Several months ago, I was exposed to a documentary called Pray the Devil Back to Hell, a story about ordinary women who had extraordinary courage. It is the untold story of women in Liberia who brought a warring nation to its senses…armed only with the courage of their convictions. I highly recommend it!
The women were tired of their nation’s second bloody civil war. They were tired of watching their sons get caught up in the corruption and Christian and Muslim women came together to do something about it. It occurred to me then, and I am increasingly convinced that our country needs an organized movement of women who will band together and rise up to fight all of the isms that are prevalent in our country today.
This week, the Daily Meditations from the Center for Action and Contemplation focused on the theme “Come and See” and helps us gain a better understanding of Mary Magdalene. I commend these meditations to you: https://cac.org/themes/mary-magdalene/. As I gathered this morning with a group who meet each Friday morning via ZOOM for Faith Connections, we all shared our frustration about how Mary Magdalene has never gotten the credit she deserves. Father Richard Rohr reminds us that “this is a perfect example of how we cannot see what we aren’t told to look for! For most of history, Christians glossed over the presence of the women at Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. We weren’t wrong; we were simply paying attention to what we were told to look at-the men-by other men (priests, theologians, and even the Gospel writers themselves. We skipped over the faithfulness of the women and focused instead on the faithlessness (and the Easter morning foot race) of the men. Mary Magdalene and the other women were the first witnesses to the resurrection because they remained present for the entire process, from death unto new life, exactly what is necessary to witness resurrections in our own lives as well.”
A growing number of events have brought to light the fact that we have a long list of isms that haven’t been dealt with and it’s a virus that is doing harm, eating away at our collective heart and soul. Jesus valued women, children and all people on the margins, and Mary Magdalene’s witness of love and dedication to him makes it clear that she “got it” and was actually the apostle to the named apostles. But the dominant culture was involved in the telling of the story then and nothing much has changed. Sexism, Racism and Heterosexism are all inter-related and are tied in with our collective lack of moral compass and failure to pay attention to the example that Jesus offers us of how we are to love one another and see the divine spark in all of God’s people.
We are all in this together, but I’d like to particularly challenge all women of faith to rise up. We need to band together, dig in deep to pay attention to the values and witness of the revolutionary and rebellious Jesus that came to show us how to live, and let’s take the lead. Men, if you “get it”, you are invited to be our allies.
