Earlier this Spring, to help organize our upcoming June 9 offsite Pride 10am worship service downtown, a group of local clergy gathered to plan liturgy.

We discussed –

Greetings,
Repentance,
Forgiveness,
Communion,
Music,
Preaching,
Petitions,
Prayers.

Planning a service for a dozen congregations from different denominations together is, as you might guess, at times a delicate affair. Even when we share the same goal: of celebrating and encouraging LGBTQ+ inclusion, and naming, unequivocally, that God’s love is for all.

I was heartened to see our newly formed group gelling surprisingly well – liturgical planning came together without hitch.

Near the end of our meeting one of the pastors wondered out loud, though they weren’t entirely sure, might it make sense to include a land acknowledgement? In case that’s a new term, land acknowledgements are a formal statement that recognizes indigenous peoples as traditional stewards of the land we are on. These acknowledgments are becoming more common among museums, universities, local governments, churches.

At some point St. John’s may want to consider if, when, where and how we might want to include a land acknowledgement here too.

Another pastor in the group spoke up. Land acknowledgements are important, they began, but might that confuse our PRIDE worship audience? If we do include that language how then would we live that out? If we aren’t prepared to do something about it isn’t that just virtue signaling?

A hush fell over the room. Which, for a dozen clergy, is rare. One by one we slowly spoke up and agreed. We concluded that, if we weren’t prepared to take action on what this acknowledgement names – which is important work to be sure – we should leave it out. So we did.

Virtue signaling. It’s a newer term that has only been around a couple of decades. A Time magazine article last year titled Is It Meaningful Action, Or Is It Virtue Signaling? defines virtue signaling as a “performative, but ultimately empty display of moral goodness.”

Virtue signaling is:

• Communicating an identity that makes you look good, with no intent to live that identity out.
• Checking the box to support the marginalized but expending no effort at necessary change.
• Giving lip service to a cause with no next.
• Words without actions that back those words up.

Virtue signaling can be found in our –
Conversations,
Corporations,
Congress,
Churches.

You’ll see it in –
press releases,
marketing campaigns,
political platforms,
social media posts.

Virtue signaling on the surface looks and sounds great. That’s the point. But ultimately it does no earthly good. As a culture we are absolutely swimming in a sea of it.

Conversations
Today’s gospel from Mark finds Jesus and the Pharisees mixing it up once again. The Pharisees watched as Jesus hung out with tax collectors and sinners, even eating with them (Oh my!) They couldn’t help but notice that, when it came to fasting, Jesus was indifferent (the nerve!) Didn’t he know their moral playbook?

They were –
Appalled,
Offended,
Upset.

Because this man, who dared present himself a religious leader, kept on breaking their rules. And here he was, back at that particular project, again.

They watched as the disciples plucked and ate food from the fields they walked through, doing it on the wrong day of the week (Tsk, tsk, tsk). It was time, the Pharisees knew, to show this bothersome man what true virtue looks like. Their critique went something like this –

Jesusssssssss. It’s the sabbath. Your disciples are eating from the fields. Why do they break the law? We would never do that. We are the religious, the pious elite.

As bright as a neon sign in a dimly lit bar their virtue signaling flashed on.

Jesus, of course, knew the law.
The accusation didn’t bug him one bit.

The sabbath was made for humanity, Jesus replied. Not the other way around.

Said differently, the sabbath is a day of rest, a day of renewal. It is to benefit us, not to cause us harm. So if you’re hungry? Eat.

Sensing a teachable moment Jesus then entered the synagogue, saw a man with a withered hand, invited him over. He then turned to the Pharisees, engaging them directly, asking is it legal to do harm on the sabbath? Or to do good?

The gathered group of religious leaders were silent. Christ looked at the crowd there to accuse him. Scripture says –

He was angry.
He was grieved.
He was saddened, that
their hearts were so cold.

Jesus saw their empty display of moral goodness.
He knew it was performance, nothing more.

Not willing to leave it alone, Christ continued.

Virtue signaling itself wasn’t enough.
It was time for virtue doing.
He would show them the way.

Stretch out your hand, Jesus said to the man with the withered hand. The man did. Immediately the man was healed.

