Luke 24:1-12
April 19, 2015
“Idle Tales”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
It is one of the most disconcerting experiences for a pastor. The local funeral home calls the church and asks if the pastor would be available to do a service there in the funeral home later in the week. The family has no church home. The person who died had no church affiliation. They would like to have the service Thursday morning at 11:00am. Doing a funeral for someone in the community for a family the minister doesn’t know, that’s not the disconcerting part. That happens all the time. As a young pastor in South Jersey I did more than my share. I did so many that one Christmas the funeral director gave me one of their matching ties all the staff would wear when they worked a large funeral. A service for a non-church member, that’s not the challenge. The challenge comes during the service. In the intimate setting of funeral home with the family just steps away in the front row and all that separates the minister is the skinny lectern with the light and the pull chain. The most disconcerting part, it comes before the eulogy. It comes when scripture is being read.
The clergy person is reading what is read pretty much at every service. I lift mine eyes to the hills from when does my help come. (Psalm 121) The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. (Ps 23). Behold I tell you a mystery we shall not all die but we shall be changed. (I Cor 15) In my Father’s house are many mansions. (John 14). And somewhere right about, Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me, the pastor looks up to make eye contact. That’s how she was taught. That’s how she practiced. And right in that moment she looks into the face of a family member who has absolutely no idea what on earth she is talking about, what she is reading, what crazy stuff she is saying. That stare back, it has a bit of anger, maybe some disdain, and of course, sorrow. To call it the look of disbelief is probably assuming too much. It’s more like a look of someone who has absolutely never heard any of it before, any of what is being read. It makes the pastor feel like she is speaking a language unfamiliar. That unforgettable disconcerting look now seared into the pastor’s memory, it’s like the person thinks you’re just speaking gibberish, nonsense.
A look something like that, it must have been what the women saw on the faces of the apostles. “These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” An idle tale. Translated in other versions as “nonsense”, “pure nonsense”. The women who had been to the tomb, what they were telling the apostles, the men thought it was pure nonsense. An idle tale.
Two weeks ago on Easter morning in the sermon, I said “the only thing mentioned more than the Jesus being raised in Matthew’s account of the empty tomb is fear.” Last week in Mark, the hard stop in the Easter morning text was “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” What is striking, then, about Luke’s account, is that there isn’t much fear. When the women found the stone rolled away, when they went in and did not find the body, Luke records that they were perplexed. When the two men suddenly appeared in dazzling clothes and stood right beside them, the women were, of course, terrified. Who wouldn’t be? They bowed their faces to the ground but Luke doesn’t say another word about their fear. And the two men, their first words to the women, those first words remarkably were NOT “do not be afraid.” That’s what angels are supposed to say. There is no call and response here in Luke about fear. “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” Yes, they were afraid, but apparently not afraid enough for the two men to offer the angels’ signature words of comfort. When you do the first Easter morning gospel texts three weeks in a row it is striking how little fear there is in Luke.
The only thing mentioned more than Jesus being raised in Luke’s account of the empty tomb is remembering. “‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again?’ Then they remembered his words…” Remember how he told you? Then they remembered. Luke’s brief plot of the empty tomb, it turns on remembering. It is in their remembering that Luke names the women: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the others. Named not right at the outset on their way to the tomb but named in their remembering. It is in their remembering that “they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.” Remembering. It’s hard to miss in Luke. And when the apostles thought the women were just spouting pure nonsense, when Luke tells the reader they did not believe them, it wasn’t just that they didn’t believe, it was that they didn’t remember. The apostles didn’t remember how and what and why he told them. The looks on their faces, must have shown what they were thinking, that what they were hearing was pure nonsense. But the women…they remembered.
