When God calls your name: Mary “when it happens to you” Carroll first April 21 Easter

When God calls your name: Mary “when it happens to you”

            Carroll first April 21 Easter

 Shakespeare wrote "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Let me ask you. Does it make a difference to you if I call you “Hey you” or it I use your real name? Of course it does. In his famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie made an important observation. He said: “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

“What’s in a name?” I’ll tell you what’s in a name? Everything! A name is something very intimate, at the very core of our identity and our being. Which is why it’s so sweet when your spouse whispers your name. Or when an old friend calls you on the phone and speaks your name. We know the power of our parents using our names (especially our middle name). Those of us who were not very athletic, we know the relief at hearing our name called by a captain when there are still other choices.  Salespeople are taught to use a person’s name often because we are more likely to buy from someone who knows our name. The importance of our name is also a major reason why identity theft is such a traumatic experience. Not just for the financial and legal problems it can cause. But because by stealing your name, that person has violated you as much as if they had broken into your home.

We all like to be called by name by the right person, for the right reasons. It communicates that they know us, they recognize us, and they value us. We matter to them.  That is why name tags are so important to us here. We want every person to know that they matter.

 We have been working our way through a series of sermons I called “When God calls your name.” This is the last sermon in that series.  It almost goes without saying that when God calls us, God uses our name.  I don’t know of any call stories in the Bible where God got the name wrong or called “hey you, I need you to be a prophet.”

Today, we look at a perfect example. Mary doesn’t even recognize Jesus until he uses her name. Let’s look at that story.

It was Sunday morning after the darkest week in Mary’s life. Her teacher and mentor and the Jesus she believed to be the messiah, was tortured and cruelly killed by the Romans. It was the third day since they sealed the grave and Mary is itching to get back to the tomb to show her respects.

Now let’s be clear. This is not Mary the Mother of Jesus. This is Mary Magdalene.  We really don’t know her last name because Magdalene just tells us that she is from a fishing village on the sea of Galilee called Magdala. You might have heard some rather scandalous things about Mary.  For the most part, don’t believe them. There is no biblical proof that she was a prostitute.  That was an assumption of a pope 500 years later. In spite of the fictional book “The DaVinci Code;” or the 80’s movie, “The Last Temptation of Christ” There is no Biblical evidence that Mary and Jesus had any romantic let alone a sexual relationship. That is a fiction created by the Gnostics several hundred years after the first Easter to discredit Christianity and some use today to titillate audiences.

What we do know is sparse.  Mary was from Magdala. Jesus drove 7 demons from her. She was among the women who supported Jesus and the disciples for three years.  And her name is mentioned almost as many times as Peter or John.

YET… as you will see it is to Mary Magdalene to whom Jesus appears first after the resurrection.

So, Mary got up early Sunday morning to pay her respects to Jesus and finish the process of cleaning, anointing, and saying goodbye to the body.

According to John, Mary got to the tomb only to find that the stone had been rolled back. Obviously, in her mind, the dead Jesus couldn’t have done that, so she concluded that the body has been taken. She ran to tell Peter what she saw.

Upon hearing the news, Peter and another unnamed disciple ran to the tomb.  The unnamed disciple got their first but did not enter. Peter arrived and went right in.  Notice how each character gets just a little closer to the truth than the previous one.

When Peter entered the tomb, he saw the grave clothes lying there with no body. No grave robber would do that.

When the unnamed disciple came in, they continued getting closer to the truth because he “saw and believed.”  He was the first person to believe in the resurrection.  But Peter and the other disciple went back to where they had been hiding.

Mary stayed at the tomb weeping. She looked in to see two angels who do not call her by name. Mary must have been in shock because the presence of angels is a dead giveaway that God is mightily at work in a situation, but that never dawned on her.

Then Mary saw a man she supposed to be the gardener. He initiated a conversation with her, but she still doesn’t recognize him as Jesus. I have always imagined that her eyes were so swollen and fuzzy from crying that she just couldn’t see him clearly. Finally, Jesus says her name…  Mary.

Or did he say (surprised) Mary as in… “what ate you doing here?”

Or did he say (impatiently) Mary as in… “what’s wrong with you?”

Or did he say (playfully) Mary… as in “surprise look over here.”

