Friends, each of us has been given life—a gift by our Creator in order that we can have a human experience and all that it entails.  Hopefully, we can come to experience being loved while here because ultimately we came into being from a God who has loved us beyond words.  We know this to be true from stories like the Prodigal and the woman who lost a coin and turned her house upside-down to find it. Parables like the Good Shepherd and the Good Samaritan describe over-the-top love for us as creatures of a magnanimous God.

When we remember; we must be filled with gratitude for such love and endeavor to share that love with others.  Sometimes life in its ability to give love isn’t always kind to everyone.  That is where we as Christians, followers of our brother Jesus must step in and pay forward the love we have graciously received.  Recent scriptures let us know that Jesus expects those of us who have received much to give more.

The readings for this Sunday lay out the perils of being a prophet.  We see what happens to Jeremiah in the first reading, spoken of by many exegetes as the “reluctant prophet.”  Jeremiah apparently had a tender heart and felt that he didn’t have the stamina to speak truth to people who didn’t want to hear it.  In our human nature this is understandable, but Jeremiah finally realizes that God believes in him and will give him the strength needed for what needs to be done.  Even those who don’t want to hear and do violence to Jeremiah are upstaged ultimately by compassion.

Each of us friends, even though we may feel like Jeremiah and perhaps don’t want to be bothered, must realize that we gave that up when we said “yes” to Jesus. Our “yes” only is true if indeed we stand up for those who are misused and abused, who live their lives lacking justice.

We see from the gospel additionally, the cost of discipleship—Jesus tells us he means to set a fire upon the earth and he wishes it were already here.  That line from scripture has always intrigued me and I read it to mean that our brother Jesus wants each of us to be so ignited with love that nothing will stop us in following God’s call to let everyone know that they too are loved.  And like Jesus, we show our love through action.

There were of course those in power who didn’t want to hear this message because it threatened their control and place in society and in synagogue—today read, church—sharing and caring and dispensing justice to all is generally not part of the agenda of those in control.

And so that brings us to the cost of discipleship.  Jesus minces no words—your family and friends may turn against you for demanding a love that includes all.  And even though this may be hard to bear, we each need to ask what is most important to us and then move ahead.

In the time of Jesus, he was asking a great deal of his followers as family—kinship was everything to these people.  Your good name, your family meant the difference between physically living and dying and if they turned against you, you were literally lost.  Today, we value being individuals and our independence, so family may not be as important in a physical sense. Our connection to family tends to be more on the emotional side—the place from where we came, how we make sense of ourselves in the world. This past Friday was the 30^th anniversary of my dad’s death and even though the relationships in my family of origin tend to be somewhat dysfunctional, our dad was always the unifying force and we all felt he left us way too soon. I shared some pictures on Facebook of him and tagged my siblings and once again, our dad was that unifying force for a stroll down memory lane.

But during the time of Jesus, connection to family was really more of a practical consideration even though the emotional component may have been present too. We are made with physical, emotional and spiritual components and each can be tested as we endeavor to be true followers of our brother Jesus. I well remember the reaction from family and friends when I announced my plans to become ordained in response to God’s call to do so. There was overall great support for my action, but I was surprised by some of those, friends and family who couldn’t support me. Each felt, as did I, that they needed to follow their hearts.

The human reaction was more understandable than the reaction from the Church hierarchy wherein one would expect the Spirit to be alive and well. Because I and my sisters who had chosen to follow the Spirit’s call in challenging an unjust law concerning who God had called to ordained ministry, we were accused of being unfaithful and untrue to the Church—that we were a source of confusion to the people. Jeremiah and Jesus were accused of the same.  The cost of discipleship!

My friends, speaking up when we are with family and friends, for truth and justice—acting in ways that might set us alone in the crowd is what Jesus meant by setting a fire upon the earth. Being his follower is not a “milk toast” proposition!  We pray with the psalmist today, “Come to my aid, O God.” The writer to the Hebrews instructs us to remember Jesus and ultimately take strength from him so that we will not grow weary.

As I have said so many times before, the Sundays in Ordinary Time call us to anything but “ordinary” challenges.  We are called to rise about that which is lowest and most base in our human natures in both rhetoric and action and strive along with Jesus to set that fire upon the earth which melts hearts, clearing the way for a love which includes all. We really can do no less my friends—we are hard-wired for all that is just, all that is good and we must demand it of our leaders, both social and religious and we must begin now! Amen? Amen!

