Matthew 28:1-15: A comparison

I taught a Sunday lesson a couple of weeks ago based on Matthew 28:1-15.  This is the resurrection story in Matthew. Sometimes, we forget that while the story is in all four gospels, it is different in each one - kind of like we forget that the Christmas story told in the two gospels is different, and we combine them into one giant Christmas play in our head.

Don't ignore the differences,  Don't try to explain them away.  They can tell us something about the message that each Gospel writer is telling us.  Below are my notes from the Sunday school lesson.  Parts of these notes are taken from Feasting on the Gospel - a section written by Barbara Brown Taylor on this passage.

1. Only Matthew allows the reader to watch the opening of Jesus’ grave.  In the other gospels,  the door of the tomb has already been opened when the women arrive.  We aren’t left to  wonder if a grave-robber or a soldier did it.  An angel of the Lord did it – it was done by a  divine act.  Question:  What is gained by knowing how the tomb was opened? What is lost?  (Aren't those interesting questions?  How do you answer them?
2. The women who arrive are different in each gospel:

• Matthew - Mary Magdalene and the other Mary
• Luke – a group of women including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and  the other women
• Mark – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome
• John – Mary Magdalene

3. The angel in Matthew is very different from the young man in Mark.  In Luke, there are two  men in “dazzling clothes”
4. Only Matthew mentioned Roman Guards at the tomb.  Maybe this was important to  Matthew in order to refute common rumors of his time.  Maybe it is to echo Daniel: when  the king orders Daniel to be thrown into the lion’s den, a stone is brought to seal the mouth  of the den, and the king seals it with his signet.  Matthew is written for a largely Jewish  audience, so Matthew often references the Hebrew scripture, so this seems to fit his  purpose
5. Only Matthew tells that the women were the first to see, touch, and worship Jesus. And the  Disciples go to Galilee as the women tell them to, so they must have believed them – at least  enough to follow their instructions.

• Luke – the women received instructions from the two men, but no one believed  them.
• John – Mary sees and speaks with Jesus, but isn’t allowed to touch him. Although  she is alone with him, the disciples do seem to believe her.
• Mark – Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene, but no one believes her.

Question:  Does the role of the women bring any questions to your mind?  Barbara  Brown Taylor writes, “…how (could) a church so dependent on the primary ministry  and witness of women ever come to debate their gifts for congregational leadership?”

Perspectives: Drop off

What is it that today, you are afraid of attempting? Afraid of trying to understand? Afraid of doing? Afraid of hearing? Afraid of seeing?

What is stopping you?

Litany: Psalm 96:10-13

A Litany based on Psalm 96:10-13

One: Declare to everyone

All: The Lord is King!

One: The world is established on a firm foundation

All: Built on a rock.

One: Our God judges with mercy and fairness

All: Our God is full of grace and love

One: Let the heavens be glad

All: Let us all rejoice

One: Let the sea roar and all that fills it

All: Let the fields shout for joy and all that is in them.

One: The trees shall sing for joy

All: The forests shall hear God coming

One: God is coming today to bring righteousness

All: May we know God's truth.

Call to Worship: Psalm 7-9

A call to worship based on Psalm 96:7-9

Leader:  We come this morning to this Holy Ground to praise God.

People: Open our minds to remember the Lord's glory and strength.

Leader: We stand on this Holy Ground to praise God.

People: Open our hands to bring an offering.  Open our hearts to release what weighs us down.

Leader:  We worship God so that we may come into God's presence.

People:  Open our eyes to see God among us.

All: Open our lives to worship the God who creator us, who saves us, or loves us.

Open My Heart

Inspired by Psalm 96:1-6

Open my heart.

sing a new song of praise.

To sing a new song, 

or remember an old song.

To sing a song of praise to the Lord.

Open my mouth to sing a song

To declare God's presence in the world.

To remember for everyone 

God's saving love for God's beloved.

For all.

For every day.

Open my life

so that the work I do may be acts of praise

that declare God's love to the world.

That help others to see

God's marvelous acts in our world

For them.

For great is the Lord

and greatly to be praised.

I forget.

I close my eyes to God,

and see instead what is not God

What is not important.

What distracts me from God.

But God made the heavens

And created the world around me.

Honor and majesty surround God.

Surround me, when I am in God's presence.

Strength and beauty are in God's sanctuary.

Open my heart.

Open my mind

Open my mouth

to declare the majesty of the Lord.

