Mark 16:1-8

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, went and bought spices so they might anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, after the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will help us to roll back the stone from the entrance to the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man there, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right-hand 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 at the place where they laid him. But go and 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 the women got up and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

I’ve always thought about the Easter story – no matter which Gospel it comes from – to be the first, greatest, hands-down, no-argument-necessary, evidence and support for the Truth that women could and should be just as welcome as men to be Pastors and Priests and leaders in the church. And I still think that’s True, with a capital T. And since Easter’s early enough to be celebrated on the last day of National Women’s Month, this time around, it seems appropriate to lift that up, first thing this morning.

The evidence of it all is in what we just heard from Mark’s Gospel, where two Marys and Salome bought the spices and showed up at the tomb and were the first to hear the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. According to Matthew’s version of the story, it was just the two Maries. They not only get the news first, but are then the first ones to actually meet Jesus as they run off to tell the disciples. In Luke’s Gospel the group seems to be a bit bigger, but still all women – the Marys, a Joanna this time, and (quote) “the other women with them,” who go un-named – but who are all blessed with the Easter news before anybody else, and who are charged with the task of relaying it to the disciples. And finally, in John’s Gospel, it’s just Mary Magdalene, all by herself, who’s there to find the tomb empty. She thinks something’s wrong and sends the men to investigate, but later she’s the first one to actually meet Jesus, in the garden, and to be told from his very lips, to go and tell the disciples the good news.

So, it’s ridiculous to argue against the notion that women can and should and deserve to be proclaimers and preachers and pastors and priests of God’s good news.

But I think it’s always worth wondering “Why them?” “Why these?” “Why the Marys and Joanna and Salome and ‘the other women with them,’ however it may have gone down?”

And the answer to that seems just as obvious and True, to me: that Jesus’ appearance – first to the women – like so much of the rest of his life and ministry, was just another example of his care and his concern and his love for those the world had little, or less, or no regard for in so many ways.

You know, “the last will be first and the first will be last,” and “just as you did it to one of the least of these,” and all of that?

See, I think Jesus showed up to the women first, not only because they were capable and worthy and up-to-the-task, but because they were among those who needed his resurrection the most. They were, in his day and age, among “the least” in the world – like the lepers and the lame and the blind and the deaf that Jesus was so fond of helping and healing and loving when no one else would. They were, in his day and age, the ones without power, without privilege, without means for justice, without so much that the world around them took for granted and used against them at every turn.

So, I think we’re called to be curious and courageous about who this news is for in our day and age. Who in our world… who in your circle of influence… who in your life… needs this good news about second chances, about forgiveness, about abundance, about new life, in a special, surprising, maybe even desperate kind of way these days?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s for all of us – and we’re going to get to that later this morning with all of the pomp and circumstance that waits for us. But here? Early in the morning? On the first day of the week, as the sun is rising, who is it that’s feeling left out? Who is lost? Who is particularly in need of this first round of blessing, good news, and hope?

I’m thinking of the people in places like Gaza and Haiti and Ukraine, of course. I think of the people for whom no one is praying, today. I think of the prisoner and the houseless and the addicted and the abused. And I think of people closer to home, too. I’m thinking of Anne Janelsins and Tom Bancroft and Frank, and others, who are spending their first Easter after losing a loved one. I’m thinking of Alice Christle who’s been in and out of the hospital, and in and out of the operating room, the last week or so. I’m thinking of Bob and Ruth Boyer as Bob spends his first Easter away from home in Morristown Manor.

To me, it’s a meaningful thing to imagine who – in our lives and in this world – Easter’s good news might find its way to, first… to those who need it most precisely because they need it most.

So when I put it this way, it might seem hard to imagine that this Easter news has anything to do with me, right? Things are pretty good for me, these days. Maybe that’s true for you, too. Most of us aren’t “the least of these” by the rest of the world’s estimation. We’re the ones with the means and the resources and the full bellies and the full plates and with more than our share and with plenty to spare, if we’re honest. But this is still our good news – make no mistake about it.

Maybe you need it most and more urgently than someone else this time around. If that’s the case, I’m glad you’re here early. Please hear and receive the fullness of this love, hope and mercy, right here and right now. If not, please receive the fullness of this love, hope and mercy, just the same, in a way that sends you running to share it with someone who could use it.

Before the big party starts later this morning – with all of its pomp and circumstance and noise and celebration – let’s be compelled by the humility and need of those first women … and let’s be changed by their terror and amazement that this could be True and for them … and let’s be sent into the world to share what belongs to us all, really, but especially with those who are hungry or thirsty, or grieving or afraid, or doubting or denying or dying, even, to know that it’s for them, first and foremost.

