The 100th anniversary of International Women's Day is a day set aside, as the Huffington Post says, in "celebration of the economic, political and social achievements of women past and present." And I've just been asked "who's your hero, I mean, your heroine? Who has led the way for you? Who inspired you?"
Easy: Mary Magdalene. I could say she inspires me for the way that she combined faith and politics and challenged an empire. That is true. But there's something behind that combination of faith and politics that's intrigued me since Sunday School days. It began, I think, the day that I dressed up like Mary Magdalene.
It was nearing Eastertime and the local newspaper wanted to run a special photo on the front page for the Easter Sunday edition of the paper. This was a small town in Minnesota, and just about everybody was Lutheran, at least Christian, so the idea of an Easter photo on the front page of the newspaper was the norm.
My best friend Mary and I were chosen from our Sunday School to pose for this photo and so one Saturday we went with our Sunday School teacher and the photographer to the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, to a cave. Mary and I were dressed in bathrobes and tablecloths, veiled to look like Hebrew women come to the empty tomb. As the photographer was setting up this Easter shot, I remember making a deal with Mary. She could be Mary the mother of Jesus, just as long as I could be Mary Magdalene. (I also remember that Mary had all her hair tucked under the tablecloth veil, and so I was quick to pull out some of my hair, and make sure an earring showed. I figured Mary Magdalene ought to look a little snazzy, a little bold -- at least not quite like the Virgin Mother.)
I wanted, with all my 14-year-old earnestness, to be Mary Magdalene.
I still do. I still want to be like Mary Magdalene. But the reasons have changed.
Back then, I think I was intrigued with the idea of the bad girl as Jesus' friend. I assumed that Mary Magdalene was a woman of the streets, a fallen woman, a prostitute, and there was something there that attracted me, and made me curious about this friend of Jesus.
Later, in seminary, reading new feminist scripture scholars like Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza and Phyllis Trible and Sandra Schneiders and others, I learned that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute at all, but that church tradition had conflated stories from two different portions of Luke's gospel, combing the Mary who was cured of countless demons with the unnamed woman found earlier in Luke's gospel, the prostitute who anointed Jesus' feet with her tears, and then dried them with her loose, long hair. The church's conflation of the two stories no doubt has plenty to do with the church's views on sin, but that's not my point about Mary Magdalene.
What I wanted to emulate, as a 14-year-old and now, all these decades later, what I want all women to emulate, is her passion, her bold passion.
Mary Magdalene was a woman who was able to listen to her heart's desire. She was able to step forward, to leave behind whatever had held her back, whatever had kept her bound up with her demons, and face into the future with a way of living that challenged the might of Rome and the power of the temple. She was able, out of her desire, to walk with Jesus and the other men through the Galilee, to walk a path not paved (certainly not for the women of 1st-century Palestine), to become, Luke tells us, a disciple along with the twelve men and Joanna and Susanna and the other unnamed women.
She was able to walk with Jesus all that way, and she was able to be there at the end, to watch at the cross, to stay there with the other women to the bitter end, long after the men had gone, to stay, to wait, and then to come back, that third day, to annoint him one last time. And there, the fourth gospel tells us, in that garden, she heard something, she heard her name: Mary. We might say she heard her calling, her vocation. We might say she heard her heart's desire. And she went out from there to become "the First Apostle," to announce a new way of life and liberation in places of darkness and oppression.
One such place, legend has it, was the palace of Caesar. The story goes that Mary Magdalene staged a protest in the court of Caesar. As the First Apostle of the resurrection, Mary had become known as a woman of influence (and chutzpah), and sometime soon after the crucifixion of Jesus, she procured an invitation to dine at the court of Tiberius Caesar. She had a mission. She went to Rome to protest Pilate's miscarriage of justice, and to announce the resurrection. The ancient tale says that as Magdalene stood up to speak, Caesar was about to peel a hard-boiled egg. When he heard her announcement of the resurrection, he held up the egg and said, "He can no more be raised from the dead than this egg can turn red." And there, in his hand, the egg turned red.
The legend doesn't say how Caesar responded, but icons ever after portray Mary with her bold red egg as a symbol of a voice that spoke truth to power.
So today, I think of Mary Magdalene, as that woman of passion and power who calls to women across centuries and cultures to come out of whatever holds us back or keeps us down, to come out and speak up. Imagine what Mary might say today.
I imagine Mary Magdalene would speak up for children who need classrooms and teachers and textbooks, but only learn the new math of budget cuts; I imagine she would speak up for the young mother who needs the family planning services of her Planned Parenthood clinic; I imagine she would speak up for the woman who puts on a little extra makeup and changes the part in her hair, because she wants to hide the bruises; and I imagine she would have a word for today's Caesars about corporate tax rates. We need her, her boldness, her passion and her red egg.
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Mary Magdalene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BBC - Religions - Christianity: Mary Magdalene
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2011
The 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day on March 8 2011
Arianna Huffington: International Women's Day: Life (and Work ...
The Gospel of the Birth of Mary, attributed to St. Matthew, was considered genuine and authentic by many of the ancient Christian sects. The Gospel is mentioned by several of the church fathers, including Jerome, Epiphanius, and Austin.
