Watchtower Mary John 20:1-18, Isaiah 55:6-11

I grew up knowing her only as Magdalene,
but her full name is Mary Magdalene Monroe.
She’s my Father’s first cousin, now in her nineties
and, though very frail, still possesses a sharp wit.

Magdalene was married to Arch Monroe
and she and Arch raised two sons, both retired engineers
and a daughter, a Presbyterian minister.
Magadalene is a great story teller.
Her funniest tales are of her attempts as a young mother
to keep up with her two rambunctious boys.
Her parenting philosophy seems to be
that the best way to keep her boys out of trouble
was to keep them off balance - to surprise them every now and then.

For example, when they were pre-teens her sons liked to jump out of the barn loft
into the hay wagon even though she told them it was too dangerous.
They kept doing it, though, until finally she made them a proposition.
She said, "If I jump out of the loft into that old hay wagon,
will you promise never to do it again?"
With the arrogance of youth they readily agreed thinking she was much too old,
that she’d never do it.
She DID do it, though, and reflecting back she said,
"I never did tell them I nearly broke my wrist on the side of that old wagon!"
Her eyes twinkle when she tells of the time
that she got her teenaged son, himself a new driver, to teach her to drive.
She admits she nearly ran them both into the chicken coop,
but she earned his respect.

Magdalene is, in my opinion, a fine example of a woman of independent spirit
who dealt with the constraints imposed upon women of her time and place
by walking a fine line - doing what was expected of her
but doing it in her own way, with her own twist.
In that regard, she has served her Biblical namesake well.

I grew up like most of you, probably,
hearing that Jesus’ friend, Mary Magdalene, was a prostitute,
damaged goods, in other words.
I’m not sure I knew what a prostitute was until I was a teenager,
but I knew it had to do with the darkest sin imaginable.
My Sunday school teacher would speak her name in hushed tones with a knowing look
and the image that would come to me was a woman I used to see in a diner
my father would take me to sometimes for breakfast.
This woman was of indeterminate age, she might have been the owner.
Whoever she was, she was a fixture at one of the back tables
always smoking one cigarette after another.
She had taut, leathery skin and big hair, dyed red and sprayed hard into place.
She wore heavy makeup -
red, red lipstick and thin eyebrows penciled in perfect arches
making her look perpetually surprised.

My image may have been imperfect, but one thing I knew for sure.
I knew Mary Magdalene was one lucky woman
to be allowed anywhere near the delicate, holy Jesus
who gazed down benevolently from our classroom walls.
It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I learned it was Jesus who was the lucky one.

What I discovered is that the identification of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute
is not biblical, but traces back to an Easter sermon in the 5th century
by Pope Gregory the Great.
I don’t know what he was "great" at, but it wasn’t biblical interpretation,
because he took great liberties with the biblical text,
connecting Mary Magdalene with the unnamed woman taken in adultery
and saved from stoning by Jesus.
Gregory also seems to have confused her with Mary, sister to Martha and Lazarus,
who, we’re told in John’s gospel, anointed Jesus’ feet with costly ointment
and then undertook the very intimate act of letting down her hair
and using her hair to wipe the excess ointment from Jesus’ feet.
In Gregory’s opinion, Mary Magdalene represented
all that was seductive, sexual, and otherwise dangerous in women.
(Calling, Dr. Freud!)
It didn’t seem to matter to Il Papa
that the only time Mary Magdalene is mentioned by name in the Bible
apart from her presence at Jesus’ crucifixion
and as a witness to the resurrection is in Luke, chapter 8

In Luke 8, Mary Magdalene, is identified as one of several women
who traveled with Jesus and his disciples and
"provided for them out of their resources."
In other words, these women bankrolled Jesus’ ministry.
It does say that Jesus had exorcized seven demons from Mary,
but it makes no mention that this had anything to do with sexual impropriety.
She is, in fact, one of "many women" attracted to Jesus’ teaching
and that she contributes to his ministry
only serves to highlight her gratitude and generosity, not her sinfulness.
If Pope Gregory the Not-So-Great was quick to put down Mary Magdalene

as the poster child for sexual indiscretion,
then more recent tendencies have been to go to the opposite extreme
and elevate her status to one of superiority among of Jesus’ disciples.
More than a few people have read the Davinci Code by Dan Brown,
soon to be a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks.
The plot of this book and the topic of much speculation
is that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were really husband and wife.
Not only that, they had children together
and Jesus’ bloodline has survived down through the years.
This shocking "truth" is something the Roman Catholic church
has tried desperately to keep under wraps, even by violent means,
because if it every got out, the Church would be shaken to it’s foundation.

