Sermon – Preaching in the Holes: The First Witness
Deuteronomy 19:15; John 20:11-18
6/14/26
[The children’s message is a telling of the Boy Who Cried Wolf and the importance of telling the truth.]
There was once a boy who worked as a shepherd. He must have gotten bored one day or was feeling particularly mischievous as he came me up with a troubling idea. He decided to rouse the quiet nearby village with shouts of panic. He ran toward the village crying, “Wolf! There is a wolf!” This was a very troubling thing to do as no one wanted a hungry wolf around, and everyone came running with whatever tools or weapons they had to chase off the unwelcome predator. When the villagers arrived, they found that the boy had lied, and they scolded him for raising such an alarm and went back to their lives. Not long after, the boy decided he was bored again or just naughty enough to see what would happen if he tried his ruse a second time. Some people like to create sensation just to do it and will say anything for the attention, so he cried, “Wolf! There is a wolf among the sheep!” Again, the villagers came running with their tools or anything that might scare off a wolf only to find the boy again alone with the sheep, laughing at their panic. And again, the villagers rebuked the boy and returned to their work and lives. Not long after that, an actual wolf showed up for real with hungry eyes and sharp teeth. The young shepherd was terrified and desperate. Only when the boy ran for help this time, crying that there was a wolf upon his flock, no one believed him, and all the sheep were eaten. Telling the truth is important. It can be the difference between life and death.
That story is one of Aesop’s Fables which are more than 2000 years old. It dates back to somewhat around the time that the people of Judea were returning to their homes and rebuilding after having been captured by the Babylonians. In Greece, though, someone by the name of Aesop decided to use stories to teach moral lessons, and the Boy Who Cried Wolf is one meant to teach that being a liar is a bad, bad idea. It is important that people be able to trust one another and believe what we say. The testimony we give should be believable and reliable. This is especially important when we are called on to be a witness and lives are at stake.
I have only had to be a witness in the legal sense one time after an incident that happened at our home in Crewe not long after I began working here. Our home was broken into, and the intruder was caught and brought to trial. I was subpoenaed and had to provide sworn testimony along with other members of our family. This was very awkward for me as I had the least direct knowledge of what had happened. Our two daughters actually heard someone in the house and roused us. By the time I made it downstairs, there was no evidence of anyone even being there until we discovered the theft of my wife’s money the following day.
It was hard being a witness, harder than I imagined, but it is so important to society and to the justice system and our social order. We need to be able to rely on one another to get along. Of course, that is easier said than done. So… who do you believe and who do not believe? Who do you trust and who do you not trust as a witness? This is actually a really interesting question. If someone shows up at our doorstep, we are more likely to take a plea for help seriously from some people more than other people, and this may be based on dress, expression, personal history, race or some other kind of group identifier, or other circumstances. Moreover, society at large seems to value some witnesses more than others. In ancient times, it was women’s voices that were not taken seriously as witnesses. This is so bizarre to be the case, but in the first passage I read from Deuteronomy, the word for witnesses is a male plural word. Only on the testimony of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained. Because the word for witnesses was a masculine word, it was assumed that only male witnesses were legally acceptable. Even though it was the custom and ordinary to use a masculine word for a mixed gender group, here is was interpreted that any kind of serious situation would require more than one witness, and they should be men.
This understanding that somehow women were deficient as a witness did not exactly help the standing of women in the ancient world. To be honest, it has always been an issue. Even here in the land of the free, women were not granted the right to vote until 1920 – just over 100 years ago. Thankfully, I am not sure God was playing by the same rules.
One that first Easter morning in every gospel, it is women who become the first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. Mary of Magdala or Mary Magdalene is the only one who shows up consistently across the gospels as one of the witnesses. Here in John’s Gospel, she is the ONLY witness. Not only is she not a man but she is alone. When she had the notion that the body of Jesus had been stolen, she went to grab the other disciples, and they came to investigate for themselves. Peter and John ran to verify that Jesus was missing, but they did not know what had happened. They went home without answers, only questions. Then, the truth came.
