Selwyn College, Cambridge is marking the 40th anniversary of women being admitted to read for degrees - including a sermon series on hearing women's voices from Scripture, through the lens of female preachers. It was a delight to be back in a place which was so formative for me as an ordinand and research student; it gave me pause for thought too, as 1976 was also the year of my birth! I took Mary Magdalene as my chosen woman - drawing on the texts 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 and John 20:1-2, 1-18. Who is this Mary? In liberating her from our preoccupations with power and sex, might we rediscover a courageous and passionate woman who walked with Jesus? Might we walk with her from Galilee to Jerusalem, cross to tomb - walking into a life and light, letting go and discovering our calling?
Jesus said to
her, 'Mary!'
Mary Magdalene: a
woman so explicitly called and known by name; and yet a woman whose identity
has often been shaped by our own preoccupations with power and sexuality; a
woman whose own story has been conflated with nameless women; yet we remember
her. The fragrance of ointment; the outpouring of tears; penitence, faith and
peace. She's more than a feminist icon; she is a witness to the good news of
reconciling love. Yet, myth, fantasy and speculation obscure that calling.
In the Da
Vinci Code, Dan Brown reduces Mary Magdalene to the matriarch carrying
Jesus' secret blood-line. In Scorese's film The Last Temptation of Christ,
we see her as the embodiment of the power sexual desire. In the musical Jesus Christ Superstar,
we glimpse a woman enthralled by Jesus; confused by the intensity of her
passion and spiritual longing. She sings: I don't know how to love him... I've
had so many men before.
Lady Gaga: Judas
For Lady Gaga,
Mary Magdalene is a woman in love with a man who betrayed her. As the video for Judas opens, Jesus
and the disciples roar into town on motorbikes; Gaga's Mary narrates her story:
In the most biblical sense, I am beyond repentance, Fame hooker, prostitute
wench... She's a holy fool. She wants to love Jesus. She's torn between her
demons and her virtue. And as waves
break over her in slow motion, we hear the trickle of water poured over Jesus'
feet, and over Judas' too.
Lady Gaga is a
woman who has had tremendous success and courted controversy; her identity has
been formed by Christian imagination and she talks about her fears of being
ensnared by past choices; she's the epitome of re-invention, provocation and
fluid self-expression, with an affinity to those who feel marginalised. Why is she drawn to Mary, from a
small village called Magdala? Is it because her story expresses a deeper longing for healing and
hope?
In her words, the
song, Judas is: 'a metaphor and an analogy about forgiveness and betrayal
and things that haunt you in your life and how I believe that it's the darkness
in your life that ultimately shines and illuminates the greater light that you
have upon you... the song is about forgiving the demons from your past in order
to move into the greatness of your future'.
Certainly, Mary
Magdalene knows forgiveness. The greatness of her future refuses to be
constrained by our interpretations. When
we reduce her to the archetype of dangerous seduction and sexual
impropriety, we discredit and disempower
her. Instead, her greatness, her future
is in coming to the light of Christ and finding healing, wholeness and renewed
purpose.
Let's not elevate
her to a role model of unobtainable piety or courage; for if we do, we miss the shadows of
her fears and longing which echo ours.
It's her
authenticity which is compelling: emotional intensity and faithfulness; mental
anguish and deep conviction; a depth of love Jesus and a recognition of who he
is, that in him God's love is made manifest. Yes, she sheds tears and pours out
her heart; yes, she lets go of her own demons and allows forgiveness to fill
her heart.
She walks. She
walks with the one who is God with us - all the way from Galilee to
Jerusalem. And there she waits in agony
at the cross and in sorrow at the tomb.
In exhaustion and grief, she has been utterly spent in love.
Mary Magdalene
Chris Gollon
We can identify
with Mary in a moment of heartbreak. Death wreaks havoc with our lives: the
physical loss unleashes a rawness of emotion; grief silences us and yet cries
out; relationships are disrupted; together we share stories; alone we crave
intimacy.
Mary stands
before an empty tomb and describes what she sees; what she fears and thinks she
knows. Her words unleash in Peter and John fear and confusion - they run. They
run away from her; they run to the tomb. There they find insight and
bewilderment.
Mary doesn't run.
She stands alone. Weeping
When questioned a
second time, she repeats her conviction. This is death. This is emptiness.
Supposing her
questioner to be a gardener, she meets his whys with her own ifs.
And into that space, that silence, is spoken one word:
Mary.
Named. Found.
Recognised. Known.
Rabboni!
An instinct as
powerful as grief overwhelms her.
In love she wants
to reach out; to hold and be held.
It's such a human
moment!
But the one she
loves says: Do not cling on to me.
One of the reasons I think this story so affects me is that I recall
hugging my father the night before major surgery and he said ‘don’t hold on to me too tightly, Ju’. And I thought
how absurd because I wasn’t. Not physically.
But perhaps he had a better grasp of letting go than I did.
His human fatherly love was intensely real. Yet in the face of mortality, he
could let go. He trusted in love divine in which we live and move and have our
being; which meant for him death was the beginning of life, not the ending of love.
Embracing new
life means letting go. It's a something that we all need to learn; and perhaps
Mary can teach us how. More than that,
she points us to the risen Lord who loves us from loss to life, sorrow to
peace.
In her grief, she is called by name; in
her letting go she is sent.
Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen (Noli me Tangere)
Graham Sutherland
She cannot cling
on to her risen Lord; but she continues to walk in his light.
She is called to
walk further than she imagined. To walk from despair to hope; to continue to
love and live. More abundantly; more
intensely; more lightly. It's a
profoundly sacramental pattern of life; all that we are can become a means of
grace and hope and good news to others.
She goes to her brothers to face their needs and expectations with the words 'I have seen the Lord'.
This woman, this
Mary, is the passionate, committed, intense and faithful witness to
resurrection. Her pain, tears, honesty and longing are gathered up in this
moment. She shows us how to live, moment by moment. She embodies the conviction
we hear in Corinthians: the love of Christ which urges us on; the death that
overcomes death; risen life lived for others; the liberation of not being
regarded from a human point of view.
We are a new
creation. In the power of the Spirit, may we, like Mary, witness to the love of
God made manifest in Christ Jesus. Love that forgives the past; love that
transforms the present; love that enlightens hearts, minds; love that brings the life that is
life.
© 2016 Julie Gittoes
In the course of preparing for this sermon, a friend mentioned the icon of Mary Magdalene at Grace Cathedral (in the image below):
