BLOG
22 July 2020: Feast of St Mary Magdalene
Helen Gallivan is a member of the New Pilgrim Path team.
22 July 2020: Feast of St Mary Magdalene
Helen Gallivan is a member of the New Pilgrim Path team.
Lot's Wife by Gustave Doré (1832-1833)
|
Noli me tangere by Mario Balassi (c.1632)
|
This is about two women - separated by 1,700 years - caught in the act of turning.
But Lot's wife looked back, and became a pillar of salt... (Gen. 19:26).
An angel had been sent to Lot, at Abraham's pleading. The angel told Lot and his family to flee for their lives. On no account were they to stop and look back at any point. And yet, there she is, Lot's wife in the image above, frozen forever in the act of turning. It seems a brutal act of retribution for a relatively minor offence. It troubled me greatly when I first encountered the story as a child, and intermittently thereafter.
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there...(Jn. 20:13-14).
Mary Magdalene had borne silent witness throughout the crucifixion and death of Christ. At the close of Matthew's burial narrative, we are told that, after Jesus' body was placed in the tomb and the stone was rolled over, she and the other Mary remained standing in front of the tomb". The following morning, she turns away from the tomb, the place of death, and becomes the first person to see the risen Jesus. She becomes, in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, "apostle to the apostles". Her preeminence at the Passion and Resurrection is often lost in the Gospel narrative which devotes far more space to the threefold denial of Peter. As Richard Rohr observes, "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".
The day when the Son of Man is revealed.
It took me many years to learn the truth about Lot's wife - that her horrific end was not a cruel punishment by a vindictive God - it was a fate of her own making. This is reinforced by Jesus. As described by Luke, the Pharisees have raised the question about the coming of the kingdom of God and he answers them briefly. Then he turns to his own followers and elaborates:
…on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from heaven and destroyed all of them – it will be like that on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it (Luke 17:22, 29-33).
The downfall of Lot’s wife, then, was in her refusal to believe that this – for her – was the day of salvation. When Christ speaks of the desire to save one’s life, he is speaking of a desire to preserve our own definition of life. Very often, we see life in terms of who we are, what we do and what we possess. Our energies go into preserving the illusion of control over all of this. To “lose” this life is to relinquish control, to allow ourselves, in the words of the 12th century Hildegard of Bingen, to be “blown like a feather on the breath of God”. Lot’s wife was unable to trust herself to trust God. In seeking to hold on to her life as she knew it, she lost everything. It is to his own followers, not to the Pharisees, that Jesus emphasises the lack of preparedness in which many will be found. His disciples follow him, listen to him, love him, and still he feels he has to warn them (I am reminded of St Augustine or, at least, of a saying attributed to him and famously quoted by Beckett in “Waiting for Godot”: “Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned”).
The “day when the Son of Man is revealed” is not necessarily the last day – either of the world or of our own life. It can be a time when God’s will is made clear to us. For Lot’s wife, the day she left Sodom was for her “the day when the Son of Man is revealed”. She now knew unequivocally that the life she had lived in Sodom was destructive. She heard the words of warning, but clearly did not believe them. Lot was afraid of the future, but his wife was afraid of leaving the past behind her and that was the greater danger.
Lot’s wife couldn’t move forward because of the pull of the past. She couldn’t even move back. Her backward look wasn’t a passing glance. The verb “looked” in the original ancient Hebrew verb is the same as that used by God when he enters the covenant with Abraham, telling him “gaze into the sky and count the stars….so shall your descendants be” (Gen 15:5). Some translations read “she looked back longingly” or “expectantly”. (Gen 19:17). Lot has left Sodom empty handed. All the riches and status he has accumulated are consumed in the furnace. He has left fearfully, reluctantly, but at least he has managed to leave. His wife initially obeyed the call to “flee for your life” (Gen 19:17). She set off with Lot, but her heart was in Sodom. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21). She looks back, not in idle curiosity, but in yearning for all that was being left behind. She couldn’t let go, even to save her life. She stops and turns, and is annihilated along with the city. Like the city, she is destroyed from within.
