Because the Stone Is Rolled Away CORRECTED

Because the Stone Is Rolled Away 

corrected 3/18

Peter Heide

In wilderness contention, from Jabbok water baptisms, 
Wrest us to your restoration highway, to resurrection gardens of possibility—
For we walk, limp, grope, and crawl
In your likeness, in your imago dei, in your gifts of touch and action.
With loving grace, help us reveal your saving works and goodness,
The joy of justification healing,
And your active incarnate presence
As we claim your living body and find our distinctive wholeness in the midst of this broken world.
So, as Braille is known by the touch of the blind,
Let our lives be known to you, O Lord.
As action speaks meaning to the lives of the deaf,
Let our actions bear witness to your Word, O Christ.
As wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and crutches support us in our lives,
Let our lives support others in your Spirit.

Easter Day

John 20:1-18 (NRSV)       Jesus is Alive

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

There are many of us who remember with nostalgic fondness Joni Mitchell’s words,

“We are stardust, we are golden,
We are trapped in the devil’s bargain,
But we’ve got to get ourselves

back to the garden.” (Woodstock, 1969)

With these words, Joni Mitchell captured the restless anxiety of a nation in pain and pointed the way to a more idyllic place—the garden.

Others, of you, will recall C. Austin Miles’, 1912 spiritual song, In the Garden, “I walk through the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses.”

 In both cases, the songs speak of places that do not and cannot exist. We cannot get back to the past because the past is over; it is dead. That would be living in a grave. Nor can we peacefully walk in a garden holding Christ to ourselves. That would mean that we had cut ourselves off from the world. They are pleasant places to visit in our minds, but we shouldn’t want to live there.

In today’s reading we see Mary in the garden. As in the Garden of Eden, God comes to speak with the people of creation. But Mary does not recognize who the speaker is. She thinks it is the olive grove gardener, and it is. What she doesn’t understand is that he is the Master Gardener—the one who raised us up from the humus to be humans; the one who breathed the breath of life into us; the one who put the garden into our hands to care for, the one raised up for us. Mary doesn’t fully understand the world of resurrection even though Jesus has told her that he would be raised. Maybe we don’t either. In the garden that the Master Gardener gave us, with Mary, we meet this one who is speaking, the one who walks among us and knows our lives and pain even unto death. But, at the sound of her name, her teacher is fully revealed to her. And, at the sound of our names—“______, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” (ELW, Sacrament of Holy Baptism)—Christ is fully revealed to us.

Yet the cemetery garden is not a place where we can or want to stay. The one in the garden is not standing still, and neither can we. In the cemetery garden, we are commanded to re-enter the world of the living. “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” And Mary goes.

We are reminded that all the world is God’s garden. We are to tell our gardening companions that God continues to be active and present in our world. It is not a place to get back to; it is not a place where we are alone. It is in the center of the world we live in with the people that God has given us to serve.

In Candide, Voltaire tells us that if we want peace in the world we need to tend our gardens. Our Master Gardener gives us similar advice, “Tend my garden. Spread the good news!”

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Prayer

We give you thanks, dear Lord, for breaking the bonds of death and freeing us from the chains of history. Help us always to walk with you into the new future you have given us, with hope and the confidence you give. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, amen.

Because the Stone Is Rolled Away

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Merely to Remind Myself John 3:1-17

After I lost my sight for the first time, my mom bought me a number of record albums of musicals. You might remember albums, they were those 12 inch diameter vinyl discs. You put them on a thing called a record player, and then you had to take the needle arm and place it on the record album. I know, it was primitive, but that was the way we did things in those days.

One of the albums was the Hans Christian Andersen musical with Danny Kaye, and one of the songs I liked the best was a song that Hans Christian Andersen sings while he is walking down the road one day. Here are the words as I remember them:

“I write myself a note each day, and I put it in my hat./ The wind comes by, the hat blows high, but that’s not the end of that./ For ‘round and ‘round the world it goes./ It lands here right behind myself./ I pick it up, and I read the note/ which is merely to remind myself/ I’m Hans Christian Anderson.”

There are times in our lives when we need to be reminded of who and whose we are. Today’s text is one of those reminders. In the midst of the darkness of our world, as we long to see the light of truth, as we wander through the testings of our lives, we need to know who and whose we are and what value we have.

In the searching, we discover that who we are has little to do with what we do, but everything to do with whose we are and what God is doing for us each and every day. We need to be reminded that it is not what we do, it is what God has done and is doing today.

How many times have we seen the signs at sporting events that say 3:16? The first time I saw one of those signs, I thought, “Wow! What a great testimony.” And then I saw it more and more. I even heard it announced on the radio stations that broadcasted the games.

