 St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Friday, July 22, 2022 Mary Magdalene kind of long – but important  Mary Magdalene Mary of Magdala is mentioned in the Gospels a few times before this. She was one of the women who traveled with Jesus as one of his followers. She may have come from the town of Magdala, a fishing village on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Mark and Luke both mention that she is the one out of whom Jesus had cast “7 demons” – which means at least that she had been healed of something persistent and difficult. There is no indication anywhere that she was a “sinful woman.” That mistake was made in 591 when Pope Gregory I conflated Mary Magdalene with the unnamed, “sinful woman” who anointed Jesus’ feet in Luke 7:6-50. But even this was not intended to put her down, but to demonstrate how powerful the redemptive love of God revealed in Jesus actually is – how it doesn’t lead to shame, but to honor and increased love. In 1969, Pope Paul VI removed any identification of Mary of Magdalene with the “sinful woman” – And in 2016, Pope Francis changed her commemoration to an official feast day, which is already was for us and for the Eastern Church, and also said she must be referred to as the “apostle to the apostles.” This makes her equal in memory and in importance with the other “apostles.” That’s a big deal. The Collect for the Day Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness to his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed from all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; who with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. The Gospel for the Day John 20:11-18 Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” 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.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means, Teacher). Jesus said to her “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers, and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told him that he had said these things to her. Mark’s Account Mark 16:9-11 Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast our seven demons.She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. Matthew’s Story Matthew 28:1-10 After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending for heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. For fear of him, the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for he has been raised, as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going before you into Galilee; there you will see him again. This is my message for you.” Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.Then Jesus said, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” How Luke tells this Story Luke 24:1-12 On the first day of the week, at early dawn,they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.The women were terrified, and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened. So how do we hear this? This is a good time to do some basic Bible study! Without even using anything outside the texts themselves, let’s see what we make of this. We know that Mark is the earliest of the written Gospels, and John, the latest. But the stories that are recounted there were already in circulation – people were repeating what they had seen and heard. And you know that even when two or three people are in a room together talking, when they emerge, what happened between them will be told differently by each individual. That’s normal. So the first thing to do is to see what they all agree about. So what’s the same in them all? Mary of Magdala is mentioned in every account as being present. In John and in Mark, she is the only one.Matthew adds Mary, the mother of James. Luke adds Mary, the mother of James, Joanna, “and the women who were with them.” There were no male disciples present. This is important. In a patriarchal world, one would expect that if it had been possible, any or all of the writers would have included men. But it wasn’t possible. Everyone who heard those first stories knew it was only women. Mark had already mentioned that when Jesus died, the women were there: “Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and of Joses, and Salome…and there were many other women who had come up with him from Nazareth.” (Mark 15:40-41) and later, “Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid.” (Mark 15:47) Clearly, the men were afraid and disbelieving. The women might have been afraid, but they were also present, They didn’t run away. And they loved Jesus, and wanted to do what they could to be with him in his dying and at his burial. This is a very feminine story. And that perspective matters. If we assume that Mark is bare-bones and likeliest to be the first story, that admits that the men did not believe the story. Again, if they could have made themselves look better, they would have.This is why, from the earliest days, Mary is recognized as “the apostle to the apostles.” If the Church is the group of those of us who in some way are witnesses to the resurrection, there was a time when the entire Church was, simply, Mary of Magdalene. What is Different I have mentioned the two accounts where other women were present – but there are other differences. Matthew says that Jesus told the disciples to go to Galilee; John mentions that Jesus says he is “not yet ascended to the Father” who is ,“My Father and your Father, to my God and your God” In John, Mary is told not to “hang on to Jesus” but in Matthew the women “took hold of his feet and worshiped him.” Luke is the only Gospel where Jesus doesn’t speak to the women; and the only one that mentioned Peter running to see whether her story was true -Those details, and the different descriptions of the order of events – like whether the angels had already opened the tomb when Mary arrived, or whether the women were witnesses to the “earthquake” when the angels came, or what the angels said, are not central to the story. We don’t feel any need to “harmonize” all these details. We don’t believe they are literal, factually accurate accounts in the way they would be if someone had videotaped them. They are stories told over and over by people who had been there and by those who heard the story from them. But we believe they are true. If you listened to the long series of witnesses to the Jan 6 insurrection, you will know that each witness spoke of what she or he had heard, or written town, or seen or remembered; they built up a strong storyline that is coherent and consistent and believable – but they did not harmonize perfectly. At one point Cassidy Hutchinson testified that although she remembered clearly a couple of people who were present during one important conversation, she wasn’t sure about whether a third one was there.That did not weaken her testimony; it strengthened it. And so does the variety of ways that this post-resurrection story was told. It would never have made it into the scriptures if it had not happened; the story of Mary at the tomb shames the men and honors a woman. And yet it was men who told it – who put it in writing – who honored her.  |
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