The Great Apostle

Gospel: John 20: 1-2, 11-18

Today we will celebrate the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, a day on which men everywhere will heap praise upon her, recall the ancient title of "Apostle to the Apostles" regarding her, and then proceed to tell us why women cannot exercise ministry in the Church.  Mary Magdalene was chosen to be the first eyewitness to the Resurrection of Jesus, and called to be the first to proclaim the primary and fundamental message of Christianity to the others - Jesus is Risen.  

Consider how throughout the Gospels it is women who are first to receive such calls.  Mary and Elizabeth were the first to announce the coming of Jesus in the world.  The Samaritan woman was the first called to preach Jesus to others in his village.  Peter's mother-in-law was the first to exercise diaconal ministry and model discipleship.  All of this was done to directly challenge the ancient view that women could not be witnesses, could not be teachers.  The Gospels suggest otherwise.

This message was so controversial that not even Paul could accept it, deliberately omitting women as the first to experience and proclaim the risen Jesus.  It is that lack of acceptance that has somehow become Church "tradition" and not the actual message of the Gospel.  Mary Magdalene and the other women of the Gospels continue their mission, inspiring us with their faith and witness.  May we honor them in our lives by following their message, and allowing women of today to serve as they did. 

The Family of God

Gospel: Matthew 12: 46-50

Ancestry and our origin stories continue to fascinate human beings to this very day.  With genetic technology of today we can trace our roots with great accuracy going back centuries.  We want to know if we are related to someone famous, or we want to know what medical conditions exist in our lineage.  Ancestry gives us identity and meaning.  In ancient times it identified one as belonging to divine ancestry or patronage.  And Jesus finds it all unimportant.

The common way of reading the tradition of Israel was this very way of ancestry to show that one belongs to God's people. This rendering saw membership in this genetic game of chance as all important. It was used to treat outsiders horribly.  But Jesus reads the tradition differently.  If our origins in Eden mean anything at all it is that we all belong to one common family - one family of humanity, one family with God as our Father.  .

It is precisely this reading of the tradition that Jesus uses in announcing the kingdom of God.  The kingdom is not the ancient exclusivist kingdom of Israel.  It is a kingdom where all are allowed to belong.  The mission of this kingdom is not domination over others but rather it is a mission of mercy and service to other people.  It is an invitation extended to all to the Lord's table, the table of encounter and transformation.  

Demanding Signs

Gospel: Matthew 12: 38-42

In today's Gospel portion, the Scribes and Pharisees demand to see a sign from Jesus in order for them to find reason to believe in him.  We might well wonder what type of sign they seek, what would satisfy them.  For, up to this point they have seen Jesus heal sicknesses of all kinds, liberate people from demonic possession, raise people from the dead, and multiply bread and fish in order to feed multitudes of hungry people in a desolate area.  

These signs are all well and good if you want to help people, but that is not what interests them.  They are in search of a Messiah who will wield political and military power in order to drive out the Roman occupiers and restore the kingdom of Israel.  They want to see signs that demonstrate that kind of power.  They have read the meta-narrative of Israel's history and came to a certain conclusion about who the Messiah ought to be and what sort of signs should accompany his arrival in the world.

But Jesus invites us to read the narrative differently.  Recall one of his first miracles was the healing of a slave in the employ of a Roman centurion.  Jesus invites us to see that the family of God is not a particular race of people, but one that is open to all.  The signs of the kingdom of God, the signs of the coming Messiah - the healings, exorcisms, and providing of food for all people - invite us all to the same work and the same table.