In an interview after one of the games, one reporter asked a sign bearer what it meant to them? The woman’s response made me cringe. She said something like, “It means so much to me that God loves the world this much and unless people believe in God’s love, they will all be damned.” This woman had found the perfect way to makes God’s amazing gift of love and caring into a club to beat people with. This is because we have all learned this verse and carry it with us in so many ways, but we have forgotten the verse that goes along with it: “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” Not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

In these few words, we are reminded that we are not the ones who save people. It is Jesus who saves—Jesus, the only son of God, in the communion of the Holy Spirit. We can assure one another of the forgiveness of our sins, but it is God who does the forgiving. On Sunday mornings, when we confess our sins and I make the declaration of forgiveness, it is not me that is forgiving you. It is God who forgives you; I am only the vehicle of transmission.

Yes, we claim that we have sinned in thought, word and deed; by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have declared before God and one another that, by ourselves, we are hopeless sinners, and so we turn to God, justified by Christ’s death and resurrection, for that forgiveness and hope that we need for the future. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, we receive what we need.

Now any Christian can hear the confession of another Christian and assure them of God’s love and forgiveness absolving them of their sins, but, in our public worship, it is the privilege of the pastor to give that public assurance. So it is that I can say, “In the mercy of almighty God, Jesus Christ was given to die for us, and for his sake, God forgives our sins. As a called and ordained minister of the Church of Christ and by Christ’s authority—by Christ’s authority—, I declare to you the forgiveness of all of your sins.” And when that declaration is made, I seal you in God’s love, not in my name, but in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It isn’t me, it is the continuing work of Christ in the Holy Spirit that continues to forgive and hold us in that right relationship with God and one another. Indeed, “God so loves the world that God gave his only son, that whoever believes in him, shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

This everlasting life is something that is given to us in Baptism. In those waters, with God’s Word, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we die and are raised up into new life. We hear those words that Jesus commanded his disciples to do at the end of Matthew, “Go into all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Baptize them into that new relationship of love and caring.

So it is that we come today to witness Nicodemus coming to Jesus in the night, in the darkness of his world, in that most creative time of God--the night—remembering that in the darkness God creates the light; in the darkness of night God speaks all of the cosmos into being, that in the darkness of the world, even we were brought into being and invited to share in the benefits of creation; and, in the darkness of the night and our world, Christ’s light of hope continues to shine. This light shines in a way that does not condemn the world but lights the way forward in hope and forgiveness in and through the work of Christ.

I write myself a note each day, and I put it in my hat. The wind of the Spirit comes by, the hat blows high, but that is not the end of that. For ‘round and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round the world, the Spirit blows, and it drops my hat behind myself. I pick it up, and I read the note, which is merely to remind myself that I am Peter Todd Heide, a child of God, baptized in the waters of Baptism, and claimed by God.

As the serpent is lifted up in the wilderness so the Son of Man will be lifted up that all the world will see and know of God’s desire for the healing wholeness that only comes from Godself.

May you always walk in the assurance of God’s love for you.

You Are the Salt of the Earth, Matthew 5:13-20

“You are the salt of the earth!”

“You are the light of the world.”

“Your righteousness will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.”

As we begin, let us remember who the gathered people are in today’s Gospel reading. These are the people who have come from all of Syria, Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, and the land beyond the Jordan. They are the diseased, the infirm, the mentally ill, the epileptics, and the paralyzed with their care takers. They are the outcasts, the forgotten, the trampled on, the hidden, the invisible ones of society; and they have followed Jesus up the side of the mountain. These are the first people Jesus tells, “You are the salt of the earth!”

A few years ago, I read a book called Salt: A World History. It begins with some interesting points. One is that, if we don’t eat enough salt, in a year, we die. We have no way of making salt in our systems so we must find it elsewhere in the world. Indeed, much of human history is consumed with knowing where salt can be found. It is so fundamental to our world that one of the things we still depend on, our salary, comes from the word for salt. Roman soldiers were partially paid in salt, hence, they received their salary.

Another point is it is thought that we became such good hunters because we first tracked other animals who could smell salt and were seeking salt themselves, and then we killed and ate them when they had found the salt to preserve it for ourselves. One of the reasons that the Hebrew people settled near the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the earth, is because they could mine the salt cliffs and evaporate salt from the sea. It had great value, almost as much value as water.

As time went by, we found that salt was a great preservative. One way to keep salt in our diets, therefore, was to carry salt in our meats, vegetables, and these amazing dairy products called butter and cheese. Salt was important because it meant that we had to worry less about food poisoning, but, mostly, the preserved foods became convenient ways to make sure that we had that most basic dietary need covered. WE had salt. And today we hear that this tattered crowd, the spoils of society, gathered on a hillside, are the salt of the earth. They are a basic need of our society.

Then Jesus tells this group, many of whom had leprosy and other crippling diseases, “You are the light of the world,” light—another thing we need to survive and prosper. Natural light provides vitamin D which gives us strong bones and healthy upright postures. It prevents rickets and helps produce healthy skin tissue.

