Engaging Ellipses: An Invitation to the Whole Story
Mark 16:1-8
I love a good story. I was that child constantly asking questions just to hear the tales of my parents’ past, my family history, and the stories of the world. The older I got I had opportunities to travel and wonder about the unfolding stories of people whose lives were vastly different than my own. One thing I learned about stories is that so much of the story relies on who is telling it. What details does this storyteller deem critical so that the ending that they have in mind is illuminated best? Who gets named in the story versus who is signified by another part of who they are: the mother, the plumber, the neighbor? What senses are being enlivened in the telling of the story? I relish stories where I can smell, feel, taste, hear, see, and experience alongside the characters.
Have you ever been told a partial story? As you were listening, you thought you were at an ending, but later you realized the storyteller left you in a liminal place. Perhaps, they didn’t do it on purpose, but their perspective could only hold the details that mattered to the end game of their storytelling. This isn’t strange. We tell stories all the time that, layered with different contexts, would have different meanings, but we pull out moments, snapshots, and partial narratives to share in any given moment. It’s the nature of storytelling.
The gift of robust stories is also a limitation. When we are given a tale, it’s critical to remember that no matter how full it feels, we will always miss a detail or a moment or something that may have been important to us, but the storyteller looked over it.
Storytelling is a practice of moving between two ellipses. There was something before, and there will be something after. We are invited to grab ahold of what we’ve been told and, perhaps, remain curious about the ways the partial and unfolding have been articulated to us as the full and permanent. When hearing stories, particularly those about marginalized people, it’s critical that we look again and ask, “What am I missing? What is behind the …?”
In this text, we encounter a story that, when we keep reading, we note a partial story. It is a story of two women who are going to visit Jesus after he has been buried. They are bringing spices so that they can anoint him and honor the traditions that he comes from. The text says that they went to the tomb, encountered “a young man, dressed in a white robe,” and were told that Jesus was raised from the dead. It ends, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and mazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.” (16:8) This could have been the end of the story. If we stop reading at the end of the prescribed pericope, all we get is their (very reasonable) fear and their (even more reasonable) silence. This was terrifying. They had witnessed Jesus’ execution (Mark 15:40). They had been present at the burial (Mark 15:47). And now, they had encountered a complete reversal to that which they thought to be true. This was terrifying and tiring.
This specific pericope tells us something about these women. We know that they cared enough about Jesus and the tradition to come and anoint him. They knew they would be at a tomb and might need some help removing the stone because the tombs were covered to protect those lying in what they thought to be eternal rest. But there is more to this story. When you read before, you know these women had journeyed with Jesus far beyond this moment. When you look after you realize that their fear was a part of the story but not the whole of it. Writers and scholars agree that we don’t completely know the ending of Mark and find possible parts of it in the endings of the other gospels. However, Mark does include a longer ending right after verse 8. Verse 9 tells us that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene. She then went out and told those that had journeyed with Jesus, yet no one believed her. A full story says that she was scared, but that wasn’t the end of her witness. A full story reminds us that even if there’s a moment where we choose silence and wish that we hadn’t, we can do something different the next time we are given an opportunity. A full story reminds us that this is also the Mary that knows a bit about tombs meant for death that shift into new life. She was outside the tomb when her brother was called out and invited into a new narrative of his life. A full story reminds us that we are human and will be afraid one day and can still muster up courage the next.
Too often for women, especially Black women, we miss out on whole stories by telling limited narratives. Black women are often told through the lens of their worst day, not the fullness of all the days. When we choose expansive narratives, the goal is not to glorify the person but to humanize them and allow them to be the full and whole narrative that they are. If you only see the women as terrified and silent, it’s easy to craft a narrative about their lack. However, when you remember they were grieving from the death, that they made sure to show up to the burial, then it makes so much sense in the moment of revelation they were human and scared. Even though that’s a part of their narrative, their bearing witness to Jesus’ resurrection was as well.
As we move through this season of Lent, I invite you to tell full stories. To seek out details that others might find superfluous but that texture the narratives, especially of women, in ways that allow them to journey, grow, and learn as their evolving and human selves. There is good news in a full story. It reminds us that even on our worst decision days, we might consider that liminal space, not the end of the story. So, I invite you to keep writing your story, keep expanding the stories you heard and perhaps we too might hear good news in the fullness of our human experience and find ways to bear witness to narratives that bring more life, hope, and justice to this world.
Rev. Dr. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. In 2012, she graduated from Elon University and then went on to receive her Master of Divinity from Wake Forest University School of Divinity and her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Homiletics and Liturgics. Dr. Yarborough is the Assistant Professor African American Preaching, Sacred Rhetoric, and Black Practical Theology at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, OK.
Her current research reimagines the nature and purpose of preaching and worship through the rhetorical and ritual practices of Black women throughout history. Her work aims to decenter normative systems of power and paradigms of proclamation by considering platforms beyond the pulpit for the voices of preachers.
Dr. Yarborough is a preacher, an ordained minister in the Baptist tradition, a published poet, and an enneagram coach. Most important to her is that she is a daughter, a sister, an auntie and a friend. Her motto is "live to love and love to live each day” and Dr. Yarborough is excited to continue her journey of cultivating curiosity and helping people find and use their voice in all that she pursues.