Today's Worship Service - Sunday, October 13, 2024

 Due to some technical difficulties via my Facebook page, I'm unable to stream today's worship service.  But, I will try to post it either here in a separate post or back at my YouTube Channel, as I had done several years ago, if I remember how to do that.  If none of that works, you can simply read the worship service and sermon below.

Worship Service for October 13, 2024

Prelude

Announcements:

Call to Worship

L:      In a world of pain and trouble, we need a place to heal.  Here and now, we have come into the presence of God our healer.

P:      God is our rock and our refuge.

L:      We seek deliverance from the evils of sickness, illness, and disease.

P:      God is our rock and our refuge.

L:      Let the old and the aging, the young and the innocent, the confused and the lost, turn to the Lord in hope.

P:      God is our rock and our refuge.

 

Opening Hymn – Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee   #464/90   Blue/Brown

 

Prayer of Confession

O God, we remember times of blessing in our lives: when we have been released from suffering an despair, when we have been freed to reclaim life and hope; but we also remember times of hardship: when we have been cast out into deep waters, bent over by the weight of pain.  O God, it is hard to claim the hope and promise of the past in the presence of today’s troubles.  Meet us today with Your good news that we may be renewed by the power of Your presence.  (Silent prayers are offered)  AMEN.

Assurance of Pardon

L:      Give praise to God, who accompanies us on our journey, who hears our cries and anguish, and who remains faithful and answers our prayers. Give glory to God who brings life out of death, and joy out of sorrow.

P:      Thanks be to God for this saving grace.  AMEN.

Gloria Patri

Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.     AMEN

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

O God, our strength and our shield, we gather today to worship the grandeur of the created world and our place in it. You have created us to till and keep your garden and we thank you for the privilege of being stewards of all that you created.  As we sing and worship, make us mindful of the perfection in which the world was created.  As it is in our power, make us agents of reconciliation.  Make us people who not only speak words of peace; make us peaceful people.  Make us people who not only speak words of hope; make us hope-filled people.  Make us people who not only speak words of love; make us loving people.  As we hear the words of life in Scripture, song, and sermon, may the seed of the gospel take root in our lives and may we be the people you created us to be. 

Heavenly Lord, we seek answers to life’s most difficult questions when we gather together in praise and honor of your name.  Know that our questions come with great wonder and awe at who you are and whose we are.  In our journey’s to find the right path for each of us, we have stumbled and fallen, risen and been renewed.  We have found and treacherous paths and have sailed on smooth seas.  In this morning’s worship we have named loved ones and cherished friends that are currently in need of smoother waters and calmer seas.  We pray for…

 

In this time of silence hear also the words and meditations of our hearts.

 

In Jesus’s name we pray together saying… Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy Kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.   AMEN.

 

Hymn –     Ye Servants of God                      #477/38   Blue/Brown      

Scripture Reading(s): 

First Scripture Reading – Luke 10:38-42

Second Scripture Reading – John 11:1-6, 17-27

Third Scripture Reading – John 12:1-8

Sermon –

Mary and Martha Mash-up

(based on Luke 10, John 11, 12 various passages)

 

How many of you grew up in school with kids that had the same name as you?  Sometimes, I bet, it got a little confusing as to who was being called on or referred to.  Right?  (Bill, Jane, Marlene, Linda for Olivet) (Bob, Kathy, Carol, Linda for Bethesda)

For some of us like (Paulette, Connie, Joyce for Olivet), (Gayle, Emil, Augie at Bethesda), me Walter probably didn’t have that same problem.  We were like the Miriam’s, Nicodemus’s, or the Zechariah’s in the Bible.  But you all with more common names were like the Simon’s, the Joseph’s, and the Mary’s of the Bible.  And that’s where we’ve got a problem in our New Testament regarding Mary.  There are a bunch of them.  For example, in the early part of Matthew and Luke, our first encounter with any Mary is Mary, Jesus’ mother.  Later on in those gospels, to distinguish her from any other Mary mentioned, it always includes that title for her, Mary the mother of Jesus.  We’ve also got Mary the mother of James and Joseph.  And we have the same thing going on with Mary of whom several demons were cast out.  Later in the gospel of John she is nearly always named as Mary Magdalene, so as to distinguish her from the other Mary’s.