 

Friends, last week we were asked to consider, “What are those things in our lives that truly last—to consider what it is that we strive after, and to ask, ‘Am I on the right path—is there more peace in my life because of how I choose to live my life?’  Am I in fact growing closer to the One I profess to follow, the One who is the way, the truth, and the life; or am I adrift and lost?”

This week we are challenged to consider our faith, what is it that we believe? I reflect back to the few times that I have baptized individuals into our faith community, one being our grandson, Elliot, or of when my own children were baptized. When the one to be baptized is an infant, the parents, godparents and all present are asked to answer questions about commitment and about what they basically believe.  Of course the child can’t answer at this point and the fact that the parents, family and community answer the questions, speaks to the fact that they will attempt to be good role models for the child.

As the child grows, she/he will act in accordance with what they see lived out in their parents’ lives and the lives of others who are close to them. When I baptize, I tell the parents during the service, and I know I heard these words at my own children’s baptisms, “You are your child’s first and best teachers” which underscores their responsibility to show their child “the way.”

The fact that parents ask for baptism for their children says that they want them to be part of a community that tries as well to live out what they say they believe.  Jesus tells us all today, “Wherever your treasure lies, there your heart will be as well.”

When I was still working as a chaplain, staff members would occasionally ask to have their babies baptized. Somewhere in their history was the notion that baptism is an important thing to do for their child, even though they weren’t always sure why.

I would always ask if there was a faith community that they were part of as I told them that baptism is meant to make us part of a community of believers who will help them in their responsibility toward their child to basically show them the way to live.  Either I would invite them to come to our community or help them get connected to another.  If they came out of a Catholic background, I would always try to dispel their urgency to baptize because of “original sin” and instill more of a notion of their child as an “original blessing” and to take their time to find the right fit of a community for them.

Let’s look at this idea of faith then and consider what it truly means for each of us.  We often hear the adage, “Seeing is believing.”  With faith, it has been said that the opposite is true—“Not seeing is believing!” When we consider our faith, we realize how often this is the case. We believe, we trust—we hope about many things that we aren’t totally sure of.

I have many times had this conversation with people when they are considering the after-life. No one who has gone on before us has come back to say that heaven exists, but yet most, if not all of us professing Christians believe eternal life with God is a reality yet to be experienced.  When we consider heaven, most of us, in the past and perhaps even now consider it a place we will go to one day.  Maybe that place is here, but only with a heightened awareness.  We don’t know. When we consider the reality of eternal life, the words of the writer to the Hebrews today come to mind, “Faith is the confident assurance of what we hope for, the conviction about things we do not see.”  This is one of those lines that rings like a bell upon our hearts and one we recognize even if we aren’t the types to remember bible quotes, book and verse.  I want to repeat that line: “Faith is the confident assurance of what we hope for, the conviction about things we do not see.”

Faith is indeed a gift—no getting around it. It isn’t something we can sit down, study about, think over and then say, “There, I’ve got it—I believe! Faith is something that tracks us down over a lifetime, through the ups and downs—all the experiences of life. And this is especially so when we say that we don’t believe. When we are perhaps angry with God for what feels unjust and believing becomes hard. For me, faith has grown more through the wonder of life—in an exquisite sunrise or set—the first time I looked upon the faces of my new-born children—upon that of my grandson at 3# 2oz., so tiny, yet so perfect! At such moments—one can only say, “I believe!” And in the times when it is difficult to believe, I hold on, as you do.

Faith it seems, gives us reason to get up each day, to keep hoping against hope for better times, for fulfillment of dreams that await the age when all will be at peace, when all will walk hand in hand, when we will go to war no more, when there will be no distinctions among us—not gender, not race, not age, not lifestyle differences; where we will truly see God’s face clearly, “Not as through a dim glass,” as Paul says, but as God truly is, and we will then finally understand all. I recall a parishioner’s words recently, talking about God and God’s simplicity—so different from what we think of who God is.

Our readings today from Wisdom, Hebrews and Luke each give us pieces to hold unto in our grasp of the faith.  I have already mentioned the line from Hebrews about “confident assurance” which leads us to wonder where that confidence comes from.  Wisdom tells us that “devout parents beget devout children.”  Again, we reflect on the sacrament of baptism and the challenge to the parents that their child will be as faith-filled, good, compassionate and loving as they themselves are!  A child that is loved and made to know of their true worth, first to their parents and others and ultimately to God, will grow up as fruit that falls not far from the tree.

