Easter 3B Resurrection Stories, April 14, 2024, Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Arkansas

Easter 3B Sunday, April 14, 2024, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church

It’s the third Sunday after Easter. The joy of Easter Day is still in our hearts, but we now have 50 days of the Easter Season to reflect on its significance.

The resurrection was not Jesus’ private miracle. It was life-changing for all of us.

“Seeing things as they actually are, usually takes time. No one notices the resurrected Jesus at first sight. Resurrection requires a second look, another glance. It takes time for our eyes to adjust to how life is radically different. Seeing God’s “new thing” is seeing an old thing in a new way/ through a new lens. The miracle of Gospel sight is seeing what has always been there in such a radically new way/ that it becomes a new thing. This is always the work of grace, and we can only handle so much grace at once.” 1

Our best guides to understand this miracle are the gospel resurrection stories. Today, we hear Luke’s story of Jesus’ sudden appearance to the disciples the night of Easter Sunday. He greets them, saying, “Peace be with you.” The disciples are terrified, frightened as if they have seen a ghost. Jesus tells the disciples he is not a ghost. “Look at the scars on my hands and feet. Touch me. Give me something to eat.” He next eats broiled fish. He tells them repentance and forgiveness must now be proclaimed in his name to all nations, reminding the disciples that they are now his witnesses to these things.

 Are there similar occurrences in other resurrection stories?

The disciples on the road to Emmaus,/ Mary Magdalene at the tomb,/ the disciples out fishing also do not recognize Jesus. In today’s story, the disciples do not recognize him until they see the scars on his hands and feet, and he eats something. //

There are at least eight resurrection stories. The resurrected Jesus comes and goes through locked doors, but also does ordinary things like giving fishing tips, cooking meals, eating dinner with his friends. This Easter Season is an excellent time to practice Ignatian meditative practices, putting ourselves into each scene. 

John’s gospel tells us Jesus appears to the disciples the night of Easter Sunday (John 20:24-29), where he breathes on them and gives them the Holy Spirit. Jesus returns the next week when Thomas is present to show him his scars and put his finger in his side. John writes about Jesus’ appearing to seven disciples at the Sea of Galilee, asking Peter to feed His sheep (John 21). Matthew and Paul both describe Jesus’ appearance on a hillside in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-20), possibly to over 500 people (1 Corinthians 15:6). Jesus is later seen by his brother James (1 Corinthians 15:7). And Luke tells us about Jesus’ final appearance giving the Great Commission. (Luke 24:50-52, Acts 1:9-11, Matt 28:18-20). Then Paul encounters Jesus a few years later on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:5, 1 Corinthians 15:8).2 //

How do theologians interpret these resurrection stories?

Henri Nouwen writes, “Through the resurrection, God says to us, ‘You are my beloved children, and my love is everlasting.’ Resurrection is God’s way to reveal that nothing belonging to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God is never lost — not even our mortal bodies.

The resurrection doesn’t answer any of our curious questions about life after death, such as: How will it be or look like? But it does reveal to us that love is stronger than death.” God loved us before we were born, and God will love us after we die. This is a very fundamental truth of our identity. God offers love now in our brief lifetime, where we receive God’s love,/ deepen it,/ grow love,/ and give love away. When we die, our love stays with those we leave behind, but also continues in full communion with God.”3///

How do the resurrection stories tell us how we might also meet the resurrected Jesus?

Each visit by Jesus is a surprise. He speaks love and peace. He calls people by name. He visits ordinary people who are frightened. Jesus is initially not recognized. The scars on his hands and feet are now how the new Christ is known.

The scars symbolize immense pain and suffering. But Jesus uses the scars to comfort his disciples,/ confirm his identity,/ and empower his story as a wounded healer to the disciples/ and us. Jesus’ scars tell a story of refusing violence in favor of peacemaking and returning love in the face of hatred. “If we do not let Christ transform our pain and suffering,/ we most assuredly will spread it,” says Richard Rohr. The transformation of the risen Christ’s pain spreads healing and hope to flow from his wounds to the disciples and now us,/ healing us when we are in pain.4 We can respond to hurt with forgiveness and healing,/ or we can respond to hurt with hurt, spreading the pain. //

The difficulty people have in recognizing Jesus tells us that the presence of the resurrected Jesus is so overwhelming that it is almost impossible initially to believe. Jesus looks different. He looks like an ordinary person, but does extraordinary things. He still has his scars. He still cooks and eats food, but sometimes walks through walls and suddenly appears and disappears.