And that's exactly where we are with our texts today.  When we hear the story about busy Martha and contemplative Mary from the Luke story, a question that we might not think to ask but one that we should ask is, which Mary exactly is this?  You might think you know.  Indeed, for many years, I thought I knew.  I have preached any number of sermons about how this Mary and Martha story is related to the story we have in John 11, a story about Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus who live in a place called Bethany.  Indeed, if you go to many commentaries on the Luke 10 passage, on the Mary and Martha story, those commentaries begin by saying, "This is a story of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha of Bethany."

But if you actually look at the Bible you will find that the words "in Bethany" are never mentioned in Luke’s text.  Indeed, if you look at a map, Bethany is actually a town, a village in the opposite direction of which Jesus was traveling in this section of the Gospel of Luke.  All Luke says is that Mary and Martha were of a “certain village.”  Then there’s an interesting identification of Martha where it says, "Martha welcomed Jesus to her home."  And what's fascinating about that little phrase is that Mary and Martha are sisters in a patriarchal society.  If they had a brother, that line would have read, "And Martha welcomed Jesus to her brother's home," because Martha doesn't own a house.  It's not Martha's home unless it is Martha's home.  The only way it's Martha's home is if Martha has no husband, no father, and no brother.

Many readers conflate Luke 10 with John 11, where there are two sisters named Mary and Martha, and they have a brother named Lazarus, and they do indeed live in a place called Bethany.  If it was the same family, Luke 10 is very confused.  The village is in the wrong place and it's not called by the right name.  

What we actually have here are two stories that our imaginations have run together, our traditions have run together, and even Biblical scholars have run together.  These are actually two different stories about two different families.  This is as if people came home from church and said, “Bob Webster did something, something, something," and it was actually Bob Morris that did it.

Why is this important?  Well, it becomes a problem when you get the cast of characters incorrect.  Imagine the confusion we’d have if we talked about Bob Webster playing the organ for us on Sunday morning and not Bob Morris.  Right?  So, the question is: who is this Mary?  Instead of spending a lot of time talking about Mary of the four short verses in Luke, I want to run over to the confused text of John 11.  John 11 opens with a very simple sentence. "Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany."  Okay, now there we have it clearly defined, Bethany, not a certain village.  "The village of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha."  That's the opening sentence of John 11.  You might think to yourself, oh my gosh what is the big deal, what's important about that?

Well, last week I mentioned an Episcopalian New York singer/song-writer by the name of Elizabeth Schrader, now Elizabeth Schrader Polzer, who wondered into a church garden to pray.  She heard a voice tell her to follow Mary Magdalene.  She went home and wrote a song about it, but something kept nagging her about Mary Magdalene.  She inquired at the local seminary to learn more about Mary and began a master’s program in New Testament studies there. 

That is how Elizabeth Schrader found herself sitting with a digital copy of something called Papyrus 66.  Papyrus 66 is the oldest and most complete text we have of the gospel of John… dated around the year 200.  For the last thousand plus years you’d need a lot of money, influence, time, and education to go to the library where Papyrus 66 is located.  However, in today’s digital age, those copies have been downloaded and you can take a look at them on your own computer from the comfort of your home without the need for traveling, money, influence, time or education to see them.

         Libby does just that, using her newfound knowledge of Greek and reads that first sentence.  What she expected to read was what we read from the New Revised Standard Version: “Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (11:1)”

But that’s not what Schrader saw on this very, very, very, old page.

It read… translated to English: “Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and his sister Mary.”  What’s more, Schrader could see on the manuscript markings of how someone had gone in and tried to change it.  His was changed to her. The second Mary in that line (Maria in the Greek) was changed to Martha… as one letter was written over.

When Libby presented this earlier this year at a conference I attended, she brought up the very text that showed this.  I saw it with my own eyes.  At some point, someone had altered the oldest version we have of the gospel of John and split the character of Mary into two.

         As Libby Schrader kept reading, in John 11 and 12, in other places where it reads Martha, it had originally said Mary.  Where it reads “sisters” it read “sister.”  Pronouns are changed.  As she continued to study and compare old texts, it wasn’t just in Papyrus 66.  She had discovered evidence of this in other ancient documents as well.  (https://today.duke.edu/2019/06/mary-or-martha-duke-scholars-research-finds-mary-magdalene-downplayed-new-testament-scribes)

Schrader’s research as a master’s student has proven that the version of John’s gospel we have in our Bible’s today is different from earlier translations which have been altered. 