Wisdom continues; holy people share all things—blessings and dangers alike.  Our faith is based on our God having been faithful in the past.  When Abraham considered if he could trust God, there seems to be no doubt, even when he was asked to give his son, Isaac.  Abraham knew of God’s goodness in the past and even if his son would die—the one from whom his generation, that would be as many as the stars in the sky and the sands on the seashore, would come; he knew God could and would bring him back—such was his faith!

Now that is quite a faith! I think many of us feel we would be hard-pressed to believe so steadfastly, yet life calls each of us, at times,  to put all our trust in God when we can’t truly see the outcome and simply believe that as Julian of Norwich said so well, “All will be well, and all will be well.”

Looking back again at Abraham and Sarah, and seeing that even though they were, as Scripture tells us, “as good as dead,” they trusted in God and God’s promise that a child would be born to them, the beginning of a great family. But we know their truly human response when the word came, in their old age, after waiting their entire married lives for this to happen, that they too would be parents—Sarah laughed and probably Abraham too and thus their child, Isaac, which means, “he who laughs, was born! But Sarah and Abraham, even with their great faith, struggled to believe—this is good for all of us to know.

Sarah gave her servant girl Hagar to Abraham because she worried that no children were being born, even though this caused her great pain to see another woman have the child that apparently wasn’t, to come to her, but she did it because she believed so completely in God’s promise—she believed that God would be faithful to the promise even if she might have to intervene to make it so.  This couple exemplifies perfectly the words of the Hebrew writer, “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.  This action on Sarah’s part calls each of us to ask if we have done our part in making that which we hope and pray for in our world to come about.

As we reflect on these readings today, we see that peoples’ faith is built on what came before them—God can be trusted because of past promises fulfilled.  The Hebrews looked to the example of Abraham and Sarah as proof of God’s faithfulness.

The gospel of Luke calls us to realize that we are the recipients of so much faith lived out in those who have gone before us—we may possibly think of our parents and grandparents in this regard.  We are now the stewards of the gift of faith and it is our duty to carry it on with the integrity of past figures—certainly in the footsteps of our brother, Jesus.  Peter asked, “Are your words just for us, or do you mean them for everyone?

Jesus responds, “Much will be required of you who have been given much—more will be asked of you to whom more has been entrusted.”  Jesus is never easy on us when it comes to passing on the mission which he lived and died for.

But if we can keep it simple and keep it in focus—we only need to remember—love God and love our neighbors as ourselves—anything we are about in life; we can ask the question, “Are these two commandments violated in any way by what I am proposing to do? We then know how to proceed.

Yesterday, August 6^th marked the 71^st anniversary of Hiroshima Day in 1945—the day our country dropped a bomb equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT on a people.  We have talked about this in the past, but a review of it is always important so that we never forget.  And just to put it all in perspective, the largest bomb during World War II was equivalent to 100 tons of TNT—the Hiroshima bomb was 20,000 tons. Today this is considered a small bomb because we now measure bombs in megatons and one megaton is equivalent to one million tons of TNT.  It would seem to me that these actions wouldn’t pass the two great commandments’ test—to love God and others as ourselves.

Joan Chittister, in reflecting on the actions of this day asked this question: “Does that sound like the presence of God to you? She also reminds us that August 6^th ironically, is the feast of the Transfiguration, the awareness of the apostles that Jesus, alight with God, brought divinity into their midst.  She concluded with this challenge—“When we become aware of the conjunction of these two things on the same day, we become mindful of our obligation to bring Jesus into chaos again.” Wow!  Let me repeat that ….When we become aware of the conjunction of these two things, Hiroshima Day and the Transfiguration, we become mindful of our obligation to bring Jesus into chaos again!”

When we reflect on our mission in this world, first as divine beings birthed by our God to have a human experience while here, and as followers of Jesus, the Christ, his final words to us give hope and strength in our ability to truly make a difference; “Remember, don’t be afraid, I am with you all days, even to the end of time.”

So friends, it would seem that we are called to keep looking to our brother, Jesus, keep checking his words, keep striving to be our best selves, striving to bring to each situation that component that is, as Joan Chittister says, “alight with God!”

