Mary Magdalene - Paragon of Apostleship (Sept 15)

Readings, Song of Songs 8:5-7, 13 and Mark 16: 9-14
Image, Graham Sutherland, Noli me tangere, 1961. St. Mary Magdalene Chapel, Chichester Cathedral, England.


If you read enough fiction you’ll likely come across a book with a nested narrative, or nested narrator. That is, the story in the book is narrated by someone found within the book. Sometimes these are called matryoshka books, after the dolls, where further and further layers of narration are revealed. Frankenstein for instance, features the narration of Walton, who records the narration of Victor Frankenstein, who recounts the narration of his creation, who narrates his secret observance of a family. Recently, filmmaker Wes Anderson adapted Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which begins with one character finding and then reading an essay written by a man who learnt to see through cards.
 
Layers upon layers, these books fold in on themselves, obscuring the authorial voice with which we began. It is an old device, used for many effects, not least of which is to undermine the trust of the reader, to remind us that this tale might just happen to be tall. And while a story like this elicits certain pleasures in questioning the veracity of the details which slips through the sands of multiple voices, it is another thing entirely to hear a story directly from one of your friends, a fellow disciple of Christ and say “nah, I’m not going to believe that.”
 
Mary Magdalene is a disciple of some significance in the latent Jesus movement. In the Gospel of Luke, she is consistently listed first among those named women followers and funders of Jesus’ ministry; signalling her leadership within the group. Her significance is heightened through the Passion narrative, where she (with some of the other women) remains near Jesus through his crucifixion and burial.
 
And then we reach the scene of the resurrection. In all the gospels Jesus appears first to Mary and the women. In Luke it is to a small group (with Mary Magdalene named first), in Matthew it is just two (Mary Magdalene and the other Mary), in Mark the young man proclaims Christ’s resurrection to Mary Magdalene, the other Mary and Salome, with an additional scene (which we heard) with Jesus speaking directly to Mary Magdalene. And in John it is Mary alone who sees the empty tomb and has the first encounter with the resurrected Christ, that beautiful, tender scene we read on Easter Sunday where she takes him for the gardener until he speaks her name.
 
And each of these encounters is accompanied with the commission to proclaim his resurrection to the other disciples, huddled away in fear. For this reason, Mary Magdalene has been decorated in the church as the “apostle to the apostles,” the one entrusted with the first easter message, the first Christian to proclaim Christ as the crucified and risen one. Like that figure in the Song of Songs, she is coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved. See, she comes, with Christ set as a seal on her heart, on her arm. See, she comes to them with love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. See, she who dwelt in the garden, Christ’s companions are listening for her voice…
 
And yet, like the narrator nested four-deep in a fantastical novel of tall tales, she is heard, but not believed. In Luke, the disciples treat the words as an “idle tale,” while in this longer ending of Mark, Jesus upbraids his disciples for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they did not believe those who saw him after he was risen.
 
It is a rather satisfying passage really. A little vindication of Mary’s authority and testimony, coupled with a scolding of those far too quick to dismiss her for telling them exactly what Jesus had told them would happen. Unfortunately, for Mary, what happened to her by the church to come was arguably far less kind and received no such direct rebuke.
 
Mary was quickly conflated with other unnamed women in the gospels (such as the sinful woman of the city who anoints Jesus, or the woman caught in adultery). This created a tradition whereby her demons are associated with prostitution and sexual sin. This image weaves its way into popular culture, where – whether in Jesus Christ Superstar or The Da Vinci Code – Mary’s significance is reduced to her erotic attachment to Christ. Sloppy as such scholarship is, its arguable her example was most debased not through any direct attack on her character, but in the systematic ostracising of women from the preaching and leadership of the church. What could be a more dismaying example of her denigration than the church’s efficient action to make the first woman apostle the last, ensuring that after one woman proclaimed this first easter Sunday message the rest should fall silent?
 
What might we learn then, from this second Mary in our series? Well, first, that like those nested narratives, the story of Jesus is – from the beginning – entrusted to human witnesses. His victory is entrusted to narrators of the gospel (apostles and disciples) who are not confined to any one group. From the beginning those called to proclaim the good news and lead the church are drawn from ranks spanning the categories of gender, class, age, and ethnicity. The story of the gospel is no more suited to one language, accent, or timbre, no better belonging to men than women, the free than the slave, the educated than the non, the one who believed because they saw than those who later heard. All who have encountered the risen Lord, are in turn sent to proclaim this good news.
 
And yet, at the same time, we cannot dictate the reception of our proclamation, nor what memory we leave. This does not excuse us from proclaim good news of great joy. We are each of us sent, simply to witness to the resurrection, and the reception of such witness is out of our control and so out of our concern – we simply trust that our calling is true, and Christ is risen. In this way, as is evoked in the refrain “let me hear it” from the Song of Songs, the primary audience of our proclamation is Christ himself: proclamation is doxological.    
 
We also learn, perhaps less from Mary as exemplar, as those around her as cautionary tales, not to clog our ears to the proclamation of good news by those we consider less fit to bear and deliver it. We must be on guard against prejudice, privilege, and preference which clouds our judgment and misguides our gut. This, I think, is of especial importance when we, like the disciples, are “mourning and weeping.” It is that much more difficult to hear the word of resurrection when we are struggling with the fact that something has died. So much harder to embrace the promise of new life when we are mourning that something which buried will not return as it once was. Words of new life, sightings of resurrection, glad tidings of great joy are proclaimed around the church, but if we are so consumed by narratives of death and decline, we find them too easy to disbelieve. Perhaps, sadly, we choose to disbelieve the word of resurrection because that would require us to admit something has indeed died, and that what comes in its place appears in a form at first unrecognisable.   
 
Mary Magdalene, like Mary the mother of Jesus last week, sets an example of discipleship. She followed Jesus through his life, remained with him at his death and burial, and returned to his tomb. And though she came to prepare a body for death and decomposition, she recognised the new life of the resurrection and reoriented her comprehension of the world, taking hold of her commission and rushing forth to proclaim the risen Christ to those in need of good news. She may not have been believed, and her memory might have been maligned, but in the end such shall fade away. For the disciple’s worth is found not in the esteem of the world, or even the church. Rather it is found in Christ, who meets us in the gardens of our mourning and weeping, our loss and woe, with love stronger than death, passion fiercer as the grave and commissions us to narrate him to the world:
O you who dwell in the gardens,
My companions are listening for your voice;
Let me hear it