“We learn from this that risen Christ is apt to come into the very midst of life at its most real and ordinary times. Not in a blaze of unearthly light, not in the midst of a sermon,/ not in the throes of a religious daydream,/ but at supper time,/ or walking along a road/ or when we are working,/ or hungry,/ when we are frightened,/ or repeatedly/ if we miss seeing him the first time like Thomas. These are the basics that the stories about Christ’s return have in common: Mary waiting at the empty tomb and suddenly turning around to see someone she thought was the gardener who calls her by name; all the disciples except Thomas hiding out in a locked house, and then Jesus’ coming and standing in the midst; and later, when Thomas returns, his coming again and standing in the midst; Peter taking his boat back after a night at sea, and there on the shore, near a little fire of coals, a familiar figure asking, “Children, have you any fish?;” the two followers at Emmaus who knew him in the breaking of the bread. /He never approaches from on high, but always in the midst, in the midst of people, in the midst of real life and the questions that real life asks.5

But eventually, we realize that the resurrection is too unknowable in the way we want to know things; the journalistic who-what-when-where/ how we grandchildren of the Enlightenment think truth is discovered. The gospel writers are our guides. They are willing to have their lives changed before they fully understand what is changing them.

Actually, this is the only way life changes. We won’t understand marriage until we’ve been there for a while—maybe not even then. We will not know what having a baby is like until we have one. We don’t even know our profession until we’ve been in it for a while. Nothing in life is obvious immediately. It all grows on us.

This may also be a way to approach resurrection and the presence of the resurrected Jesus in our lives. No, we don’t understand it. We let it grow on us,6 or as we have repeatedly heard from this pulpit, “Resurrection and the presence of Christ is a daily, lived experience.”

1 Kris Rocke and Joel Van Dyke in Geography of Grace, Doing Theology from Below from Daily Quote, InwardOutward/ Church of the Saviour, InwardOutward.org, April 30, 2019.

2Msgr. Charles Pope, Blog, April 9, 2012, blog.adw.org

3 Henri Nouwen in You Are the Beloved (Convergent Books 2017)

4 Josh Scott in “Third Sunday of Easter, April 14, Christian Century, April 2024 p. 25.

5 Frederick Buechner in The Magnificent Defeat

6 Barbara Crafton in Christian Century Website 2012.

 Joanna Seibert joannaseibert.com

12 Step Eucharist Resurrection, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, April 3, 2024, 5:30, Wednesday in Easter Week, Luke 24:13-35

12 Step Eucharist  Resurrection, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock,  April 3, 2024, 5:30, Wednesday in Easter Week, Luke 24:13-35

Today is the Wednesday of Easter Week. We hear the story of the disciples meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Our gospel is about opening our eyes to the resurrected life with Jesus. John Sanford tells us that the kingdom of God, or what some might consider heaven, is not only in the afterlife, but also present in this life around and especially within us.1 Many Psalms remind us that heaven is here on this earthly home if we only have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to care for it.

Bishop Jake Owensby and the writings of Marcus Borg remind us that the “Christian life follows the pattern of resurrection: dying and rising.”2  

Resurrection to a new life occurs in this life, as well as at our physical death. Those in a 12-step group may know more about resurrection than many others. In our addiction, we are living a life of death, death to the person God created us to be, but also a living death for those around us. Our addiction becomes the God of our understanding. Everything begins to center around that addiction to the exclusion of others. If we are traveling, we must carry plenty of hidden alcohol with us, just in case we cannot find enough at our destination. The same is true for food, drugs, and even work. Our homes are filled with secret storage places for drugs, alcohol, or food of our choice. We drink or use to celebrate, and drink or use when things are not going well.

Recovery is resurrection to a new life, a new life where we gradually hear and see heaven on this earth, within us and others, without using mind-altering substances. As we recite these same 12 steps tonight and actually work them and put them into practice, we discover a new God of our understanding, always a God of love. We learn from this God about surrender, forgiveness, and gratitude. We learn about love for our neighbor and love for the person God created us to be. Our addictive substance is no longer the love of our lives.  