And many of us have been Lot’s wife too – frozen into immobility. I have been on the housetop when the Lord gave a warning I could not fail to hear, and yet I turned back into the house despite the warning to leave everything. What is it that pulls me back into the house? What is it that lets me hear the call of God and still linger? How many times have I put my hand to the plough and still turned back? The door through which the Lord calls me is always open, but on my last day on earth it will close forever. Which side of the door will I be on then?
Suppressing the movement of turning
The influence of the past is at its most dangerous when we see ourselves as shaped by past forces beyond reach of our will and our understanding. “The experience of my past has made me what I am today”, we tell ourselves. “My world view has been determined for me. No matter how much I would like to, I cannot look at life differently”. Maybe Lot’s wife said something like this to herself, “This is all I know of life. I can’t leave it”. Thus we excuse our inaction, our distractions, our refusal to let go of attachment or resentment or guilt or fear. Our gaze is bent relentlessly backward. Yet we need to bear in mind that, while we may not be able to change how we feel, we can change the way we act.
The great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber said “The only thing that can become fate for a man is belief in fate; for this suppresses the movement of turning…..to be freed from belief that there is no freedom is indeed to be free.”
For each of us, there is a “day when the Son of Man is revealed” in a call to repentance, to growth, to transformation. If we are to heed that call and advance on our journey, we have to take ourselves out of the comfort zone of what was and enter the adventure of what is. We cannot make a journey if we are facing backwards.
I have called you by name.
"I have called you by name", Isaiah wrote, describing God's redeeming love (Is 43:1). Mary Magdalene had herself experienced that redemption when Jesus rescued her from spiritual death (Luke 8:2-3; Mark 16:9). She never wavered thereafter. Physically, mentally and emotionally present to Jesus, she wasted no time seeking the living among the dead after all seemed lost. Turning resolutely from the tomb, she hears Christ call her by name and she recognises hiim. Now she is the first person he chooses to meet in his risen glory.
Lord, when we are pulled by the force field of the past, when we are entombed by hopelessness, let us hear the blessed words you spoke at the grave of Lazarus, "Unbind him, let him go free".
But Lot's wife looked back, and became a pillar of salt... (Gen. 19:26).
An angel had been sent to Lot, at Abraham's pleading. The angel told Lot and his family to flee for their lives. On no account were they to stop and look back at any point. And yet, there she is, Lot's wife in the image above, frozen forever in the act of turning. It seems a brutal act of retribution for a relatively minor offence. It troubled me greatly when I first encountered the story as a child, and intermittently thereafter.
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there...(Jn. 20:13-14).
Mary Magdalene had borne silent witness throughout the crucifixion and death of Christ. At the close of Matthew's burial narrative, we are told that, after Jesus' body was placed in the tomb and the stone was rolled over, she and the other Mary remained standing in front of the tomb". The following morning, she turns away from the tomb, the place of death, and becomes the first person to see the risen Jesus. She becomes, in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, "apostle to the apostles". Her preeminence at the Passion and Resurrection is often lost in the Gospel narrative which devotes far more space to the threefold denial of Peter. As Richard Rohr observes, "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".
The day when the Son of Man is revealed.
It took me many years to learn the truth about Lot's wife - that her horrific end was not a cruel punishment by a vindictive God - it was a fate of her own making. This is reinforced by Jesus. As described by Luke, the Pharisees have raised the question about the coming of the kingdom of God and he answers them briefly. Then he turns to his own followers and elaborates:
…on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from heaven and destroyed all of them – it will be like that on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it (Luke 17:22, 29-33).
