When I was growing up, I read a religious novel about Jesus’ friends in Bethany, Martha and Mary and Lazarus. In this book Mary is a wild, hedonistic woman who marries a man from Magdala and subsequently sinks down to a life of prostitution. Then on a visit home she meets Jesus, is cured of her sins and demons, anoints him, and becomes the model disciple, quietly sitting at Jesus’ feet. She then takes up a life of penance and prayer to make up for her previously sinful life. Martha joins her sister in penance, making up for being a shrew in the earlier part of the book. Now, I believed this story. After all, wasn’t it from the Bible? And the Bible was Truth, with a capital T.

But, the story still troubled me. It seemed like the only religious life open to women was a life of penance. For Catholics, a life of penance consists of fasting, denying yourself pleasures, and other ascetical actions done to show God how sorry you are about your previous life of sin. I wasn’t aware of committing sins that required this kind of life, but the pre-Vatican II Church kept telling us to do penance for our sins. Fortunately, when I confided my confusion to a priest, he made me aware that Mary of Bethany was NOT the same person as Mary Magdalene. A live of penance wasn’t necessarily required of me. Religious fiction is, first and foremost, fiction, and doesn’t necessarily follow the Bible. What a relief!

Since then, in studying the Bible and Church history, I’ve found out that, while the book may not have strictly followed the Bible, it did follow tradition. Biblical interpretation in the early Church combined all women disciples with the name of "Mary" into one person, Mary Magdalene. Pope Gregory I, around the year 550, declared that the anointing woman, whose story exists in three different forms in the Gospels, was Mary Magdalene, and her demons were sins, the primary one being prostitution. And because the anointing woman in John’s gospel is identified as Mary of Bethany, she also had to be Mary Magdalene. So, three women became one.

Today, current scholarship has recognized that the tradition is wrong, and is giving the women of the Gospels their original, separate identities. The details of their lives and personalities are still few, but research and imagination are bringing them alive. So let’s examine two of the women in today’s Scripture reading, the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus, and Mary Magdalene, not a tale of one woman, but of two.

We don’t know the name of the anointing woman. In John’s gospel she’s identified as Mary of Bethany, but Luke’s story is set in Galilee, not around Jerusalem where Bethany is located. The narrator of the story and Simon the Pharisee call her a sinner. But we don’t know what her sin was. Tradition has called her a prostitute, because the only sin it can think of for women is prostitution. But actually, the word "sinner" in Greek just means "one who has departed from the way of righteousness." People who were said to be notorious sinners were those who were dishonest in some way, such as lying, stealing, cheating, etc. This woman could have dishonest on her own, or she could have been married to a man who was immoral, or she could have been in one of the professions seen as a breeding ground for dishonesty, such as tax collecting or, yes, prostitution. What’s interesting is what Jesus calls her, not "sinner," but "woman." Jesus is not interested in her past sins, but in her present forgiven state.

Now, we all judge people by their past actions. We know who’s trustworthy and who’s not, who’s honest and who’s not. As Doug mentioned last week, we have constructed boxes for the people we know, and we expect them to stay there. When people break out of those boxes, can we accept the new people they have become? Can we trust those who have betrayed our trust in the past and show signs of being trustworthy again? Or do we just dismiss their efforts, saying, "A leopard can’t change its spots"?

Now, this unnamed woman enters a formal banquet being given by one of the principal religious leaders of the town, and begins to act shamelessly, according to accepted standards of female behavior. Why does she do this? She has had a life-changing encounter with Jesus. We don’t know exactly how this encounter took place, but let’s try to imagine how it might have happened. She had probably been feeling guilty about her sinful life and she wanted to change and to make things right with God. But, she believed that God punished sin, so she was afraid of God. She was stuck in a state of fear and guilt, not knowing what to do or where to turn. Then Jesus came to the area and began preaching about the reign of God, where sins are forgiven by a merciful, gracious God, not an angry, vengeful God. She recognized herself as a sinner, but, at the same time, Jesus’ preaching let her experience God forgiving her sins, not punishing them. What a relief that must have been! The lifting of her terrible burden left her free to love. So she goes to a banquet, which was a public affair, and where Jesus is the guest of honor, with her most precious possession, a flask of expensive perfumed ointment. She’s not sure what she’s going to do with it, but she’ll do something to show Jesus how grateful she is. Then she notices Simon’s inhospitable actions towards Jesus. She begins to weep, both out of the relief and gratefulness she feels for Jesus, and the anger she feels as her beloved Savior is shunned by Simon. Finally, she can’t restrain herself to be part of the crowd anymore, and comes to Jesus’ feet. Her loud, noisy weeping is so great that it disturbs the banquet. But she doesn’t care, because Jesus sees her and is smiling at her. She notices his feet are wet from her tears, and she wants to dry them, but she doesn’t have a towel. Quickly, she unbinds her hair and uses her luxurious tresses to dry his feet. This still doesn’t feel like enough to show her feelings, so she begins kissing him, on his feet. Suddenly, she remembers her ointment, and in a flamboyant gesture, breaks the flask in two, pours the ointment over Jesus’ feet, and massages it into his skin. And what does Jesus think of all this? He accepts her ministry with no word of criticism. He enjoys her human touch: the moisture on his hot, dusty feet, the feeling of her hair, the smell of the ointment, the outpouring of her love. He realizes that his proclamation of the reign of God has affected at least one person in this town.