Amen

John 4:5-30, 39-42

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

The timing of the lectionary and our assigned readings for the third Sunday of Lent don’t always have Jesus run into the woman at the well just after International Women’s Day – March 8th – but when it does, I think a preacher and his people are called to take notice and to connect some dots.

The internet and social media make International Women’s Day more notable and noticeable than it used to be – at least to me. According to Wikipedia, the holiday is about raising awareness and concern and calls to action around issues like gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence against women. And I learned that the occasion had its modern-day beginnings, thanks to the Socialist Party of America, as early as 1909, in support of striking garment workers. (Those darned socialists!) And it grew over the years until it became official as a global event, thanks to the United Nations, in 1977.

But, I wondered this week if – had everyone been paying more faithful attention to Jesus all along – maybe the seed of an International Women’s Day – might have been planted at a well in “a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph,” as John’s Gospel records things in Chapter 4.

See, there are some things to be learned from – and some common ground to be found – where gender equality, reproductive rights and violence against women are concerned, both where International Woman’s Day matters in the world these days and why it might have mattered to Jesus and that woman at the well had there been words for it at the time.

…

It’s safe to assume – and important to say – that it was most likely a robust culture of sexist, misogynistic patriarchy that caused the woman at the well this morning to have been married five times – that it wasn’t any sinful, shameful fault of her own, I mean. She was likely married off as a very young girl. She could have been left by her first husband because he had found another wife – or two. She could have been kicked to the curb by another husband because she was unable to have children. She might have been widowed by a third husband and then forced to marry his brother … such were the rules and laws and expectations of the day. (“The Biblical view of marriage,” you might say.)

And not only would Jesus have been very aware of all of this, it appears he was more sympathetic than he was judgmental about his new friend’s situation than anyone would have expected – herself included.

Well, did you know there are more than 250 million women alive today who were married before their 15th birthday – many against their will? – as if a 14 year-old in most cultures would, could, or should know what it means to want to be married. And, some say, 10 million more girls are at risk of becoming child brides by the year 2030.

And we can pretend this is something that happens in far-off lands and/or by flawed religious, cultural, political persuasions other than our own. But there are 20 states in the United States with no minimum age restrictions on marriage, as long as a parent or judge sign off on it.

…

According to the World Health Organization, about one in three women will experience some kind of physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1 in 7 women – compared to 1 in 25 men – have been physically injured by an intimate partner. And 1 in 10 women have been raped by their partner. 96% of murder-suicide victims involving an intimate partner are women.

All of which reminds me of another woman, caught in adultery and brought before Jesus by a bunch of men, a few chapters later in John’s Gospel. They wanted to stone her to death, as the Law would allow and as their worldview might prefer, but Jesus convinced them otherwise, saves her life, and shows them all a better way of grace.

…

The Global Gender Gap Report of 2021 found that at the current rate, it will take another 135 years – give or take – for women to achieve economic and political equality with men around the globe.

And, like before, we can pretend that it’s other people in other, less advanced places, that are dragging that average down. But according to the Pew Research Center, in the United States in 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, which has been relatively true for the last 20 years.

We’ve still never had a female President in our country.

Less than 30% of the House of Representatives is women, even though there are statistically more women than men in the United States.

And, even though we’re told this morning that many Samaritans from Sychar believed in Jesus because of what they learned from the woman at the well in this morning’s Gospel, and even though we know that a woman named Mary Magdalene was the first person entrusted with the Gospel’s good news of Jesus’ resurrection that first Easter morning there are still churches around the world and in our very own town – that don’t allow women to preach in their pulpits or serve in positions of leadership.

…

All of this matters for the women and girls in our lives. It matters for the men and boys among us, too. And it matters on International Women’s Day and on every day that’s NOT International Women’s Day, just the same.

The bottom line of it all is that Jesus sees value in people others do not – including and especially women, today – and so should we. Jesus gives ministry away to those the world will not – including and especially women, today – and so should we. Jesus challenges the status quo – always for the sake of justice, mercy and love – including and especially for the sake of women today – and so should we.

And today, Jesus goes out of his way to do all of this for and with a woman who doesn’t even get the dignity of a name in John’s Gospel – though the well from which she was drawing water does.

So maybe, today, we can see this woman and call her by the name of the women we know and love, respect and regard – our wives, our sisters, our mothers, daughters and friends – until all women and every girl are seen as wholly loved by and created fully in the image of the God of all creation.

Amen.

The Women of Easter's Sunrise

International Women's Day at the Well