Feast of Mary Magdalene

Feast of Mary Magdalene

22 July 2012 • Saint James’, Arlington, Vermont

When Scott and I met to discuss my supplying here, I asked if instead of using the appointed propers for today, we could use those for Mary Magdalene, whose feast actually is today. In fact, we will skip two weeks of the normal lectionary because next week we will observe this congregation’s patronal feast of Saint James.

Why focus on Mary Magdalene? I have several reasons — some liturgical, some personal. Given her close association with the resurrection, celebrating her feast is a good mid-season corrective, a reorienting of ourselves until the next unmistakable Easter reminder, All Saints’ Day, which seems a very, very long way off, just as Easter seems a long time ago. Her feast is sort of a halfway point in the Christian year. Second, it is always good to remember that Mary Magdalene’s story is far more complicated and rich that some threads of her tradition leave us. Finally, on a personal level, when I was rector of Saint Mary’s in Northfield, I liked to celebrate all the feasts connected to one Mary or another.

One of the two collects for Mary Magdalene in the New Zealand Prayer Book focuses less on her need for healing and more on the relationship between Jesus and Mary:

Sweet is your friendship, Saviour Christ;

Mary you accepted,

Mary you drew to the foot of the cross,

Mary you met in the garden;

grant us a like redemption.

Like many strong women in Christian scripture, Mary’s life is caught in an aura of confusion. People wrongly associate her with the ‘repentant woman’ and the ‘woman of the city who was a sinner.’ Instead, she is from the town of Magdala in the Galilee, important enough to be identified — a very uncommon thing for women in documents for the time — and she is mentioned fourteen times, even more astounding. So you can erase the image of Mary the prostitute and all the weirdness that has been cast upon her by time and Hollywood, such as how she is portrayed in The Last Temptation of Christ.

Instead, we celebrate Mary Magdalene as the apostle to the apostles, in the words of Saint Augustine, the first one to announce the news of Jesus’ resurrection. Her encounter with Jesus echoes one from the beginning of the gospel according to John, bringing us around full circle.

Remember that Jesus addresses his first words in this gospel to two disciples of John the Baptist: ‘What do you seek?’ Andrew and the person with him are incapable of articulating a direct response, but instead address Jesus as ‘Rabbi,’ and ask where he is staying. He responds, ‘Come and see’. The prologue and the testimony of John the Baptist have identified Jesus for the reader as the true light coming into the world, ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’, one on whom John had seen the Spirit descend from heaven and remain, the ‘Son of God’. Jesus begins his work in the world by inviting the two who have followed him to ‘come and see’ where he is staying.

Near the end of the gospel, Jesus encounters Mary Magdalene weeping outside the tomb in which he had been laid and asks her, ‘Whom do you seek?’ Believing Jesus to be dead, she does not recognise him as the risen lord until he calls her by name, and she responds, ‘Rabbouni!’ He charges her to tell the disciples that he is ascending ‘to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ The work in the world of the earthly Jesus has ended, and Mary is chosen to announce the resurrection.

And what exactly is the message of this resurrection? Roberta Bondi, in her Memories of God: Theological Reflections on a Life, sums up the resurrection message in one sentence: ‘The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world.’

The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world. Mary Magdalene, who went to the garden that first morning, had no idea that the joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. She only knew that she needed to tend to the last rites for her master’s corpse. She went with oils, and her love for this itinerant teacher who walked the roads of Galilee and Judea for three years. She went, because women were the ones who usually prepared bodies for burial. She went, most of all, because she believed in what her teacher, Jesus, had to say. Of all the prophets, he taught about God’s love and actually demonstrated this love. He listened to her, he believed her, and he respected her.

The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. Mary still didn’t understand that when she talked with the man at the tomb. Thinking him to be the gardener, she pleaded with him to tell her what the authorities had done with her master’s body. Only when he called her by name, did she recognise him to be Jesus. Even as he told her to let go of him, he also told her to spread the good news that he had risen, that the resurrection had happened. And, so, Mary Magdalene, the marginalised, became resurrected, too — the first apostle, even to the apostles.

[not written but added extemporaneously at the 10.00, therefore not the exact words but the idea remains the same. The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. The hymn we are going to sing for the offertory (‘Sing a New Church’, Delores Dufner, OSB) was one we sang at General Convention after the House of Deputies voted unanimously to restructure the church. It can be scary stuff, we are talking about changing the way we do things, understanding that we just cannot continue to do things as we always have — things have to die to be reborn, to be resurrected. It will take time, but we are people of the resurrection and so as we let go of the past, allow things to die, we will be reborn.]

The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. How do we, if ever, make sense of events such as what happened in that movie theatre in Aurora Colorado on Friday night? How do we, as Easter people, proclaim the Easter message when we live in a Good Friday world that is full of senseless and random acts of violence as well as state-sanctioned violence? How do we acknowledge such brokenness without drowning in it while also not denying that it is very real? Yet we have to proclaim that hope.

The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. We proclaim this message through the many anonymous acts of self giving, especially in the solidarity that faithful women and men live with friend or stranger, among those in any need or trouble. . . not counting the cost, not needing applause or recognition.

The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world even in the struggling hearts of people who try to believe, but can’t, and yet who keep at the struggle for meaning and purpose in life, with truthfulness and compassion.

The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world when we forgive, when we offer healing to another; when we share what we have with those who have less; when we help hope to be born among those who feel abandoned; and when we give our lives for justice and peace among all people.

The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. That is why we have gathered here this morning. We come with our own heartbreaks, our own sense of failures, our own brokenness and our own deaths. They are part of who we are, but they are not the whole picture. Never. Resurrection overcomes them.

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Where are the places in your lives today that need resurrection? What are the relationships that need resurrection? What are the concerns that need resurrection? With the knowledge of God’s forgiveness, how can you live fearlessly, vulnerably, dedicated and joyous? Where can you find new freedom that comes from this resurrection? Where will you find renewal?

Even if you are like Mary, standing peering into the empty tomb this morning, remember that she was greeted by her master and saviour who called her by name and then directed her to share that good news with the rest of the world.

The joy of this resurrection renews the whole world and it will renew us, too. One of our Easter hymns (190) says, ‘Life is yours for ever, Mary, for your light is come once more and the strength of death is broken; now your songs of joy outpour. Ended now the night of sorrow, love has brought the blessed morrow. Let your alleluias rise.’

While we may live in a Good Friday world, may our heart’s first inclination be to share the good news of God reconciling the world in Christ and always to let our alleluias rise.