Now before anyone gets upset about the story in Luke with Mary and Martha.  Don’t that story should remain intact as a story about two sisters, one who works tirelessly in kitchen, the other sitting at Jesus’ feet not helping in the kitchen.  That is a story about two sisters who are NOT related to the story about Lazarus in John 11 and 12.

What we’re currently learning is that in John’s gospel, there might never have been a Martha.

Why does this matter?

It matters because there are only two people in the gospels who confess Jesus is the Messiah.  The first is from Peter… Simon Peter… the Rock.  In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Peter says: “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.”  And Jesus replies, “You are Peter, upon this rock I will build my church.”

In John’s gospel, this happens right before the resurrection of Lazarus.  And the person who says it in our Bible’s today is this sister, Martha.  “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, the one who is coming into the world.” (11:27, CEB).  But, if in fact, there is no Martha, then the confession comes from Mary Magdalene, Mary the Tower.

Manuscripts by Tertullian – a Christian author from the second century, about the time Papyrus 66 is from… does indicate in his writing that this confession was by Mary.  There was no Martha in that passage according to Tertullian.  Did Tertullian’s copy of John have only Mary?

And what about how that passage begins with a story about how Martha runs out to meet Jesus, but Mary is so upset that poor Mary stays home because she can't possibly face Jesus?  Egeria, a fourth century Pilgrim to the Holy Land, writes in her diary — which is one of the most important diaries we have from the ancient world from any ancient Christian — about her pilgrimage group getting to the church in the place where Mary, the sister of Lazarus, ran out to meet the Lord.  Tertullian doesn't mention Martha.  And in Egeria’s diary, there again is no mention of Martha. The story is only a story of Mary.

         Later traditions and writings around Mary Magdalene describe her as an important disciple, a leader, a spokeswoman.  The kind of woman that we see in Luke 8 who is traveling as an important figure alongside the disciples.

         The research that is being done today is leading us to see her as more of a central figure within the gospel of John as well.  John gives the most important statement in the entirety of the New Testament, not to a man, but to a woman, and to a really important woman who will show up later as the first witness to the resurrection.

         You see how these two stories work together.  In John 11, Lazarus is raised from the dead, and who is there but Mary Magdalene?  And at that resurrection, she confesses that Jesus is indeed the son of God.  And then you go just 10 chapters later and who is the person at the grave?  She mistakes him, at first, thinks he’s the gardener.  She turns around and he says, ‘Mary,’ and she says, ‘Lord.’ It’s Mary Magdalene.

…Mary is indeed the tower of faith.  That our faith is the faith of that woman who would become the first person to announce the resurrection. Mary the Witness, Mary the Tower, Mary the Great, and she has been obscured from us… This is not a Dan Brown novel.  This is the work being done by the Nestle-Aland Translation Committee of the Greek New Testament.  This is now the work of the Harvard Theological Review.  This is some of the best, most cutting edge historical research in the world.

Who was Mary Magdalene?

At one time, she had been possessed by demons, but they were cast out.

She was wealthy enough to support herself and the ministry of others.

She was a disciple of Jesus.

She knew him to be her Lord.

She was the first witness to the resurrection.

And more and more we are coming to understand that she might have been that sister of Lazarus, who sent word for Jesus to come and heal her brother, and who confessed that he was the Messiah.

We are starting to discover that she might be a central figure in the Gospel of John and not merely one among many minor female characters.  And for anyone who struggles to see themselves among the followers of Jesus depicted there…For anyone who doubts the role of women in the church, especially in leadership…Well, this is a pretty big deal.  

        

Offertory –

Doxology –

Prayer of Dedication –

Lord of all, remind us of the sacredness of the moment when our offerings are presented.  Remind us that our offerings are like our prayers of confession: they represent what we have to give and our willingness to give to further your kingdom and the proclamation of it.  Bless both the gifts and the givers.  We pray this in the name of Jesus.  AMEN.

Closing Hymn –  The Church’s One Foundation        #442/401  Blue/Brown 

Benediction –

Friends, go out into the world to serve God by helping others.  Be at peace and bring God’s peace and love with you wherever you go.  AMEN.

Postlude