daniel Erlander Publications, 1999).

[2] Craig Koester, Professor and Asher O. and Carrie Nasby Chair of New Testament. Course lecture: Fall 2010.

[3] John 13:1

[4] Krister Stendahl’s concise and elegant interpretation of Paul is a helpful read in this regard. Final Account: Paul’s Letter to the Romans (1993)

 

Mary of Bethany is Worth Knowing [OR Unrestrained Adoration Finds a Place] John 12:1-8

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on April 7, 2019 – Fifth Sunday in Lent

[sermon begins after Bible reading]

John 12:1-8 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

[sermon begins]

 

 

Mary of Bethany is gloriously unrestrained at Jesus’ feet.  Fragrance fills the room as oil pools on the floor. The senses are engaged – sight, sound, smell, and touch. She’s impossible to ignore. Being there must have been wild. Socially awkward, for sure. She was touching a man, lavishing him with adoration and oil in plain sight of everyone else at Lazarus’ back-from-the dead dinner. Just before the sensual ritual of anointing feet with hair and perfume, Mary’s brother Lazarus had died. She wept at Jesus’ feet at the edge town.[1]  When Jesus finally showed up, she ran to meet him and knelt on the ground – holding him accountable for not being there as Lazarus took his last breath.  Jesus cried with her.  And then he raised Lazarus from the dead. The Gospel of Luke describes yet another moment when Mary of Bethany was at Jesus’ feet.[2]  This time, though, her pose was scholarly as she listened to what he was saying.  In that moment in Luke, Jesus affirmed her spot on the floor as a good thing.

Mary of Bethany spent a lot of time at Jesus’ feet.  She learned at his feet.  She wept at his feet.  She oiled his feet in adoration, anointing him for death.  I’ve been wondering what Mary of Bethany’s adoration looks like for us today. There are things we do in worship that infer adoration.  We turn toward the cross as it is carried in and out of the Sanctuary.  Our praise-filled hymns and psalms raise a joyful noise of adoration.[3]  Some of us meditate on various crosses during worship while we sing, or commune, or confess the faith of the church.  Some of us kneel as we’re able to receive Jesus in the bread and wine of communion. Being in worship together is a moment to adore Jesus in ways as old as God has been worshipped.  Surrendering as Mary did to the unconditional grace of Jesus. Not solving the mystery of God in human form but entering into the mystery by faith.

It’s a wonder that Mary of Bethany doesn’t get more of our attention.  Scholarly, passionate, and unrestrained, she’s a gift to all of us who struggle to embody the liveliness of the faith within us.  I can make a few guesses as to why but it’s probably better to let Judas have a go at it.  Honestly, I don’t really want to give Judas the time of day in this sermon. He can take a hike as far as I’m concerned. It’s boo-and-hiss the moment Judas opens his mouth.  Information about betrayal and thievery stuck in those parentheses in the reading incite that reaction.  Judas’ words sound like a noble church leader guiding the flock to do-goodery on behalf of people living in poverty. But. Jesus. Knows. Better.  Jesus paraphrases a bit of Deuteronomy that talks about the people who will never cease to be in need and the Lord’s command to “open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”[4]  Then Jesus tells Judas to leave Mary alone.  We can comfortably point at Judas the way he was pointing at Mary.  But I want to spend a little time in Judas’ shoes.  Let’s wonder about the way he portrays righteousness to hide whatever is dark inside.

Whatever is dark inside takes cover in those parentheses.  Like those parts about Judas’ betrayal and his embezzlement from the common purse.  He has some pretty big things going on in those parentheses.  What I want us to consider is that we have parentheses of our own.  The dark inside ourselves that struggles to love God, love self, and love neighbor.  The dark place that kick starts its own agenda while looking pretty righteous on the outside.  The part that takes other people down because their unrestrained adoration is too much for us to bear.  Extravagant grace is often label as offensive or, at the very least, not normal.  Think back to last week and the father running with flying elbows and flapping robes toward his wayward son.  Undignified right through the massive hug and undeserved party including a main course of fatted calf.  Like Judas, we see an act of grace and define it as excessive.  This puts it far away from us in a category of giving we label as extreme.  As in, not part of how we see ourselves. Judas’ petty righteousness stands in stark contrast to Mary’s lavish devotion.[5]

Mary’s lavish devotion fills the room and the senses.  At the same time, she points us toward a death on cross that won’t smell near as pretty.  The Gospel of John repeats a similar logic of contrast from its opening verses to its ultimate message of Jesus lifted on a cross and drawing all people to himself.[6]  Bringing Lazarus back to life intensifies the pace to that cross as some are drawn to faith and others begin to plot Jesus’ death.  Today’s reading tells us that Passover, the night on which Jesus is betrayed, is only six days away.  The story is building to Jesus’ inglorious end that reveals his glory. Next Sunday we’ll hear about his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Then he’s just a foot-washing away from being taken into custody to stand trial.

In the meantime, we witness Mary’s moment of adoration of Jesus right down to the tips of her hair. One way into adoration for us is poetry.  Psalms and hymns are poetry.  As are the haikus we’ve been invited to write leading up to Holy Week.  Haiku is short, non-rhyming verse made up of three lines – five syllables in the first, seven syllables in the second, back to five syllables in the third and last verse.  Those details are also in the worship announcement page, Friday’s e-mailed E-pistle, and the April Tower newsletter.[7]  Take a few moments this week to write a haiku in adoration of Jesus with whom we travel to and through the cross into new life.  Mary of Bethany’s excess also invites our own extravagance toward Jesus in this season.  Lent is a time of sacrificial giving and a time of adoration.  Both of which Mary exemplifies in her discipleship.

But her discipleship is not an end unto itself.  Through the curtain of hair and the dripping oil is the One who is worthy of adoration.  Jesus empties himself extravagantly to bring life through death – unconditional grace when the darkness inside of us is overwhelming.  Longing for his goodness, mercy, and peace we discover that Jesus already gives us all that and more.  Now we sing to Jesus and adore…

 

Hymn of the Day – sung after the sermon

Thee We Adore, O Savior ELW 476

Thee, we adore, O Savior, God most true,
thy glory clothed in bread and wine anew;
our hearts to thee in true devotion bow,
in humble awe, we hail thy presence now.

O true remembrance of Christ crucified,
the bread of life to us for whom he died;
lend us this life then; feed and east our mind,
be thou the sweetness we were meant to find.

Fountain of goodness, Jesus, Lord and God,
cleanse us, O Christ, with thy most cleansing blood:
increase our faith and love, that we may know
the hope and peace which from thy presence flow.

Jesus, by faith we see thee here below;
send us, we pray thee, what we thirst for so:
some-day to gaze upon thy face in light,
blest evermore with thy full glory’s sight.  Amen.

 

Holy Week Haiku
Submit a haiku or two about Holy Week anytime between Sunday, March 31 and Good Friday, April 19. Haiku is a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. Haiku will be shared via Augustana’s printed and online publications.

Submit your haiku online here: http://www.augustanadenver.org/holy-week-haiku/

OR e-mail it to Lyn Goodrum (goodrum@augustanadenver.org).

 

Hark! It is finished!
Heard upon that wooden cross.
No! It’s just begun . . .
–Robert Herbst
 

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[1] John 11:32

[2] Luke 10:38-42

[3] Psalm 100

[4] Deuteronomy 15:11

[5] Matthew Skinner. Commentary on John 12:1-8. March 21, 2010. Working Preacher. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=544

[6] John 12:32

[7] https://mailchi.mp/190dfe517438/augustana-e-pistle-april-5-2019?e=705114770e