March 3, 2024
St. Andrew Church
Rev. Anne McAnelly
3rd Sunday in Lent
First Lesson: Luke 8:1-3
Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.
Second Lesson: Luke 10:38-42
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
The Empire Strikes Back is the middle movie in the first Star Wars trilogy. It acts like a bridge between the two other movies. It starts on the snowy planet Hoth, with Han saving Luke, setting up the beginning of the next movie where Luke returns the favor. Luke leaves his friends to get trained by Yoda. But the big reveal is when Luke finds out Darth Vader is his father, which changes everything! Do you remember that moment? The audible gasp, the bewildering situation. How can our hero be the son of the villain? What does this mean for the resistance? Will Luke turn to the dark side? Yet, in a way it explains why the force is so strong in Luke. Shifting how we see someone can have powerful implications! So far in our Lenten Sermon Series, Mary Magdalene can be seen as Mary the Tower and changing one letter in the name Mary can create the name Martha.
We just heard Luke’s introduction of Mary Magdalene and Luke’s story of Mary and Martha, both of which only appear in this gospel. Remember, Luke Loves Women! Luke loves sharing accounts of women not seen in the other gospels. He also often pairs a male and female account to reinforce a story. For instance, in Luke’s infancy narrative we have the male and female protagonists of Zechariah and Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary, and Simeon and Anna. Several parables also have gender-based telling, think of the lost sheep (male shepherd) and lost coin (a widow) (Lk. 15:3-7, 8-10). Our Mary and Martha story is female telling of the Good Samaritan story that precedes it. The Samaritan loves his neighbor, Mary loves the Lord. Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him with an open heart is held up as how to love the Lord. Even the introduction of Mary Magdalene shows a balancing of male and female discipleship. The twelve are only mentioned, while three women are named, Mary, Joanna, and Susanna, along with other women who provided for them out of their resources. The women aren’t after thoughts, no they are the ones paying the bills for this ministry. Ben Witherington observes that in Luke’s Gospel, men and women are shown as being equal recipients of God’s grace and equal participants in the community of Jesus’ followers. Luke’s agenda was to show that Jesus not only valued, respected, and elevated women, but that women are equal with men (Ben Witherington III, Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus’ Attitudes to Women and their Roles as Reflected in His Earthly Life, Cambridge University Press, 1984, 52). Is that how you have thought about scripture?
I must confess that I have preached several sermons connecting Mary and Martha from Luke with the Mary and Martha in John’s gospel. Most commentators have connected these people. Yet here, Mary, the devoted one, Martha, the one who serves, are a pair of sisters that have inspired many sermons about how to be faithful to Jesus. Martha is the epitome of hospitality but gets distracted by her tasks. Her anger gets the best of her, and she wants Jesus to intervene, to tell Mary to help her. But Mary has chosen the Chosen One, the better part. Mary shows what it means to love the Lord your God with all your soul, strength and mind. It is a powerful account of love that compliments the Good Samaritan story.
But are these women, Mary and Martha, Lazarus’ sisters? Are these the women who mourn their brother and make Christological statement about Jesus being the Messiah? A few things to note. First this takes place in an unnamed village, likely a Galilean village given Jesus’ travels. That is in the north, while Lazarus lives in Bethany near Jerusalem in the south. Secondly, if these are Lazarus’ sisters, then Martha could not invite Jesus into her home, which she does. If they had a brother, that line would say, “And Martha welcomed Jesus to her brother’s home.” The only way it’s Martha’s home is if Martha has no husband, no father, and no brother. Diana Butler Bass concludes, “These are two different stories. These are two different families.”
You might be wondering what this has to do with Mary Magdalene? This sermon is a bit like The Empire Strikes Back, the middle movie, it fills in some gaps and rules out some things. I was fascinated to learn that when Disney purchased Star Wars, it had to establish what was in the Canon and what was not. So many stories popped up, they determined the real Star Wars, the Canon, verses other knock off stories. This was very much like how scripture was canonized too, taking several Councils and centuries to give us what we have today. This was also the time when men in the church were working to marginalize women. Yet our understanding continues to grow and change.
The biggest change in our understanding of Mary Magdalene came in the 6th century with Pope Gregory the Great. He took our introduction of Mary Magdalene in Luke 8 and wrongly connects it with the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus’ feet in the previous chapter. She is a sinner, often depicted as a whore. By linking these two stories Mary Magdalene’s name is dragged through the mud. She also becomes the foil of sin to the virginity of Mary Jesus’ mother. An article from the Smithsonian states, “Thus the need to disempower the figure of Mary Magdalene, so that her succeeding sisters in the church would not compete with men for power, meshed with the impulse to discredit women generally. This was most efficiently done by reducing them to their sexuality, even as sexuality itself was reduced to the realm of temptation, the source of human unworthiness. All of this from the sexualizing of Mary Magdalene… Across time, this Mary went from being an important disciple whose superior status depended on the confidence Jesus himself had invested in her, to a repentant whore whose status depended on the erotic charge of her history and the misery of her stricken conscience.” (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-mary-magdalene-119565482/).
So let’s look at what the text really says. Mary Magdalene was cured of seven evil spirits. The number seven represents completeness, so that Mary was completely possessed, truly afflicted. Yet it was Jesus who healed her, who restored her health. From her redemption, Mary Magdalene becomes a devoted disciple of Jesus. She follows him around with many other women who provide for their needs from their own resources. The women facilitate Jesus’ ministry. Yet did you notice that several women had been cured of evil spirits? It says, “The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities.” Remember Luke loves women, and here we see the women right along side the men. Also, the women are the ones who have actually experienced Jesus’ healing power. They know personally what it is like to be infirmed and then to have Jesus restore them. None of the disciples were healed by Jesus. Not one of the twelve had this firsthand knowledge. One commentator writes, “Simply note that the apostles, the future witnesses to the resurrection, had not experienced the power of God acting through Jesus in their bodies, unlike the women mentioned in Luke 8:2” (Mary Magdalene and the Resurrection in the Gospel of Luke By Marc Rastoin SJ, 9 August 2021).
Mary Magdalene knew Jesus, knew the healing power of Jesus, knew how to care for him and the disciples, not in a sexual way, but in an empowered and profound way. Think about how your firsthand experiences make you a better advocate, enable you to have compassion, to know the power of Jesus. Soon we will have a firsthand experience of our risen Lord as we come together to taste and see that the Lord is good and share the feast which he has prepared! Amen.
