Gardener to God (a sermon on John 20:1-2, 11-18)

This is a short sermon which I wrote and preach at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Hinsdale, IL on June 25, 2014 on John 20:1-2, 11-18 

In today’s text, we find Mary in the midst of grief, confusion, and loss. In John’s account, Jesus has died and Mary is going to the tomb, but rather than finding the body of the Lord, she finds the tomb has been opened.

In a panic, Mary runs to find some of the other disciples. As they return to the tomb, they are greeted by angels in the place where Jesus’ body had been.

Mary is still weeping and the angels ask her why. She replies “they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”                   Mary thinks that someone has taken Jesus away from her, but that is not true, Jesus is right next to her, only she doesn’t see him, she sees a gardener.

I think this is a very relatable feeling.

Many times in life we are feeling hopeless and despairing,             we may try and seek Jesus but only find seemingly empty tombs.       

Like in the early stages of writing this message.                   I kept searching for where God was in the text, trying to find what the Holy Spirit was leading me to and as I could not find the words, I felt as if I kept seeing the gardener, not the Lord.

Or maybe the more serious times in our lives.              

You may or may not know this, but Noah is not our first child.

In August of 2012, our son Josiah was born, stillborn 3 weeks before his due date.

Throughout Josiah’s pregnancy, it was easy to see God. I don’t know that I have ever had a greater appreciation for creation or the Creator than the first time I felt Josiah’s kicks.

Josiah was a very healthy baby          until he wasn’t.

Without warning or a cause known to us, he died.

This may be something like what Mary felt.

Jesus ministry and movement was growing and going well, there were alleluias and hosannas in the highest all over the place,       until there wasn’t.

Then it happens. Jesus has died and has been placed in a tomb.

Days later, Mary goes to the tomb seeking the lord and cannot find him.

I remember the days after Josiah had died. I felt lost.

I prayed that God would heal Josiah, I prayed that God would undo this death and let him live.

I was probably much angrier at God than Mary Magdalen is in the text, but God was not where I thought he was supposed to be.

Mary thought Jesus would be laying there                and he wasn’t.

He was instead standing next to her in the tomb.

My expectations were met in a similar way,             Jesus was not undoing Josiah’s death like I thought he was supposed to, but he was standing next to me.

It happened in a reading at Josiah’s funeral.

It was from Mark and it was a text where Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

Just as Mary knew the Lord as he called her name. Jesus went from gardener to God as I heard this gospel promise and I knew Christ was with us and also with Josiah. It was not how I thought it was supposed to be, but there was Jesus.

This is the part we often overlook about Jesus.          We share stories of how Jesus loved the outcasts and healed the sick. We celebrate him in the bread and wine. We acknowledge that he has taken our sin so that we may be forgiven and have eternal life. We confess but don’t often discuss that when Jesus died on the cross, he descended into the dead, he took on sin, the very thing that separates us from God, and took on death, the very thing that separates us from each other.

Through Jesus’ redeeming work on the cross, he conquered their powers so that they may no longer separate us.

Yes, sin and death are still very present in the world but know that when you encounter them, the one who conquered them encounters them with you and will continue to stand by you.                 

Amen. 

From Dust You Were Made and to Dust You Shall Return

Ash Wednesday is the start to my favorite time in the church year. The time spent in Lent has been one I have loved since I started attending church in high school. To love this contemplative, alleluia-less season means many things. Maybe I love it so much because I’ve never actually followed through on the giving up something practice that so many take part in. I think I gave up pop one year, but I was allowed to drink it on Sundays because someone had said that Sundays are not included in the 40 days, and because it’s the Sabbath and self-denial is hard work! Work – and you aren’t supposed to do that on the Sabbath, so go to church and enjoy a Dr. Pepper at your post-worship Olive Garden lunch and rest the day away– that was my theory then anyway. Nevertheless, I don’t think my denial of pop brought me any closer to God, prepared me for Easter, or even helped to understand temptation (I don’t think I lasted the 40 days either). The aspects of Lent that I have participated in are traditional in other ways – soup suppers and Holden Evening Prayer – how can you not love soup and Holden? It is such a beautiful service and I especially love this practice because it is one I’ve taken part in since I knew Lent was a thing. As soon as the familiar songs begin, it brings back memories of past Lents and triggers a reflection which continues through the season. It feels like adding a ring to a tree’s growth every time we encounter these 40 days. The songs and prayers from this service are a way to touch and revisit each of those rings from years passed. Ash Wednesday is the kick off to the whole thing.