The downfall of Lot’s wife, then, was in her refusal to believe that this – for her – was the day of salvation. When Christ speaks of the desire to save one’s life, he is speaking of a desire to preserve our own definition of life. Very often, we see life in terms of who we are, what we do and what we possess. Our energies go into preserving the illusion of control over all of this. To “lose” this life is to relinquish control, to allow ourselves, in the words of the 12th century Hildegard of Bingen, to be “blown like a feather on the breath of God”. Lot’s wife was unable to trust herself to trust God. In seeking to hold on to her life as she knew it, she lost everything. It is to his own followers, not to the Pharisees, that Jesus emphasises the lack of preparedness in which many will be found. His disciples follow him, listen to him, love him, and still he feels he has to warn them (I am reminded of St Augustine or, at least, of a saying attributed to him and famously quoted by Beckett in “Waiting for Godot”: “Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned”).
The “day when the Son of Man is revealed” is not necessarily the last day – either of the world or of our own life. It can be a time when God’s will is made clear to us. For Lot’s wife, the day she left Sodom was for her “the day when the Son of Man is revealed”. She now knew unequivocally that the life she had lived in Sodom was destructive. She heard the words of warning, but clearly did not believe them. Lot was afraid of the future, but his wife was afraid of leaving the past behind her and that was the greater danger.
Lot’s wife couldn’t move forward because of the pull of the past. She couldn’t even move back. Her backward look wasn’t a passing glance. The verb “looked” in the original ancient Hebrew verb is the same as that used by God when he enters the covenant with Abraham, telling him “gaze into the sky and count the stars….so shall your descendants be” (Gen 15:5). Some translations read “she looked back longingly” or “expectantly”. (Gen 19:17). Lot has left Sodom empty handed. All the riches and status he has accumulated are consumed in the furnace. He has left fearfully, reluctantly, but at least he has managed to leave. His wife initially obeyed the call to “flee for your life” (Gen 19:17). She set off with Lot, but her heart was in Sodom. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21). She looks back, not in idle curiosity, but in yearning for all that was being left behind. She couldn’t let go, even to save her life. She stops and turns, and is annihilated along with the city. Like the city, she is destroyed from within.
And many of us have been Lot’s wife too – frozen into immobility. I have been on the housetop when the Lord gave a warning I could not fail to hear, and yet I turned back into the house despite the warning to leave everything. What is it that pulls me back into the house? What is it that lets me hear the call of God and still linger? How many times have I put my hand to the plough and still turned back? The door through which the Lord calls me is always open, but on my last day on earth it will close forever. Which side of the door will I be on then?
Suppressing the movement of turning
The influence of the past is at its most dangerous when we see ourselves as shaped by past forces beyond reach of our will and our understanding. “The experience of my past has made me what I am today”, we tell ourselves. “My world view has been determined for me. No matter how much I would like to, I cannot look at life differently”. Maybe Lot’s wife said something like this to herself, “This is all I know of life. I can’t leave it”. Thus we excuse our inaction, our distractions, our refusal to let go of attachment or resentment or guilt or fear. Our gaze is bent relentlessly backward. Yet we need to bear in mind that, while we may not be able to change how we feel, we can change the way we act.
The great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber said “The only thing that can become fate for a man is belief in fate; for this suppresses the movement of turning…..to be freed from belief that there is no freedom is indeed to be free.”
For each of us, there is a “day when the Son of Man is revealed” in a call to repentance, to growth, to transformation. If we are to heed that call and advance on our journey, we have to take ourselves out of the comfort zone of what was and enter the adventure of what is. We cannot make a journey if we are facing backwards.
I have called you by name.
"I have called you by name", Isaiah wrote, describing God's redeeming love (Is 43:1). Mary Magdalene had herself experienced that redemption when Jesus rescued her from spiritual death (Luke 8:2-3; Mark 16:9). She never wavered thereafter. Physically, mentally and emotionally present to Jesus, she wasted no time seeking the living among the dead after all seemed lost. Turning resolutely from the tomb, she hears Christ call her by name and she recognises hiim. Now she is the first person he chooses to meet in his risen glory.
Lord, when we are pulled by the force field of the past, when we are entombed by hopelessness, let us hear the blessed words you spoke at the grave of Lazarus, "Unbind him, let him go free".