You remember that recurrent theme in all the gospels, how Jesus would teach about his suffering, his death, his resurrection and the disciples wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t get it. Just here in Luke, Jesus spoke with clarity about what was going to happen to the Son of Man, and he followed up with “If any wants to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Then just a bit later in Luke, after Jesus heals a boy and gave him back to his father, after Luke writes that “All were astounded at the greatness of God”, Jesus repeated that teaching about his suffering and betrayal. Right then the disciples start to argue about which one of them was the greatest. Again, still in Luke, Jesus took the twelve aside and was very specific about the Son of Man being mocked, insulted, spat upon, flogged, killed…and that he would rise again on the third day. They understood nothing. It was hidden from them Luke tells. What happened next was Jesus restoring the sight of the blind man sitting by the side of the road.
In Luke, and in all the gospels for that matter, Jesus’ telling the disciples, teaching the disciples, Jesus predicting his suffering, death, and resurrection is so interwoven with the unfolding gospel witness to his life, his identity, his relationship to them, his teaching, his actions, his every move. “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee…” Remember it, remember all of it. This is not simply remembering the algebraic equation learned for an exam. This is not just remembering one more thing on the list before you leave the store. This is not just remembering the name of that person at work when you see them across the way in the restaurant. And honestly, it’s a whole lot more than just remembering handed over, crucified, rise on the third day (A + B = C…Oh! Check). It wasn’t just that they didn’t remember what he told them, they weren’t remembering him at all! All of him.
These words seemed to the apostles to be pure nonsense. An idle tale. The Greek word here, the one word for idle tale, is unique in the gospels. The only time it is used. The word idle, as in resting, or not in use, or unemployed occurs elsewhere in scripture with a different Greek word. Here the Greek dictionary translates the word as idle talk, nonsense. It was like those first proclaimers of the resurrection were speaking gibberish, an unknown language. The apostles and their not remembering, not believing, it was a singularly unique occurrence; distinctive not just in word choice but in their striking, fleeting yet unforgettable paralysis of remembering, living, acting, in response to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For in that moment, there was nothing. This was the apostles and it was if they had never heard any of it before.
That moment in Luke’s account of the empty tomb, the apostles’ moment of unbelief, it wasn’t even what public figures today call “misremembering”. It was un-remembering. You pretty much can’t get any further away from what Jesus of Nazareth told his followers to do. “Do this in remembrance of me”. Before that walk along the Emmaus Road when the Risen Jesus came near and went with them, before he interpreted to them “all the things about himself in all the scriptures”, before he “took bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them”, before “their eyes were opened and they recognized him”, before the Risen Christ made himself known to them, to the others, to the church, to you and to me, there was that unforgettable moment of nothingness. And it ought to haunt and inspire, chill and motivate, challenge and exhort any and all who think that the biggest threat to a life in Christ is whether or not you can fathom the resurrection. No, without question, what tears at the life of faith, what eats away at the kingdom, what must cause the most upset in the heart of God is the lingering paralysis of remembering, living, acting, responding to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To proclaim Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! And then to do nothing.
Near the end of her book Take This Bread: The Spiritual Memoir of a Twenty-First Century Christian, Sara Miles tells in uncomfortable detail the challenge of caring for a dear, dear friend who was dying. With beautiful images of the Lord’s Supper, she compares preparing and giving some toast and a glass of water to preparing and offering the sacrament. The words of the communion liturgy come to her mind as she is there in the kitchen making toast, breaking bread. In that moment, she finds herself comforted in the presence of the Risen Christ. Or as she writes, “I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t the end”. And in giving the toast she said, “Millie, this is for you”. Knowing that Millie wasn’t alone either. Then Sara Miles writes about driving across the bridge to home, stunned and blinking and saying aloud to herself in the car, “Oh my God, it’s real.” What she meant was that yes, the promise of the sacrament is real. What she meant was that yes, the presence of the Risen Christ is real. What she meant was that yes God with us is real. “I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t the end”. The Risen Christ present and made real in her caring for the dying and offering love and compassion in the most human, ordinary, and remarkably holy of ways.
She was remembering.
© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.