Friends, today we hear about futility—the older translation of which we are probably more familiar speaks of “vanity” and the “vanity of vanities.”  No matter which word we use, it seems that both point to what is empty and foolish.  The story of the rich, prosperous man in today’s Gospel is a prime example.  His answer to overflowing fields of grain is to build bigger barns, and he expresses quite a bit of excitement around this fact!—perhaps a very human thing to do. There apparently wasn’t any malice involved in the way that he acquired his wealth—at least Jesus doesn’t raise the issue—he is more concerned, it would seem about what the man wants to do with his surplus.  It is for this reason that this parish gifts most of our financial treasure out to our local, national and international community—those who have needs beyond our own.  In fact it is one of the greatest joys of those who serve on our board to take your money out of the bank and pay it forward, as it were, which we did this past week and you have received that report.  It has always been my belief that truly Christian churches should not have bank accounts, or at least not have ones that, like our farmer today, grow ever larger—I thought this long before All Are One came to be.

The Old or First Testament clearly instructs wealthy farmers to leave at least, the corners of their fields, for the poor and widows to glean.  It seems there is necessity to write into law, care for those less fortunate, as we in our natural tendency toward greed and hoarding, forget at times, to care for the less fortunate.  The Scripture lessons today tell us that the meaning of life can’t be found in things that do not last, yet we humans still strive for more, many times oblivious to what our ever-growing desire for things might be doing to our earth.

This past winter, Robert and I began the process of going through our “stuff” stored around our home, throwing lots and sharing that which others could use that we no longer needed—it was really very freeing! And, to say nothing of how happy our kids will be one day that they don’t have to do it! I know in talking with many of you who have begun simplifying your lives and getting rid of some of the extra stuff as we have, that you know that sense of freedom and the joy of sharing the extras with others.

In our world, the value of people is often, sadly, linked to what they have, especially money and material goods. And right alongside this are the issues of power and prestige that are linked to those who are well-off financially. The standards in society that govern how we live, what is acceptable, are often set by those with money.  At least these are the people who are listened to.  The wise teacher, Qoheleth in Ecclesiastes, says all of this is lacking in substance.   The election this fall is very much about making sure that those without are taken care of.

Within our Catholic church we see that the power is definitely in the hands of half of the human race. And the trouble seems to be that those who hold this power, those who have the voice and are allowed to minister at our altars, have no idea, no concept of what it would be like to have the tables turned.

Eight years ago when I was ordained, a female, ELCA Lutheran pastor and colleague wrote to me expressing her praise and wonder at what women in the Catholic church have to go through to realize their God-given calls to serve at the altar.  She went onto relate her own personal experience of hearing God’s call, entering seminary and at the conclusion of her studies, becoming ordained.

Years ago when the first woman was ordained within the Church of England, I can remember reading the transcript of her homily and she said something to the effect that for the first time, little girls in the Church could look on and say, like little boys have done for centuries, I too could be ordained one day! Politics aside, we heard the same thing this last week from our First Lady, Michelle Obama when she said and I paraphrase, now my girls know that they too one day could be president!

Women within the Catholic church are hoping that Francis will one day, soon, see how poor our world is when the gifts of women are discounted.  It is simply not enough to say that we should “give the women more to do!” What our Church needs is the gifts of women, fully realized, in every Catholic church in our country and in our world and until that happens; we will not be whole—the Catholic church will fail to be all that it can be—all that Jesus intended it to be.  The Democratic nominee for vice-president, himself a Catholic, has said as much—the Catholic church basically stands in the way of women’s rights being fully realized in our world! Had this been the case, that of complete involvement of women in Church ministry and leadership, it may not have been so easy for male priests to abuse the children of the People of God and cover it up for so long!

The readings this week definitely call us to look at what occupies our minds and hearts and takes aim at excessive wealth and power and calls it, “futile.”   If we look at those who have the wealth in this world; we often see them as people striving for even more—they are never satisfied.  The constant striving for things tends to blur the path to wholeness. We are reminded of this truth in music scores over the years that decry a simpler time when love was good and it wasn’t about the wealth.

Jesus points to the foolishness of stockpiling that which we can’t take with us. In the end, we leave this world with only what we brought in—ourselves. We smile at the farmer, building bigger barns to store his grain—but our world still hasn’t learned this lesson that Jesus taught us so long ago—people continue to build bigger houses that are like barns to fill with stuff and often with only two people wandering about in them.