Ashes to Ashes / Dust to Dust

On Ash Wednesday, I had a whole mix of emotions as I looked down at my sleeping 1-month-old startle as he received ashes in the sign of the cross on his forehead and heard the words “from dust you were made, and to dust you shall return”. I thought of my love of Lent - where my life had been in previous years and where it is now. I thought of Noah and wondered how will he take on these practices in his own life. I think most of all I was overwhelmed by looking down at one of my sons with an ash cross on his small face, and thinking of my other son who sits in ashes in a marked box in our bedroom.

From dust you were made, and from dust you shall return.

I think Noah’s response to this reminder of our mortality was one we should all have. Startle. Yes, death is a part of life and one day it will happen to us all. So be startled. This startle is not fear. This startle does not petrify us. This startle is a brief wake up from our comfortable on-going lives. This startle is a chance to reflect and ponder where our lives are because, at any unknown time, it is dust which we shall return. Now I doubt that is what Noah was doing at this time (although I am his mom and I think he is brilliant, so I’m not totally ruling it out). His following response is also more than appropriate – he smiled and returned to his nap peacefully. 

This startle should not upset you. Put this startling news to good use, so you can smile and happily return to your life when your Lenten journey ends.

My Startle – My Lenten Journey

For Lent I have decided to take on a new practice. Be gentle with yourself. It is the name of my blog which suggests that I think it’s important and do it all the time, right? Well no, that is a lie – not the importance part, but the actually doing it. These are not words of wisdom that I came up with, so I should explain the namesake. When Josiah died and a new semester of seminary started the next week, Josh and I met with one of our professors. While discussing whether or not we should start classes and how to live in our new reality, this was his advice: Be gentle with yourselves. If you are having a good day, allow yourself to have a good day without feeling guilty and if the next day is a bad day, let it be a bad day and not feel like the good day was a lie.                  But beyond this life circumstance, shouldn’t we all be gentle with ourselves at all points in our lives? On the good days, the bad days, and the days in-between, be gentle with yourself.                          

I am startled. I am reviewing my life, knowing, like with Josiah, that we never know when our time here is done. I am startled. I am using this Lenten journey to give up the things that keep me from being the best me because they distract me from who God created me to be. And I am being gentle with myself in preparation for Easter. Easter is the time which we celebrate the hope we have in Christ. We also celebrate the grace God has for us. And this is why I am taking on the practice of being gentle with myself – here’s the thing, when you are not gentle with yourself, not only do you get in the way of being your best self, but more importantly you do not allow yourself to accept and experience God’s grace. You will be too busy with why you should have been better, why you need to do more, why you are not enough – but I mean really, if God can forgive all, if God extends limitless grace to all, can’t we give ourselves a little?

I am practicing being gentle with myself already because obviously Ash Wednesday was 9 days ago – so I will let the time that has past go, and start here and now.

I will be doing this journey with somewhat of a format. Each week, I will be gentle with myself with a focus I have chosen which I deemed as “problem areas” for my self-gentleness (okay I thought I’d try out that phrase but it sounds weird so I won’t use it again). Each week will have goals that go with that week’s focus and I will blog about them each which. (Much of this journey came to me while reading Rachel Held Evans A Year of Biblical Womanhood – read it, it’s great!)

The focuses are:

-Be gentle with yourself, with a discerning spirit 

-Be gentle with yourself, with a realistic attitude

-Be gentle with yourself, with flexibility

-Be gentle with yourself, with intention 

-Be gentle with yourself, with forgiveness

-Be gentle with yourself, with real presence

From dust you were made and to dust you shall return – so in the meantime, be gentle with yourself.

What's in a Name?

