My favorite disciple used to be Peter. I loved how much Jesus loved and trusted him even though Peter often missed the mark, speaking and acting without remembering what Jesus taught him.
Peter stepped out of the boat and sank. He was admonished by Jesus to “Get behind me, Satan.” And he denied Jesus at Jesus’ most vulnerable hour and ran away.
Julia Goldie Day
I do have empathy for Peter. It’s not hard to imagine Peter didn’t quite know what was going on. All his preconceived notions were being challenged by Jesus. He didn’t understand why Jesus did the things he did. And the things Jesus said were so foreign to Peter, he couldn’t digest them, much less apply them to his own life and words.
It’s easy for us to see what Peter couldn’t see because we know the story so well. As Baptists, born and raised in Bible and church, we are so familiar with Peter’s story. The way he reacted to the events that led to the crucifixion seem almost unbelievably comic. Peter denied and ran away, but Jesus did not give up on him.
I especially love the redemption story in the last chapter of John’s Gospel when Jesus appeared to Peter and the disciples after the resurrection. The disciples were fishing. When Peter realized the figure calling to them from the shore was the risen Jesus, in his usual brash fashion, he dove into the water and swam to shore to see what his eyes could barely believe — the risen Lord. Here Jesus called Peter, he commissioned him to “feed my sheep” because Peter was coming to understand his love for Jesus.
“We are too familiar to be able to hear how shocking and scandalous Jesus truly was.”
We are too familiar to be able to hear how shocking and scandalous Jesus truly was. Our ears have heard the words of the Gospels repeatedly, but like Peter we often just don’t “get it.” We think we do. You, like me, have lived with the stories of the Gospels in our churches as our faith has been formed from childhood into adulthood.
I’m amused to tell you I have even “played” Peter while telling children in vacation Bible school about my (Peter’s) experiences with Jesus. I dressed in a long garment, held a staff and wore sandals to portray Peter. The kids didn’t seem to mind that I was a woman; they listened with eagerness.
Now, as I’ve slowly worked to de-center the male voice that has been the norm in my faith journey, Peter is no longer my favorite. He didn’t quite understand all along, but someone did understand, someone we have failed to see, someone I have failed to see until now.
“Things are always different when you are looking from the bottom up,” rightly says Nelle Morton.
With this new vantage point, I can now notice the person who somehow understood Jesus when Peter did not: Mary Magdalene. She understood his mission and heart in a way Peter couldn’t quite fathom. Her steadfast faithful love of Jesus is what I admire the most. She is now my favorite disciple, for she faithfully followed Jesus in a way the men didn’t quite achieve.
“She is now my favorite disciple, for she faithfully follows Jesus in a way the men didn’t quite achieve.”
Mary Magdalene is mentioned by name in all four Gospels as a follower of Jesus who was providing for him from her own financial means and who ministered to Jesus.
There were also women looking on from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome, who followed him when he was in Galilee and ministered to him, and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem. — Mark 15:40-41
As we revisit the Gospels each season of Lent, with this new vantage point, we must make a mental note that “many other women,” and specifically Mary Magdalene, were present with the group of people traveling with Jesus.
In our minds, it is more likely that we picture Jesus with 12 guys sitting around a campfire receiving wisdom from their teacher. But that’s not an accurate imagining according to the Gospels. There were women present, and likely children as well, as the culture of that time was highly family oriented. In fact, our internal landscape needs to be updated to include women in most of the stories of the Gospels.
We need to reimagine Jesus’ life and ministry with “many women” and not just in domestic roles — in the crowds and traveling with Jesus, says Dorothy A. Lee in The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership. “We must exercise more imagination to repopulate the ancient landscape with women … because women were everywhere, present publicly at all social levels.”
“Mary Magdalene,” Kathleen Peterson
Mary Magdalene was there in the beginning, in the middle and there at the end. She did not flee like Peter. She remained, she was steadfast even beyond seemingly all hope and saw where the body was laid. Mary remembered all Jesus said, unlike the men. Jesus would rise on the third day. Then on the sabbath, Mary went to the tomb with spices in hand with the other women, she spoke with an angel who told her not to be afraid and learned Jesus was indeed raised from the dead.
In the Gospel of Mark, translators often have preferred the shorter ending as more accurate, cautioning us that the longer ending may have been added later. But leaving out the longer ending diminishes the role of Mary Magdalene. Can we imagine the shorter ending was preferred by scribes for the reason of diminishing Mary’s role in the Gospel story?
Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. — Mark 19:9-11
Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene first. This is no accident. As we have seen throughout the Gospels, Jesus acted and spoke with great purpose — even to the confusion of many like Peter. The choices of Jesus seem strange. But make no mistake, Jesus was purposeful. Jesus was purposeful in telling the women to tell the good news. He commissioned them first and then the male disciples at a later time. Before this second commissioning in Mark, Jesus admonished the male disciples for their “lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those (the women) who saw him after he had risen.”
Mary followed, Mary believed, Mary remained, Mary shared the good news. She was a friend to Jesus like no other. How could this exemplary woman not be my favorite disciple?
A couple of weeks ago, my friend sent me a song I haven’t been able to get out of my head: “Jesus Was A Drag Queen” by Mercy Bell and Melody Walker from Nashville, Tenn.
“On that Easter morning, he sought his best friend, the apostle to the apostles was Magdalene. Jesus was a drag queen, hanging out with the whores and queers. Said what you do for the least of these will bring the kingdom of heaven here.”
Walker says the origin of the song was an interaction on social media. She saw someone ask if a man wearing a wig and a coat of many colors as Joseph from the Old Testament would be targeted by anti-transgender legislation. Walker replied to the comment, “Jesus is a drag queen,” and the song begged to be written.
In the state of Tennessee, lawmakers have made dressing in drag illegal in public spaces. The legislation is so poorly written that in a broad sense any person wearing clothes not matching the gender they were assigned at birth could be targeted. Parents of transgender kids here in Tennessee are afraid as more and more hate-filled legislation is put into law. So much so that some of our close friends are moving to another state so their child will be able to have gender-affirming health care. I am afraid our own adult child who is trans could experience more hateful rhetoric because of the nature of this legislation, and others like them will further embolden folks to lash out and cause more harm.
“Jesus is a drag queen. Jesus is a trans kid,” sing Walker and Bell. Jesus is so radical that his best and most trusted friend and apostle is a woman.
The good news of the resurrection isn’t just for those who have held so tightly to the male-centered narrative, to their own power, so that we will not be able hear the good news. We might even miss it if we discount and dimmish Mary Magdalene.
Siblings, you are called by Jesus to be free. Love already has won.
Stand next to a trans kid, a drag queen, a person of color, a woman, and know the love of God exemplified by Jesus Christ is stronger than death, stronger than those who would place chains on our wrists. We are free. We are called. We are loved.
Love never ends, amen.
Julia Goldie Day is an ordained minister within the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and lives in Memphis, Tenn. She is a painter and proud mother to Jasper, Barak and Jillian. Learn more at her website or follow her on socials @JuliaGoldieDay.
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