At our physical death, the only thing we leave on this earth is that love, the love we give to the earth itself, the love we give to each one we encounter each day, and the love we offer to our family and friends. The only thing we carry with us into the final resurrection to be more connected to the God of love is the same love we shared on this earth. The love we have learned about and shared in our resurrections in this life will never die. Love is a great mystery that we must keep learning about and practicing through these 12 steps every day,/ one day at a time.                

 Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

1 John Sanford in The Kingdom Within

2 Jake Owensby in A Resurrection Shaped Life (Abingdon Press) XIV.

Maunday Thursday Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, March 28, 2024, 6 p.m. The Women with Jesus

Maundy Thursday Saint Mark’s, March 28, 2024, 6 p.m.

 It is now after midnight. We walk cautiously with Suzanna and carefully retrace our steps from the familiar olive garden across the Kidron Valley back to that upper room where we were full of joy and hope just hours ago. It is so dark, but there are still crowds of people in Jerusalem for the Passover. Perhaps no one will notice us. We hug closely to each building, trying not to be noticed. Our Teacher, Jesus, has just been arrested! We all went to the Mount of Olives and the garden, where we often prayed together. Suddenly, our quiet, darken night was disturbed by the light of lanterns and torches, and a detachment of soldiers with weapons and police from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They arrested Jesus and took him away! And one of our own, Judas, seemed to have led them to Jesus!

We have no idea where Jesus is now. We sat in the garden for what seemed like hours, not believing what had just happened, and cried uncontrollably, tearing our clothes and pulling our hair. We did not know what to do.

 So, what do women do when they do not know what to do? We do our everyday routine work. We decide to return to the upper room where we had that last meal, and clean up the dishes and leftovers. Maybe someone will come there and tell us the news. It was scary, dark, and cold in the garden. This upper room was a place of love and beauty. We return to that sacred space. Finally, we see the building. We climb the stairs. Candles are still burning on the table. The roasted lamb shank bone is still left at the center of the table where the Master had reclined, but the room is in disarray. There is that empty chair for Elijah, but now all the places are empty.

We had spent so much time cleaning the room in preparation for the Passover meal, ensuring no food had come in contact with leavened food. Now, perhaps we can calm our fears by doing busy work, straightening up after the huge feast. In the corner are leftover pieces of parsley, horseradish root, roasted brown eggs, and unleavened bread. Suzanna and I made the

Haroset (hare o sat), our mother’s recipe, with apples, walnuts, raisins, and dates. Her secret ingredient is a little cinnamon and wine to taste. It is completely eaten. She would be so proud of us. On the table are still half-empty bowels of salt water. Some wine cups are also not empty. Indeed, many guests became a little tipsy or sleepy after the 4th cup. And then, of course, there are all these dirty plates used for the different parts of the meal. This will keep us busy for several hours. Then we see fragments of the loaf of bread that Jesus took, gave thanks, and broke it saying, “This is my body, that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” There is his half-filled cup of wine, from which he drank/ after he told us, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

” We did not know how to respond. We do not understand. The Lord’s death? A new covenant? Every day, he seems to tell us something new.

 And then we see the towel, the basin Jesus used to wash and dry our feet. He took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself, knelt down, poured water into a basin, washed our feet, and told us we must do this likewise. What does he mean? Did he mean this literally, or is there some deeper meaning? Then he told us he is giving us a new commandment to love one another as he has loved,/ and that people will know we are his disciples by this love./

We begin weeping again. We try to console ourselves by singing the traditional hymns, the Hallel (huh lel), Psalms 113 through 118, sung after supper during evening prayers on the first night of Passover. Just hours ago, we sang the hymns with the Teacher on the way to the garden. As we remember his calming voice, our singing soon turns again into sobbing. Suzanna says a stranger in the garden told her this would be our last supper with him. This cannot be true. We had a glorious Passover meal together. This cannot be the last.

We begin to compare this meal to the previous festive family meal we had together at Martha, Mary, and Lazarus’s home just six days earlier. It was such an eventful dinner as well. Martha was the main person preparing that meal in her home, while many more women besides Suzanna were helping us tonight. All the disciples, including Judas, were at Martha’s as well as in this upper room tonight.