It’s an interesting plot, but by Dan Brown’s own admission pure fiction.
I’m not sure I understand what would be so earth shaking about it
even if it WAS true.
But even scholars who recognize the plot of the Davinici Code as pure fiction,
have sought to elevate Mary Magdalene’s role as a disciple,
to erase the undeserved smear on her good name and give her the credit she’s due
They do this in order to claim
a more central place for women in the foundation of the church.
And also, I suppose, of presenting a different view of Jesus.

But no one can change the fact that when it comes to Jesus’ personal relationships
the Bible is largely silent.
Jesus may have been married,
but it’s a stretch to claim, as some do, that he definitely WAS married
just because most all Jewish men WERE married in his day.
It’s also a stretch to say he WASN’T married
just because he led a life of poverty and couldn’t have easily supported a family.
And, regardless of our love of gossip,
There is simply no evidence to suggest
that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were sexually involved.
What we do know, is that Mary was a faithful friend to Jesus.
He had, in some way, profoundly changed her life
and she courageously stayed near him even when others fled in fear.

"Magdalene" was not Mary’s last name as I always imagined growing up.
It was a title, really, a designation of where she came from
that helped distinguish her from other Marys.
It was as if someone were to call me David the Gastonian
to distinguish me from the David the Lynchburger.
Mary was from a town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee called Magdala,
a fishing village known for its fine boat building.
Magdala was at the crossroads of the major Roman trade route called the Via Maris
and there must have been a watchtower there for soldiers guarding the route
because "Magdala" comes from the Hebrew word "Migdol" meaning "Tower."
They called her Mary Magdalene to distinguish her from other Mary’s.
In effect, it was like a nickname, "Watchtower Mary."
Maybe that’s all we need to know about her.
Watchtower Mary.
A fitting name for a remarkable woman
even if we stick only to the scant biblical witness that we have.

John, in his gospel, is the one who speaks most favorably of her.
Whereas in the other gospels she is one of three women who were first to the tomb
that Easter morning,
In John’s gospel it’s Watchtower Mary alone who comes even before dawn.
She gets to the tomb where Jesus was laid and finds the heavy stone rolled back,
the tomb wide open.
What does she do? She does what it is her place to do. She’s a woman, after all.
She doesn’t take initiative
She doesn’t investigate.
She doesn’t take inventory of the tombs contents.
Instead, she runs quickly to tell the men, Peter and the "disciple whom Jesus loved,"
dutifully reporting to them that Jesus’ body has been stolen.
The men come and do their thing.
THEY investigate. THEY take inventory.
THEY formulate theories and go back home to talk about it further.

But Mary doesn’t go home. Instead she lives up to her name. She stands watch.
She’s not allowed to be part of the problem solving team. That’s Peter’s job.
She’s not allowed to take the lead, to give orders, to mount a search.
She’s a woman, after all, who must deal with the constraints
imposed upon women of her time and place
She walks a fine line - doing what is expected of her
but doing it in her own way, with her own twist.

At first she thinks he’s the gardener
but he only needs to speak her name and she knows the truth.
"Mary," he says. "Rabbouni," she replies.
And forever they are linked.
To try to claim without evidence that she was his wife only serves to diminish her
as though only as his wife could she be at all important to the story.
To speculate about their physical relationship
is to spiral off into tawdry gossip that only cheapens the depth of what they shared.
No.

What’s important in the end is that she was true to herself, to her commitment.
Long before, her life had been changed by Jesus,
He had helped her reset her compass, regain her bearings, find her purpose.
All she could do, all she NEED do, was live up to her name.
Magdalene. Mary of Magdala. Watchtower Mary.