If you didn’t know before today that the Companions of Mary the Apostle are a new kind of women’s community, you can see it today. At the same time, this Eucharist is a testimony to how much we need and depend on our brothers and sisters who have gone before us. Elizabeth and I are to be clothed today, yet you have given us this place of honor. We are experienced and ordained members of the Church, yet for all our experience and knowledge, we are only standing here now because you invited and welcomed us. Thank you.
Having said that, let me say that I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to preach today. It’s simply too big. But I said I would. So let me tell you what makes Mary so precious, so big in my mind. Let me tell you why I want to be a companion of Mary the Apostle.
The first reason Mary matters to me is because I am a woman. The treatment given her reflects the treatment given to women by the Church. In reclaiming her, I claim women’s authority.
The early Church Fathers - I emphasize that title - conflated her with other women so that she became known as a prostitute. Legends of her endless penance in the desert vie with almost pornographic depictions of her in Renaissance and later art. Somehow she could never really be redeemed, really be forgiven, really convert. The treatment given to her made clear that women’s bodies are not part of the new creation.
The other set of legends about her actually coalesce with these others. It’s become fashionable to suggest that Mary and Jesus were secretly married and had children. This is somehow supposed to be feminist, or liberating. But it continues the theme that women’s discipleship must confront their bodies in a way that men’s does not. In fact, it’s not far from saying she slept with the boss to get her promotion!
The reality of the love between Mary and Jesus, the love between Jesus and any disciple, is so much greater than any shape we can give it. The generative love that creates new disciples is its own beauty. It does not need to be sexualized just because the disciple is female.
Now, you may think that in a church with a female Presiding Bishop and many female leaders we don’t need to emphasize gender anymore. This is suspiciously like the Supreme Court’s argument that with a Black President we no longer need the Voting Rights Act. In fact, the deeper struggle is just emerging. This is the struggle over the gender of God. As long as God is named and treated as masculine, women will struggle to find and keep their places. As long as women’s place in the story of the Church is distorted or hidden, each generation of women will have to discover it anew.
So the first reason that Mary matters to me is because her fate and mine are intertwined as women. But she is not just the first woman apostle. She is the first apostle of the resurrection. She is the sign of healing and discipleship and new creation.
In Mary we see the full transformation of human nature. We see the path of recovery, of healing, of new creation in Christ. She’s not the only disciple in whom we see that transformation, but she is the one who stands twice at the doors of resurrection. She stands at the empty tomb, but before that she stands at the site of her own renewal, her own chance at new life.
When Mary Magdalene was healed, she began a journey that took her where she could never imagine going. She saw signs and wonders, and she heard her rabbi talk about the reign of God. She saw the glory shining in him. Through him she gained a new family, a new community. Through him she saw herself transformed from former nut case to apostle.
Mary was a twice-born soul. She was healed, and she loved her rabbi. She watched him die, and she saw him risen. She told others, who didn’t believe her. She was urged on by the love of Christ. She was transfigured as surely as Jesus had been, part of the new creation. She knew the deeper joy that comes with the second chance.
I think most of us who end up in rooms like this chapel have a moment when we reach the end of our limited resources, a moment when we realize that God really can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Over time, if we keep praying and living the life, we find that God does infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. In that, we are soul-mates with Mary Magdalene.
In fact, we might call Mary a thrice-born soul. She began her life, and at some point she fell prey to demons. Then she was healed, and her second life began. And then that life was endangered, as she saw her Savior die on a cross. That Good Friday must have been a death for her as well as for Jesus. The one who had saved her had not been saved from death.
And then she goes to the tomb. She sees an absence that she cannot understand. Then she experiences joy beyond reason. Her third life begins here. She learns that even the grave cannot stop the love of Christ. From now on, she lives not with him, but for him and in him. As an apostle, she shares the ministry of reconciliation that is the gift of the Church.
Today Elizabeth and I step further into another life. The last six months have been months of unimaginable joy and discovery. The next period I trust will be deeper, and different, but just as powerful and transformative as any that have gone before.
I know that we can face any challenge, because the God who saved me once, the God who carried me on each step, is still here. And I know, somehow, that we bring a message to you in turn. With Mary may we all be able to say, “I have seen the Lord.”
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