following – Grits and Grains

Using scripture appointed for the 4th Sunday of Easter (YrC), Psalm 23 and John 10.22-30, here’s a reflection on what it means to hear the voice of Jesus in a noisy world.

I love preaching that brings Scripture to life—and that brings Scripture back to life, and I hope you do too. That’s a reminder that every time we open scripture together we are bringing it back to life. What matters today is what we call people, what we call ourselves and what we call God. Today is Vocations Sunday – a day to explore our calling, our calling of one another and God’s calling of us.

That’s the point Jesus makes when he is confronted by Jews at the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem with the question showing their lack of understanding of him. “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” I’m discovering that John is always telling us the time. In our gospel readings through this Easter season, all from John’s gospel, he has always told us the time. It’s morning, it’s evening, it’s early in the morning. Today, we hear that it is “winter”. Perhaps John wanted to introduce a shiver in his readers to indicate the coldness of these Jews towards Jesus and the frostiness of their relationship towards him.

Jesus replied to them to say “I did tell you, but you do not believe”. He draws the distinction between those who do believe and those who don’t. Those who do believe have listened to his voice and followed him. It’s his voice that makes us think vocationally. We are those who believe. We’ve heard his voice.

Vocation is not just about what we do – it’s about whose voice we listen to, and whose voice we speak with.

We live in noisy days. Everyone has something to say. Social media, politics, advertising, even the voices in our own heads – so many trying to define who we are, what we’re worth, and what matters. Those who follow Jesus make out his voice in all the hullabaloo. As Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice. They listen to my voice and follow me. Even surrounded by the sound of enemies, or even traumatised by suffering, or even as we walk through the darkest valleys overshadowed by death, there is the one call we listen out for. It’s the call that leads us to metaphorical green pasture and the still waters that refresh the soul.

And here’s the gift and challenge of vocation: those who follow Jesus begin to speak like him. They begin to sound like him. It’s not because they have perfect words, nor because they are fluent in the language of the kingdom, but because they speak in love. They echo his truth that so loves the world. They call people “beloved”. They become the kind of people whose words give life.

This is Jesus calling. His calling isn’t just for those who we say “have had a calling”. His calling is for the sake of the world. His calling is for the whole church – to hear, and to follow. On this Vocations Sunday, we’re not just praying for more priests or deacons (though some who hear his call might follow that course). We’re also praying for a church that listens to the voice of Jesus and follows his call, for a church that sounds like Jesus. We are praying for a Pope who sounds like Jesus, for an Archbishop who sounds like Jesus, and for one another, that we dare to follow the voice of Jesus even when it sounds strange in our world of noise.

So, let me ask you. Can you hear his voice?

Do you hear his voice,
the still small voice of calm,
the voice on the lake, in the storm?
Do you hear his voice
in the noise of your lives?
Do you hear his voice
above the voices of harm?
Do you hear his voice
singling you out
for the new rule of the kingdom?

What does he call you?
Are you Forgiven?
Are you his Friend,
freed, no longer slave?
Are you his Beloved?

And what of others?
Can you hear him calling them?
Can you hear him
calling the last first,
the first last?

Can you hear him
calling the stranger
closer as neighbour,
extending the family
by calling brother, sister,
even mother of those
quite unrelated?

His call goes far and wide,
as far as those who are called
“far from the kingdom of God”,
even to those who’ve grown rich
at the expense of others,
the proud and arrogant,
the self-righteous,
the self-satisfied, the guilty.

He calls the warnings of woe,
speaks of mercy to the guilty.
He calls the wayward home,
and calls the proud down.

Love’s call is strong, not mealy-mouthed,
exactly what is needed by those
who put themselves first,
those who are comfortable now.

This is the call of the shepherd
who loves his sheep
and raises his voice
for them to follow.

But the call of the shepherd
also raises the alarm
to disrupt the plans of wolves.

That is not a gentle voice we hear
nor does the shepherd
reassure us to stay where we are.
His is the leading voice,
leading us to fresh pastures,
calling us back, calling us out,
calling us up to the narrow way
that leads to life.

Can you see
how his voice might carry
in every breath of the church,
on the wind and wings
of the Spirit?

Do you know
the messages of your own lives
in your words and deeds?

And can you imagine
all your words being of
the one word that made you
and called you by name
Forgiven and Beloved?

Can you imagine your voice
reverberating his love and
amplifying his call?

Can you imagine
that being your only call?

There are those
who find it hard to hear
and difficult to believe
the voice that calls them
Forgiven, Beloved,
First, not Last
Friend, no longer Stranger,
Brother, Sister, even Mother.

What did he say?

They need the words
in love’s translation,
the amplification
of those who follow
the sound of his voice.

So listen well, church.

Get the sense of vocation.
We know his voice,
we hear his call.

Let us follow the sound
of his voice so truly
that we too call
strangers friends
and the last first.

Let us see how
the voice of Jesus
carries light
into the darkness
of the night.
Let us echo
the good news
that names us
and calls us
Beloved.

This sermon was prepared for a group of churches coming together to celebrate Easter. The gospel is the ending of Mark’s gospel (16:1-8 (printed below))- the last spoken words being the first Easter sermon.

March 31st 2024

This is how Mark’s gospel ends – with three women (call them the spice girls!) fleeing from the tomb, seized by terror and amazement, saying nothing to anyone because they were afraid. There is nothing else.

People have wondered about this ending. Some have said that we’ve lost the ending. Some have tried to change the ending: we can see when we look in the print versions of our Bibles. Those false endings attempt to correct what they see missing but are so out of character of Mark’s gospel that they have been dismissed by one commentator as “betrayals”.

