Ruth 1: 6-18 Psalm 73: 23-28
2 Corinthians 5: 14-17 John 20: 1-2, 11-18
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
This is the day that the Church remembers the life and ministry of Mary Magdalene. She has been called the apostle to the apostles. She was, after all, the first person Jesus sent to the eleven disciples with instructions to tell them that he was risen. They, you might recall, were hiding behind locked doors because they were afraid.
In the Church, there has been historical confusion over exactly who Mary Magdalene was. “Traditionally, Mary Magdalene was considered to be the same as Maria, the sister of Martha who anointed Jesus at Bethany (John 12: 1-11), and the sinful woman spoken of by Luke (Luke 7: 36-50), but the ‘Gospels give no real support to either identification and they have now been abandoned by the Church.” [1]
Early patriarchal tradition labels Mary Magdalene a prostitute, a woman of loose morals, but there is nothing in Scripture to uphold this. She is not the woman Jesus encounters at the well. She is found following Jesus as did many others, and she is, as our Gospel attests this morning called by him to tell the story. The only other place we find her specifically named in Scripture is in Luke 8, where seven demons come out of her.
It is more likely that Mary Magdalene was something that was completely abhorrent for her time. That she was a thinking woman, and that she wanted to know more about her faith. Perhaps, though this is simply conjecture on my part, she had wanted to study her faith, to study the Torah, but had been denied because of her gender. After all, she lived during the time when the common prayer among Jewish men was: “Blessed be God that he hath not made me a gentile. Blessed be God that he hath not made me a woman. Blessed be God that he hath not made me a slave.” And so Mary Magdalene followed Jesus, who taught that there was room at the table for everyone, who accepted and loved those who had been cast out…even women.
As you might have noted in your bulletins, this date is the anniversary of my ordination into the ministry of Word and Sacrament. I chose to be ordained on this date, partly to accommodate the schedules of everyone involved, but mostly because I feel a deep connection to Mary Magdalene. I was raised in another Lutheran tradition that taught me that I was somehow less than the other half of humanity. That because of the way I had been born, I was less than. This has, sadly, been something the Church has spoken to women, to blacks, and to gays and lesbians. But it is not what Jesus said. Jesus said follow me….go and tell….come to me…..lay your burden here….go into all the world….teach and baptize.
And while the Church, for the sake of good order, sets aside certain people for certain ministries, like the ministry of Word and Sacrament for a pastor or Word and Service for a diaconal minister….we are ALL called…every one….called to tell the story in word and in deed and in love. We are the ones Jesus is sending into the world to go and tell the others.
Friday morning we awoke to yet another reminder of how broken the world to which we are sent truly is. We heard, yet again, of violence that has erupted and innocent lives taken. We saw the images on our television and computer screens….four guns and enough ammunition to take many more lives than were taken….a smiling photo of someone who could be the boy next door. We saw the video taken from cell phones as people streamed out of the latest scene. And later, images of candles flickering in front of photos of loved ones, of messages scrawled to someone they will never see again.
It could be the University of Texas clock tower, the California McDonald’s, the GMAC office in Florida, the Oklahoma Post office, Luby’s Cafeteria, Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University, Fort Hood, or even the Racer Coffee Shop just a few miles from here. But the scenes blur together in a horribly familiar montage of images and soundbites and questions. Questions to which there are too few answers.
Some voices, even some who say they speak for the Church, will try to have answers. There will be those horrible, unhelpful, theologically unsound answers: “It was just their time” or “God needed those angels in heaven”. But that is neither true or helpful. It is not our understanding of God. Jesus never said anything like this. Jesus spoke words of love. This was his overwhelming message in both what he said and what he did. And it was the commandment he gave to us….that we love God, love our neighbors, and love ourselves. And he put no parameters on who could do that.
The hymn we will sing this morning reminds us that we have an old, old story to tell. It is not old in a tired and outdated way…it is old in a solid and proven way. It is the story of Jesus and his love. And how we tell it, how we, like Mary Magdalene, go and tell the others, will vary with the day, with the hour, even with the moment. But to live and speak and act and exist with one another in loving ways must be the choice we make in each moment.
We heard the beautiful passage from the book of Ruth this morning. So often, a portion of this is read at weddings, but it is the story of family bound, not by blood, but by their love for one another. Naomi is the mother in law to Orpah and Ruth, whose husbands, Naomi’s sons, have died. She is willing, out of her great love for them, to release them back to their own families, at great peril to herself. The story is not about one choice being better than another, the story is about the great love that permeates the relationships of these three women. This portion of Scripture is a grand love story and one that reminds us of how important it is to create and nourish that sort of love in our relationships. Naomi did not judge either of her daughter in law’s decisions, Orpah’s to return or Ruth’s to stay. She did not draw a line in the sand and say “unless you can agree with my way, we have no relationship.” It is not a story of separation because of differences, it is a story of love that binds together.
This past week 33,000 youth and over 5000 adults gathered for the ELCA National Youth Gathering in New Orleans. Our Audrey Long is there with them. They have utilized social media well to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. Just yesterday, one of them tweeted “We want our lives to make a difference”
I suspect that Mary Magdalene might have thought this same thing. When faced with living her life as an uneducated, subservient wife to a man chosen by her father, she might have thought, as she set out “I want my life to make a difference.” And look at how Jesus used her. Look at how her willingness was used to tell the old, old story.
I believe that there are 33,000 young people and 5000 adults at the National Youth Gathering who want their lives to make a difference. I believe that they are better equipped to serve in the kingdom because they are being raised up in a faith tradition that has finally, finally said….all people are equal in the eyes of their Creator.
I believe that as we gather here this morning, a part of what draws us is that we want our lives to make a difference. Somehow, in some way, we want what we do each day to matter. The obstacles seem tall and strong and perhaps as high as the walls that were said to be around Jericho. Or perhaps as strong as the walls that formed a church that said “you are not enough…you woman, you person of color, you same gendered couple”. But look at what has happened to those walls. They are crumbling….crumbling because of people like Mary Magdalene and Martin Luther and because of people like Audrey Long and those with whom she gathered with this week and because of the entire communion of saints that has gathered in this place to worship, to be fed, to love, and to be called out to tell the others the old, old story of Jesus and his love.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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