What would we do if this woman showed up to minister to one of us, grateful for a message that has given her new life? Would we accept her ministry? Or would we push her aside, criticizing her inappropriate behavior? Women throughout the ages have been put down for acting against social norms, and have suffered for doing so. And what do we think of naturally loud, flamboyant women? Are we able to accept them for who they are, or do we want them to conform to an image of an ideal female who is seen but not heard?

Now let’s turn to the second woman in today’s reading, Mary Magdalene. First, I want to say what she is not! I disagree with the legend that calls her the "Holy Grail," which was the subject of the novel The Da Vinci Code. There is no evidence in the New Testament or in the Gnostic literature that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus. There is no evidence that she had a child fathered by Jesus. There is no evidence that she left Palestine and settled in France. Modern scholarship has also shown us that the Church’s traditional picture of Mary Magdalene is wrong. She was not a prostitute. She was not the anointing woman of the previous story. She did not live a life of penance as a sign of repentance.

So what do we know about Mary Magdalene? Quite a bit, actually. She’s from the town of Magdala on the Sea of Galilee. She’s not connected to a man, because she’s identified by her home town, not by her husband as her colleague, Joanna, is. She’s almost always listed first in the lists of the women disciples, which, according to the conventions of her day, means that she was a leader, at least among the women disciples. She’s a woman with financial resources and the freedom to travel.

Mary became one of Jesus’ disciples when he cured her of "seven demons," according to Luke. We know that any unexplained illness, physical or mental, was considered to have been caused by evil spirits, or demons. The number seven, which symbolizes completeness, just means that she was seriously ill. There is no suggestion that her malady was caused by sin. Renita Weems, a womanist, or black feminist, Scripture scholar, has an interesting interpretation on what Mary’s illness could have been. She imagines Mary as a gifted, intelligent, bright, charismatic woman living in a patriarchal society that rejected her talents. In having to repress herself in order to fit into her society, she fell prey to the same demons that prey on women today: depression, fear, low self-esteem, doubts, procrastination, bitterness, and self-pity. Once she was freed from her demons by Jesus, she was able to be the person she had been created to be.

Like the anointing woman, Mary had a overpowering need to express her gratefulness and love to Jesus. But, unlike the anointing woman, she did not express herself in one dramatic action, but in day-to-day ministry to Jesus and the rest of the disciples: providing money to supply their needs of food and rest, and sharing in the joys and hardships of travel. Yet, Mary, too, violated cultural norms in another way. She did not stay at home, but traveled about the countryside with a mixed group of women and men. Of course, women and men didn’t travel together in those days. She was associated with a man, Jesus, who was not her blood relative. When Jesus was arrested and crucified, she did not abandon him, but found the courage to stand by the cross and face the danger of being arrested by the Romans for being his disciple. She wasn’t satisfied with Jesus’ hasty burial, so she returned to the tomb as soon as she could to give him a proper internment. Her love and faithfulness were rewarded by being the first to know of the Resurrection, and by being appointed to proclaim the Resurrection to the rest of Jesus’ disciples.

So, in this morning’s Scripture, we recognize two different women, with two different pasts, who had two different encounters with Jesus, and had two different responses. But they also share things in common. They were both touched by Jesus in profound ways, ways that freed them to be the people they were supposed to be. They both demonstrated their gratitude to Jesus with tangible gestures, gestures that Jesus needed and appreciated. They both shared their resources with Jesus. They show us the way to respond to Jesus—with our entire beings and with the gifts we have been given. They give us examples of how to be a disciple of Jesus.

But, even as I celebrate the recovery of this tale of two women, I’m saddened by the traditional misuse of this tale and what it has meant for women’s position in the Church. The anointing woman continues to be known as the sinful woman. More attention is drawn to Jesus’ action in announcing her experience of forgiveness, instead of her own actions of gratefulness, love, and, dare we say it, audaciousness. Most people still think of Mary Magdalene as the reformed prostitute, and don’t recognize her gifts of leadership, independence, and, again, audaciousness. Women who are willing and eager to offer their gifts to the Church today continue to be pushed aside. Although women are ordained in many Protestant denominations, there continues to be a "stained glass ceiling"—many women ministers are not promoted to leadership positions in their denominations. My own denomination, the Catholic Church, refuses to accept women as ordained leaders. Because I believe that I have a call to ordination, it is important to me to recognize and stress women who have served as leaders in the Church, especially those in Scripture.

As we reflect on this tale of two women, let’s ponder what our sisters in faith teach us, the UBC community. They want us to be open to Jesus and his message of love, healing, and forgiveness. They ask us in what ways we have shown our gratitude for the gifts Jesus has given us. They challenge us to be the people we were created to be, even if it goes against societal norms. They applaud us for our history of strong women’s leadership, and encourage us to continue supporting women who are learning to be leaders. They invite us to accept women as they are, even though we may consider them to be uppity, assertive, flamboyant, or even (gasp!) audacious. Let us continue to pray for the day when Paul’s words to the Galatians will become reality, when "there is no longer male or female, for all of us are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28).