Our “first world” world has a long ways to go yet in understanding that the material gifts of our planet were meant to share with the world.  In our dealings as a nation with other world governments, we need to keep the good of all people in mind, not just ourselves.  In my position, it isn’t appropriate that I advocate for one candidate over another, one political party over another, but I can advocate, as one former candidate running for office did recently, “Vote your consciences!”  Who will do the best job to care for all of the people not only in our country, but around the world? Who has the broadest vision of what it takes to deal with world problems of justice and security for all? Who has the ability to listen to others and come up with sound solutions to big problems?

When we look at the human tendency to want for more, to sometimes, be selfish even, we might ask what all the striving and hoarding is about. It does seem that fear is probably the driving force in all that we strive after and we are all guilty of this pursuit in some form or fashion.  If it is about fear, then we have to ask—what do we fear?  I think we fear not being accepted, not being loved—we fear for our reputation—what would people think of me if I were to do that, wear that, say that—be with them? So in our fear of being looked down upon, thought less of, we sometimes do the socially more acceptable thing and surround ourselves with stuff that will bring us a certain amount of prestige, acceptance and comfort—for a time.

Again, Qoheleth tells us—it is all fleeting—here today, gone tomorrow.  As we age, I think this reality becomes ever more apparent.  Stories abound of the bum on the street who was once a top executive—it can all go so quickly, so it behooves us to strive after that which lasts.  For the younger ones among us, you are at a different place, simply trying to take care of the constant needs of your families.

But for all of us, Paul outlines well what our lives should look like due to the fact that we say we follow Jesus, the Christ.  As his followers, as Christians, each us is called to not simply consider ourselves, but others—how does what I do, how I choose to live, affect others—affect global existence for all who share this planet?  Our baptism in Jesus was a death to an old way of thinking—one that considered us above all others.

Through the waters of baptism, we are born into the image of our Creator—called to be generous with our time, talent and possessions in a world that sometimes applauds selfishness and greed. We are called and required to be honest in all our dealings in a world that isn’t always honest.  Our culture idolizes youth, money and pleasure—but we are called to so much more—the practice of genuine love, which shows itself through mercy, goodness, unselfishness and peace.  I recall how I struggled several years back with turning 60. With each passing year, I struggle less as I am coming to terms with growing older, realizing it isn’t about a number, but the quality of my years.

We all know—those of us with gray hair and mid-drift bulges that youth doesn’t last—pleasure-seeking is a beast that can consume us if we let it.  But life that Jesus our brother and friend laid out for us is one that does last—a life that is consumed with love—love for people, love for our earth, love for ourselves—a love that seeks balance in our lives.

For this reason, I can only marvel at those in this world who would think that our good God would be against those who choose to love someone of their same sex in conjunction with how they were created.  Incredible! “Love is love is love…” as my friend, Paul Alexander, musician and song-writer has said so simply and well. Our loving Creator God wants us to enjoy our human existence—taste of the joys of this earth and of each other—but not make the pleasure, the experience, a god in itself.  This is where we lose our way.

Let us pray for each other today, that we can always keep our eyes on Jesus who so perfectly, showed us the balance—the way—the truth and the life.

Opening Comments

It is my privilege on behalf of the Margaret and Gerold Redig family to welcome you all here today for our 5^th Mary of Magdala celebration—I couldn’t say “annual” as we missed last year!  Margaret and Gerold were both always happy to have people; family and friends come here to share this special place they called “home.”  Margaret especially wanted this place to be shared with others—she envisioned it as a place that people would come to for retreat.   So, friends—you are welcome!

We come today to celebrate and to remember someone, Mary of Magdala, who in Sr. Joan Chittister’s words is an icon for the 21^st Century because she calls women and men to listen to the call of Christ over the call of the Church—when did we ever need that more?—at a time when our beloved Church seems so plagued by the lack of prophetic leadership.  Whenever we are in doubt about the right way to go; we must always check it against the message of Jesus. This is the real challenge Joan Chittister says: “Women are called to courage—men are called to humility.” Mary of Magdala calls us to face this challenge.   Even Pope Francis got on board just recently in making Mary of Magdala’s feast on July 22^nd one on par with the other apostles, so at least he is saying, she is someone to keep our eyes on.

