by Elaine Lindridge.
This is the first of a two-part series by Elaine. Part two will follow next week.
Scratch Art Cards were originally a children’s toy but are now quite popular for all ages. They work by scratching off a thick, dark layer of ink to reveal a lighter coloured layer beneath.
As a child, long before they were cheaply available on Amazon, we used to make them at school. The teacher would give us a sheet of card and using wax crayons we’d fill it with a rainbow of colours. Then the thick black wax crayon was used to completely cover over the colour. We’d be given a sharp implement (how times have changed!) and told to scrape off the black to make a new picture.
The memory of carefully scrapping off the black wax to discover a new picture made with beautiful rainbow colours has resurfaced in my thoughts recently. Mainly because I feel like I’m in the process of scraping away some unhelpful beliefs I’ve unwittingly inherited, and in doing so I’m discovering a thing of beauty.
I could give many examples, but I’d like to focus on the person of Mary. Beautiful, colourful Mary Magdalene whose story has been forcibly cloaked in darkness for far too long.
This new picture has emerged for me through the teachings of Cynthia Bourgeault, Diana Butler Bass, and Mary herself in the words of the Gospel of Mary. I am no expert and I’m not going to pretend to have fully grasped the implications of all I am sharing. I simply offer this reflection as part of my own learning, journey and exploration into the divine feminine.
There is perhaps much ‘unlearning’ we need to do about Mary in order to discover something new in our understanding. The fabrication about Mary being a prostitute permeated the church so deeply that it took nearly 2000 years before it was rescinded – yet even now I still hear people talking about Mary the prostitute. What a travesty that this woman who was marked by Jesus as being ‘worthy’ has been denigrated by man-made lies for millennia. It was Pope Gregory in 591 who first pronounced her a ‘sinful woman’ even though there was evidence to the contrary in the Gospels. Before I was even born, Pope Paul VI removed the identification of Mary as a prostitute – and yet still this view remains in popular culture. Sometimes lies are more readily accepted than the truth.
So what do we actually know about her. Re-reading her story, I want to add my voice to those who now name her as the Apostle to the Apostles. News of the resurrection, and therefore Christianity, is derived from her being the first to encounter the risen Jesus and the first to act as a witness to that event and share the good news with others. She is named as the premier witness to the resurrection. Not only was she there, but she had faithfully and steadfastly remained with Jesus throughout the crucifixion. Hear Cynthia Bourgeault reflect on this;
‘All four gospels insist that when the other disciples are fleeing, Mary Magdalene stands firm. She does not run, she does not betray or lie about her commitment, she witnesses. But why, one wonders, do the Holy Week liturgies tell and re-tell Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus, while the steady, unwavering witness of Magdalene is not even noticed? How would our understanding of the Paschal Mystery change if [the role of Magdalene was acknowledged?] What if, instead of emphasizing that Jesus died alone & rejected, we reinforced that one stood by him and did not leave? For surely this other story is as deeply and truly there in the scripture as is the first. How would this change the emotional timbre of the day? How would it affect our feelings about ourselves? About the place of women in the church?’[1]
When the Holy Week liturgies only remind us that Jesus was betrayed, denied, and deserted, then we are merely shown a half-truth. Only telling those stories is like using a thick, black wax crayon to obliterate a beautiful story of faithful devotion and love. Where are the sermons and liturgies that reflect the dedication that Mary demonstrated?
This is all in our gospels and it’s only our perception that needs to be altered in order to see it. But what do we not see – or what have we been prevented from seeing? Surely questions need to be asked about Mary’s gospel, even if no clear answers are found. Deemed unorthodox by the men of the day, I can’t help but wonder if the attempted eradication of the text was simply a fear response. Was Mary and her message just too hot to handle? If so, that makes me want to study her gospel even more!
And what if there is literally some black crayon that obscures some of the original texts that were deemed orthodox and make up the bible as we have it today? We will consider that next week.
To be continued!
[1] ~ Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene
Theology Everywhere 
Thank you Elaine, I am so grateful for you writing this, I have long held to the view that Mary has been misrepresented, the misrepresentations have been used to reinforce views of women as sinful. We do need a re-think, we do need to hear her story and thus our stories in a fresh way, yes she stayed, no Jesus was not alone, yes she was the first witness to the resurrected Jesus, she has much to teach us, and needs to be allowed to be revealed in her colourful fullness.
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I don’t think we can be certain either way; but surely it shouldn’t matter whether Mary was a prostitute or not? The point is that her life was transformed when she met Jesus, and that she remained faithful to him even as he died on the cross. She still wanted to serve him even after his death, which was why she was the first on the scene to witness his resurrection, and thus became the first evangelist. I find the scene where she recognises her Master’s voice when he says ‘Mary’ extremely moving.
Of course she wasn’t the only one who remained with Jesus in his hour of need. His mother Mary was also there, as was the ‘disciple Jesus loved’ (John?)
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I think it does matter, because the reputation of the former prostitute clings to our thinking about her, it is the same with the Samaritan woman, it is assumed that she was unfaithful in some way having been ostracized by the village, but we don’t know, Jesus didn’t condemn her. The treatment of women in Scripture and tradition matters because it affects our experience.
You are right though, she didn’t stand alone at the cross, Mary and John were also there.
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I tend not to dwell on the dubious reputation of these two early female evangelists. All I think about is Mary’s immense and extravagant love for Jesus, and Photini’s moment of enlightenment when she realised who she was speaking to, and that her life had changed forever because of that encounter.
For both ladies, their past was forgotten as they knew themselves to be loved, valued and precious to God. Just as we all are. I find if we accentuate the positive, the negative often ceases to be relevant.
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while I think that is great, and very positive, I also think that we- by that I mean the church needs to have a rethink, women have been marginalised and called weak and thought to be more inherently sinful than men for too long- it really happens.
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I understand the point you are making, Sally, but most women in those days had no rights and no status; it was probably only those of ill-repute that gained any attention! Of course Jesus came to change our way of thinking, hence the number of honourable and influential women in the gospel story: Mary of Nazareth, Elizabeth, Martha and Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene and Photini (whatever their history!) Phoebe, Priscilla and Lydia, to name but a few.
I don’t think it’s necessary to re-write the Bible from a 21st century feminist perspective, especially on a Methodist forum! Other denominations may differ, but in my years as a Methodist I think I met more female presbyters than male ones, and they have the equal rights to rise through the ranks to the lofty heights of President of Conference if they are so ambitious.
Why use the beautiful story of a woman transformed by her love for Jesus to kick the Church?
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Then we will agree to differ.
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