 Judas! What has happened to him? We have been so busy these last months that we did not notice a change in him. We think back. He had become more of a loner, isolated, saying very little. It was as if he had withdrawn from the community. Yes, we see it now, but we did not notice it at the time. We are too busy with our own agendas, feeding and listening to the Teacher.

Again, we think back to this previous meal with Mary and Martha. Mary had anointed Jesus’ feet. Tonight, it was Jesus as the host, washing our feet. We remember how astonished we were a week ago by Mary’s actions, a woman touching a man’s feet, not her husband. But the Teacher praised her. Again, he must have been teaching us something new, telling us an old taboo of not touching someone might be put aside, a new commandment. Then tonight, Jesus does the same as Mary did to all of us, including the women. A man, a Teacher, touching the feet of men and women, performing a ritual that servants usually do./

The dishes are cleaned, and the room is straightened, but we are still just as sad and confused. Our eyes are swollen from crying./ The sun is coming up. We hear a cock crowing. Crowds are starting to gather outside. None of the disciples have returned to give us answers. We decide to venture into the streets to see what all the noise is about./ Come with us. Stay with us. We need your company. We are very afraid. Every day, and especially last night, Jesus teaches us about love and finding that love in community. We desperately need you to stay in community with us/ and wait/ and walk with us/ to learn what this is all about. Come with us as we walk down the stairs of this upper room and venture out into early dawn.

Joanna Seibert

Wednesday in Holy Week, March 27, 2024, Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock

Wednesday in Holy Week, March 27, 2024

John 13:21-32. Women serving last meal

We are helping serve this evening meal with Jesus and our other friends. We are right at the table, so we can hear much of what is happening. Jesus seems agitated, not at all like himself. He suddenly blurts out, “Someone at this table will betray me.” The disciples are now agitated. Peter reclines next to John, who is next to Jesus. We hear Peter whisper to John, “See if you can find out who it is.” John discreetly whispers to Jesus, “Who is it, Lord?” Jesus, in a very soft voice, tells John, “It is the one whom I give this bread to after I dip it.” Then he offers the bread to Judas and tells him, “Do what you have to do now.” We go back into the kitchen and talk with the other women. We don’t understand this at all. It makes no sense. But when we return from the kitchen area, Judas is gone. No one runs after him to stop him from doing whatever he is doing. Jesus now speaks in a clear voice, so all can hear, “Now the Son has been glorified!” More words from Jesus that make no sense.

What shall we do? Something is going to happen that does not seem right. Should we go find Judas and tell him not to do what he is planning? Women chasing a man at night is definitely dangerous. Should we tell Peter and John to do something? But they seem as stupefied as we are. We don’t understand it. Surely, if Jesus is about to be betrayed, God will save him. Jesus, who brings people back to life, certainly cannot be harmed by others. We don’t understand it. So, we decide to ignore it.

Women are worriers, though. Our experience is that when we ignore signs of impending danger that we do not understand, terrible things still happen. We don’t have to understand the threat to do something about it. I talk with the other women. We decide we will stay close by Jesus, even if it puts us in harm’s way, no matter what is about to happen. We feel powerless, but have one gift to give to the one we love. It is the gift we have given ever since Jesus has made a difference in our lives. We offer him our presence.

Joanna Seibert

Sending of the 70, Mark 6:1-13, DOK Province VII Shreveport March 16, 2024

 Sending of 70 DOK Province VII Shreveport

Mark 6:1-13. March 16, 2024

Here we are in church a week before Holy Week at this glorious Daughters of the King meeting with old and new friends, as Jesus keeps reminding us how we are called to our order’s vow of prayer, service, and evangelism.

Jesus says, “Here’s what I need you to do: preach the kingdom, anoint with oil, heal the sick, and cast out demons. I only have one more week before Holy Week. I need a little rest before all the next events occur. Could you take over for a couple of weeks!”

This call from Jesus sending us out does not happen only today but happens every Sunday at all our churches. At the end of every service, while the last word of the last hymn is still ringing in the air, the deacon from the back of the church says, “Let us go forth in the name of Christ! Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit!”

These are not words for the consumers of God’s love. These are words for the providers.

