In today’s Gospel reading, we have a pearl of great price! Unfortunately, it is rarely seen, buried as it is under piles and piles of ….well, you know. The pearl – the exquisite gem — is Luke’s description of Jesus’ traveling companions as he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. “The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities.” I just have to stop a moment and tell you that the ancient Greek word translated “infirmities” can also be translated “feelings of inadequacy” or “timidity.”

There was Mary, called Magdalene, meaning that she was from the village of Migdal, or perhaps that she was nicknamed pillar or tower, which is what Migdal means.¹ Mary Magdalene had been possessed by seven demons, which is another way of saying totally possessed, and she had been healed. And there was Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others. They provided for him (not them. Him, that is, Jesus) out of their resources. The word for provided is the same as the word for deacon, and the word for resources is the same word as property, or possessions, or wealth. I want you to hear, with me, that these women were not along for the ride to fix supper for Jesus and the other men. These women were financing the ministry. They were women of means, of influence and of wealth, and they had been healed of their feelings of inadequacy and in response they were enthusiastically making sure that the good news and the good work of Jesus continued.

You should know that this is the only mention of Mary Magdalene anywhere in the Bible apart from the Gospel stories that place her at the foot of the cross, at the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid, and in the garden outside of the empty tomb. Although the Gospels tell different and sometimes conflicting stories of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, each one of the four canonical gospels names Mary Magdalene as a witness to the crucifixion, a witness who saw the tomb where Jesus’s body was placed, and each of the four gospels tells that she was the first to witness the empty tomb. She was the first to experience the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the first to be told by a young man in Mark, by one angel in Matthew, two angels in Luke, and by Jesus Christ himself in John – to go and tell the disciples who were in hiding, that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Each of the gospels also says that the men did not believe her. This is the full extent of what the Bible says about Mary Magdalene.

Can you tell that I’m all wound up about this?

Do you know what “magdalene” means in our vernacular? It doesn’t mean pillar or tower of strength. It doesn’t mean “apostle to the apostles.” It means a badly behaving woman.² And I think it’s no coincidence that this story of a woman who is known as a sinner in our Gospel of Luke reading gets read on the same day as Mary Magdalene’s name gets its only pre-passion mention, and on the same day that we hear a completely unedifying story about Jezebel. Do you know what the dictionary definition of the noun “jezebel” is? A “morally unrestricted woman.” Jezebel and Magdalene both get used to describe dirty, tainted, bad girls.

And maybe they were. But what I know is that that’s also what women with material resources and public power – women who speak out with authority — get called by folks who want to take them down a few notches by casting aspersions on their morality or their religion or their politics. Do you remember last year when the Georgetown Law School student, Sandra Fluke, testified before members of the U.S. House of Representatives about the importance of mandating contraception coverage in health insurance plans as a matter of justice and of women’s health? Rush Limbaugh went on the airwaves and broadcast his speculations about her personal life, calling her bad names.³ I’m not going to repeat them because they are not polite words!

And I won’t lay out a full defense of Queen Jezebel right now, but I will say that it is very curious to me that the biblical Queen Esther gets praised and celebrated for the very same qualities for which Jezebel is scorned – “for her beauty and skill in [um…private] to win a crown while deceiving her husband the king about her identity.”⁴ What I want to highlight for you is what “detectives take for granted: that no single witness has the complete story, that each witness’s testimony is shaped by the experiences and perspectives through which their perception of truth is filtered. If any one witness controls the interpretation, the truth will be shortchanged.”⁵

This is why we need community. Some of you might subscribe to the daily message that comes via email from the Brothers at the monastery across the Charles River at the Society of St. John the Evangelist. Yesterday, there was a quote from Brother Curtis Almquist. He wrote: “the early desert monastics learned what is repeated again and again in the wisdom literature of the Scriptures: you cannot do it alone. Left alone, to our own devices, cleverness, and calculations, we are incredibly vulnerable to self deception.”⁶ We need a community with many voices, many interpretations of scripture and other wisdom, many interpretations of events – contemporary and historical. We need an expansive measure of mercy and grace, compassion and forgiveness, to accommodate difference and even conflict (non-violent conflict, that is). Because it’s hard to be in community – and the more diverse the community is, the harder it is. The more diverse the community is, the more likely we are to be uncomfortable, to be challenged, pressed. The more diverse the community is, the more likely we are to see and hear, feel and smell and taste and even do things that are not our preference. And yet, the more diverse the community, the less vulnerable we are, not just to self-deception, but to all sorts of other infirmities associated with isolationism, including feelings of inadequacy and timidity. Being a part of a diverse community is a form of diet and exercise! It makes the Body strong!

In a few moments I am going to be baptizing a little girl named Amelia Mary Christ. What a fantastic name! Amelia, in Hebrew, means “work of the Lord,” and Mary means “wished for child,” and Christ means “anointed one” with the sense of being chosen to be a prophet or sovereign. While you might think that that’s a tall order, I can tell you that each of her names is already true. She has already lived up to her name in the eyes of God, in the eyes of her family and friends, and now in the eyes of all of us who are representing the Body of Christ – the Church.

Amelia Mary – you are being baptized into this diverse community called the Church – and sometimes the church is amazing and wonderful, beautiful and right. And I have to tell you, sometimes it’s boring and awful, ugly and downright dangerous. We are going to need you to help us make the Church better, and we will promise to help you and support you as you do that. We are also going to renew our own baptismal promises to behave more often like the beloved children of God that we are. We are hoping that your parents and your godparents and all who love you tell you about this glorious day, and show you lots of pictures of the day that you were welcomed into this sacred community.

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