07/21/2024

St Mary Magdalene Today we celebrate the feast of St Mary Magdalene, the patron saint of this church in Pentney. The first question perhaps is who was Mary Magdalene? All four gospels recount that Mary traveled with Jesus and his followers throughout His ministry. She is a witness to the crucifixion, and importantly the first witness to His resurrection. She is mentioned by name 12 times, more than almost all the other apostles, and more than any other woman in the NT outside of Jesus’s own family. Mary is known as Magdalene, which we might understand as a topical surname, it being a small fishing town in the western shore of Galilee. In Luke Mary is listed as one of the women who traveled with Jesus, and supported his ministry ‘ out of their own resources’, which might indicate that she had money of her own. In the same chapter 8 Luke recounts that seven demons had been driven out of her, repeated in Mark. Not only was she the first witness to the empty tomb and the resurrection where she recognizes Christ when he calls her name, but also is given as a witness to his burial. Pope Francis raised her importance in 2016 so she should properly be called the Apostle of the Apostles. As anyone reading the NT will know, Mary was a popular and common first name at that time, and there are many Mary’s in the gospel stories. Perhaps for this reason, or more likely the discomfort of the early church with such an important woman in the Christian tradition, her memory hasn’t always been honored. She clearly knew her own mind, was someone in the mix of the life of Jesus’s ministry, and although this never seemed to concern Jesus, it did concern others who followed. By 591 Pope Gregory 1 identified Mary with Mary of Bethany, a sinful woman, who annointed Jesus’s feet with expensive oil and her hair, a woman thought to have been a prostitute. Using his Easter day sermon to spread the belief that Mary was in fact a repentant sinful woman, most likely undermining in the minds of many her central role in witnessing the resurrection and walking with the disciples and Jesus during his ministry. As time passed this rumor became more elaborate where her wealth, and the power of her alure and good looks became legendary. Despite the reformers rejecting this interpretation, and Pope Paul VI in the 1970’s officially rejecting the connection, as many women in history have known, once dirt has been spread, it is very hard for anyone to get their reputation back. Mary is important in what are called the Gnostic writings, works of the period which didn’t make it into the official canon of books, where she is portrayed as clever and smart, someone who in fact understood the deeper meaning of Jesus’s teaching than most of his more pedestrian male followers. What we do know is that many writers outside of religion of the period confirm that Mary was a real person, although she wrote nothing, and very little is known about her life, other than her reputation among the writers of the gospels. What we do know is that the number 7 of the demons that left her was a sign of completion, and could well explain her closeness and devotion to the man who had healed her. And what was wrong, was she troubled, unwell, or simply a clever woman of independent means who troubled the men around her by her willingness to speak her mind and persistence – she wouldn’t be the first. Sources tell us that Mary and the other women around Jesus were not alone in playing important roles in supporting faith, many of the main donors to synagogues were women too. However, Jesus’s treatment of women was ahead of his time, giving them not only a voice, but ignoring the pressures of his time which tried to keep men and women apart, seeing women and their attractiveness as a. threat to all men. When Jesus spends time with women, eats with them, consults them, he is making a very clear and defiant new point, radical then, and sadly quite radical in many Christian circles even today. What was accepted was that women were the main witnesses to Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection, they accepted the reality of his rising before the men even knew of it, Jesus chose to reveal himself to then, to her first, perhaps knowing they would accept instinctively. It is Mary that Jesus sends to the others to report what she had witnessed, saying that she would be remembered always when these events were recounted, when the truth was the narrative quickly was taken over by the men. As we know Paul had a much less welcoming attitude to women, and over time the many women who were so important in the earliest church gradually moved into the background, prevented from taking official ministerial roles, and even by Paul from speaking in church. Societal norms for keeping women second to men took over, and as we know for the next 1800 years there were many famous and influential women saints, many mystics, religious and important women Christians, but always operating in the world of men. As in the NT where somehow the disciples were always fed and watered without raising a hand, in the life of the church so much was done and continues to be done by women, who still are considered by many second class citizens. In my youth I campaigned for many years for the ordination of women to the priesthood and later to the episcopate. This was a long and often dispiriting experience, but I take great pleasure in knowing that I was ordained priest in the same year that Church of England finally allowed women to take priestly orders – 30 years ago this year. And given the fact that in these parishes we are shortly to have a women rector – the first in over 800 years, and that our archdeacon and bishop are both women you might think that the world has moved on. However, I would urge you to look around, there are many who still are not comfortable with this, many who don’t accept the ministry of women, and with the rise of certain factions in the world church, not least the influence of the global south where women do not have the rights and recognition they do in the societies of the west and north, these voices are getting stronger. So this is a feast well worth keeping, it brings to the fore an amazing woman, whose life experiences are still those of many women alive today. It is still not easy for a woman to be smart, good looking and independent. Young women still are plagued by being defined by their looks, and the old tropes of weakness and most of this is because they are defined by the standards of men, and not themselves. So I rejoice in the Apostle of the Apostles, the bright, energetic close friend of Jesus, who rejected other people’s views of her and kept to her own truths. She who never denied or deserted her Lord, who was faithful to the Cross and the grave, who by His own choosing was called to witness to the ultimate truth of His resurrection. And as we give thanks for the Magdalene, remember how long it took to clear up a clear smear on her life and person, and how many other important women in the life of faith haven’t received the recognition they deserve, or God intended. And perhaps she may allow us to think hard before we accept the general view of any woman, and how far we still have to go so that all God’s people are treated with equal respect. Amen