The Pharisees couldn’t believe their eyes.
They were the upright citizens of their day.

Jesus dared –
break their laws,
in front of them,
intentionally, again?

He must be stopped! The religious elites were furious their empty platitudes were being questioned. So they went out, seeking others, conspiring to destroy Jesus, once and for all.

Now
Our Tuesday morning bible study has two retired lawyers, Phil Stoffregen and Charlie Harrington. As often as lawyers and legal questions pop up in scripture we can’t help but pick on them some. Apologies guys. You set a low bar😉.

This week at bible study we talked a lot about the legal questions the Pharisees raise, and Jesus’ challenge of them. Charlie mentioned that the Pharisees were being themselves, following the law as they knew it. That perhaps we give them a bad rap. Perhaps that is true.

Yet their focus on traditional observances and righteousness, when it comes to the newness of life Christ offers, held them back. They were stuck in the past, stuck with status quo. They preferred a dormant God subject to their rites and rituals over a rule breaking God active in their lives. Perhaps that reflects our reality at times here too. Which is really too bad. For we serve a rule breaking God that –

cares deeply for us,
desires to heal us,
wants the best for us,
over and above all else.

Virtues grounded in the tenants of our faith are a great starting point. We should each be talking, sharing, communicating them with others. But don’t stop with simply signaling love of God, love of neighbor.

For we are called to back belief with behavior that lives that language out.

So when February rolls around and you celebrate Black history month, go ahead and throw that Black Lives Matter bumper sticker on your car, sure. But then go out, learn more about systemic racism in our country, and be part of long overdue, very necessary change.

As we celebrate Pride month this June, sure, go ahead and put that rainbow message on your Facebook wall. I just did. These colors, and all they represent are so much fun. But don’t stop there. Show up for our Pride worship next Sunday. March in the parade. Welcome your gay neighbor into our church with open arms. Be ready to protest unjust laws that cause the LGBTQ+ community harm. Be an ally in word and deed.

As we here at 600 6th Avenue can’t help but notice an uptick in the unhoused living in downtown Des Moines, do more than offer your thoughts and prayers. If you believe God cares for all of God’s children – and I sure hope you do – get involved. Prepare or serve dinner to the unhoused at Central Iowa Shelter & Services – we do that twice a month. Volunteer at Connection Café downstairs, we serve lunches for the food insecure here five days a week. Join our recently formed unhoused ministry team and get involved. Be the change.

In all these ways, you help heal our broken world, as modeled by Christ.

Don’t just signal your virtues.
For faith without works is dead.

Get out there,
and do.  Amen.

For millennia many a preacher has tried to explain the Trinity in novel, assessable ways using images of triangles, circles, shamrocks or water’s ability to appear as solid, liquid, gas.

So fraught with challenge to understand this tricky concept that even Martin Luther, who was something less than shy as a church reformer, once said this:

To deny the Trinity is to risk our salvation;
To try and explain the Trinity is to risk our sanity.

My goal with this message is to keep both intact 😊.

Today’s text certainly has Trinitarian bona fides. Jesus is described here as someone who came from God. The winds of the Spirit blow where they choose, symbolizing the active presence of God in our world. The basic ingredients for grasping the three in one as God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are all here.

But it’s the conversation in our gospel today of John 3:1-17 I find myself most drawn to.

Nick
The scene begins with Nicodemus, a Jewish religious teacher, going to see Jesus at night. Their conversation happens under the cover of darkness. This suggests Nicodemus isn’t entirely comfortable being seen in public with Jesus. That perhaps he is not yet enlightened. This is, after all, the story of Jesus and Nick at Nite.

Nick approaches Jesus with a sense of curiosity about the charismatic young new teacher able to draw large crowds. No one can do these signs you do apart from God, Nick says. Christ, in return, presents a riddle.

No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above, Jesus shares. Nick, leaning on what he knows of his faith tradition can’t help but go for a plain, literal meaning of what he just heard.

Nick wonders, can a person enter into their mother’s womb a second time and be born? Nick seems confused. Christ clarifies. What is born of flesh is flesh.

The wind blows where it chooses.

You don’t know
where it comes from,
or where it goes.

