Jesus loved women.
Women loved Jesus.
This is not a half-baked truth from a Dan Brown novel. This is the Gospel Truth according to Luke.
And nowhere is this more true than in the story of the woman with the alabaster jar — the most sensuous story in all of the New Testament.
Jesus arrives for a dinner party. It’s a friendly invitation from a Pharisee – but also fraught with tension and excitement. Rumor of Simon’s special guest travels fast.
There is a woman from the city – whose sin we do not know. She slips quietly forward. As if invisible, she kneels behind Jesus and inches forward to touch him — risky indeed for a woman of any kind. She starts to cry — to weep – again we do not know why. And with her tears, bending down she washes Jesus’ road dirty feet. She kisses them tenderly anointing them with oil – the oil from the alabaster jar. And then she dries them – not with a towel or the hem or her skirt. No, she lets down her hair – “in a deeply intimate gesture” – and with her tresses dries his feet.
We do not know her name. We do not know her sin – only that her reputation precedes her. Put down by society – she is looking up at the world from the lowliest of places. And what this simple woman with the alabaster jar does for Jesus, no first century woman dare would do. As a woman, as a sinner, she was doubly unclean.
Unseen, Simon notices her only when she disturbs his dinner party. “Jesus, how could you let this woman touch you?”
Out of love, Simon. Out of love.
You invite me to your home and you give me no water to wash my feet. This woman, she bathed them with her tears. She dried them with her hair.
At your door, you greeted me with no kiss. But since I sat at your table, this woman has not stopped kissing my feet.
When I arrived, you neglected to anoint me. While this woman, this uninvited woman, emptied her alabaster jar upon my feet.
Her sins may be many, but all are forgiven. For she has shown great love.
Intimate, gentle, courageous, sensuous, risky love – holy love.
Jesus loved women.
Women loved Jesus.
Along with the twelve, women were prominent among Jesus’s disciples. He was their rabbi, their healer, their exorcist, their Lord.
And these women provided for him, not just food for his table but for his travels and his ministry – out of their own resources – out of their own pockets. Mary of Magdala was attached to no man and Joanna was a woman of means.
And these are the women who stayed and stood at the foot of his cross. These are the women who anointed his broken body and wrapped it in cloth. And among them – remember — is the first evangelist, the woman who wept at his tomb in the Gospel of John.
“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” But then he calls her by name “Mary”. She stops in her tracks. “Rabbi, Teacher!” and reaches out to embrace him. Heaven bound she cannot touch him. And so she runs, runs to tell the others, “I have seen the Lord.”
Mary of Magdala, the first evangelist.
Mary of Magdala, the first to preach the good news.
Jesus loved women.
Women loved Jesus.
So what the hell happened the last two thousand years? How do we go from Jesus to a patriarchal and hierarchical church – where women were seldom seen and barely ever heard?
Well the church neglected the gospels. The Church with a capital “C” set aside the teachings of Jesus for the trappings of society. . Imperial Rome triumphed and prevailed in a culture where women were subjugated, silenced, diminished, denigrated, and marginalized.
Growing up in the Catholic Church, the only women permitted behind the altar were the Sodality ladies who ran the vacuum. And the official teaching of our sister church, the Church of Rome, still teaches that women cannot fully represent Christ at the altar.
Dead wrong. So wrong. How do I know? Because the bible tells me so.
Yes, women. Jesus loves us.
It’s 2016. We have come a long way, sisters.
In this Episcopal corner of the Anglican Communion — in the Episcopal Church – there is no ministry closed to women. Vestry, deacons, priests, bishops – and presiding bishop – God bless, The Rt Rev Katherine Jefferts Schori who just completed her seven-year term as PB – the first woman to hold the office.
But all is not perfect, of course. We have not long been on the side of the angels. Human and made of clay, all is not yet as God fully intends.
In our 21st century world – women are still treated as objects and trivialized. Women are marketed as commodities. There are corners of the globe where women have no voice, where girls get little education, where laws protect the men who beat them, where doors are closed to them simply because of their sex. There are still are many, many places where women have few, if any rights.
And right here in our own back yard, we are backsliding in our conversation, in our attitudes, in our public discourse. Somehow, its okay to laugh and excuse the coarsest kind of language about women. Its just a joke. They don’t mean it. It’s the 21st century and women are still being measured by their measurements.
All the more reason, to preach this gospel, to celebrate this gospel, in this misogynist milleu. For the sake of our mothers, for the sake of our sisters, for the sake of our daughters.
Jesus loves women, respects women, blesses them and welcomes them as his disciples without exception, without conditions, without reservations.
And so this week in our prayers, let us give thanks for all the women in our lives. — for their gifts, for their strength, and for their love. And in our prayers, let us pray also a more difficult prayer. Let us pray that God turn the hearts of those who hold women back, misuse and abuse them. That they may repent and come to know and experience the gospel truth.
Jesus loves women.
And as Jesus loves, with God’s help, so shall we.
