Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
A song by a singer named Rhianna has sold seven million copies. It is one of the best-selling singles of all time. And it has reached a global audience, topping the charts in 25 countries. The song is entitled “We found love.”
The lyrics are:
We found love in a hopeless place.
We found love in a hopeless place.
We found love in a hopeless place.
We found love in a hopeless place.
Something about this repetitive theme touched the hearts of millions upon millions of people around the world.
All this Lent we have been talking about places in life that can feel hopeless … places like shame, addiction, depression, grief, powerlessness.
As we’ve talked about hopeless places, we have turned to one another and Scripture to discover how we might find hope in these hopeless places.
Our Easter affirmation is that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord –not shame, not addiction, not depression, not grief, not powerlessness. Nothing can separate us from God. No matter how burdened we feel, no matter how imprisoned we feel, no matter how hopeless we feel, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It gets better.
Today we want to talk about the hopeless place we call death … the death of those we love, the reality of our own death.
All this Lent Pastor Dawn has been talking to people who have experienced places that can feel hopeless. This morning she is going to talk with a member of our cancer support network, Chuck Hilty.
Pastor Dawn and Chuck --
Because of the advances of medical science and research, two out of three people diagnosed with cancer now survive and live for years to come after their diagnosis. We are very grateful for the work of cancer research.
Still cancer is a scary thing. In our time it has become not only a stark reality for those who experience it but a symbol. Cancer and HIV have become symbols of our vulnerability, our insecurity … they are symbols of the truth that, as the old preachers used to say just before the altar call, none of us knows what tomorrow may bring.
Sometimes when I am lying in bed at night in the dark waiting for my melatonin to kick in, I will start feeling my body looking for lumps. If I find one I will say to myself: I wonder if this is it. So far, when I’ve gotten up the next morning, I’ve not been able to find the lump again in the light of day, thank goodness.
The lump in the night is a symbol to me of my vulnerability. The tomorrow I fear will come someday. As Richard John Neuhaus used to say before he died, the death rate is holding steady at 100 percent.
So the question I want to ask this morning is this – Is the cemetery a hopeless place? Is the columbarium a hopeless place?
The cemetery began as a hopeless place for Mary Magdalene the first Easter.
She had gotten to the cemetery before daybreak, while it was still dark. Jesus had died on Friday. Because it is against Jewish law to touch a corpse on Saturday -- the Sabbath—Jesus’ body had been dropped in a tomb, a sort of cave, and a stone had been pushed against the opening of the tomb.
Mary had come to the cemetery Sunday morning so that she would be there as soon as the sun came up and it was no longer Sabbath. She had come to tend Jesus’ body; prepare Jesus’ body --to wash it and to anoint it-- for its final burial.
When she found the tomb in the dark, she discovered that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance and that Jesus’ body was missing.
She immediately ran to fetch Jesus’ disciples Peter and John who in turn ran to the cemetery to see for themselves that Jesus’ body was gone.
The big strong disciples –the boys-- immediately took off for their homes to hide because if someone had bothered to steal Jesus’ body, it might be a sign that there still might be trouble in store for them.
So the big strong disciples –the boys-- ran off to hide, leaving Mary Magdalene alone in the cemetery.
Notice this: the Gospel of John tells us four times in a few sentences that Mary abandoned by the disciples, alone in the cemetery as day begins to break - that Mary was weeping. The Gospel of John mentions four times in a row that Mary was weeping.
Start at John 20 verse 10:
10 Then the disciples returned to their homes. 11 But Mary stood weeping [number 1] outside the tomb. As she wept [number 2], she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 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. 13 They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping[number 3]?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? [number 4]
Four times in a few short verses John tells us Mary Magdalene was weeping.
Mary was in a hopeless place.
The interesting thing that I never quite stopped to think about before is why she was weeping. She was weeping because her savior and lord had died, yes, but she was specifically weeping because someone had taken Jesus body away and she could not find it.
"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him," she said.
She was weeping because she could not find his body. She could not find what was left of Jesus.
Why is losing Jesus’ body a cause for such weeping? Why is finding his body so important?
Because the very last thing we can do for someone we love is to see their body to its final resting place. It is the very last thing we can do for the one we love to express our love. It is our final act of love.
Until we have seen our loved one’s remains to their final resting place, something remains unresolved, unfinished.
The seminary professor Thomas Long, who preached here a couple of Julys ago, has written a book about the modern funeral. He worries that our funerals and memorial services have become too casual, too convenient, too antiseptic.
“In a funeral we are carrying the body of a saint to the place of farewell,” he writes. “In short, we are carrying a loved one to the edge of mystery, and people should be encouraged to stick around to the end, to book passage all the way. If the body is to be buried, go to the grave and stay there until the body is in the ground. If the body is to be burned, go to the crematorium and witness the burning.”
We should see with our own eyes the earthly remains of our loved ones put to their final resting place. It is the last earthly act of love and respect we can do.
Mary Magdalene could not find Jesus’ body. She could not wash it. She could not anoint it. She could not love Jesus one last time.
Mary was in a hopeless place.
Here is the Easter story -- In her hopeless place Mary Magdalene meets the resurrected Christ.
The resurrected Christ tells Mary two things. He tells her the only path to hope when we are in the hopeless place called death.
First, the resurrected Christ says to her: “Do not hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to the Father.”
Do not hold on to me. Do not hold on to my body. Do not hold onto the past me. Do not hold on to the past. For I am ascending into tomorrow. Let me go.
Do not hold on to me, “But [second] go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "
Do not hold on to me but go and minister to the disciples, to the boys hiding in their basements. Tell them it is not over. Help them … Help the boys.
If we are to find hope in the cemetery, every death is a letting go and a commissioning … an ordination.
Every death is a letting go of the love we knew … the love we were blessed and privileged to know … and it is an commissioning, an ordination, to go and minister to others and to minister lovingly to them.
It doesn’t say this in the Bible but I am convinced that it was Mary Magdalene who turned the boys into men who transformed the world. I believe it was Mary Magdalene, the first preacher, the first witness to the resurrection, the first ordained minister, who turned the disciples into apostles.
In the face of death, this is the only path to hope … to take the love we have known and to resurrect it into loving ministry and service to others.
Every death is a call to ministry. Every death is an ordination to minister so as to share the gift of love we have received.
Let go of the past. Take the love you have known and go help the poor boys grow up.
Every death is a call to love anew.
I suspect this is even true of our own deaths.
I suspect the task of dying is to let go of our own bodies and then to ascend to a body of eternal love.
Part of the reason I say this is because I sometimes experience people who were part of my life who have died still loving me. I sometimes experience people who have physically died still praying for me. I sometimes experience people who have died still ministering to me.
So I pray for the grace when my time comes to let go of this body to ascend to a body of eternal love. And I believe in that body I will be able to love better than I have been able to love in this body. I believe I will be able to work for justice and inclusion more effectively in that body than I have been able to in this body. I believe that I will be stronger in that body than in this body.
As I lay in bed tonight waiting for my Melatonin to kick in, I will be tempted to begin feeling my neck for lumps. For some reason I always start with my neck. I will be remembering that one day I will need to let go of this body.
When I let go of this body it will be my true ordination. I will become a real minister for the first time. So will you.
Resurrected with Christ into a body that is pure love we will be able to minister and work and serve and love as we have never been able to before.
This is my hope. This is what I believe. It gets better.
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