Magdalene Community

Grace Episcopal Church

Sunday, August 14, 2016

4:00p.m.

CALL TO SILENCE AND OPENING MEDITATION

Reading –

With the Beloved’s water of life, no illness remains

In the Beloved’s rose garden of union, no thorn remains.

They say there is a window from one heart to another

How can there be a window where no wall remains?

             From The Thief of Sleep,   Rumi

The Gospel of Thomas Translated by Thomas O. Lambdin

114)  Simon Peter said to him:  “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.”  Jesus said:

“I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit of resembling you males.  For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Mary Magdalene Made Official

July 22, 2016 – Pope Francis raised the celebration of the memorial of St. Mary Magdalene to the dignity of a liturgical Feast, putting it on par with the celebrations of the male apostles.

Would Mary have wanted this recognition?  Perhaps not.  Did she deserve it?  Yes, a thousand times over.  Because at the end of the day the truth is simple:  without Mary Magdalene there would be no Easter.  Because of the Magdalene, we have a true story.

She was the eyewitness to it all.  Her account of what happened has stood the test of time and survived against the impossible. While all else of her has been systematically erased, clouded conflated, her account of the Easter story remains.

Magdalene as Witness to the Crucifixion

Matthew 27:55-56, Mark 15:40, Luke 23:49, John 19:25

Mary followed Jesus to the hill.  At the point where the angry crowds had fallen back and where the disciples vanished and were hiding in fear, she continued.  She and a handful of women, ever faithful, ever present, refused to leave.

As she watched Jesus lifted up on the cross, witnessed his transition, would not his words from the last super have echoed in her mind?  “This is my blood…”

Standing there at the foot of the cross, a hands length away, close enough to touch his body, close enough to smell his pain, was she not participating in the first communion?

She heard his last words, watched him take his last breath.  She watched as his arms were unlashed and his body taken down from the cross.  She saw his lifeless body.

Magdalene as Witness to the Burial of Jesus and the Empty Tomb

Matthews 27:61, Mark 15:47, Luke 23:55-56, John 20:1-5

She followed the men who carried the body to the tom.  She didn’t “hear” about him being buried.  She was there.  She watched as Joseph (of Arimathea) took the body down and wrapped it in the linen sheets he had brought.  He laid the body in the tomb that had been cut out of the rock and rolled a stone across the entrance to the Tomb.

Now Mary Magdalene and another Mary kept vigil there, seated opposite the tomb.  Matthew 27:61

She stayed throughout the night, a dangerous vigil, but as Cynthia Bourgeault* says, “Where else could she have been?”

Luke says of her and the other women.  “And returning home, they prepared perfumes and ointments”.

In two versions the other women joined her at the empty tomb.

However, in John, she arrives alone at the tomb and discovers the stone has been rolled away.  She hurries to find Peter and the other disciple. They all marvel that the stone has been rolled away.  The tomb is empty. The linens folded. After the disciples leave, she stays behind weeping.

Magdalene as the First Witness to the Resurrection

Matthew 28:1-19, Mark 16:1-11, Luke 24:1-11, John 20:6-18

It is the Magdalene who remains and searches for him.  It is Mary who first spoke to him, weeping and pleading for help, blinded by her grief.  Mary who first heard his voice and who first recognized him.

Mary Magdalene’s name was the first name spoken by him.  She responds with ‘Rabouni” and in that moment the man’s identity is made clear for all ages: Teacher!

It was the Magdalene who first reached out to him, hoping to touch him and was given the great commission to go “unto my brethren and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.”

My God and your God.  The same God for all, Mary and the brethren.

And Mary obeyed.  She ran to the disciples and said: “I have seen the Lord.”

In those words she gave us the Easter story.  In those words she became the
“Apostle to the Apostles” a title first bestowed upon her by Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s.

For the woman who was unwavering in her truth, the woman who was much loved, it is more than fitting

That in this year of 2016 her day of honor is finally made official.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

Mary said, “I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, ‘Lord, I saw you today in a vision.”

He answered and said to me:  “Blessed are you, that you did not waver at the sight of me.  For where the

Mind is, there is the treasure.”

I said to him, “So now, Lord, does a person who sees a vision see it “through” the soul “or” through the spirit?”

Call to Conversation

All participate as they wish.

Closing Meditation

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing

And right doing there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass

The world is too full to talk about.

               ---   Rumi

                                          

In appreciation to Grace Episcopal Church for hosting the Magdalen Community in this sacred space.