Such it is with everything born of the Spirit.

Nick, still not quite getting it, replies flatly, how can this be?

Jesus replies, are you a religious teacher? How do you not get this?

Christ goes on to share with Nick language you likely know by heart in John 3:16 – for God so loved the world. It is an broad, expansive understanding of the divine. Verse 17, it’s lesser-known sibling, continues:

God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The world. Said differently God isn’t just for some, but for all.

For Nick, a devout Jew, this would have challenged him. It would have stretched what he was taught about his religion growing up.

For rebirth is a spiritual experience available to all, but perhaps most needed by religious people who might think they do not need it. Religion often becomes a matter of the correct observance of particular practices. When these practices become routine, they can hinder us spiritually. When this happens the need for spiritual transformation, for a birth into the new, is due.

As the conversation between Nick and Jesus concludes it’s hard not to wonder, given Nick’s background with tradition, and given this challenge, how did Nick respond?

Did his understanding of God evolve?

Or would he be forever stuck –
saying,
doing,
believing,
The way it had always been?

Fortunately, Nick’s narrative isn’t yet done.

Nick appears again in John 7. The chief priests sent temple police to arrest Jesus. Some were saying arrest, arrest, arrest! Others wanted to leave him alone. In the middle of this Nick tells the gathered crowd that our law doesn’t judge people without first giving them a hearing, does it? No longer shrouded in darkness, Nick now rallies around his savior in a very visible, very public way.

Nick’s final act in this trinity of scenes is in John 19. Here he brings spices to embalm Jesus’s dead body. He now fully identifies as a Christ follower. Of the twelve disciples one betrayed and eleven were still hiding. But not Nick. Nick is coming out, in public, as a dedicated disciple for all to see.

Soon
In two weeks our congregation has the opportunity to come out, in a different kind of way. St. John’s Lutheran Des Moines is part of a new coalition of a dozen LGBTQ+ open and affirming Des Moines area congregations that is starting to get organized. Other congregations in this coalition include:

• Capitol Hill Lutheran
• St. James Lutheran
• Plymouth United Church of Christ
• Urbandale United Church of Christ
• Downtown Disciples of Christ
• New Beginnings Disciples of Christ
• Grace United Methodist
• Walnut Hills United Methodist

We can be part of this group because of the good work done by St. John’s in the past year. Three months ago we voted to become a LGBTQ+ open and affirming Reconciling in Christ congregation, where all of God’s children are welcomed, embraced and loved. And we weren’t shy about it. The vote passed with 98% approval. Not too shabby.

The first thing we open and affirming Des Moines congregations are doing together is a shared worship service during Capital City Pride on Sunday, June 9.

The service will be –

• Outdoors,
• At 10am,
• At the Pride Mainstage,
• At the corner of East 6th St and Locust,
• About a mile away.

Across our dozen congregations and the broader community we expect over 500 people will join us for worship. To get a good spot arrive around 9:45am, bring a lawn chair, and perhaps some sunscreen too.

We will sing together, pray together, celebrate holy communion together. All among a group of believers passionate about what it means when we say for God so loved the world. All of it. In all sorts of bright rainbowy kinds of ways.

There will be joy.
There will be laughter.
Smiles will abound.

Then, after worship, you are invited to stick around and join St. John’s in marching in the Pride parade. We’ll gather just a few blocks from there, the parade begins at noon. Last year 39 people came out to march with St. John’s. This year we’d love to have more. Our Bishop, Amy Current, will be joining us there. It will be all kinds of fun.

If you plan to march in the Capital City Parade, or help out at our Pride booth downtown that weekend you are invited to wear a St. John’s tie dye t-shirt. If you already have one great. If not just ask our Events Specialist Amanda Landers-Each and she’ll get you one. While supplies last 😊.

And if outdoor worship isn’t your thing? No worries.

You can join us here at St. John’s at 600 6th Ave June 9th at 10am, where we’ll host a livestream of the Pride service and also participate in holy communion. Or you can join us at home, or anywhere else via livestream that day as usual, and worship with us that way too.

That day you have a trinity of worship options. A holy trinity to be sure 😉.

Apply
Each of us, in our own way, can identify with Nick at Nite. We find ourselves drawn to Christ.

