Hard Story to Sell...

At my recent visit to Haywood Street Congregation, many things stood out as different from your ordinary church experience.  The experience of John going from cursing loudly and threatening people to him sitting on the Altar rail and playing along with the music during communion was certainly different (see the last 2 blog posts if you are lost right now :-))
However, the thing that had the biggest impact on me spiritually came from the message time.
Like everything else, the message time at Haywood Street Congregation is different.  Instead of Pastor Brian just "preaching to us", we all had the opportunity to preach with each other. 
First, Pastor Brian asked for someone in the congregation to read our scripture  aloud.

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."

After someone read this aloud, Pastor Brian just asked a simple question... "What did you hear in this passage?"
Instead of Pastor Brian telling us what he thinks we should hear out of the passage, he opened it up and we had a discussion as a congregation.  It was fascinating to hear the different parts that stuck out to different people. 
Two of those comments had a big impact on my spirit. 
The first sprang from the experience with John earlier.  Someone made a comment about the empty tomb and Pastor Brian used it as a teaching moment.  He explained that Easter is a hard sell.  The Christmas story is easy to sell because it has a cute little kid as the leading role in the story and a great supporting cast.  It has gifts, singing and cute furry little animals all as part of the story.  We like that story, it is an easy sell.

But Easter...all we seem to have is an empty grave.  It is harder to make a graveyard cute.  It is hard to market an empty tomb...it is a harder sell. 
From that, Pastor Brian asked the question about "what filled our tombs" or "what in our lives needed resurrection?"  He said that John's tomb was obvious.  The things that haunt John were easy for most folks to see. 
One gentlemen in the back made a comment that our "big homes" are just like tombs, but the sad part for us is that we are able to hide behind our doors and keep those things a secret. 
This thought really got me thinking.  Are our homes and possessions really tombs for us?  Does our "resurrection" mean that we have to take our focus off of our "tombs" and everything that represents for us?
For many of us, our homes are our security.  They block out the rest of the world and give us a place to retreat.
Our homes are also representative of our families.
Our homes are often a reflection of our social status. 

Our homes are important places for us, but what does it mean to take a look at each of these things as part of our "tombs" instead of part of our "resurrection"?  How can our homes and all the security, material possessions, and status that come with it, be holding us back from our relationship with God?

The second comment that really got me thinking came when Pastor Brian was wrapping up our "message" time.
He said, "If you were one of those folks that could read this text in the Greek, you would know that it is not properly translated."
He went on to explain that the Greek text ends with the word "and".  For us, it ends with "and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid", but that really isn't the end of the story.

The "and" implies there is more.  We know the rest of the story, so we know that the women really did not keep their mouths shut too long.  The word of Jesus' resurrection spread. 

For me the "and" ending of the Gospel of Mark is the authors way of allowing us to fill in the rest of the story. 
Are you going to return to work on Monday and say nothing of your resurrection experience this weekend because "you are afraid"?
Are you going to go back to school next week and say nothing of your Easter experience because you are afraid of what others may think of you?

What does the "and" mean for you?  How are you going to fill in the rest of the story?  The Easter story doesn't just end with a great service in the morning and then some time with our families.
We are "Easter" people and we should be living out the "and".