Angels appeared not to the men but to Mary who remained after the men had left. While she is even speaking to the angels, Jesus himself appears to HER. Clearly, they have a real relationship, and he makes HER his witness, the very first witness of the greatest message the world has ever received. This was immensely important, profoundly important, world changingly important news, and Jesus entrusted it to a woman – and not even a socially respectable one.
Mary became the very first witness to the actual resurrection and the power of God that overcame death itself. She was the bearer of the news that set the world on a different course, but why did God give it to someone who should not have even been believed? The powerful have always resisted Jesus’ care for the powerless, and it is no accident that Mary was eventually vilified as a “loose” woman. All the Bible says is that she was possessed when Jesus freed her. After being healed, she devoted herself to following Jesus. She joined the movement and embraced the teaching. She became one of Jesus’ closest disciples to the point that she went to finish his burial when everyone else was in hiding. Who cried at the idea that Jesus was stolen? Who received the message of life and love and hope? She was just some nobody woman, but she was the first witness because she cared that much to be there, loved that deeply despite death, and was precious in God’s sight. She was given something to say because she reflected God’s heart.
When Mary was chosen to be Jesus’ mother, it was not because of anything resembling human wisdom. His path was all the more difficult for being born where he was, when he was, and to whom he was. Here God is doing something else that makes so little sense, but God does it anyway. A simple, single woman is the first witness.
In the church, we have struggled with the notion of women being witnesses to the gospel for thousands of years, especially for a central witness in a faith community who is often a preacher. When I was a child, the idea of a woman preacher was frankly batty. Sadly, it is still a struggle for so many. Our Southern Baptist sisters and brothers are right now back to turning women away from leading churches, AGAIN, in these very days. It saddens me to no end. Yes, Paul has things to say about women in church leadership, but he says so many different things, contradictory things, that there is no way to make his words, let alone everything else that the Bible has to say about women all fit neatly. The Bible was written in a culture when witnesses were defined a certain way. Even Jesus rejects some of that thinking. For too long, we have accepted and imitated that wrong thinking.
In my earlier adult married years, my family would go to the Christian Life Conference down at Montreat Conference Center for a pleasant, Spirit filled vacation. This was a robust conference with very traditional, passionate Presbyterians. Montreat is a special, beautiful place that among many things was the home to Ruth Graham, the wife of evangelist Billy Graham. Yes, she was Presbyterian. This really hit home for us one year when their daughter Anne was our special speaker. Talk about a gifted, passionate, and inspired witness. She offered compelling and enjoyable messages from the Book of Revelation. The fact that I remember her text 20 years later says something.
Here’s the thing though. How many people would assume that her witness came from her father’s witness? “Oh, she certainly sounds like her father and received that gift from her father.” That’s what we said then and people say today about any successful woman. What man helped her to get there? Even the old adage that behind every good man is a great woman can be insulting by assuming women will always be behind. Neither should be behind. Neither should be dismissed. They are both valued, both have voices, and both have a witness. For Anne, she was absolutely influenced by her father, but she in her own right was a powerful female witness to the gospel in a world that still struggles with the notion.
Yes, some of you have appreciated female preachers before. I have. Honestly, a female perspective of the work of God in the world is refreshing, enlightening, and so necessary. Obviously, all women are not the same, but they can come to the gospel from a perspective that I will never know. And I trust and believe that perspective. Jesus did, also.
It is hard not to measure people up to others, but to measure one gender up to another is a strange injustice. One is not better than the other. Both are necessary and precious as we all know. One is not holier than the other. We come from the same source as we all know. One is not more capable of bearing the good news to the world. Anyone who has been marginalized can actually be the greater witness. They know what it is like to have been pushed aside by the world and yet loved by God with a treasure of life in grace. We are not called to measure or to judge. We are called to share a witness, and any of us can be that witness.
To God be the glory. Amen.