We want to –
learn,
understand,
grow into more.

Yet we too at times default to –
saying,
doing,
believing,
based on how it has always been.

Perhaps we too feel challenged when asked to care for and support one another in ways that are different and new.

Fear not, beloved.

For Nick at Nite,
becomes Nick during the day,
becomes Nick the disciple,
Serving Christ, boldly, until the end.

So join us,
in two weeks,
as you are able,
outside for worship,

There will be –
singing,
color,
sun.

Our journey,
to love God,
and our neighbor,
as led by the Spirit,
swirling around us,

in ways that challenge us,
to love more fully,
to love more boldly,
to love more publicly,

Is what it is, to be a follower of Christ.

And *that* journey, my friends,
has only just begun.

Sometime during our sophomore year in college, back in 1995, my future mother-in-law suggested Kathi and I watch a new TV show she just adored.

It was about a group of six people, all in their 20s, that were really close, and spent a slew of time together. “They’re young, like you,” she shared. “And fun. I think you’d really like it.”

So we watched, and surprisingly, to me at least, I enjoyed it. Which was a good reminder to my almost 20-year-old self that teenagers don’t know it all. Mothers really do know best 😊.

The show has a memorable opening with a catchy tune. Even just humming the intro, with no words, might be enough of a clue.

DE-DE-DE-DUH-DUH-DEH-DE-DE…it’s Friends, of course.

The series follows Rachel, Ross, Monica, Phoebe, Joey and Chandler, over the course of 10 seasons and 236 episodes, as they learn to live as young adults, through life’s up and downs, supporting each other along the way.

Each episode, in its own way, mirrors the title of the show’s theme song: I’ll be there for you.

For the six Friends always are, in profound and often funny ways.

In one scene Phoebe’s grandmother dies. When Joey and Chandler hear of it at their favorite coffeeshop, Central Perk, they hold Phoebe’s hand while Rachel rushes over and puts her arm around her. The Friends listen to and support Phoebe, helping her cope with the unexpected loss.

Phoebe shares the last thing her grandmother said to her when they were at the grocery store, “Okay dear, you go get the eggs and I’m gonna get the yogurt and we’ll meet at the checkout counter.”  And y’know what? We will meet at the checkout counter, Phoebe realizes, referring to the afterlife. The four share the insight and quietly agree.

Friends support each other in tough times, through listening, empathy, care.

In another episode Ross buys a new couch, and enlists the help of Rachel and Chandler to help move it up a flight of stairs. Turn, turn, turn, Ross directs, as the couch squishes Chandler’s head against the rail.

Pivot! Ross then exclaims, as they try to take another step up. Pivot! Pivot! Pivot! But the couch doesn’t pivot, and gets stuck in the staircase for good. Later needing to be cut in half to be removed.

Friends help each other move heavy things. Or at least they try 😊

Then there’s the scene where Rachel is moving out of Monica’s apartment, and they’re both packing her things, reminiscing, feeling sad, even getting upset with each other. Phoebe does her best to lighten the moment, asking what it is Monica likes about Rachel.

“She folds down the pages of catalogs with things she thinks I’d like,” Monica begins. “When I take a shower she leaves me little notes on the mirror,” she continues. “And when I fall asleep on the couch after reading, she covers me over with a blanket,” she recalls.

And before you know it their fight is over and the two embrace. Friends help us see the best in each other. Friends also resolve conflict, restoring right relationship once again.

Local
This week a group of 14 people from our congregation walked two blocks to the Hilton Downtown to participate in a fundraising event sponsored by Central Iowa Shelter & Services, or CISS. While there we received a distinction: St. John’s Lutheran Des Moines is the recipient of the 2024 Heroes For Homeless award. The honor came with an awesome plaque of the Des Moines city scape. A few us noticed the cityscape is missing one particular church and spire, perhaps we’ll add that in.

We received this award for many reasons. St. John’s is one of eight congregations who founded the shelter in 1992, and for over 30 years has offered them our unwavering financial, volunteer and political support. On the 18th and 19th of every month members of our congregation pay for, prepare, and serve dinner at the CISS shelter to over 150 people. This is one way of many, we live into our call to be In The City, For Good.

