The DaVinci Code: Jesus, Mary Magdalene
and the Sacred Feminine
Texts: The Gospel of Mary 4:1-11; 5:1-8; 6:1-4 (translated by Karen L. King)
and John 20:11-18 (NRSV)

The Da Vinci Code, the novel and movie, has brought a number of theological and historical issues usually reserved for seminary classrooms into mainstream conversation. For Constantine and the Council of Nicea to be water-cooler conversation is pretty amazing - - and not a century too soon!

I

I will not debate today historical fact and fiction in the novel. Bart Ehrmann did that brilliantly here last fall - - and you can read his book. I covered some of that ground in my sermon of January 18, 2004. That sermon and a brief summary of some of these issues are available in the Narthex and in the Foyer of Heaton Hall.

The popularity of The DaVinci Code owes in part to our current culture of “truthiness.” You know that word as popularized by comedian Stephen Colbert on his “Colbert Report”? “Truthiness” is the notion that what “feels true” must be treated as true whether or not there’s any evidence to support it.1 We’re always up for a good conspiracy, and the novel gives us the juiciest one imaginable: Jesus and Mary Magdalene were lovers, married and had a child; the Church has hidden this truth and has gone to murderous lengths to keep it hidden; Emperor Constantine defined Christian doctrine for the world; the spiritual leadership of women was suppressed, as was the sacred feminine dimension of God. As with all conspiracy theories, there’s fact and fiction alluringly and dangerously mixed together.

In my mind, Jesus could have been married; he could have loved Mary Magdalene above all women - - as the Gospel of Mary suggests. The hysterical attitude of the church about sexuality has produced a sexless Jesus. But the best evidence we have suggests that Jesus chose a single, celibate life because of the urgency he felt in his calling as the son of God to proclaim the nearness of the kingdom of God. (This is not very sexy, but it’s closest to the evidence.)

As for Constantine, he no doubt saw Christianity as the glue which could help him unite a large, fractious empire - - the way President Bush sees conservative Christianity as a glue to unite his political base. But the Council of Nicea which Constantine convened did not invent the divinity of Jesus nor decide which Gospels would be in the New Testament.

As for a male elite that displaced women from leadership and suppressed the sacred feminine: This is not just truthiness, it is true! Constantine’s Edict of Toleration which made Christianity legal - - a good thing - - also authorized a group of male bishops as the established authority structure of the church,2 and thereby sanctioned a patriarchal power structure which has endured to this day. We might call it the “Romanization” of the church: Hierarchical male leadership which keeps everything tightly ordered.

This ends part one of the sermon - - a quick look at the novel.

II

Part two takes up the relationship of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the New Testament Gospels.
Luke’s Gospel says that Jesus had women disciples who traveled with him and helped support his ministry from their wealth (Luke 8:1-3; Mark 16:9). Mary of Magdala, a prosperous seaport town, was one of these. Luke says Jesus had cast seven demons out of her. The demons are not specified. We should not read into this account that she was immoral or a prostitute. In Jesus’ day people thought of demons as we today think of germs: We all have them; there are many kinds; sometimes they can take over our bodies and make us sick or crazy.

Mary Magdalene traveled with Jesus and the disciples. They became close. The Gospels report that she was faithful when the male disciples forsook Jesus in the end. She was at the cross (Mark 15:40). She was there at the tomb on Easter morning to anoint his body. The Risen Christ appeared first to her, yes first - - though Paul leaves this out. The tenderness of their meeting as recorded in John’s Gospel suggests the depth of this relationship: The way he called her name, the way she answered back - - Rabbouni, “Teacher.” Then he commissioned her to be the first evangelist of the resurrection, “ apostle to the apostles,” as she has been named.