In the last few years I have realized there is a great significance to a name – maybe not even just the name, but the actual act of naming. I have realized this in a number of ways – through grief, through joy, through anger, through confusion and numbness. Naming is so powerful because it is the point of which you are ready to recognize a thing, you give it importance or at least assign the amount of value you see in it with its name. Other people may not give something the same name. A good example of this is every time I go home, I assign myself the task of throwing out everything, hm, no, cleaning…no... simplifying my mom’s closets, garage, or attics. We both may start at naming the items as ‘stuff’ but as the project continues the names change – I tend to call it ‘junk’, ‘crap,’ or more colorful words as the day goes on, while my mom names it as ‘not that bad’, ‘still good’, or by the memory it is tied to. She also does not name my self-appointed task as simplifying – but you get the point. Names show value and feeling. (Note- my mom is not a hoarder or anything – I just really like getting rid of stuff)

The act of naming is at least equally as important. It is the process of acknowledging the thing – then calling it what it is – at least what it is to you in that moment. There is such power in that act alone – because once you acknowledge and name something, you can begin to understand it and the relationship you have with it (‘it’ could be a thing, ‘it’ could be an event, ‘it’ could be a person or relationship with a person.) The act of naming also allows you to claim something – to claim your feelings, to claim what it is that is happening, to claim it and name it – not just let it blindly happen to you. Once you have named the thing, you know what to call it takes away some of the power it has over you – you can face it and call it by name. I would imagine this is largely why groups like Alcoholics Anonymous (irony in the anonymous organization being a good example of the importance of naming – but anyway)  start out by saying “I am my name and I am an alcoholic” Two powerful things happen here – first you recognize who you are, you value first that you are you, not just a condition or your brokenness, you are not a nameless victim overcome by your problems, because you are claiming first and foremost – I have value and I have a name bigger than this. But you do not ignore the brokenness. Instead, you name it. You face it. You don’t make excuses or try and sugar coat it – you call the thing what it is so you can begin to overcome it and reclaim your power. Because before you can name it – it is naming you, and generally not very nicely.

So far, I have spoken of naming mostly from a ‘power’ standpoint or how beneficial it is in situations of conflict or negative relationships with a person or thing – but it is much more than that. In the first chapter of Genesis, we learn of how God speaks things into creation and names them as ‘good’. From the start, God has seen all creation as good. In the second creation story (yes, literal creationists – there are two creation stories in Genesis – and they aren't the same! But that's another story - haha get it?) But anyway, in the second story God does the whole creation thing, we are in the garden and God gives the man the job of naming every living thing. From the beginning – or just after the beginning began – God gave us the privilege, honor, and great responsibility of naming. So what do we do with it?

As I am now pregnant with my second child – naming has been on my mind for a while now! Naming a child is one of the greatest responsibilities a parent is first given. Throughout both of my pregnancies, I have focused on names since the beginning – actually since before the beginning, when we even thought of having kids and probably before that – I have thought of names. There is a scene from the movie Where the Heart Is that always comes to mind when the naming process starts. This is not word for word, but the pregnant woman is asked by a stranger what she is going to name her baby. She responds something like “I was thinking Wendi – with an i” and the man is not pleased. He tells her she needs to give that baby a strong name. She ends up naming her Americus. I’m not going for that name – but the name has always had to have meaning for me. (I should include, my husband, Josh, is included in the naming process, but he does not obsess about it from the moment we see the lines on the stick, or start thinking of having a baby. He is sure we will figure it out by the time we need to and doesn't wake up in the middle with the perfect name.) Josh and I come up with very different names. Mine probably fall more into the Wendi with an i categories, and his are more Americus sounding...neither work out too well! His general reply to my name suggestions are also “that is not a name, that's a word” and sometimes "that's not even a word" and he likes to (jokingly) suggest things like Jebediah or other Old Testament horrors that I refuse to let happen. It truly amazes me we ever agree on a name – but when we do, we both love it and it is as if that baby has always been named that and we finally discovered it.