We have heard this story about the sending of the disciples so often that we may take our job description for granted. In short, Jesus gives us precisely the same jobs he was sent to do. It did not have to be that way. He could have pointed out that none of us is the Son of God. None of us was born under a blinding star, had angels sing hosannas over our cribs, or received exotic gifts from foreign dignitaries before we cut a tooth.

Barbara Brown Taylor1 tells us that Jesus could have reminded us all that and insisted that we remain his ASSISTANTS for our own safety, you understand, avoiding malpractice suits. He could have let us mix the mud while he heals the blind or spray Lysol while he cleanses lepers. He could have done that, but he does not. Instead, Jesus TRANSFERS his ministry to us while he is still alive. He entrusts it to us. With little training and very little advice, he sends us out to heal wounds and restore outcasts. But he does not send us out alone, but in community, which daughters know so well./

When I was growing up, our country’s darkest enemy was the Soviet Union, as it still may be today. In school, we regularly participate in air raid drills, hiding under our desks in the event of an impending atomic bomb attack by Russia. It is hard to believe that the powerful old Soviet regime was torn apart when it fell in August 1991, giving way to a new social order, even though it did not last. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress studying Russian history, was in Moscow and gives an eyewitness account. Boris Yeltsin and a small group of defenders occupy the Russian White House. They successfully manage to face off an enormous number of tanks and troops poised to attack, stop the rebellion, and restore the old Soviet guard.

The Babushkas, the “old church women,” and their courageous public Christian witness play a vital role in this successful resistance. These bandana-wearing older women, who kept the Orthodox Christian church alive for years during the Soviet period, were the butt of many jokes by both Russians and Westerners. No persons could have seemed more powerless or irrelevant than they were. These grandmothers were widely regarded as evidence of the inevitable death of religion in the Soviet Union.

And yet,/ on the critical night of August 20, 1991, when martial law was proclaimed, and people ordered to return home, many of these women disobey and go to the place of confrontation. Some feed the resisters in a public display of support. Others staff medical stations, others pray for a miracle, while still others astoundingly climb up onto the tanks, peer through the slits at the crew-cut men inside, and tell them, “There are new orders,/ those from God: Thou shalt not kill.” The young men stop the tanks. “The attack,” said Billington, “never comes, and by dawn of the third day, the tide has turned.”/

Let’s come closer to home.2 Little Rock, summer of 1958. Governor Faubus invokes a hastily passed state law to close high schools, rather than obey the federal order to integrate after the 1957 crisis at Central High. Three women, Adolphine Fletcher Terry, a prominent “old family” in her seventies, Vivion Brewer, and Velma Powell, meet while organizing a dinner party honoring Harry Ashmore, the Arkansas Gazette editor and recent recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. In addition, they organize the Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools (WEC). WEC becomes a highly effective organization that bombarded the city with ads, fliers, and statements challenging Faubus’s actions. At peak membership, WEC musters 2000. Largely inexperienced in politics, these women become articulate, confident public school promoters and help others understand that schools must remain open and integrated.///

So, take a break this weekend, but remember that we are baptized and have taken a vow to pray, serve, and evangelize for Christ. Somewhere along this journey, we will take a deep breath and head out into places we never imagined in the name of Christ. Maybe we will go to comfort a friend in the hospital, take communion to the sick, speak a word of reconciliation in a neighbor’s living room, or stand up for injustice at work. Maybe we will visit our crowded prisons or talk to someone about recovery. Perhaps we will start a food ministry. Maybe we will become healers in distant places or take a courageous stand at a public forum./ We will carry only ONE thing:/ Jesus’ gospel of peace and love and the power of our daily prayers. The way may not always be easy, and the path is sometimes uncertain, but by the grace of God, our work will become a part of God’s work and (will help knock the powers of evil off the throne. Satan will fall from the sky like a flash of lightning, and names will be written in heaven). God will help us change the heart of stone into a heart of flesh /in ourselves/ and the world ./

 May you have a blessed Holy Week and Easter./

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

1Barbara Brown Taylor, “Heaven at Hand” in Bread of Heaven, pp. 151-155.

2Sara Alderman Murphy, Breaking the Silence ( University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, 1997).

Joanna Seibert