And artificial light is very dear at the time. It is expensive and not always available. At the time Jesus declares these people are valuable, the cost of fifteen minutes of artificial lamp oil cost about a day’s salary. (Just think about how high our light bill would be these days if that were still true.) But this light that Jesus is speaking of is not artificial light. It is the true light from heaven that shines through us, and yet, it is not our light, it is shared light. This light that is being named comes from Christ’s self and is about to change the world. 

These words are particularly good news to the crowd because these people are ones who have been trampled on most of their lives. They have been covered up and ignored. They have been pushed aside and hidden away in segregated parts of their world, and now they are being told that they are the essential ingredients for life itself. No longer are they to be tasteless, trampled people. No longer are they to skulk around in the dark corners. Jesus tells them to stand up and be counted, not hidden under a bushel basket. They are to be part of the fulfillment of God’s great creation. They are to be valued as God’s people gathered for the sake of the world.

These people who have been blessed, who have known God’s presence in their lives, are now being told what it means to be identified as a disciple. Again, it means that they need to stand up and be counted; they should not allow themselves to be covered up, hid from the world; but they are to find their place on the lamp stand, the cross arms of the empty resurrection cross. These, indeed, are the words of revolution.

This revolution will take place in a way that says that the law cannot be thrown down, that one cannot freely go out rampantly disregarding the value of others, but that the law might be fulfilled. Jesus says, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, to overwhelm it. The word in Greek is πληρόω (pleróō).  It means to be filled up to overflowing, like a woman’s womb when she is pregnant. Think about it, this fulfillment of the law is not only going to fill the space, but it is going to grow until it is so big that it has to come out into the world we live in. It is going to overwhelm the world. It is going to overflow into our world like Amos’ mighty streams of justice from the living waters of the baptismal font into the places where we work and live. Jesus says, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, to make it pregnant, to make it flow over all of God’s people as the waters of the sea cover the ocean.

In this light, if you will excuse the pun, the fulfillment of the law is the demand that all of God’s children be able to participate in the kingdom of heaven, and that, yes, if we work to be inclusive of all of God’s children, then we will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees who spent a great deal of time trying to discern who was in and who was out. This righteousness that we participate in is the righteousness of Christ himself, and this righteousness breaks the rules of the scribes and the Pharisees to fulfill the law so that all might be part of the kingdom of heaven. This is not a there-and-then kingdom of heaven, but a here-and-now kingdom of heaven that begins in the waters of Baptism and flows out through our lives. It is that divine place where we stand up and are counted as the children of God living for the sake of the world.

Let us continue to hold in our minds who is being spoken to. These are the ones who have been trampled underfoot. They are the ones who have lost their taste. They have all but lost their hope. The only hope they have is in the one who is seated on the hillside speaking to them and teaching them. So, it is not their saltiness that they are able to depend on, it is Christ’s saltiness.

They have been hidden away from the world, ignored, and shunned. They know it is not their light that is going to shine, but Christ’s light that will shine through them. They know their own righteousness has not gotten them anything, so it will be Christ’s righteousness that will prevail—the one who will die on the cross for their sins justifying them, making them right with Godself, the one who is raised up from the place of death into the world of everlasting, ever-living life in the kingdom of heaven that begins right now with the promise of the fullness, a πληρόω (pleróō) pregnant time of hope to come. It is not their righteousness. It is Christ’s righteousness that shows them the way to go. So, in all that they will do, it will be Christ that will do it, and through him, God’s kingdom, this kingdom of heaven will overflow into all that they and we do.

Now you might be saying to yourself, “This is wonderful for the people that heard Jesus speak and teach that day, but what about us today?” Some of you may identify with that broken group of people gathered on the hillside, but, if you can’t, I offer you a song I learned in Sunday School many years ago.

God sees the little sparrow fall,

It meets his tender view;

If God so loves the little birds,

I know God loves me too.

God loves me too, God loves me too,

I know God loves me too.

Because God loves the little birds, I know God loves me too.

God paints the lilies in the field,

And shapes each little bell;

If God so loves the little flowers,

I know we’re loved as well.

God loves us too, God loves us too,

I know God loves us too;

Because God loves the little glowers,

I know God loves us too.

God loves the lame, the deaf, the blind,

And offers life anew;

If God can love these hidden ones,

I know God loves us too.

God loves us too, God loves us too,

I know God loves us too;

Because God loves the hidden ones,

I know God loves us too.

God made the little birds and flowers,

And all things great and small;

God won’t forget his little ones,

I know God loves us all.

God loves us all. God loves us all.

I know God loves us all;

Because God loves the little ones,

I know God loves us all.

Where Do We Stand? Matthew 4:12-23

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.” (Martin Luther King, Jr).