They’re also misleading – they take our eye off the ending of Mark’s gospel. Instead of seeing a line drawn under the fear of those three women, our eye is taken elsewhere. If only we could take scissors to those false endings, then our eyes would be taken by what’s there in Mark’s ending, not by what is missing.

What’s there for us to see? There are three women. Mark names them. They are Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Salome. And there’s a young man. He plays the lead part. I’ve never paid any attention to him before – my apologies to him. There is no one else.

(There is the usual power dynamic with the young mansplaining to the women – but let’s not get distracted by that, I say mansplainingly!). Mark wants us to see the interplay between them to finish the gospel.

So, the young man. He’s wearing white linen. Seeing that gives us a smell. There is a perfume called White Linen – a costly fragrance. According to the Estee Lauder website, White Linen captures the very essence of a perfect day: early Spring breezes tinged with the fragrance of fresh flowers and endless blue sky. Blissful. It smells like Easter!

In my mind I’ve called this sermon White Linen because the threads of that white linen weave themselves through Mark’s gospel and on into our own lives.

We’re going in deep this morning – we have to to bring this gospel to life. I hope you will bear with me in following the threads of this white linen worn by the young man.

The young man is the last person with anything to say in Mark’s gospel. (The women are too afraid to speak.) We’ll look at those words later.

I wonder where he got the linen from. Could it be the grave clothes left behind by Jesus? And where did Jesus get the white linen from?

Mark tells us that Joseph of Aramathea (one of the ruling council and authorities responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion) bound Jesus’ body in linen refusing him the proper burial rites so that they could bury him in a hurry before the sabbath. Is the young man wearing the linen cloth abandoned by the risen Jesus who was no longer there?

And where did Joseph of Aramathea get the cloth from? Well, Mark tells us that when Jesus was arrested all his followers “deserted him and fled”. Mark singles out from among them “a certain young man”. “A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.”

Is this the same young man to whom Mark gives the last words of his gospel? Is this the same young man the women find? And if so, what happened to the linen cloth that he ran off naked without? Was that what the crowd, with their swords and clubs got hold of? And is that what they gave Joseph to bind Jesus in death when they sealed him in the tomb?

You might think rightly that this linen cloth would be anything but white. It would have been dirty with dust and sweat – and it passed into the grubby hands of the authorities. But Mark tells us about Jesus’ transfiguration earlier in his gospel, when his own clothes became dazzling white such as noone on earth could bleach them. (9:3)

Do you see the connection? If Jesus’s clothes became dazzling white at his transfiguration, why not at his resurrection?

So we see the young man in white linen in the intentional ending of Mark’s gospel.

He is sat at the right hand of the empty tomb. That’s where Mark places him for our imagination to feast on – the seat at the right hand being the seat of power. He’s become the person of power for the church Mark is writing his gospel for. Even though, (even if), this is the same young man who three days earlier was last seen fleeing – deserting Jesus along with all the others, in this last scene of Mark’s gospel, he is highlighted as seated in the seat of power at the scene of glory.

He stands for all those who flee, including those who leave everything behind, even going naked. He stands for the disciples who failed and betrayed Jesus. He stands for those too frightened to speak.

Mark gives his last spoken words to the young man. They are a challenge and invitation to the frightened, fleeing, failing friends of Jesus to follow again. He says: “Do not be alarmed: you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

And after that there is not a single word spoken. In spite of the young man’s instruction, “Go, tell”, all there is is a telling silence, and the only sound is the sound of fear. The women, “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

The ending of Mark’s gospel is abrupt. The other gospel writers detail resurrection appearances in contrast to Mark, who in just a few words, the last words of the young man, promises his followers that they will see him if they follow him. He says “He is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him.” He is going ahead of those who follow. They will see him in Galilee – down to earth, not pie in the sky.

I wonder who the young man is. I wonder if the young man also stands for the church. When the church shares the young man’s words, identifying Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, who has been raised and who goes before us, who we follow and often fail. Is Mark picturing the church, in the form of the young man, at the right hand of the tomb as the power of God for as long as we say to one another, “Go. Tell. Follow.”

Is that the white linen churches are bedecked with? Is the dazzling white linen on the altar the cloth that draped the young man, that was first snatched from him when he fled naked, that was picked up by the powers that be and used to bind the body of Jesus?

Is what the young man said to the women also intended for us? Surely so. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him.” Galilee was their home. Galilee was where they had come from. Galilee was the place they were troubled, impoverished, exploited and where life was never easy. According to the young man that’s where Jesus headed – to their homes, to their work, to their villages, to their neighbours, to their enemies. There they would see him if they followed him – not anywhere else.

Galilee isn’t our home. But if we trust the gospel which is Mark’s, we can surely trust that the risen Jesus goes before us to the places where we are troubled, impoverished and exploited, to our workplaces, to our street corners, to our shelters. We will see him there, only ever there, only ever down to earth.

The ending of Mark’s gospel raises so many questions. They’re glorious questions.

But one thing is for sure. That is that Jesus won’t be wearing white linen. He shed that at the tomb for the young man who had failed and fled, and for the women who failed to tell, for all of us who fail and yet still want to follow – and for the church – to pick up the threads. Jerusalem and the tomb was never Jesus’ final destination. He went ahead to Galilee inviting followers. His destination is our everyday. We will find him there, in the rest of our lives, if we follow. Promise.

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

PS I am grateful for the insights of Ched Myers in his commentary on Mark’s gospel, Binding the Strong Man, and for insights from Alan, Jeanette, Karen and Lesley.

Tag: following

The Sound of Jesus: hearing his voice, following his call

The young man in white linen – and the first Easter sermon