One of the so- called Lost Books of the Bible, The Gospel of the Birth of Mary was rejected during the formulation of the Bible by various edicts and councils of the early Church.
Dissension, personal jealousy, intolerance, persecution and bigotry among the churchmen contributed to the evolution of the Bible, as we know it today. As an effect of the in-fighting among the churchmen, writings of a pure purpose and sincerity have been omitted from the Bible text.
Often it is expressed, by sincere seekers of the truth, a desire to know more about the Virgin Mary and her life. The Gospel of the Birth of Mary fulfills this desire. The following comparisons of scripture taken from the Bible and the Gospel of the Birth of Mary prove the authenticity of the information contained in the Gospel of the Birth of Mary written by Matthew.
Lazarus betook himself to the military life; Martha ruled her possessions with great discretion, and was a model of virtue and propriety, -perhaps a little too much addicted to worldly cares; Mary, on the contrary, abandoned herself to luxurious pleasures and became at length so notorious for her extravagant lifestyle that she was known through all the country round only as 'The Sinner'.
Allegorical interpretation of scripture: Sinners were people devoted to the god, Sin. Moses spent 38 of 40 years in the Wilderness of Sin, the land where the god, Sin, was worshipped. Sinai is the feminine form of Sin; therefore, Mount Sinai can be called "the mountain of the goddess," feminine counterpart of Sin. "Mary Magdalene" represented the Great-Goddess-Mother-Queen, wife of "Jesus." Historically, she was the daughter of Juba II, the black-skinned King of Mauretania and wife, Queen Cleopatra Selene (daughter of Antony and Cleopatra).
http://www.thenazareneway.com/life_of_st_mary_magdalene.htm
We know how they portrayed Mary Magdalene !
The Book of Mary(Virgin) was omitted from the Bible !
And lets blame Eve for all that Ill's us. "Their Holy Scape Goat" !
But then again, being a Taoist, I know not much of these ways...
To us, without Yin, there can be no Yang !
It seems even sadder that if she was in fact the wife of Jesus, that the Church would claim she worked a street corner.
Enough though with each special interest group rewriting of Bibilical history. If thats the case I'm positing that Jesus was black. His hair was like wool according to the Bible. The Bible says he went to Eygpt with his parents to hide from Herod, no white person could easily hide in Africa without detection right? That's evidence right?
A group of scholars, the most familiar of whom is Elaine Pagels, have suggested that for one early group of Christians Mary Magdalene was a leader of the early Church and maybe even is the unidentified Beloved Disciple, to whom the Fourth Gospel commonly called Gospel of John is ascribed.
Jesus is the first known man to blow apart the societal and religious taboos of speaking with females they were not related to in public and respecting them as equals; one more example of how the male disciples would/could not follow Jesus that closely, for Jesus treated women as fully equal.
Mary Magdalene disappeared from the canonical Gospels immediately after she reported to the male disciples that she had seen Jesus three days after he had been nailed to and died on a wooden cross; the Roman Empire's way to rid itself of rebels, dissidents, agitators and any other who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Military Occupation...
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1347&Itemid=222
And thanks VERY much for the story of the red egg. I'd never heard it before, and I love it!
A much more positive image of femininity than the "mama grizzly" we have had to view in horror.
Its time the Mary Magdalene's of the country stand up and express their passion for their ideals and inject themselves in the cultural quagmire that the state of the union finds itself presently.
Jesus heard about a trial held by the High Priest of a woman accused of adultery.If convicted ,she would be stoned to death. On his arrival at the court ,the proceedings were well in progress.The woman-the culprit-had been stripped of all her raiment and was standing defiant, her fists clenched.
Jesus was immediately taken by her beauty-her long black hair cascading down her back,flashing eyes,her ebony skin glistening. Jesus strode to her side.' Who speaks for you' he enquired.'No one sir',she replied.
As Jesus turned his attention to address the High Priest,he was told in no uncertain terms that judgment had been passed and the woman was about to be stoned to death,according to the law of Moses.Jesus smiled and said to her accusers,' He that has not committed this same act that you accuse her of,then let him cast the first stone'.Jesus then squatted down and began writing in the sand.He called those watching down one by one and showed them what was written.Jesus then turned to the girl and said,' Where are your accusers, child?'
'There are none, sir, for they have all departed.'
This is what Jesus had written: 'Woe unto you priests and Pharisees,you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting,you all tried to proposition this girl and were rejected.You accused her of adultery,but each of you is an adulterer.
We tell children that that stork brings babies because we don't think they can understand the truth. Most people are religions babies...
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." Interesting and thought provoking quote...
Your understanding of religion indicates you still have childish attitudes toward faith. And that you are disappointed what you thought was true when you were 5 is not true now.
You don't like my 'attitude'?!? (smile) That's OK.
I was only pointing out that the bible should not be taken literally due to the many translation (and political editing) errors.
"So today, I think of Mary Magdalene, as that woman of passion and power who calls to women across centuries and cultures to come out of whatever holds us back or keeps us down, to come out and speak up. Imagine what Mary might say today. "
Perhaps she'd be raising her voice in the Wisconsin state capital, testifying to that Caesar's miscarriage of justice against the least of these.