If there is a common theme in the readings today, it is transition of power: How do we go about it and how do we live in it? Where do we stand in the times of challenge and controversy?

We hear words of hope in a short passage from a much longer poem in the book of Isaiah. The land that has been cursed, Zebulun and Naphtali, which was captured by Syria, shall be the site of new hope. The rod will be broken, the yoke and burden of slavery, will be lifted as it was in the day of Midian. This day of Midian is the final battle where God’s people were set free from the Midianites to enter the promised land and God’s favor again. It is the song that is ready to announce that the leader that will arise will be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty Lord, Prince of Peace.” It is an amazing time of change with the transfer of power going from the oppressor to those who have been oppressed. Those who live in the shadow of death will now experience the light of new life—a victory for God’s people. It is a time of challenging the social order and the controversy over who are God’s chosen people.

From 1 Corinthians, we hear that there is conflict among the people of Corinth. It is reported by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling. Some are claiming greater authority in the faith because they have been baptized by important leaders within the Church. This early conflict centers on whose teaching they will follow. Some of the people are following Apollos, some Paul, some Cephas aka Peter, and some are claiming Christ.

Paul’s observation about the controversy of who to follow is as cryptic and concise today as it was almost 2000 years ago: Christ is not divided. We are not baptized in the name of our pastor nor in the name of our denomination nor in the name of government leaders. We are baptized in the name of Christ. We are baptized into Christ’s death and raised up with him into a new way of living together. The power and authority of our lives has been transferred, from us and our imperfections, to the perfect one who makes us right with God, the one who died upon the cross for us.

This message of the cross is challenging and foolishness to those who don’t believe because it seems implausible that one person’s death can have any influence on the living. And, if the cross were the final statement of who this Jesus is, we would all be fools, but the cross is not the final statement. It is the resurrected, living person of Jesus that makes the difference as he continues to create controversy, challenging our lives of comfort and convenience.

In our Gospel reading, with Jesus, we hear that John the Baptist has been arrested. Now it is time for Jesus to take the baton, or the torch that has been lighted by John, and continue the proclamation of the new relationship with God. “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” It is time to rethink who and whose we are. It is time to stand up and be counted. It is time to gather all of God’s people and to prepare them for the great wilderness journey, a journey from a world of trying to make themselves right with God through the law to one of living in the righteousness of Christ freed to love our enemy and to pray for those who persecute us. It is a time to challenge the powers of our world and to enter controversial times of peace.

As leadership transfers from John to Jesus, we witness the calling of Jesus’ first disciples: Peter, Andrew, James and John. We witness the power of what a new vision and dream for the world can do for young people who are looking for change. Then with these new disciples, we witness the first fruits of Jesus’ teaching and healing ministry that challenges the world order and initiates the controversy of who this Jesus is.

Today’s stories of transition are not about the good old days: a time that used to be; they are not about recapturing some glory of the past. They are stories of hope, with dreams of a better way of living where our historic prejudices, myths of ethnic superiority, and preferential treatment of the wealthy at the expense of the poor no longer exist. It is not about reclaiming comfort and convenience, but gladly entering challenging times and the controversy that surrounds them.

Although a coincidence, it is amazing to me that these texts have been set aside for us, have been assigned to us, for this week, during the changing administrations in our government, in this time of transition in our lives, in this time of division and struggle. I couldn’t help but think of these texts as I listened to the inauguration of President Trump because of the deep divisions that have created conversational impasses based on who we voted for, seeking comfort and convenience of like-minded people, rather than entering the challenge and controversy of open disagreement for the sake of a common goal.

Let us remember in Martin Luther’s words that we are to be “in the world but not of it.” In baptism, we are of Christ’s body for the sake of the world. We are of the mind of Christ for the salvation of the world. We are of God’s justice and individually ambassadors of it for the peace of the world—but we are not of the world. No, we are not of the world, we are of Christ who challenges the world, raising the controversy of leadership.

We are created in God’s image with the gift of faith. Believing in Christ’s authority and his healing presence, we have the power to be the children of God. When we awaken to this reality, we begin to see that the good old glory days we remember are not the past but the days yet to come. In the body of Christ, in the shadow of the cross, and in the morning of the empty tomb, we must, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, learn to live together as brothers (and sisters) or perish together as fools".

As we learn to live together in the mind of Christ, let us pause for a moment along the sea (of Galilee) to hear Christ’s calling, witness his authority and healing presence, and then proclaim his fulfillment of all righteousness in prayer. Please join me in this prayer I’ve adapted from one written by David Scherer, Contextual Learning Coordinator at Luther Seminary in St. Paul.

God of many languages, speak love to us. God of many nations, welcome strangers among us. God of many expressions, sing joy through us. You are one. We are many. Humble us. Hold us. Save us. Send us. Shelter us and guide us in these challenging and controversial times. Amen.