If you haven’t volunteered for this amazing ministry, or haven’t volunteered in a while, simply sign up on our website, or add your name to the sign-up sheet in the narthex. Lord knows we’d love to have your help.

At the CISS gathering we also learned of a new mobile app, Bindle, that is launching soon. The app is designed to be an information hub for the unhoused of Des Moines, including where to find food, clothing and shelter, alongside resources for jobs, permanent housing, help with physical and mental health. And if you need free WiFi? The app will point you there. You better believe St. John’s resources will be part of that app when it goes live.

Partnering with CISS isn’t the only way St. John’s helps people society too often marginalizes. Each weekday, in Weertz Hall, right downstairs, we host a free lunch feeding program called the Connection Café. As a member of The Bridge, which partners with other downtown congregations and local companies, we offer this service to the community five days a week, 52 weeks a year. Members and friends of the Bridge collectively fund, prepare and serve over 100 people lunch a day. This adds up to over 30,000 meals we provide, right here, in our space, per year.

As an extension of this, just last month our church council approved a new Unhoused Ministry team to better address the issue of homelessness in Des Moines. If you would like to be part of group of people that cares for God’s beloved children in this way, in a team-oriented, solution-based setting, let us know. We’d love to get you connected to this exciting new thing God is doing here at 600 6th Ave.

Why do we do all this? Because we are friends.

Friends share meals.
Friends connect friends to community.
Friends troubleshoot problems of all kinds, just waiting to be solved.

And we church folk have the opportunity to join in on the fun.

Not servants
Today’s text from John 15 is unique. It’s the only place in scripture where Jesus refers to the twelve he’d travelled with not as disciples or servants, or even students.

Those labels suggest –

Levels,
Hierarchy,
Separation.

Between who has the power, authority, knowledge, and who does not.

Instead, he gives the disciples a new identity. “I have called you friends,” Christ tells them.

There is mutuality in friendship. It is where the vines and branches come together as one.

Friendship is where the health of one impacts the health of all. Friendship embodies loyalty, support, relationship, trust. Friends are there for each other, in good times and bad. No matter what.

The kind of friendship Jesus refers to involves more than just a passive term. For Christ has called us friends if we do something.

If we love one another. Just as Christ has loved us.

Christ makes a bold claim here: to love is to be a friend.
In matters of faith love and friendship are synonymous.

They are one in the same.

We can take this linguistic twist for a spin in some fun ways. Consider the greatest commandment using the language of friendship.

You shall be friends with the Lord your God, giving of all your heart and soul and mind. And you shall befriend your neighbor, treating them as well as treat yourself.

The life of Christ, viewed another way, offers an interesting twist too. Consider Jesus’ resume, and what we are to emulate, through the lens of friendship.

Friends heal the sick.
Friends feed the hungry.
Friends clothe those without.
Friends calm fears.
Friends turn water to wine.

Friends welcome –
The immigrant,
The LGBTQ+,
The black, the brown, the other.

Friends embrace people society often discards.

Faithful friends do all that, not out of obligation, or because it’s the right thing to do. They do all that because living in friendship with God’s beloved brings us into divine harmony with one another. It brings us back to the original plan.

As it once was.
As it can be again.

Just as God walked side-by-side with Adam and Eve in the garden, we are to walk with others, as friends, modeling the friendship Christ extends to us.

Even better, having friends is physically good for us. Studies find if you have strong social connections, you are less likely to have:

• Depression
• High blood pressure
• An unhealthy body mass index (BMI)

Studies even suggest that people with meaningful relationships and social support in their twilight years are more likely to live longer than their peers with fewer connections.

Simply put we need friends.
And we need to be friends.

Especially given Christ’s call to friend one another. Just as Christ has friended us.

Pivot
Returning to the Friends theme song for just a bit, consider the lyrics in a new light. As you listen, remember the friend we have in Christ. Be reminded of the importance of friendship with one another.

So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job’s a joke, you’re broke
Your love life’s DOA
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear
When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month
Or even your year, but

I’ll be there for you
(When the rain starts to pour)
I’ll be there for you
(Like I’ve been there before)
I’ll be there for you
(‘Cause you’re there for me too)

Love one another, yes. But take it a step further. As you encounter people through the journeys of life, no matter who they may be, try something else.

