Preached Jan 14, 2018

Cathy Hamilton Knox-Wesley United Church, Grenville; Lachute United.

Mary Magdalene

Let us pray:

Be here with us Lord as we listen for your word for us today. May my words be true and may they be faithful to the Holy Scriptures. May they be full of meaning for us today. Amen

Mary Magdalene is a well known biblical figure. Let’s see what you already think about her.

For many, Mary of Magdala is the repentant prostitute.

Over the years, this impression has become so pervasive that the very word Madalen means reformed prostitute or a reformatory for prostitutes.

I am here today to redeem Mary of Magdala, because there NO evidence that she was a prostitute, ever.

And yet movies and art she is depicted as a reformed prostitute.

• Francesco Furini (1603-1646)The Penitent Magdalene

Photo: Private Collection / Bridgeman Art Library / Courtesy of IAP Fine Art

Penitent Mary Magdalene

Nicholas Régnier Warsaw 

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Gail Wallace writes in the Huffingdon Post: … this tarnished picture is perpetuated through films like Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Passion of the Christ (2004), The Da Vinci Code (2006) and most recently, Risen (2016), a new Columbia Pictures film. (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gail-wallace/5-things-you-should-know-_12_b_9471084.html

So, how did it happen?

The story of Mary being cured of demons appears in Luke chapter 8. At the very end of the previous chapter, Luke chapter 7, we read the story of a sinner woman with an alabaster jar who washes Jesus feet with her tears, and anoints them, drying the feet with her hair.

That woman is called a sinner, but the nature of her sin is never revealed, and she is never named.

Chapter 8 begins with Mary Magdalene, the woman with 7 demons. And over the years, these two women, the unnamed woman with the jar and Mary have been assumed to be the same woman.

Second, lets look at the word “Magdala”. There is a fishing town near Capernaum from which this Mary may have hailed. However, there is another word that sounds like Magdala: “gadal” which means hair dresser, or plaited hair. It has been associated with prostitution. (see much art which shows her covered in hair)

Ascension of Mary Magdalene Tilman Riemenschneider (1490–92)

Elevation of Mary Magdalene  SS Johns’ Cathedral Torun 

But the most powerful cause of this confusion is a sermon preached by Gregory the Great who was pope from 590 CE. In that sermon he conflated two women, saying that the 7 demons of the woman in Luke 8 are the 7 deadly sins.

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She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices? It is clear, brothers, that the woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts

— Pope Gregory the Great (homily XXXIII)

He not only confused the two women in Luke, but he added to the confusion by assuming that Mary of Magdala was Mary of Bethany. In John 12 another woman, also named Mary poured nard on Jesus feet. (John 12:3) We might be justified in thinking that the Mary in the gospel of John was Mary of Bethany, but there is no connection to Mary of Magdala.

And so Pope Gregory has not only accused Mary of Magdala of lust but of pride and covetousness as well, without any evidence. And the artists have, of course compounded the confusion such that we often see a composite Mary, with a little bit of each woman added together.

Martha and Mary Magdalene

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (c. 1598)

And then there is the story that Mary of Magdala was the wife of Jesus. There is a document called the Gospel of Mary, of which scraps and fragments still exist. Scholars are not even sure that it is the story of Mary of Magdala, as there are many Marys in Jesus’ entourage. Unfortunately, 6 pages are missing at the beginning of the manuscript and another six in the middle. In the part that is present, “Peter said to Mary, ‘Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of the women. Tell us the words of the Savior which you remember—which you know (but) we do not, nor have we heard them”. Unfortunately, much of what she remembers is lost.

In Gospel of Philip, another document that is not part of the bible, Mary is called koinonos which means “companion, spiritual partner” of Jesus. It is a word that is also used to mean the pairing of men and women in marriage and intercourse.

There is a document largely thought to be a modern forgery called “Gospel of Jesus’ wife” that is the basis of Dan Brown's novel The da Vinci Code.

So, again, no real evidence one way or the other.

What do we know?

Mary of Magdala was cured of mental illness and followed Jesus.

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Mary of Magdala, and other women contributed to the support of Jesus out of their private means.

Mary of Magdala was one of the women who stayed at the base of the cross when Jesus was crucified.

And it was Mary of Magdala who was among the first to witness the empty tomb. In each of the gospel resurrection stories, Mary of Magdala returns to tell the disciples what she has seen at the tomb, and she is not believed. In John, she is the first to encounter the Risen Christ as gardener and it is she who first says, “I have seen the risen Lord.”

As the Christian Tradition developed, it has been virtually impossible for women to be anything but three things: 1) a virgin, pure and untouched; 2) a married woman giving birth to children and running the household or 3) a prostitute, or a woman caught in sexual sin. The that Mary Magdalene and other women might have been women of means, impressed by Jesus, following and supporting him, has been very hard to imagine for centuries. The idea that Mary might have been a disciple in her own right was beyond possibility.

Mary Magdalene’s illness would also have labeled her as impossible to trust. Even though she is healed and has been part of the community following Jesus for three years, no one trusted her. We have a hard time seeing her as anything but the one she used to be.

How often do we do exactly the same thing even today? How often do we assume that someone can or cannot do something because of their gender or their race, or their age, or some other superfluous detail? How often to we find it hard to trust someone who is recovering from a mental illness? It is difficult for us even to recognize that we have those blinkers on.

Recently our moderator said: ”I don’t see what I don’t see.” Unless someone points out specific gaps, it is very difficult to see beyond our own built in biases. ”I don’t see what I don’t see.”Without even thinking about, we read into texts what we expect to see. We make assumptions, and we link things that do not belong together.

And so what we miss is Mary’s real relationship with Jesus, the relationship that allowed her to follow him, supporting and caring for him, even to his death. What we miss is Mary’s discipleship. What we miss is her role as apostle to the others, announcing the resurrection of her beloved messiah.

I wonder how many of us are harbouring assumptions about others, judging them without real reason. I wonder how many of us are being judged unfairly by others, based on assumptions that are simply untrue.

This is a valuable lesson for all of us, but especially for women experiencing marginalization and discrimination. The Junia Project website, dedicated to the

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inclusion of women in leadership reads: “Mary of Magdala owed much, gave much, loved much, served much”.

https://juniaproject.com/mary-magdalene-5-things-should-know/

Mary of Magdala owed much, gave much, loved much, served much.

May we do likewise.

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