Canonized Contradictions

Repost from 11/20/18

I may have mentioned this before, but have you ever noticed in Proverbs the following two verses?

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.  Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:4-5)

I'm reading Inspired by Rachel Held Evans.  She quotes Timothy Beal as saying, "The Bible canonizes contradiction."  

We want answers.  We think we would like God to say, "Do this, not this.  Be this, not this. Here I am, and here are all the answers." God doesn't work that way, and the Bible certainly doesn't work that way.

She goes on to say:

"When God gave us the Bible, God did not give us an internally consistent book of answers.  God gave us an inspired library of diverse writings, rooted in a variety of contexts, that have stood the test of time, precisely because, together, they avoid simplistic solutions to complex problems."

I think we can rest assured that if we think the answer is clear cut or simple, we are wrong.

Sinner

Reposted from 5/30/17

These were the people who wore their brokenness on the outside, people whose indiscretions were so other, so uncommon, their entire personhood was relegated to the category of sinner.  They were the people the religious loved to hate, for they provided a convenient sorting mechanism for externalizing sin as something that exists out there, among other people with other problems, making other mistakes.  (Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans).

Have you ever been in the hospital and heard someone refer to a patient as the "infected arm in room 201"?  I think some nurses and doctors might do that in order to stay detached from the patient.  It's easier, isn't it? To see the patient as only the aliment instead of a person?

What Rachel Held Evans is talking about is a little of that, but it also includes something much for sinister, much more sinful.

Do we see a person and judge them by the sin we believe they have, rather than seeing the person? Do we do that in order to feel better about ourselves?

If I call the person in front of me an addict, am I saying - at least subliminally - that "I don't sin like that."

If we see label a parent as a "poor mother," - because in our eyes, her children aren't behaving the way we would expect them to, or she isn't doing what we think she should be doing - are we feeling better about ourselves?

When the Pharisees scoffed, and called someone a prostitute, or a tax collector, or an unclean leper, did it make them feel better?

At least I'm not like that person.

The Wind Blows Where it Chooses

Repost from 7/5/17

"The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

I think that verse is one of those lovely verses in John that we know must be true, but we just don't take the time to know what it means. At least for me, this is true. I've read it, but I"m always distracted by the rest of the very lovely chapter, and I don't think about this verse.

This morning, I was reading a chapter from Rachel Held Evans book, Searching for Sunday; she was writing about this verse. Jesus is trying to explain -- well -- everything to Nicodemus, and Nic isn't getting it. So, finally, Jesus tells him to compare the spirit to the wind - in fact, he uses a word that means both spirit and wind. 

Think about it. You see the work of God in the world, if you will look, but like hearing the wind, you don't know where God comes from, where God is going. You can't predict the wind (or God); you can't control the wind (or God). Even though we try.

If we look, we will see the work of God everywhere. Evans says we will recognize God's work by the fruit - fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Where have you seen those lately?

A few days ago, I was driving to work, and I saw a turtle trying to cross the road. In our impatient world,  no one is going to wait for the turtle to cross the road, or even notice that it is there. A turtle crossing the road is going to die. Horribly (for the turtle). I often just drive by, in a hurry to get where I cam going and do what I need to do, but today, I stopped and turned around. I was going to get the turtle out of the road.

As I was driving back to the turtle crossing, I saw a very large, black SUV coming down the road, right at the poor, slow turtle. Surprising to me, it stopped, right before it hit the turtle. A large (by large, I mean tall, athletic, young) man stepped out of the car. He rescued the turtle.

Kindness, right in front of me. 

The spirit moving. 

It wasn't a bit thing (unless you were the turtle), but maybe it was a big thing. Maybe it was God at work in that man's life, and in my life, to make himself known.

The wind blows where it chooses.

Woman of Valor

I was so saddened to hear of the death of Rachel Held Evans (RHE).  I've read three of her four books, and watched on twitter as she stood up for those who are oppressed, forgotten, hurting.  I was inspired by her, and learned from her. I will miss her voice, but so will the world.  

One of the phrases I remember from the book, A year of Biblical Womanhood was "woman of valor." It answered my concerns about Proverbs 31, and I still remember and am blessed by her explanation.  Many today are calling her a "woman of valor." And I agree.

This week my posts will focus on RHE.  I will bring back some of the writing I did earlier, but today is new.