Josiah seemed to always have his name. Here are few things we loved about the name Josiah. 1) It’s biblical – and has a pretty interesting story of a boy who became king at 8 years old and restored the Kingdom of Judah to God. 2) My husband’s name is Joshua, his brother’s name is Jeremiah – Josiah is like lovely combination of the two!                       His middle name comes from his grandfathers. Josh has both his grandfathers’ first names as his middle names (Alfred Ted). The problem we came across with Josiah is that my dad’s name was John – and our last name is Johnson. Josiah Dale John Johnson sounds like a racecar driver’s name and I was not about that. So we went with our dad’s middle names – Josiah William Claude.

There have been many things that have come up since naming him that have been lovely reminders that this was most definitely what his name was to be. One of these occasions was the night that Josiah was born. Josiah was stillborn at 37-weeks. Hours after he was born, we had a blessing and naming service with our parents and pastor. Part of the service includes a reading from Jeremiah that talks about how before we were formed in the womb God has known us. The verses right before this reading talk about King Josiah.

While searching for Noah’s name, I looked up what Josiah means. I had to laugh when I saw the meaning. God heals. At first it felt like tragic irony – luckily I have a great sense of humor for this sort of thing (it’s a gift of grief.) But for Josiah to mean God heals. God heals?! Heals my baby that died before he was born. It did not often feel like God healed him. I can’t say how many times in the days to follow the news of Josiah’s death that Josh and I prayed for God to heal. Our prayers for healing were to make this not have happened – undo this – Lazarus this situation or something! But in reflecting on our journey of grief and growth since these days – I think the name is perfect. Healing does not mean cure – it is one of the great and painful misunderstandings when reading about all of Jesus’ miracles after you have suffered great loss. (I’m not claiming that a physical cure didn't come with Jesus’ miracles – but the importance is the healing) Healing in Jesus time was about restoration. Restoring, wholeness, and meaning. Jesus healed the lepers because they were restored to community – during Jesus’ time, life centered around community – it was not the individualistic world we like to try and live in today. So Josiah was our healing – God may not have healed Josiah in the physical way that we wanted – but God healed us through Josiah.

Now for Noah. When we found out that Noah was a boy, we first liked the names Jacob, Isaac and Isaiah – but landed on Jacob – for a couple of days. We both really liked the name but then a few days later we looked at each other and agreed that we did not think this boy’s name was Jacob. Or Isaac. Or Isaiah. So we were back at square one. I was driving to work about a week later and the song Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey came on and I was talking to the then-unnamed Noah, telling him how his brother loved this song when I was pregnant with him and he would kick and dance the whole time the song was on. Suddenly while talking to him I felt like I knew his name – he was Noah. I shared this with Josh and he agreed that this was Noah. Noah’s middle name is Kenneth – which is my grandpa’s middle name and Josh’s best friend’s name. (Clearly we have a pattern – first name: biblical, middle name: family)

So what does Noah mean? Comfort. I couldn't believe it when I read it. (Now I laugh because I can tell you that 2 weeks from my due date – comfort is not in the top 100 words I would associate with this kid! But I do think it fits him – once again, in a non-physical way.) Being pregnant with our second child, again a son, just 9 months after the death of my first child seemed like anything but comfort – anxiety, stress, complete fear and constantly being terrified of just about everything, occasionally trust, hope and joy – but I would not name much of this as comfort overall. When I look back on our timeline, it felt like 3 pregnancies. I was pregnant with Josiah for 9 months. Then there was 9 months between Josiah and Noah. This pregnancy was the worst. It was the hardest – it was a pregnancy without a child, but with fear, with loss, with grief, with reoccurring loss of hope with each negative pregnancy test or each reminder that Josiah was gone. It was a pregnancy of growth that I never wanted to endure. A pregnancy of finding the new me and fighting it much of the way. Through a child was not born from it – many other life changing things were and I would not be the same without that time. And then we have my pregnancy with Noah – my pregnancy of comfort – while it started with lots of anxiety and fear, as Noah grew and it became more real that hope can come after loss and that good things can still happen.

Just as God’s healing was felt through Josiah, God’s comfort has been felt through Noah.

(I do worry a little I may be subconsciously putting a lot on my kids with their names – but I tend to view it more as a subconscious celebration of God’s presence in our lives.)