The dominant, popular picture of Mary Magdalene through the centuries as a prostitute is a preposterous theological fiction. It was created by “smushing” together three women figures in the New Testament gospel: 1) Mary Magdalene; 2) the prostitute who anointed Jesus’ feet; and 3)Mary of Bethany, who anointed Jesus with expensive perfume. Pope Gregory the Great made this fateful and false identification of the three in a sermon in the sixth century. Because he was Pope and because most people could not read the Bible, his sermon was taken as gospel truth.

This fit into the cultural stereotype of women as either virgin or whore. Mary, Mother of Jesus, became the icon of the virgin, Mary Magdalene the icon of the harlot. Women had to choose one or the other. Quite dehumanizing, wouldn’t you say? We do the same to homosexual persons today: They must be virgins or whores. We should weep.

For fifteen hundred years Mary Magdalene has been portrayed in art and religious teaching as the repentant prostitute: Long red flowing hair, tears of repentance on her cheeks.

In fact Mary Magdalene was a powerful, wealthy woman, deeply devoted to Jesus, who was a principal disciple of Jesus and leader in the early church.

III

Now to the third leg of our journey today: Jesus and Mary in the recently recovered non-canonical Gospel of Mary.

In last week’s Pentecost sermon from Acts, Joel’s prophecy has come true: God’s spirit is poured out on all flesh, and women as well as men become prophets and teachers in the church. As you look through the New Testament witness, Phoebe is named a “deacon,” Junia an “apostle”; Lydia is a leader of the house church in Philippi - - it is her house! - - and Priscilla, along with her husband Aquilla, has teaching authority in the church.

The Gospel of Mary depicts Mary Magdalene as a prophet / teacher / apostle in the early church.
The Gospel of Mary was discovered in 1896 in a fifth-century codex written in Egyptian Coptic. It was not translated until 1955. You see the last page of the Gospel on the cover of your order of worship. It was found in Achmim, central Egypt, not far from where the Nag Hammadi library was discovered in 1946.

Since that original discovery we’ve found two additional Greek fragments of the Gospel written in the third century. Karen King, in her brilliant book on the Gospel of Mary, whose translation we have used today, dates the Gospel early to mid second century.3 (That’s within about fifty years after John’s Gospel.) What we have recovered is about half of the gospel, a little over eight pages, some pretty tattered.

Here’s a brief summary of the Gospel of Mary. The first six pages are missing. Jesus appears to his disciples and teaches them about the spiritual life. Note in your passage today the inwardness of the kingdom of God. “Acquire this peace within yourselves,” he says to them. Don’t be misled by those who try to find the kingdom, the realm of the Son of Man, or as King translates, the Realm of “the child of true Humanity” outside yourself, saying, Look here! or Look there! It is within you. Search there and you will find.

Go preach the good news of the kingdom, Jesus says. And don’t lay down rules beyond what I gave to you. If you make laws like a lawmaker you will be dominated by them! (See the Gospel of Mary, 4:1-10.)

Then he departed from them. The disciples were fearful and wept. How are we to announce the good news? They killed Jesus: they will not spare us!

Then “Mary stood up!” She reassured and strengthened them with her words: Let not “your hearts be irresolute,” she said. “For his grace will be with you and will shelter you ... for he has prepared us and made us true Human beings” (5:5-8). Salvation in the Gospel of Mary is discovering your true spiritual self and escaping the powers that seek to dominate you.

Peter then said:
Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than all other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, the things which you know because we haven’t heard them (6:1-2).
Mary answered with words that let you know trouble is coming: “I will teach you about what is hidden from you.” Peter had in mind some teachings that he happened to miss while on a missionary venture, or out for lunch. Mary tells what Jesus told her and hid from him because he wasn’t ready for it!

Mary then reports what Jesus had revealed to her in visions and teachings, much of which is lost due to holes in the manuscript.

When she finishes we get to the heart of the conflict between Peter and Mary. Andrew, Peter’s brother, says, “These are strange teachings!”

Peter says with injured male pride: “Did he then, speak to a woman in private without our knowing about it? Are we to ...listen to her? Did he choose her over us?” (10:3-4).