Below is where my mind was wondering as I thought about the phrase woman of valor.  These are four sketches of four woman. One of them is RHE.  I hope you see yourself in some of this, because, you, too, are a woman of valor.

She works hard during the day,

answering questions,

typing reports,

bringing together those who disagree.

On the way home,

she stops at the field

to pick up her son from practice.

She grabs carrots, cereal, and milk,

and then, with the help of all,

fixes dinner.

Homework, dishes, baths, 

all a coordinated effort.

She is a woman of valor.

She sits by the side of her elderly husband,

holds his hands.

She tells him stories of their lives together,

stories he doesn't remember.

She is alone in the memories,

but sits with him,

so that he is not alone.

She cries, she hurts, she loves.

She misses him already.

She is a woman of valor.

She married, had two babies

She wrote four books,

Questioning, living, searching, inspiring.

She blogged. She tweeted. She taught.

She stood up for the oppressed,

escaped the church that she loved and couldn't support,

led others to freedom.

She invited everyone to the table,

sharing faith.  Pointing to God.

She died too soon.

She was a woman of valor.

She served others all her life.

Preaching the word of God.

Teaching forgiveness and grace.

She hardends herself against the arrows of prejudice.

She welcomes the homeless, and loves the grouchy.

She feeds people bread and juice, soup and peanut butter sandwiches.

People call her "woman preacher" on a good day.

"Sinner" on the worst days.

But she has a call, and she told God "yes."

She is a woman of valor.

Whether you work with wool or flax,

bring food from afar,

buy fields or stay up late at night.

Listen to others sing of your valor.

Whether you are a soccer mom, or a single woman,

a woman is is never alone, or one who is lonely, or both.

share your gifts

speak your mind

stand up for those who are hurting.

You are worthy.

You are a beloved child of God.

You are a woman of valor.

Hear us sing about you.

Perspectives: Decisions

What decisions are you facing this week?

Scooting Over

I am listening to Nadia Bolz-Weber's new book, Shameless.  At the very beginning, she talks about creation.  Before God created the world, there was nothing except God.  In preparation for creation, God had to make room - to scoot over, so to speak.  She compared it to the woman on the subway whose purse has been placed on the seat next to her.  The woman, out of kindness and generosity, picks it up to make space for someone else to sit down.  She can't help it; it's how she's made.

If this is a description of God - a God who makes room for us - then we, who are created in the image of God, are created for such kindness, too.  It is part of us, too.

Who in our communities do we need to scoot over for? Who is standing up without a place to rest? Who has God created the world for and yet feels outside of God's love? Who do we need to make room for?

And how do we do it? And when will we do it?

Prayer Vigil

Our church hosts a prayer vigil each Lenten season - usually beginning on Holy Saturday, and continuing until Easter morning.  Each slot is an hour long.

I participated several years, but I don't think I've done it lately. This year I claimed the Sunday morning 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. hour to pray.  It seemed like a good idea at the time. It didn't seem like a good idea this morning.  I realized it meant getting up an hour early and getting ready by 8:00 a.m.  We leave the house at 9I:00 a.m., so I would need to finish the prayer time and then walk about the door.  No lazy Easter morning for me.

I even considered skipping it.  Shortening it.  Doing it at a different time.  Something to change what I had agreed to do.  But Steve had the hour before me, and he got up early, and he went downstairs to spend the hour in prayer.  Sigh.  I guess I would do it, too.

I had forgotten.  It had been so long since I spent an hour in prayer, all at one time, dedicated with no interruptions, that I had forgotten what a joy it is.  

I need to be more intentional about this.  I need to be more disciplined about this.  I just need to do it.

Growing Their Gifts

Brad Paisley grew up in Glen Dale, West Virginia, which is very near to Wheeling.  I was in Glen Dale a few weekends ago, so I "did my research" after we left town (I googled).  Wikipedia says that he performed in public for the first time in his church.  The article later quotes Paisley to say, "The neat thing about a small town is that when you want to be an artist, by golly, they'll make you one."

That made me think about church.  I hope our children say that about our churches.  My prayer is that whatever gifts, talents, or dreams our children have, that our churches will nurture those gifts and dreams so that all of the children of God have the chance to go into themselves.  Into the selves that God has created them to be.

Sometimes I worry that we put perfection - in our music, in our readings, in our ministry - at a higher value than the nurturing of the "not so perfect." I hope that we will all take the chance and give those growing into their gifts the opportunity to use them.

Looking up