Be a friend. Amen.

As a child growing up, I loved watching reruns of Columbo. These days the 1970s and 80s made-for-TV murder mystery starring Peter Falk is considered a cult classic. It is arguably Falk’s most loved role. And why not?

Columbo sports disheveled hair that is chronically out of place.
He constantly misplaces his pencil, asking suspects, “could I borrow yours?”
He drives a comically small 1959 Peugeot, that was outdated from the start.
He always wears an oversized, crumpled raincoat. Even tho it rarely rains.

Columbo defines what it is to be an anti-hero.

He never appeared to be the right person for the job.

My childhood self couldn’t get enough.

On the surface Columbo appears aloof, disorganized, clueless. Suspects consistently underestimate him. But given the task at hand: solving crimes, no one is better. Columbo always catches his mark.

When my daughter Hannah saw me watching an episode several years ago and plopped down on the couch to check it out I was thrilled. Before you knew it our family of four was watching one episode a week, in order, every Sunday nite.

A new tradition, for us, had been borne.

We have now seen all 69 episodes of Columbo. And have since moved on to watching other murder mystery shows with quirky detectives including Monk and Father Brown.

As a family we relish trying to find clues to the case, seeing if we can name them before the great detective does. A good clue, we’ve learned, hides in plain sight, waiting to be discovered. Then, once you find it, and understand what it means, everything suddenly makes sense. Over the years Columbo had some truly great reveals.

That discarded piece of gum? The bite marks in it could be matched to the killer, making a positive ID.

Or the security footage that, at first blush, clearly showed what happened? Turns out the recording had a clock that was broken. Someone must have altered the footage to spin a tale.

And that typewritten ransom note? It originated from an obscure make and model of typewriter. A typewriter that, by chance, was behind a locked door. Only one person had the keys.

A good clue, it seems, can make all the difference in the world.

Brevity
Our reading this Easter is the shortest of the gospel resurrection narratives. The resurrection stories in Matthew, Luke and John contain all sorts of extra details. A journey on the road to Emmaus, the Great Commission, a miraculous fireside fish breakfast with the disciples, followed by Christ’s ascension into heaven.

But Mark? The book simply ends here, with three women running away, afraid.

So unsatisfying was this original ending that scribes later appended the longer, happier ending to Mark, hoping to tie up loose ends.

Like a good episode of Columbo, what we make of this brief, unexpected turn of events is a mystery. To solve this case we’ll need to keep an eye out for clues.

Clues
Our first discovery? An open tomb. The three women there that morning expected to encounter death. Not being able to complete the one task at hand, of anointing the body, a tomb with a missing corpse would be jarring. No wonder they were alarmed, amazed, afraid.

But the tomb wasn’t empty. There’s a young man sitting in it, dressed in white. How did he get in there? Even more curious, he shares some vital pieces of information. He knew who they were looking for. And knew where he could be found. Who was this man? His face and voice seemed familiar. Could it be?

What this man tells them offers us more hints. He said Jesus had been raised. The women knew Christ had brought others back to life. Each time it meant their story here on earth wasn’t yet done. Could he have been brought back too? Was it possible? That would change everything, right? What might this mean?

Tell the disciples, the man told the three. Just like the Blue Brothers, it seems Jesus was looking to get the band back together. Why? Because we’re on a mission from God. Clearly Jesus and the crew had more work here to do.

Tell Peter, the man continued. Jesus wanted to reunite with the disciple that denied knowing him *three* times, when it mattered most? What’s most interesting about this particular clue is what isn’t said. There are no mentions of past wrongs, no demands to explain. To those who abandoned him Jesus only offers grace, forgiveness, connection, community, care.

Have them meet me in Galilee, the man told the women. What might this clue reveal? Galilee is Jesus’ hometown, the location of much of his ministry. It is here where Jesus multiplied the fishes and loaves, feeding thousands. It is here where he calmed the storms on the sea, giving peace to all. Galilee was the land of marginalized people, different people, people treated as less than. Might Jesus be calling the disciples to get back to caring for these people too?

