It’s surprising what you notice as you go round Woodstock on the annual Good Friday Walk of Witness. This year, as we entered the Parish Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, I looked up and 
noticed for the first time the little statue above the entrance. It 
depicts a woman holding something in her hand, presumably Mary Magdalene holding an 
alabaster jar of ointment reminding us of the unnamed woman described in Luke chapter seven as a sinner who bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears, dried them with her hair and anointed them with the ointment. But why imagine that she was Mary Magdalene who is named fourteen times in the gospels and never described as a sinner?

Some have claimed that she was really Mary the sister of Martha, who as John tells us, anointed Jesus in the home they shared with their brother Lazarus (John 12: 1-8). But that Mary came from Bethany near Jerusalem, while Mary Magdalene came from Magdala, about eighty miles away on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Yet others have thought that she was the woman referred to in Matthew (26: 6-12) and Mark (14: 3-9), who anointed Jesus in the last week of his life in the home of Simon the leper
at Bethany. But again, the woman is not named and is not described as a sinner. It seems that there was more than one woman, who out of love for Jesus, chose to anoint him. What is certain is
 that none of these women is
 described as being Mary Magdalene.

So where did the belief that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute come from? It goes back to the year 591, when Pope Gregory delivered a homily in which he identified her not only with the unnamed woman who was a sinner, but also with Mary of Bethany. He said “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected. And what did those seven devils signify if not all the seven sins? It is clear ... that the woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts.” At a stroke, Mary became the penitent prostitute devoted to 
Jesus, something the Eastern Orthodox Church has never 
believed and which in 1969 the Roman Catholic Church declared to be an error. That still doesn’t prevent her from being the ex-prostitute in Jesus Christ Superstar who sings “I don’t know how to love him” or in The Da Vinci Code, the wife of Jesus and the mother of his children.

So what can we say about her?

1. She was one of a group of women, presumably wealthy, who followed Jesus as he went through cities and villages with his disciples proclaiming the kingdom of God, and “provided for them out of their resources” (Luke 8: 1-3).
2. Thankful for what Jesus had done for her, she became a devoted disciple who followed him all the way from Galilee to the cross, where
in all four gospels she is with the group of women who watched Jesus die.
3. Accompanied by another Mary, she watched as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea took the body of
 Jesus down from the cross and followed them to the tomb where they laid him.
4. She subsequently returned to the tomb to be near his body and to weep.
5. She was the first to find the empty tomb and was the first to whom the risen Christ 
appeared.
6. She was the first to tell the good news to the apostles.

To sum up, she had a devotion to Jesus, not so much perhaps to his teaching, as to him personally. She is an example of generosity, faithfulness and courage, all
 inspired by a love for her Lord. Her real title is not “the penitent prostitute” but, given that she told the apostles the good news of the resurrection, a better one is what she was sometimes called in the early centuries of the church “the apostle to the apostles”. That may have something to say in the current debate about women bishops, but I refrain from commenting ...

Philip Beuzeval

Philip is a retired Methodist minister and worships at our church in Woodstock.

Methodism has always relied heavily on its lay preachers. The majority of services every week are taken by these "local preachers", as they are known. But how do you become a local preacher?

 

First, there is the call, that continual nagging feeling that perhaps this is something God wants you to do. Many preachers will talk of how they did their best to ignore this call, but somehow the niggling doesn't go away. It may come from encouragement and suggestions from others. It may come from taking part in services and finding that you quite enjoy it. It may come from listening to others and thinking "I could do better than that!". It may come from a deep desire to tell others about what God has done for you.

 

Having experienced that sense of call, and having explored that call with the superintendent minister and through sharing in services with a fully qualified local preacher, prospective preachers then spend a period "on trial". This involves taking services and receiving feedback. It also involves undertaking the main training course known as "Faith & Worship". This involves studying 19 units which cover a wide range of topics, some focussing on theology and matters of faith while others explore issues of worship. So, for example, there are units on "The Teachings of Mark", "Picturing God" (complete with a set of postcards of different images!), "Church History", "Praising God" and "The Work of Christ".

 

Each unit has an assignment. These cover elements of knowledge acquired during the unit (eg. "Discuss aspects of the Biblical use of the word Messiah") but also may look more specifically at the work of preaching (eg. "Outline two ways you could help a congregation reflect on a situation in the news. What suggestions for action or practical challenges could you offer? And what could you expect a sermon that addresses this situation to achieve?").

 

Alongside the assignments, occasional exegeses (a study of a biblical passage) have to be submitted. Trainees also have to reflect on worship they take part in, whether as a leader or in the congregation, commenting on what went well and what perhaps could have been done differently.

 

There is no doubt that this is a huge amount of work. Everyone "on trial" is appointed a tutor to help them through the material and most preachers will meet with their tutors once or twice for each unit, with more time allocated to feedback on written work. Given the course is often being done alongside a full-time job, it can take anything from two to five years to complete. But there are many advantages to this way of study.

 

Of course, no course of study is perfect and Faith and Worship is not without its faults. Some of the material is twenty years out of date in areas where the church's thinking has moved on. Inevitably, some material is sparse and lacks depth and, here, a good tutor can make a real difference. There are also questions about how congregations can best support those in training.

 

But overall, Faith & Worship is designed to cater for people from a wide range of abilities and give everyone who takes it a good grounding in the basic issues and a thirst to continue that life-long journey of further exploration. Here it succeeds admirably!