We celebrate this feast day as well to uplift the position of all women in our world–the tactic of making light of who women are, what they have done and what they are called to do is one that has been used in Church and State for far too long to misuse and abuse women, to control them and it is time for it to stop!

An aside: Dick Dahl couldn’t be with us today, but shared this story when he was returning from a visit to his daughter and her family in Austria just recently.  Coming through Chicago airport, his daughter had a wheel chair arranged for him to get him through Customs, baggage, etc. –as many of you know; he has had problems with his hip lately.  The young person pushing his wheel chair was named Maggie. Dick asked if that was a nickname and what her full first name might be. She said, “Magdalen.”  Dick said he would be with us in spirit.

Homily

Friends, the Scriptures just proclaimed tell us so much about our sister, Mary of Magdala and many of the women who followed Jesus. The gospel passage from Luke lets us know that Mary and the others were faithful followers cured of demons and other illnesses.  They were women of means who supported The Twelve and Jesus.    The selection from Mark’s gospel tells us of Jesus’ burial and of who was present; Mary of Magdala, Jesus’ mother and Salome—persistent in their faithfulness to the end.  John’s gospel account describes in full detail whom Jesus chose to spread the news that he had indeed risen—someone, a woman and a faithful woman at that, who in her culture was not even permitted to give testimony in a court of law.  Jesus was always about turning things on their heads and there is no exception here! Jesus is calling his society, the Church, then and now, to more.

Joan Chittister, present day prophet, Benedictine Sister, writer and speaker reminds us that two women, Mary of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala are central figures in the Incarnation and the Resurrection in a society that didn’t value women.  God called them to be their full selves—can we in this society with 2,000 years living in Jesus’ memory really do less? Isn’t it really time that we begin to hear the voices of women—their stories—their authentic calls by God to serve at the altars of our churches alongside their brothers?

In the past, I have shared with you the uncovered history of Mary of Magdala, the fact of her being maligned in history by a certain pope by the name of Gregory who saw fit to morph all the stories of Mary, excepting those of Jesus’ mother into a composite including the woman of ill-repute who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, and by the time he was done, Mary of Magdala lost her role of Apostle to the Apostles, at least it was not uplifted, that of a prophet and friend and faithful follower of Jesus the Christ and was recorded going forward, through teaching and sermon, to say nothing of art and music as no more than a reformed prostitute.   And even if it were true, which it is not, it seems to me that one doesn’t do this action alone, but no mention if ever made of that—no stories about men caught in adultery!

Now if this doesn’t anger you as much as it does me, you might be thinking—“Well, they said she was a reformed prostitute and faithful follower, so was there really any harm done?” I am here to say, “Yes,” because the incrimination and the lies give the Church hierarchy permission not to take Mary of Magdala, or any women, for that matter, seriously.  What can we expect really, from a prostitute?! We certainly don’t want our daughters to take that route to sainthood hoping for a reformed life along the way. Oh no, Gregory had a plan and it worked for centuries until women theologians and others began uncovering the truth.  So Francis’ step in upgrading Mary of Magdala’s feast is a good first move in uplifting women’s place in the Church.

Think of what our Church could be if all the prophets were allowed to speak their truth, if every woman and man called by God were blessed to serve at our altars?—there would be no shortage!    Shame on a Church that excommunicates those called by God to serve because they happened to have been born female! Shame on a Church that teaches the lie that Jesus only called men when the Scriptures just proclaimed the opposite!  And shame on a Church that excommunicates and defrocks male priests who publically stand with women in support of their ordinations like Roy Bourgeois and Tony Flannery.

It is time that our Church hierarchy begins to listen to all the voices, but especially to its women for the truth they have to tell.  Our Church will never truly proclaim the reign of God until it does. In fact, it is time that our world begins to listen to the voices of its women, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, women in all walks of life, from war-torn countries around our globe, asking for peace, not war.

Several years back, a young Pakistani schoolgirl, whom we have come to affectionately call Malala, a victim of ignorance in her own country, nearly losing her life, spoke her truth at the United Nations—a simple, but most eloquent message, “We are really tired of all these wars—women and children are suffering in many ways in many parts of the world.”  I believe most of us would agree that war is not the answer, but it demands that we all do the hard work of peace which is underscored by listening, understanding and negotiation.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., a syndicated columnist, spoke a few years ago of how the world could easily dismiss Malala as a mere child, saying that she’s too young to understand the complicated issues that causes countries to go to war.  But what if we took her seriously Pitts challenged, heard her words imploring us to work and really strive for peace because it is the right thing to do?  No matter the rhetoric we heard out of Cleveland this past week.

