Jesus the Gardener Dude
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JESUS THE GARDENER DUDE
The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
Easter Day + March 31, 2024
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” (John 20:15)
Every spring, the magnificent magnolia tree in the rectory garden blooms so beautifully that people want to come through the gate and be near it. Sometimes, interesting conversations with tourists and neighbors ensue. One Saturday my family and I had driven to a big-box store in New Jersey to pick up gardening supplies for the backyard. Stacie had wanted to fill some planters with flowers, so among our purchases were many heavy bags of potting soil. Our sons were little at the time, so one by one I was hauling the bags atop my shoulder from the car at the curb, through the front door of the rectory, and out to the back. At one point, straining under the weight of a forty-pound bag, I had to step past a small group of tourists who were admiring the flowering tree and blooming bulbs. Supposing me to be the gardener, the young man among them said, “Beautiful garden, dude. Nice work.” All I could say was, “Thank you very much.” You see, it’s not everyday that I get mistaken for Jesus.
Another time I was working in my office late in the evening. I was trying to get to the bottom of my email inbox when, from out on the lawn there arose such a clatter that I looked to my left to see what was the matter. Actually, it wasn’t really a clatter. It was more of a rustling and a moaning. It took my eyes a moment to focus on the sight. My mind was slow to process what I was seeing. What was I seeing? Cover the children’s ears, now! There on the lawn was a young couple, very much in the mode of Adam and Eve in the garden. Like Adam and Eve, they were mostly naked and not ashamed. I went to the front door and yelled, “Hey, take it someplace else!” No doubt, I shouted some other choice words that I can’t remember. But I’m certain that even if I could remember, I would not be able to repeat them from the pulpit on Easter Day, or any other day.
Whatever I said must have made an impression. The passionate pair quickly reassembled themselves and scampered to the Broadway fence. As they were climbing over it, the young man called back to me these immortal words: “It’s a house of God. He understands. Why can’t you?” I closed the door, shook my head, and muttered to myself, “Everyone’s a theologian these days.”
Easter Day is the highest feast of the Christian year. For us, no other day compares. Without Easter, the disciples of Jesus would have remained scattered after his crucifixion. Without Easter, no one would have recorded anything about his life. His birth, his teachings, his ministry in Galilee all would have been lost in the sands of time within a few short years. But the disciples did not remain scattered. The fact is, Jesus wasn’t the only Messiah figure with followers whom the Romans crucified. In every other instance, the followers either dispersed forever, or latched onto to another reformer. Why? Because their original leader was dead and stayed that way. Only the followers of Jesus remained true to their leader. Why? Because their leader strangely, miraculously, wondrously did not stay dead. Within days of Jesus’ death on a cross, the disciples had regrouped and were proclaiming that he had risen, that they had seen the Lord, that he lived. How do you explain it? Well, everyone needs to be a theologian, or at least an historian.
If you are looking for the earliest summaries of the Easter message, turn to the letters of St. Paul. Most Biblical scholars date Paul’s writings to be just a few decades after the events in question. In today’s reading from 1st Corinthians (15:1-11), he reminds his readers of something they already should have known: that Easter is no metaphor. It really happened in history. Jesus really did die. His body was buried. He was raised on the third day. He began appearing to multiple witnesses: Cephas, James, the twelve, some five-hundred people at one time, and finally to Paul himself on the road to Damascus.
Moreover, we read in all four Gospels that some women arriving at the tomb early on Sunday morning found that the great stone sealing the entrance had been rolled away. When they looked inside the tomb, which would have been akin to a small cave, they discovered the body to be missing. Neither the missing body (or, the empty tomb, as it’s called) nor the appearances alone would be sufficient to explain the dawn of the church, but both were necessary conditions to account for the proclamation that Jesus lived.[1] Both had to occur to plant us in our pews today. When you put them together, the empty tomb plus the appearances make the only sufficient case to explain the history that ensured. Jesus had indeed risen from the dead.
All four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – have different ways of telling the Easter story. While they largely agree on the basics, they vary in certain details. Today we’ve heard John’s account (20:1-18). Only John pays attention to the linen burial wrappings. Earlier in the story John made note that Joseph of Arimathea had wrapped the body of Jesus before placing it in the tomb (19:40). Now he points to the linens again, lying on the shelf where the body of Jesus had been, as if they were a deflated balloon. The risen Jesus had vanished from within the wrappings. Jesus had left behind his clothes, implying that he emerged from the tomb (cover the children’s ears again, please) naked and not ashamed. What could it mean? Over the centuries, Biblical scholars, preachers, and theologians have offered many theories. Perhaps the best is that John meant to suggest Jesus is the new Adam. One of the hymns in our hymnal speaks of Jesus as “a second Adam to the fight.” So of course, the risen Jesus would appear as Adam had been in the garden before he sinned, before the fall from grace, wearing not so much as a fig leaf.
