Saint Mary Magdalene - 22 July 2012
Judith
9:1, 11-14
Psalm
42:1-7
II
Corinthians 5:14-18
St.
John 20:11-18
Background: Mary of
Magdala
The topic of Mary Magdalene has become both problematic and enriched
within the last couple of decades.
Beginning with the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail and continuing on
through The Da Vinci Code, the speculation about Mary, abetted by the
conversations on the Gospel of Thomas and other apocryphal works, Mary
Magdalene has become a major point of conversation among Christians. Her supposed marriage to Jesus has been the
center of several works of fiction, Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of
Jesus, Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, and Andrew
Lloyd Weber’s opera Jesus Christ
Superstar. There is a real question
as to for what we might honor her on her feast day. In the past she was honored as the penitent,
the woman saved from the “seven demons”.
Her role has a prostitute has been largely rejected, and the Church
seems to have taken on a new honorific for her – “Apostle to the
Apostles.” She is the first to see the
Risen Lord (cf. John 20, and Mark 16), and thus such a title is both
appropriate and scriptural. The vagaries
of her story in the life of the Church are too complicated to pursue here. She is however, a powerful model of Easter
life and hope.
Judith 9:1,11-14
Judith prostrated
herself, put ashes on her head, and uncovered the sackcloth she was wearing. At
the very time when the evening incense was being offered in the house of God in
Jerusalem, Judith cried out to the Lord with a loud voice, and said, "Your
strength does not depend on numbers, nor your might on the powerful. But you
are the God of the lowly, helper of the oppressed, upholder of the weak,
protector of the forsaken, savior of those without hope. Please, please, God of
my father, God of the heritage of Israel, Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of
the waters, King of all your creation, hear my prayer! Make my deceitful words
bring wound and bruise on those who have planned cruel things against your
covenant, and against your sacred house, and against Mount Zion, and against
the house your children possess. Let your whole nation and every tribe know and
understand that you are God, the God of all power and might, and that there is
no other who protects the people of Israel but you alone!"
The deuterocanonical book of Judith exists only in Greek, although that
text mirrors a more ancient Hebrew text that is unknown to us today. It is not included in the Hebrew canon,
however readings from the book are provided for reading on the feast of
Hanukkah. St. Jerome mentions readings
from the book in the Church, and the Council of Trent (1545-1563) recognized
its canonicity for the Roman Church. The
Anglican and Lutheran churches have assigned it as an Apocryphal Book, and
readings from it appear in their lectionaries.
Judith, a feminine form of “Judah” is essentially a series of teaching
that takes as its basis the Exodus from Egypt, and applies that theology to the
chaos that came after the fall of Jerusalem in 587. The God of Israel, i.e., the God who brought
Israel out of Egypt, is the God that continues to rescue the people of Israel
and to guide and rule them. In this
passage, Judith (not a historical figure) is shown as offering prayers to God
at the time of the evening sacrifice.
She begs for God’s on-going aid and protection for her people.
Breaking
open Jeremiah:
- Is there an event in your life, a spiritual event, that seems to
inform the rest of your life?
- Do you pray for your country?
- What do you ask God to do?
Psalm 42:1-7 Quemadmodum
As the deer longs for
the water-brooks, *
so longs my soul for
you, O God.
My soul is athirst for
God, athirst for the living God; *
when shall I come to
appear before the presence of God?
My tears have been my
food day and night, *
while all day long they
say to me,
"Where now is your
God?"
I pour out my soul when
I think on these things: *
how I went with the
multitude and led them into the house of God,
With the voice of
praise and thanksgiving, *
among those who keep
holy-day.
Why are you so full of
heaviness, O my soul? *
and why are you so
disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;
*
for I will yet give
thanks to him,
who is the help of my
countenance, and my God.
The use of this psalm on this day honoring Mary of Magdala highlights
her emotions in the scene from John 20.
The psalm lifts up the author’s “longing for God”, a longing that we
shall see in the reading from John. In
supplications such as this, the poet is usually yearning for relief from an
enemy, but her the yearning is for the presence of God. The themes of thirst, streams of water, and
tears (a meal of tears accentuates the notion of thirst) become vivid icons of
the psychological state of the poet. The
other themes that relate the intimacy and essential character of the
relationship are: “I pour out my soul” (read: breath), and “my whole
being”. All of this is an underscore for
the Gospel reading for this day.
Breaking
open Psalm 42
- Have you ever longed for someone in your life?
- How would you describe this longing?
- How would you describe your relationship with God?
2 Corinthians 5:14-18
The love of Christ
urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all
have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for
themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
From now on, therefore,
we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ
from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is
in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see,
everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself
through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
As if to continue the underlying relationship that is explicated in the
psalm, the reading from IInd Corinthians begins with the relationship of Christ
and the redeemed. Implied in Paul’s
logic is the beginning of this relationship with Jesus. Paul knows Christ in a new way, no longer
seeing him “from a human point of view”, and there is a love that has blossomed
between them. That, however, is only the
beginning, for this love is then made manifest to not only Paul, the
individual, but to all. At the center of
this relationship of love comes a new creation, a new way of seeing things, and
reconciliation between God and humankind.
Breaking
open IInd Corinthians
- What is the most significant relationship that you have in your
life? Describe it.
- How is your relationship to Christ the same, or different?
- How are things made new in your spiritual life?
John 20:11-18
Mary
stood weeping outside the tomb. 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.
“I
know my own, and my own know me” (John 10:14) Thus John describes the Good
Shepherd. It is a verse that can be
applied as a level of understanding for this resurrection appearance to Mary of
Magdala. It is the voice of Jesus, and
the repetition of her name, that startles Mary into a new realization. She had seen the empty tomb, but its
ramifications eluded her. Now Jesus'
presence, but more so his voice, and the implication of relationship make Mary
see the truth of his resurrection. The
usual vocabulary is no longer sufficient.
Jesus is no longer just a teacher (Rabouni!) but has become more than
that. Thus he asks her not to touch him,
for there is a new future now. Again
Mary becomes an Apostle (a sent-one) who comes with the message of the
ascension. It is she who announces the
good news, “I have seen the Lord.”
Breaking open the Gospel:
- How do you recognize Jesus?
- What might Jesus recognize in you?
- What good news has Jesus sent you to deliver?
After
breaking open the Word, you might want to pray the Collect for Sunday:
Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of
body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection:
Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed from all our infirmities
and know you in the power of his unending life; who with you and the Holy
Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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