Or did he say it firmly to jolt her from her tears?  Mary… “don’t you know me?”

At any rate, she recognized his voice and called him Rabbi or Teacher.

 Jesus’ first instruction is a little obscure. Scholars don’t agree on why Jesus said: “do not hold on to me.” I tend to think that Jesus was telling her not to hold on to her image of the earthly Jesus because now he is so much more and soon he would soon ascend.

 The second instruction Jesus gives her the clearest and most important instruction in all the gospel.  Mary of Magdala, a woman, of whom we know almost nothing, who once had seven demons, who could not seem to grasp the reality of the resurrection like the “unnamed disciple.” … that much-maligned woman was the VERY FIRST PERSON CALLED BY CHRIST TO PREACH THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL. “Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: She preached the first Christian sermon  “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.” 

Mary was the second Christian to believe, but the first person to ever be called into ministry by Jesus. 

I want you to notice three things about Mary’s call story

 First, I want you to notice who Mary was. Who was she?  A woman?  A widow?  That formerly possessed lady? None of those give her much social credibility in the first century.  It would make more sense if Jesus had called a man, maybe Joseph of Arimathea, or even one of those fishermen or tax collectors who followed him around.  Mary Magdeline was to be generous among the least of…  least of these. God seems to love calling unlikely people to do important things. Mary Magdeline was about as unlikely as they come. But then so am I. Yet, one night 40 years ago I heard Jesus call my name.

Let me go one step further.  Mary was a woman who had been healed of 7 demons.  We are not quite sure what Mary’s problem was, but it could quite possibly have been mental illness.  That was a common belief. Personally, I like to think that Mary’s demons may have been what we would call mental illness. I like to think that because I to have suffered from major depressive disorder and anxiety for 45 years. Both Mary and I answered the call of Jesus by the grace of God.

Whatever your demons might be… remember if God wants someone perfect to get the job done Jesus is going to have to come back to do it himself. But God calls ordinary people with our ordinary problems like  Mary and me and you to do the most important work of sharing God’s love with others.

 Second, I want you to notice that Mary didn’t grasp the call at first. She didn’t even grasp the resurrection at first. She saw and didn’t believe. She heard and didn’t understand.

Don’t be hard on her because it is hard for us to hear God calling our names too. We see what God is doing in our lives and we don’t believe. Maybe we write it off to a coincidence or fate.  We hear but we don’t understand with all the other messages in our lives, the voice of God can get lost… until he calls us by name, that is.

As a sheep can pick out the shepherd’s voice, and a mother can pick out her own child’s cry, and a mechanic or a musician or a cardiologist can hear things the rest of us don’t notice. There is something about our names that catch our attention. We may be able to deny God’s call on our lives for a while, but then Jesus stops us and calls our name. You may struggle to hear God’s call in your life, but listen carefully and you will hear Jesus calling your name.  Maybe with your ears on your head, maybe with the ears of your heart. Listen.  Listen…  Because surely Jesus is calling your name too.

 Finally, I want you to notice that when Jesus called Mary’s name it demanded a response. We know from our study of call stories these 6 weeks, that Mary’s response could have been doubting, making excuses, running away, asking for proof, trying to do it her way, or even being too afraid to respond. Mary may have had trouble letting go of the past. She may have had trouble letting go of her own grief baggage,  But somehow she moved past all of that to hear Jesus call her name  “Mary, don’t get stuck in the past, GO TELL.” “Mary Don’t wallow in your grief or fear, GO TELL.” “Mary don’t hold on to your own notion of how things should be. GO TELL” 

God’s call always requires a response. Sometimes God will call us with a specific known job like to miraculously defeat the Midianite army, but other times God’s call is harder to define like Abraham’s “go to a place I will show you.” But God always calls for a response. Do something. Be something. Tell someone. Love someone. Teach someone. Invite someone.  Help someone. Stand up for someone. Speak up about something. Take a risk for someone. Give ourselves for something. 

 Mary answered the call. And so can you.

God’s call may come in a burning bush or a burning in yrou heart, a miraculous sign or  a nagging feeling, a loud booming voice, or a gentle whisper in your ear.  _________(names) x 5.

Listen… Listen… I think I hear Jesus calling your name…  Listen … and respond.