So many clues.
What do to?

Not knowing what to make of it all the women fled the tomb. Initially they said nothing to anyone. For they were afraid.

Here ends the book of Mark.

Next
Unlike Columbo, not everything gets wrapped up by the end of the tale. There is no grand reveal that explains, in plain language who done it, when, where, and why.

The women were left to ponder, pontificate, pray.

What shall they do?

How the women interpreted the clues before them, and decided to act on them, in some ways, will always be a mystery.

Did they huddle up and discuss, comparing notes?
How long was it before they went to share the good news?

Minutes?
Hours?
More?

Eventually they did reach the disciples, proclaiming:

Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

And because of –

their witness,
their testimony,
their action,

The world will never be the same.

Now
The beauty of Mark’s resurrection story is this: it is an open-ended narrative. We, the hearers of this word, get to finish the story from our point of view.

Like the women at the tomb, we too get to write our own endings.

We live in an era where the civil rights of many marginalized groups are in jeopardy. The groups are many, including –

women,
children,
LGBTQ,
immigrants,

the unhoused,
the poor,
the hungry,
the physically and mentally unwell.

Attacks on these groups are being done with a toxic mix of religion and politics.

It is a version of Christianity that values privilege and power over care of neighbor.
It is a version of Christianity that frankly I can’t even recognize.

In many ways –
We have become Rome.
We are the empire.

And that, my friends, is simply not of God.

The promise of Easter, what with its exclamations of:

Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Is proclamation, yes.
But it is also a challenge to act.

Facing the civil rights crisis of his era Dr. Martin Luther King famously said this:

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

People of God, on this Easter Day, a question for you. Faced with injustice all around…

What shall we do?
Christ offers clues.

A Good Friday message.

Before all this we had hope.  Not too long ago there was something to look forward to. Finally, it seemed, a savior of the people had come.

Glory to God the angels proclaimed!
This is my Son, the heavenly voice named.
We know who you are, the unclean spirits blamed.

The divine had spoken.
We had begun to believe.

Look at the disciples.

They –
Followed,
Questioned,
Argued,
Tested,
Walked,
Wondered,
Learned.

Slowly, ever so slowly,
Their faith grew.

And the miracles!
We watched –

Wine made,
Thousands fed,
Storms calmed,
Vision restored,
Hearing returned,
Lepers cleansed.
Dead raised.

With those grand displays,
slowly, ever so slowly,
Our faith grew too.

And the stories!
We heard tales of –

Rich fools,
Lost sheep,
Wedding feasts,
Mustard seeds,
Crooked managers,
Persistent widows,
Good Samaritans.

In them –
the other was always lifted up.
the great always brought down.

His parables challenged us.
They made us yearn for more.

We celebrated with him at –

Grand gatherings,
breaking bread,
sharing wine, amid
joy,
laughter,
sorrow.

It was community.
And it was good.

And the parade!
Complete with –
donkey ridden,
joyous crowds,
cloaks offered,
palms waved,
Hosannah! shouts,
triumphant entries,
all of it fit for a King.

We were sure this man could wear the title well.
We were certain more change would soon come.

Signs, signs everywhere there’s signs.

Then,
a kiss,
a betrayal,
an arrest.

What was going on?

Next,
one denial,
then two,
and three.

From a disciple?

Soon,
a trial,
a flogging,
an angry mob.

Where were his followers?
Had they abandoned him too?

With –
a purple robe,
a crown of thorns,
taunts of Hail, King of the Jews!

He was mocked.

Where were those who loved him?

Finally,
a cross,
torn flesh,
three last words.

It is finished.

And that, seemingly, was that.

Had we read the signs wrong?

The disciples, the crowds, the healings?
The sermons, the parables, the great escapes?
The promise of a new kingdom, here on earth?

Had it all been for naught?
Hope has left us.

We can’t help but grieve.
We carry the trauma.
We carry unexpected loss.
We don’t want this to be the end.

We mourn someone who once said, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Some of us laughed at him for this. Many believed there was no way a massive building could be rebuilt in such short time.

Could those words mean more?

We have little to go on.
Our search for clues begins. Amen.