Levi rises to speak. (He, you might remember, was the tax collector and the one who invented jeans.) He comes to Mary’s defense and champions her: “Peter, you are always a wrathful person.” I translate, “Peter, you’ve always had anger issues!” Levi says:

...if the Savior made her worthy, who are you ...to reject her? Assuredly the Savior’s knowledge of her is completely reliable. That is why he loved her more than us. Rather we should be ashamed. We should clothe ourselves with the perfect Human ...and announce the good news, not laying down any other rule or law that differs from what the Savior said (10:9-13).

The Gospel ends with these words:

...they started going out to teach and to preach. The Gospel according to Mary (10:14-15).

Let me close this leg of our journey by contrasting the two kinds of Christianity represented by Mary and Peter. The Gospel of Mary lets us in on the “multiformity” of the early church, rather than the uniformity we have assumed.

– Peter represents a Christianity of external spiritual authority located in laws, rules, creeds, institutions and male hierarchy (what the church has hallowed as “apostolic succession”).

– Mary represents a Christianity whose spiritual authority is internal: Finding one’s true self, the Christ, and the kingdom within.

– Peter represents truth as known and determined by the community.

– Mary represents the individual, internal apprehension of the truth. In this respect Mary’s Christianity is close to the Baptist vision of individual spiritual freedom, what they called “soul competence” and “soul freedom.”

– Mary’s Christianity relies on visions and inner truth. It is Spirit-led and visionary.

– Peter’s Christianity relies on written words, creeds and church constitutions.

– Mary’s Christianity makes it hard to organize a church. It is like herding cats.

– Peter’s Christianity turns us into sheep safely grazing.

– In Peter’s Christianity leadership starts with the twelve male disciples who hand down power and authority to those who have church approval and anatomical correctness.

– In Mary’s Christianity leadership is determined by spiritual experience and spiritual maturity. Women are equally able and equally called.

– Peter’s Christianity won and Mary’s Christianity lost - - and has been largely lost to us save for glimpses like these we have in the Gospel of Mary. But Mary’s Christianity has always been alive at the edges - - where religion is always most alive. And this Gospel shows us a vibrant form of Christianity before women’s leadership and the spirituality of the “inner kingdom” were suppressed. We get a glimpse of its aliveness and its threat in these words from Tertullian in the second century, from his work, Against Heresies:

These heretical women - - how audacious they are! They are bold enough to teach, to preach, to take part in every masculine function - - they may even baptize people!

IV

Let me conclude the sermon with one more leg of the journey, which will continue at Talk Back and with a wonderful art exhibit on the Sacred Feminine by women of our congregation. Four quick theological propositions:

1) God partakes of male and female even as God transcends male and female. Christianity has suppressed the feminine dimension of God, and by making God exclusively male it has made a graven image of God, committing idolatry and breaking the Second Commandment.

2) God created us male and female in God’s own image. This means to me not only that both male and female participate in the divine image, but that we all have both masculine and feminine dimensions within, and both are important to our wholeness as persons.

3) To locate God solely in male and female dimensions denies the holy transcendence of God that transcends male and female; and it denies our deepest humanity which is beyond male and female, beyond gender and plumbing.

4) Because traditional Christianity has cut women and men off from the feminine dimension of the divine, it is time to explore the sacred feminine within ourselves, in church and in worship. It is part of what the Spirit is up to in our world today.

So let us in the freedom and power of the Spirit seek new and creative ways to connect to the sacred feminine dimension of God.

“For behold,” said the Living One to the Hebrews in Babylonian Captivity and to the church today in Andro-centric Captivity:
 

Behold I do a new thing, now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?!
(Isaiah 43:19)

1 ...see Rodney Clapp, “Dan Brown’s Truthiness,” Christian Century (May 16, 2006), p. 22.
2  Karen L. King, The Gospel of Mary of Madala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle (Santa Rosa, California, 2003), p. 188.
3 Op.cit.,p. 3.