What we do here today friends is about truth-telling and our Church needs to be about the truth, first of all, because our brother Jesus was, and if we say that we are his followers, we must be too! The new archbishop of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Bernard Hebda made a significant step in that regard this past week in telling the truth and taking responsibility for wrong-doing in the abuse of children and that cover-up in the previous tenure of Archbishop John Nienstedt.  We can only hope that this is a beginning that won’t end with him.

When we don’t know the truth, we can’t live fully. When the truth is not told, we are less of a people. When the truth is not told, we fail to see a piece of God in our midst.  And worse, as we all know from the sexual abuse scandal, when the truth is not told, people are hurt.

If we allow Mary of Magdala to be cast as a prostitute, then we don’t have to take her seriously. We can devise a false piety around her memory that directs our attention to the loving God who saved her from herself; or, we can look to her for a true role model of courage in how to follow our brother Jesus because in truth, this Mary was indeed, a prophet, a priest and an evangelizer—chosen by Jesus to herald the news of the Resurrection as stated by Joan Chittister to the frightened male apostles hold up in the Upper Room. Mary was known to have conducted a house church leading Jesus’ followers in the breaking of the bread. This Mary spoke truth to power and she was known to have had disagreements with Peter! Imagine that?!

Allowing Mary of Magdala her role of prophet and priest encourages all women and lifts them up to find their own God-given power to be prophets, priests and evangelizers.  If we allow Mary to be simply a reformed prostitute, this lie, as it was intended, puts this dynamic prophet, priest and evangelizer in a place deemed right by the hierarchical Church, along with all other women, not to be taken seriously.  Even our good Pope Francis has a long ways to go in seeing his sisters in the faith as God sees them, not as second-class citizens, but prophets, priests and evangelizers. We were all saddened recently to see the continued badgering from Rome of the Women Religious and the attempts to dictate to them their calls to ministry.

As Joan Chittister says, women have been integral in the mission of Jesus from the Incarnation to the Resurrection in the persons of Mary of Nazareth, whose prophetic canticle we will sing today in closing and Mary of Magdala. Why was it necessary to diminish the roles of these prophetic, priestly women? One word friends—power.  And we know that those who have the power have the control to spin the story in the way that they wish.  Yet, throughout history, who has it been that have primarily taught the children, got them and their men to Church, but the women? Who are the ones who have been so faithful and trained so well to do all that “Father” has asked over the years?—the women.

In my opening remarks friends, Joan Chittister’s sentiment that women need courage and men need humility is absolutely true if our Church is to survive and to thrive—the youth, those who are thinking, have already, for the most part,  turned their backs on this archaic model of Church that doesn’t allow all the voices to be heard. Women must stop being men’s doormats, affirming everything that they utter—women are as capable of being vessels for the Holy Spirit as are men and it is time that we begin!

And it’s time to do this for our men, so that they can be all that they were called to be. And the men have a wonderful example in Fr. Roy Bourgeois who so humbly has stated, “How can we men claim to have calls from God and act on them when we deny the same to women?” How indeed?!

Friends, this is an issue about power from the male standpoint, and about ministry from the female standpoint.  “Power over others,” instead of “love over others” allows for a Church and world that abuses its women through violence of all kinds—human trafficking to name just one. If you haven’t yet read President Jimmy Carter’s book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power, do pick it up—we have a copy in our library.  It’s unconscionable the evil done to women around the world because of their lack of voice and subsequent power.  This is an issue that we all need to be aware of and take responsibility for, for the women in our lives, and for all the men too, so that we can all be the people we were called to be.

Perhaps we would be wise to invite more of the voices of women to our national discussions, to our Church tables, at the highest levels, to have for once, the full complement of the face of God. Perhaps it is time to set all the captives free, allow all those called to serve to in fact do it,  to give full voice to all the prophets—perhaps it is time!  Yes, perhaps it is time, in the memory of Mary of Magdala, Mary of Nazareth, both, priests and prophets, and faithful witnesses to the memory of Jesus of Nazareth–perhaps, it is time!!! Amen? Amen!