Last week we celebrated the feast day of Mary Magdalene; a woman about whom surprisingly little is said in the gospels but someone we might think we know a lot about. She has been portrayed in art and literature as a woman of dubious reputation- probably a prostitute who, through her encounter with Jesus was reformed and rehabilitated and became one of his followers. Unlike the male disciples who betrayed or abandoned Jesus at his crucifixion, Mary stayed with him at the foot of the cross until the seemingly tragic end.
What we are told about her in the gospels however is slightly different from the image of a sexually promiscuous but reformed woman that appears in the paintings of Michelangelo and Giotto; images which have gained currency in our cultural imaginations and which inform writers like Dan Brown today.
We do know that Jesus cast out seven devils from her (Lk 8.2) and that she ministered to him in Galilee. She was certainly one of the women who waited by the cross when he was crucified (Mk 15.40). She also went to his tomb on Easter morning and was told of his resurrection by the angels waiting at the tomb. She was the first person to see the risen Christ and was told by him to go and tell the other disciples this news. For this reason she is known as the ‘apostle to the apostles’ and this earns her a unique and for many a compelling place in early Christian history. That a woman should be the first to see and hear the good news of the resurrection and be commissioned by Christ to tell others seems to turn so many categories and gender stereotypes on their heads.
If we add to this the fact that she was a woman who was surrounded by scandal then our expectations about what it means to be a person of God who ministers and proclaims the good news might be further confounded. Except there is nothing in the gospels to support the idea that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute or a woman of dubious reputation. This confusion arose through the fact that Western tradition, beginning with Pope Gregory in the 6th Century, has identified her with the ‘woman who was a sinner’ (Lk 7.37), in Luke’s gospel, who anointed the feet of Jesus in Simon’s house. Adding to this confusion is the story we find in John’s gospel of Mary, the sister of Martha, anointing the feet of Jesus with costly perfume (Jn 12). There is nothing in the gospels to support the notion that either of these women can be identified with Mary Magdalene. All we know about Mary’s life before she became a disciple of Jesus was that she had had 7 evils spirits from whom Jesus delivered her.
We know much more about Mary Magdalene after she became a follower of Christ. Her encounter with Jesus in the garden at the tomb is one in which the mystery of the resurrection is most tellingly portrayed. How can it be that someone who knew Jesus, supported him and who had followed him even in those final hours, did not recognise the risen Jesus but mistook him for the gardener? It is only when Jesus calls her by name ‘Mary’ that she suddenly identifies this man as Robbouni- teacher. Naturally having thought she had lost Jesus she now wants to hold on to him. But Jesus says:
“Do not hold on to me…but go to my brothers and say to them ‘I am ascending to my Father and to 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’. (Jn 20:17-18)
Whilst we might confuse Mary Magdalene with other women in the gospels Jesus is not confused about her identity at all. He knows her for who she truly is- or rather who, through his love, she might become; the apostle to the apostles. It is in being given a task by Jesus that she takes on her true identity and comes to know herself as she is fully known.
Given all that I have said about the identity Mary Magdalene has been given in Christian tradition on the one hand- that is ‘fallen woman made good’- and by Jesus on the other- a woman called to proclaim the goods news to others, what might be interesting for us to explore is why the woman who Jesus commissioned to be the proclaimer of good news became conflated with the figure of a shameful woman who tearfully anointed the feet of Jesus?
We can view this confusion within the Christian tradition both positively and negatively:
It may be that there is something so intriguing about a sinful woman anointing Jesus with expensive perfume and with her tears that we want her to be part of the story right to the end. What is so important about Mary the sister of Martha and the woman who sinned in Luke’s gospel is that they, through their gender or through their occupation, represent everything that is outside convention and respectability. Jesus not only welcomed but honoured these women who his contemporaries saw as symbols of shame and dishonour.
In Luke’s gospel Jesus forgives the woman who kneels at his feet and she stands in marked contrast to the Pharisees who do not recognise that they are in need of the same forgiveness. The liberation that Christ offers to the repentant sinner is magnified if this repentant sinner is then given the role of apostle to the apostles.
In this way we might say that the confusion between Mary Magdalene and the sinful woman is a helpful one as it reminds us that we are all in need of forgiveness and that in being forgiven we are also liberated to serve Jesus and proclaim the good news of his resurrection.
But on the other hand we might see something more negative at work in this confusion; for it may also be that Mary Magdalene becomes the acceptable face of our unacceptable desires. She injects a note of passion and desire into the biblical narratives; or rather we project on to her our own passions and desires that we have difficulty acknowledging or admitting to ourselves. In this way the virgin/whore stereotype of women risks being perpetuated and we cannot pursue a more integrated approach to female, or indeed male, sexuality.
At a time when the Church is seeking to resolve differences in beliefs about the significance of gender and sexual orientation we might say Mary Magdalene is a saint for our times. If we can stand alongside Mary where there is suffering, as she stood alongside Jesus at his crucifixion, and if we can listen to Jesus calling the most unlikely people to do the most extraordinary tasks we might come closer to knowing who Christ is calling us, the Church, to become.
Amen