Sermon

Mary Magdalene Year A

16/7/17

Vision/Planned Giving V

Eltham

Readings

Song of Songs 3:1-4a; 2 Corinthians 5:14-21; Ps63; John 20:1-18

+FSHS

A colleague in Brisbane, the Rev’d Gillian Moses, completed her honours thesis at the same time I did. She spent her 20000 words looking at the depiction of Mary Magdalene in artwork and the theology it suggests. Having listened, enthralled, to her presentations at research seminars, there is much to be said about Mary Magdalene, and what the church has done to her memory.

For centuries, all the Marys in the gospels were rolled into one – we have Pope Gregory the Great to thank for that. For centuries Mary Magdalene was a composite of several Marys and other women: Mary of Magdala, Mary of Bethany, the sinner woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair, the woman caught in adultery. Rolling several Marys into one and proclaiming her a sinner woman out of whom seven demons were cast, was a move designed to discredit her. Moreover, the image of Mary Magdalene was often used abusively to denigrate women, or to enslave them in workhouses (think of the Magdalen laundries).

As one of the few women who gets air time and is actually named in the scriptures, Mary is an intriguing figure. The Cathars suggested she might be the wife or concubine of Jesus – and were killed for it. Others have speculated that she was a significant leader of the community of Jesus’ followers which shaped the gospel of John and the letters of John, and Revelation; that she was a leader to compare with Peter, possibly amongst the community of disciples generally, possibly among a cohort of women equivalent to the twelve male disciples, and that once the church became the religion of the state under Constantine in the 320s, there was a programme to wipe out her memory, so significant was she. Other people have suggested that Mary, rather than John the son of Zebedee is the cryptically named “beloved disciple” who is referred to a couple of times in John’s gospel. Probably all the Marys in the NT are different people, and there is no reason, outside of contested gospel passages, to suggest she was any more or less a forgiven sinner than the rest of the rabble who followed Jesus.

Yet, returning to biblical evidence, this is what we can deduce: she was a woman of independent means who supported Jesus’ activities out of her own purse (which was a big thing in a time and society in which women were dependent on their male relatives), she probably came from the town of Magdala on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee (although some have suggested that this may be a kind of surname meaning “tower of strength”), who followed Jesus, is always mentioned first among the women disciples, was loved by Jesus, and in the gospel reading we’ve just heard, receives a commission to be the first apostle to the apostles. We learn much about what it means to follow Jesus and be his disciple from her.

A disciple is someone who follows the teachings of someone else, a learner and follower who shapes their life in such a way as it comes to reflect that of the person they are following. In the story from this morning, Mary makes her way to the tomb. All hope was lost three days earlier, when this teacher, the one she’d pinned her hopes on, had been brutally murdered. She comes to do the last things for him, which she wasn’t able to do on that day, because it had been close to sunset and there hadn’t been time for a proper interment. That act, coming when it was still dark on the first day of the week, was a risky and determined thing to do; but this Jesus she followed she also loved, and so is inspired to love greatly in return.

That’s another thing we learn from her: that we follow Jesus because there’s something compelling about him which calls to a deep part of ourselves. Even now, and even with the filters of 2000 years, the figure of Jesus and what he represents shines from the gospel stories and evokes response in us. There are different ways we experience this: for some of us, this is a deeply intimate and personal sense of connection with Jesus, and expression of relationship with God; for others of us, it’s Jesus’ life and example which calls forth our own hunger for justice, and sense of identification with Jesus’ calling. For all of us, we are united to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection in and through baptism; as his disciples, his followers, we share an organic connection with him which is not just notional, but actual and real, something we need to make sense of.

We see in Mary’s example today the dawning joy of realization: the one she’d seen die is amazingly alive. She worships and honours him, throwing her arms around him and clinging to the point he has to tell her to let go. Because life doesn’t stop in the garden. Instead, Jesus sends her out with a mission: to go and tell the other disciples that he is alive and will go before them to Galilee. This is an extraordinary move on Jesus’ part; a woman’s testimony had no currency in a court of law, and so she couldn’t be taken as a credible witness. Yet here he is, sending her as his witness, sent to the others with a message full of light and hope. Part of our life of discipleship is about bearing witness and carrying testimony to that same story: the power of God’s hope, God’s light, resurrection, new life at work in our lives, as it was in Mary’s that first Easter day. Carrying that message, that witness and testimony is about serving God’s purposes, continuing on the work Jesus did as his hands and feet. It means doing what he did, following his example, acting the way he did, shaping our lives around his life.

That doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and it’s a bunch of nice words which have little bite until we ask the question of how? How do we be Jesus’ disciples, his witnesses, those who walk with him and love him?

We get to know him, get to know the Father who sent him and God’s hope for the world: reading Scripture. Reading scripture prayerfully, attentively, and with the sense that in reading it we encounter the risen Christ.

Prayer: conversation with God. Relationships flounder without communication – listening, talking, seeking help to live this life of following Jesus.

Service: doing the things Jesus did: striving to announce justice, alleviating suffering, companioning the sick, the sad, the lonely. Approaching what we do in our lives from the point of view of faith – what’s our motivation for doing XYZ.

Fellowship: connection with other disciples of Jesus who are striving to live his way and follow him. Involvement in worship and sacraments – the shared, communal experience of Jesus’ presence in us and with us.

Four growth initiatives:

1. COMMUNITY CONNECTION
·  Monthly service – all age
·  Improve communication/invitations outward
·  Identify entry points/community connectors – perhaps through distinctive activity groups
2. COMMUNITY COHESION A
·  Improve conducive worship environment – hearing, sound, needs of aged
·  Combined parish worship monthly
·  Combined parish celebratory worship
3. GROWING FAITH
·  Regular bible study groups
·  Special prayer day for growth
·  Faith development in small groups
·  Discernment of gifts – who we are, why we are here (God’s call on our life)
·  Develop individual’s spiritual practice – identify resources
4. COMMUNITY COHESION B
·  Stocktake/Audit parish activities and ministries – assess effectiveness
·  Include wider community audit – who/what is our neighbourhood?
·  Include in above discernment of cooperation with local Uniting Church.
·  Create Plan for appropriate allocation of resources for emerging Ministry Actions in Parish.

These are very much about how we live as Jesus’ disciples here at St Margaret’s. There’s the outward, bearing witness dimension. There’s the dimension of how our faith community functions, and whether there are needs in the wider community we are being invited to connect with. And there’s the dimension of walking more closely with Jesus through becoming more aware of the Spirit in us (gifts), as well as deepening our relationship with God in prayer, reading scripture, and service.

There’s another element of what it is to be a disciple of which Mary Magdalene provides a good example: she was among those who contributed to the needs of Jesus’ followers. What we do with our resources, our finances/money, comes out of our discipleship, and is connected to it. In the next two weeks, we’re being invited to reflect prayerfully on what our discipleship means for us in the coming year in terms of what we’re willing to commit to see these growth intentions become a reality. We’ll be invited to commit a proportion of our resources to serving God’s work through St Margaret’s as part of what it means to be disciples of Jesus working together here.

Today, you should have received a blue card. And because giving is not just about money, but is also about growing in our life and faith, in reflecting on Mary Magdalene’s example (her deepening friendship and love for Jesus, her being sent as a witness to carry good tidings and serve his mission) what one thing are you being prompted to change, strengthen, or start in your journey following Jesus?

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Question: One thing I commit to changing, strengthening, or initiating in my discipleship of Jesus.

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