Start:Stop-Mary Magdalene

The Resurrection by Jyoti Sahi, 1987

This week the church remembers Mary Magdalene. The scriptures tell us that Mary was healed by Jesus and was one of a group of influential women who supported his ministry practically and financially. Mary holds a unique place amongst the followers of Jesus; the first person to encounter the empty tomb and the first disciple to whom Jesus made himself known after the crucifixion – bearing the Good News which changed the world and which Mary was the first to hear and share – a fact that earned her the title “Apostle to the Apostles” in the early church.

Bible Reading - John 20. 1-2, 11-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."

Mary stood weeping outside the tomb and, as she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher).

Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' " Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Reflection

The academic Anna Carter Florence has said that the best literature uses language that moves. Like any good script, scripture has only a fraction of adjectives compared to nouns and verbs. Nouns, she explains, have a tendency to complicate our understanding; to absorb our attention and to distract us. Reading scripture ‘nouns-first’ can be paralysing. The Bible is full of nouns; things like weights and measures, objects and place names; words that we need to take time to translate in order to find equivalence in our lives today. In doing so, we are reading at arms-length, distancing ourselves from the scripture and our ability to engage with it. But by reading ‘verbs first,’ we are immediately drawn into the text. “The whole point of the incarnation”, explains Anna Carter Florence, “was that God came to share our verbs.”

Since Gregory the Great’s influential sermons in the first century, parts of the church seem to have been distracted by the nouns it chose to ascribe to Mary Magdalene. Sinner. Prostitute. It was only four years ago that Pope Francis elevated the liturgical celebration of the life of the saint from a memorial to a feast; the latest milestone in the slow journey of challenging popular misconceptions about Mary.

Perhaps an exception to Anna Carter Florence’s theory might be the use of proper nouns, such as our own names? I’ve noticed how I seem to listen more intently to bible passages that mention my own name! For Mary Magdalene, the moment at which Jesus calls her by name proves pivotal.

Many scholars find significance in Mary’s body movements – her verbs - seeing the changes in her posture – particularly that of turning away from the tomb and towards Jesus – as a reflection of the transformation that is revealed to her on that first Easter morning about the new relationship between God and mankind. One writer has remarked that “for a moment, the whole world turns on her axis”.

                

Perhaps something of that cosmic scale is expressed by the dark expanse of the hours after the horror of the crucifixion when Mary enters the garden. A scene that reminds us of the story of our creation – and the prologue to John’s Gospel. This “first day of the week” is to become the first day of a new creation. All four gospels place Mary Magdalene right here, as its first witness.

But for Mary, the darkness lingers a while longer. As she runs to find the other disciples to share the news of the empty tomb; as she is questioned by angels and even Jesus himself, she remains preoccupied by a noun – a body – presumed missing.

It is only after Jesus speaks her name that Mary’s perspective – on everything – is reborn. She turns away from the tomb and turns towards Christ – not Jesus as she knew him, not locked into a tomb, but in the process of ascending to his Father in heaven. Forbidden from touching him, she begins to comprehend this new relationship into which Jesus invites us all. She turns away from that which can be named – the nouns we attempt to translate, to conquer by our own understanding – the objects; the material preoccupations which distance us from each other and from God - and turns towards the Living and Risen Christ.

Let us celebrate Saint Mary Magdalene by defining the story of our lives not by our nouns but by our verbs. May we all hear the call of our own names and turn to the Living and Risen Christ.


I will end this week’s reflection by reading a poem by Janet Morley:

It was unfinished.

We stayed there, fixed, until the end,

women waiting for the body that we loved;

and then it was unfinished.

There was no time to cherish, cleanse, anoint;

no time to handle him with love,

no farewell. 

Since then, my hands have waited,

aching to touch even his deadness,

smooth oil into bruises that no longer hurt,

offer his silent flesh my finished act of love. 

I came early, as the darkness lifted,

to find the grave ripped open and his body gone;

container of my grief smashed, looted,

leaving my hands still empty. 

I turned on the man who came:

"They have taken my Lord - where is his corpse?

Where is the body that is mine to greet?

He is not gone

I am not ready yet, I am not finished -

I cannot let him go I am not whole."

And then he spoke, no corpse,

and breathed,

and offered me my name.

My hands rushed to grasp him;

to hold and hug

and grip his body close;

to give myself again, to cling to him,

and lose myself in love.

"Don't touch me now" 

I stopped and waited, my rejected passion

hovering between us like some dying thing.

I, Mary, stood and grieved and then departed. 

I have a gospel to proclaim.

Amen.


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Art & Theology - She mistook him for the gardener