SERMON The Group

Easter Day (C):

Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24;1 Corinthians 15:19-26; Luke 23:48-49, 54-56-24:1-12 

What we just heard is far and away my favorite empty tomb, resurrection account. The feminist in me finds it irresistible.

Now, you may have noticed. This morning we have a choice of empty tomb Easter narratives. We have John's account -- the one we heard at the vigil last night -- the one depicted in the window by the baptismal font. That's Jesus with Mary Magdalene, who, as John's resurrection account opens, discovers the empty tomb and runs to get the disciples. John's Gospel has the most elaborate and involved empty tomb account and, no matter the year, was until recently always appointed for Easter Day. But there was always the option to read the empty tomb account from the one of the other three gospels that is appointed for the year. This year the gospel is Luke, and there is no contest. Luke's account wins my feminist vote hands down.

You might not see why Luke has my vote from our stained-glass windows. The clerestory window (it's newly restored) above the John window shows Matthew's empty tomb. We know it is Matthew's account because there is an angel (an angel who has come in an earthquake and rolled away the stone) greeting two women, Mary Magdalene and another Mary. Possibly the two women on the bulletin cover. We know the window and bulletin cover aren't Mark's account because Mark has three women: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome. They are greeted by a young man in a dazzling white robe (no wings). And it certainly does not depict the account from Luke that we hear this morning where two young men in dazzling white robes greet not just one, or two, or three women, but a group of women, three of whom are named but identities of others known.

These are a group of Galilean women who, after observing Sabbat, go to the tomb where they have seen Jesus buried. They go early on Sunday morning to finish the job of burial that has been suspended by that observance. We never see this group of women or the two men whom they encounter in resurrection art. They are never found in stain glass windows. As we just saw, the women on the bulletin cover are Luke's only if they are just two of many.

All of which is too bad because, in Luke, this is an extraordinary group of extraordinary women.

Luke tells us about them early in his gospel. They, like the twelve disciples, are with Jesus throughout his ministry in Galilee. They include women who have been healed by Jesus (Luke puts Mary Magdalene in this category). They also include (and here I am quoting Luke) "Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others who provided for [the twelve] out of their resources."

What makes this group extraordinary is the very fact that it exists. Women in first century Palestine did not travel independently -- unless, of course, they were prostitutes. They did not travel apart from their fathers, husbands, and adult sons. While some of Luke's Galilean women were wives or, like Mary the mother of James, the mothers of the disciples, Joanna and Susanna and the women with resources were not. This is a group of women who were going against every social and religious convention to follow Jesus. Scandalous! And they were not groupies; they were patrons. They were not prostitutes; as we hear this morning, they were observing the law.

Because they are part of Jesus' ministry, they are also witnesses. Notice how the two young men at the tomb say to them, "Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again?" "Then," Luke tells us, "they remembered [Jesus'] words." The Galilean women remembered because they had been witnesses to Jesus ministry.

But they are more than just witnesses to Jesus' ministry. As we also hear in this morning, they were witnesses to an execution. The horror of seeing someone executed is far removed from our experience -- although perhaps not so far removed as we have been inudated these in recent years with public executions and mutilations -- both actual and threatened. Imagine what witnessing the public execution of your leader, your Lord, your teacher, your all, must have been like. The horror and devastation, the loss, must have been unbearable.

Yet, the women in Luke persevere. They do not flee. Unlike the male disciples, they do not hole up. They prepare to do what has to be done despite what happens. They remain faithful.

And because they remain faithful, because they go to the tomb, they -- women who witnessed the ministry, witnessed the execution, witnessed the burial, saw the whole story -- they themselves become witnesses-- witnesses to an empty tomb, to what they remembered Jesus had said, to a reality they now know as true. Their witness is voluntary. No one tells them to tell others, but they do. And they risk skepticism and disbelief in doing so. The male disciples dismiss their report "an idle tale" -- and the Greek word for what is translated as "idle" could not be more condescending or derogatory (our word "delirious" comes from it). In Luke, only Peter checks out their report. He is amazed. But belief comes only later. As Luke has Peter himself report in the sermon we just heard from Acts, belief came through Jesus' appearances "to those chosen by God as witnesses." An empty tomb was not enough.

But Luke's women are right, and right to believe, in the first place.

The theologian Rosemary Ruether writes:

It is Jesus' women friends who remain faithful to him through crucifixion and burial. They . . . are the first witnesses of the resurrection. Jewish law regarded women as incapable of acting as witnesses. To make women the first witnesses of the resurrection was to make them the original source of the credibility of the Christian faith.

My feminist vote is validated. But, even more so, is my vote as a Christian.

The Galilean women have a great deal to say to us about taking risks and defying convention. They did both. Our calling and commitment as a community of faith to be the Body of Christ in the world can frequently require us to do both. That calling and commitment always require our faithful service because it is in that service, as it was for those women, that our faith is made real.

In this community, we know God's grace and love and the truth and reality of the Risen Lord through word and sacrament. Like the Galilean women, we know that grace and love and the truth of the Risen Lord in service -- when we visit a sick friend, sing for a child, cook for a neighbor, welcome a visitor, sing in the choir, bake Communion bread, play an instrument, plant our gardens, tend our plants, feed the worms, teach our children, clean the sanctuary, renovate the church office bathroom, work with The Night Ministry, organize on an issue of social justice. Like the Galilean women and because of that grace and love and truth, we can with boldness and confidence witness: Christ is risen. He is risen indeed! Amen and Alleluia!

April 4, 2010

Ruth VanDemark

Wicker Park Lutheran Church

Chicago, Illinois