Really? Personally, I don’t think appearing in all his glory was the big reveal that Jesus had in mind for the first Easter. The whole scene makes me wonder what Jesus was doing in the first moments after coming out of the tomb. Was he hiding behind the rolled away stone out of modesty? Or consider this possibility: he was scrounging through the gardener’s shed, where he found whatever a first-century gardener would wear: a pair of overalls, a straw hat, and a spare rake to complete the look. I’m simply taking the Scriptures at their word. Remember, Mary Magdalen supposed him to be the gardener. He must have looked like one. When she turned and saw Jesus, it took her eyes a moment to focus on the sight. Her mind was slow to process what she was seeing. When she finally regained her wits, the conversation could have gone something like this, and here I will paraphrase. Mary said, “Beautiful garden, dude. But where have you put the body of Jesus?” Mary wanted to know what had happened to the body of Jesus. What had happened was resurrection. Jesus had emerged from the tomb not as a resuscitated corpse, but as a new creation, with a new kind of life, the kind of life that God had always meant for humanity to enjoy. As such, people struggled to recognize him, and didn’t know how to describe what they were seeing.
In the very early days of the church, Patristic theologians like Gregory the Great and Jerome loved the notion of Jesus the gardener. They wrote that when Mary supposed Jesus to be the gardener, she was mistaken on one level, but deeply right on another level. The first Adam tilled the soils of Eden. The second Adam tills the souls of humanity, plants the seeds of virtue in us, and shares his own resurrected life, saying, “This is my body; this is my blood.” Jesus the gardener is involved in the creation. Jesus gets his fingernails dirty. Jesus works to make all things new.
As you may have surmised, I just made a clever pivot from the pure, spiritual message of Easter to the messy business of a church capital campaign. A few weeks ago, when the colorful campaign brochures came rolling off the presses, I said to our consultant, “You know, we’ll have a full church on Easter Day. These things aren’t doing anyone any good boxed up in the parish office. Let’s put them in the pews for Easter.” The consultant agreed, but cautioned us to do it tastefully. “We would not want to detract from the pure, spiritual message of Easter,” he added. Everyone’s a theologian, I muttered to myself. It seems to me that any pure, spiritual message of Easter scampered out of the garden the moment I told you about the lovebirds on the rectory lawn.
Dear People of God: This is the twentieth Easter sermon I have preached from this pulpit. You can be sure that I am not abandoning the pure, spiritual message of today. So the next thing I am about to say will be the pure, spiritual message of Easter. Here it comes. Ready? Through the resurrection of Jesus, God has opened unto us the gate of everlasting life. Trust God. Trust Jesus. Trust the Holy Spirit. You don’t need to worry about life after death. It is accomplished. However, what you might want to worry about in this troubled world is life before death. This life. This earth. This time. When Jesus appeared to a multitude of witnesses after his resurrection, he was not seated on a cloud, plucking a harp, and saying, “It’s great up here. Hurry up and join me in heaven.” No, Jesus returned to his life. Jesus, the gardener dude, wants to get his fingernails dirty, and he wants us to join him in making all things new in this life, on this earth, at this time. Restoring Grace Church is just one small piece of it. Feeding the hungry, rebuilding houses in Queens, assisting communities near and far in recovering from floods, and other things we have done over the years are all part of the same work of making all things new.
This week, in thinking about Jesus the gardener, I recalled a passage by the author E.B. White, who wrote a touching tribute to his wife Katharine in the introduction to her book on gardening. Onward and Upward in the Garden, by Katharine S. White is a minor classic in its genre, I’m told. This is what E.B. White had to say about the great day every year when his wife would plant the bulb garden:
As the years went by and age overtook her, there was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance on this awesome occasion – the small, hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection.[2]
Calmly plotting the resurrection. With one phrase E.B. White beautifully captures the mission of the church. What should we be doing in this life before death? Calmly plotting the resurrection. Neither you nor I need to have much of a green thumb in order to join in with Jesus the gardener. As for me, I am much more of a mule, good for carrying bags of potting soil, than I am a horticulturist. But we can all be part of calmly plotting the resurrection. Think of it this way: no one remembers who planted the magnificent magnolia tree in the rectory garden, but whoever it was, he or she calmly plotted the resurrection. Look at it today, declaring the fair beauty of the Lord, and awakening awe and wonder in all who behold it. Someone calmly plotted the resurrection.
Suppose that we join in with Jesus the gardener, and do the same. Suppose that we so join our mission and ministry with Jesus that the world actually mistakes us for him. Suppose that we let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Where is the body of Christ? We are the body of Christ. He is risen. He lives. He has opened to us the gate of everlasting life. By the power of the Spirit, he is with us who gather in his name – from this time forth, even for ever. Alleluia.
[1] N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God. Fortress Press, 2003, Chapter 18.
[2] Katharine S. White, Onward and Upward in the Garden. Beacon Press, 1997, p. xix.