Sermon for Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Year A (7-27-26)
Joe Swinski
Readings:
Judith 9:1,11-14; Corinthians 5:14-18; John 20:11-18
WELCOME TO THE FEAST DAY OF MARY MAGDALENE
With a show of hands can we see who here has ever heard Mary Magdalene referred to as a harlot or prostitute? Thus, my tee shirt today. “Justice for Mary Magdalene. ”My wife got me this shirt after I read my first book about Mary Magdalene’s gospel. Much of what you will hear today can be found in the two books in the back of the church (“The Gospel of Mary Magdalene” by Jean-Yves Leloup and “Mary Magdalene Revealed, the First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel and The Christianity We Haven’t Tried Yet” by Meggan Watterson). Her gospel was not found in Nag Hammidi in 1945 with the other gnostic writings; it was found many years earlier in Egypt in 1896 and can be found
today in the National Berlin Museum in Germany.
The Canonical Gospels (the ones that are the standards of the church today) were officially compiled in the 4th century. Any bishops that did not agree and follow along were exiled. Prior to that time there were many sects of Christianity. For instance, there would have been the Mary sect, the Peter sect, the Phillip sect and so on. That all changed to one Roman church in the 4th century. Coming to present day, I learned from my internet search according to the web site “The Status of Global Christianity”, that there are approximately 50,000 different Christian denominations in the world. Crazy right? I can only name a handful myself.
Getting back to the gospels, some that were not chosen are referred to as the Gnostic Gospels and writings. To mention a few, we have The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Philip. If you haven’t read any of these, I encourage you to check them out. The word gnostic refers to an “inner knowing “or “self-knowledge.” This self-knowledge of the Divine would not bode well for the Roman church of the 4th century. That being said: A very, very wise vicar informed me that some of the gnostic sects preached the idea that salvation required secret knowledge keeping the deepest teachings hidden from the average person. In Drake's words “basically, if you didn’t know the secret hand shake you weren’t getting into heaven.”
In Mary’s gospel we learn that Jesus taught her to abide by the traditional teachings and the commandment to” Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. Boy, if we could only get that last part right! But he also taught her that the way to the Lord God is to go deep within one’s soul through prayer, meditation and listening to the God within. That is where the Divine can be found. That’s the hardest part for me, being quiet enough and taking the time to hear and
listen to the God within me.
In the Gnostic Gospels Mary Magdalene is seen as Jesus’s intimate companion who he spent a lot of alone time with and according to Philips gospel Jesus kissed her often on the lips. I’ll let you unpack that later yourselves. She, like many other female followers, helped to fund His ministry with their own money. So yes, she was a woman of means.
In the Canonical Gospels she is mentioned several times such as the woman whom Jesus cast out 7 demons, being at the foot of the cross along with Mother Mary and John, and the first to visit the tomb after the crucifixion. Mary was a very common name at that time. Therefore, many theologians associate her with Mary/ Lazarus’s sister and the woman who anoints Jesus’s feet with pungent oil, and perhaps even the sinner who
washes Jesus’s feet with her tears.
Mary Magdalene’s identity as a prostitute was birthed in 591 out of Pope Gregory the First’s sermon number 33. He emphasized that she was so sinful that 7 demons were cast out of her and she was a harlot and prostitute. It wasn’t until 1969 that the Roman Catholic Church rescinded those remarks, but many people did not hear of this. All I’m saying is that I don’t know how the information was disseminated but it was not done
thoroughly, and that is evident by the show of hands at the beginning of this sermon. Even though, in 2016 Pope Francis elevated her remembrance to a Feast Day.
I would like to take a moment here to explore the expulsion of those 7 demons. I’m just giving us an opportunity to look at that bible passage from a different angle. It was well known at that time in India and Egypt of the 7 energy systems of the body. Today we know them as chakras. So perhaps Jesus was opening her 7 chakras allowing her to hear, interpret and absorb His teachings in a different way than the other disciples. Just something to think about.
As we read in the gospel of John today, Mary went to the tomb and found it empty then went and told the disciples, Peter and John went to the tomb, found it empty and went back home. One can only imagine the pain, confusion and maybe even anger Mary was feeling at this time.
As Brother Lain Wilson of the Society of St. John The Evangelist states, “Mary had the courage to be vulnerable enough to stay there in her grief and sorrow and uncertainty, waiting, hoping and trusting that God is with her.” And boy did that courage pay off! Though she does not know it at first Jesus is with her and reveals himself. I can only imagine her astonishment and relief. I wonder if she prayed as I often do “Lord help my unbelief.” He tells her to go to the others and proclaim the good news and that he will be coming to them. But I also wonder if he reminds her to go deep within her soul and he will be there; she will never be without Him who is also the Divine.
Because Mary was the one to witness the risen Lord and proclaim this to the others, she is considered the Apostle of the Apostles and by John’s account she is the first to obey Jesus’s command to share the Good News. This is very interesting to me because of what is found in The Gospel of Philip and Mary’s Gospel. Upon Peter’s request “Sister, we know that the teacher loved you differently from other women. Tell us whatever you
remember of any words He told you which we have not heard,” Mary tells the disciples all that Jesus had taught her. In her gospel, which goes from page 10 to page17, however we are missing pages 11-14. So, we have an incomplete message. As per her gospel this is how they responded:
9. Then Andrew began to speak, and said to his brothers:
10. “Tell me, what do you think of these things she has been telling us?
11. As for me, I do not believe
12. that the Teacher would speak like this.
13. These ideas are too different from those we have known.”
14. And Peter added:
15. “How is it possible that the Teacher talked
16. in this manner with a woman
17. about secrets of which we ourselves are ignorant?
18. Must we change our customs,
19. and listen to this woman?
20. Did he really choose her, and prefer her to us?
In her gospel Mary weeps. One can only imagine the mix of feelings she was experiencing, as she, through tears, tries to convince Peter and the others with whom she has spent so much time with that what she said she witnessed as truth.
I don’t know about you, but I know I have been in this position at one time or another and it is not a comfortable place. Luckily, Levi steps in to remind Peter that he has always been a hot head. Levi helps Mary to stand tall like the meaning of her name, in Aramaic Magdala means Tower. He tells the disciples that they are treating her the same way that their adversaries treat women and if Jesus thought her worthy, who are they to disagree for he loved her best. So, they reconciled and let Jesus take root in them and they became the apostles they were called to be and spread the Good News of Jesus’s resurrection far and wide and that brings us here today. As apostles we are all charged with that same directive. To share the good news of Jesus’s resurrection, unabashedly.
Amen.
