Sermon

          Spiritual teachers tell us that those of us who are more interested in creativity than in war or acquiring material goods are also more interested in the divine feminine, nature, and animals than in old time religion with warrior-like or strict father-like Gods. How about you?

The book The DaVinci Code has the theme of the divine feminine. You might remember that I did a sermon on this book in 2004. (There are some copies of it on the Information Table in the hallway.) Now that the paperback edition is out, sales are as hot as they were then. The Catholic Church has been a bit miffed about how the esoteric organization Opus Dei is portrayed but the movie version handled it “softer” than the book, no doubt so as not to cause offense. The people who belong to Opus Dei are primarily Catholic lay-people who want to progress in their spiritual life without becoming priests or nuns. A component of their practice is self-mortification such as flagellating themselves with a whip or wearing for an hour a day a thigh ring with pins that stick into the thigh, causing discomfort but not necessarily breaking through the skin. This might be a strange idea to us but it is not so unusual in world religions since other religions do extreme fasting for days for a similar reason—to bring them closer to God. Others of us cozy up to God with less discomfort!

            To remind us of the plot of the book: the basic idea is that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and when he died, she was pregnant with their child. Mary fled to Europe and had a daughter who married into the French Carolingian tribe, which eventually became French royalty and the bloodline still exists because the Knights Templar protected the secrets pertaining to the story and then morphed into another group, the Priory of Sion. In the book, a group of French and English people have continued worshipping in a rather risqué way that honors the divine feminine; it includes a sexual rite. The man who was murdered at the beginning of the book left clues that could be followed to encourage the leading characters to discover the secret of Jesus and Mary’s present day offspring.

            The clever and intricate plot deals with coded works of art that point to the “truth” of the continuation of the Jesus and Magdalene bloodline. The major symbol is found in a famous fresco painting of Leonardo DaVinci—the Last Supper. If you look at this fresco you will see that sitting to the right of Jesus is indeed someone who looks like a woman. In Leonardo’s time, it was customary to paint young men to look like good-looking, smooth-faced (sans beard), long-haired you; this particular youth was known as the “disciple that Jesus loved” from the Gospel of John. Or is it, really? The “youth” in the painting looks wonderfully like a woman. Another aspect of the painting is the assumption that everyone thinks of the Last Supper as having a “chalice,” a communion cup that Jesus passed around to the disciples. This chalice was known as the Holy Grail and was the vessel that knights went off to search for across the world. But no chalice appears in the painting at all. A character in the book says that the chalice, or Holy Grail, was not a cup at all but Mary Magdalene, or the womb of Mary Magdalene. The chalice had been an ancient symbol for the Goddess in many parts of the world. And the chalice was a container for the blood that supports creation, or the blood of the womb. (Now, this adds another layer of meaning to consider for our own religious symbol—the flaming chalice!)

            The question is really whether there is any support in history or scripture for the story of Jesus having a wife. It certainly would have been in keeping for a Jewish man to have had a wife. John the Baptist had a wife.

In the early second century document the Gospel of Mary (part of which we read earlier), the Gospel of Truth, and the Sophia of Jesus Christ, and also the Gospel of Thomas (and other “lost” or suppressed gospels), the relationship of Mary to the early church community and her favored status with Jesus is well enough documented. (Many other women were mentioned in other early documents, including Joanna, Junia, and Salome.) But only Mary of Magdala is the one identified as a special and spiritually mature disciple. In these gospels, we know that Mary was with Jesus almost from the beginning and that Jesus favored her above all other disciples. Magdala is a town in Galilee (in the far north of Israel), not far from Nazareth, where Jesus’ family lived and where he was likely born. The Gospel of Thomas mentions 12 male disciples and 7 female, including Mary of Magdala. Overall, her name is mentioned much more than other women. “In another second-century writing called Dialogue of the Savior, Mary is named along with Judas Thomas and Matthew in the course of an extended dialogue between Jesus and his disciples. She speaks frequently and indeed she acts as a representative of the disciples as a group, addressing several questions to [Jesus]. She thus appears as a prominent disciple and is the only woman named in Dialog of the Savior. Moreover, in response to a particularly insightful question, [He] says to her, ‘You make clear the abundance of the revealer.’” (p.143, King) One can’t help wondering whether all these gospels were suppressed by the church because of the prominent role of women in the early movement.

The evidence shows beyond a doubt that Mary was Jesus’ revered disciple. Beyond this, there is no evidence that she was romantically involved with Jesus, even though one gospel does say that Jesus kissed Mary full on the mouth. What if Mary was Jesus’ sexual partner? What if there was a child? Would it change anything? For us, I think it would just confirm Jesus’ humanity!

One of the things we see in these early Gospels and the Gospels in the Bible is a complete lack of doctrine. The Gospels simply show a collection of Jesus’ teachings and acts. Most modern liberal scholars are sure that the stories of the miraculous birth and the resurrection of Jesus were added on later—additions designed to persuade the world that their hero was not a common criminal who dies on a cross like other criminals at that time.

For Unitarians of the 19^th century onwards, the teachings of Jesus were the primary focus not the death or resurrection, which is why our major memorial window in the sanctuary has a larger than life stained glass window of Jesus as the teacher delivering the Sermon on the Mount. It is hard for many to remember that Jesus as a mediator and savior was a fourth century idea and would have been foreign indeed to Jews of Jesus’ time. 

And what of the woman-like person sitting next to Jesus in Leonardo’s Last Supper? Jesus leans to the left and the “other person” to the right, the two leaning bodies forming and “M” (for Mary) or a “V” (representing a chalice). Oh, that Leonardo was a clever and playful individual and it wouldn’t surprise me if he thought about confounding future generations or was even playing a prank on his own generation. We cannot discover the truth of this but author Dan Brown is laughing all the way to the bank with everyone’s interest in his story. It is encouraging to me that people are interested in the book and the movie for this indicates an ongoing and keen interest in religious ideas. The movie is, by the way, very good and almost true to the story of the book. Sales of the book and movie attendance continue strong. Some of my ecumenical colleagues are concerned that people will believe the theology in the movie. What’s wrong with that, you might ask?!? Others are planning to use it as a teachable moment. As for me, I loved the book and the movie and I urge you to consider for yourself what the ideas mean to you. I say, “Play with the ideas and try them on for size.”

No matter what the “truth” is about Jesus, we will be endlessly interested in how wisdom manifests in this world. We ca judge the teachings of any religion according to whether they indicate to us a precious insight into life itself. When wisdom manifests in a person, we will no doubt recognize it and pay attention to it. Our religious gatherings are times and places to ponder on such things.

The tired old structures of materialism and violence will continue to haunt our world and cause suffering and devastation. Our task is to find that which nurtures all life, promotes the well being of people and the earth, and do work that creates the world we can envision. One spiritual teacher counsels us, “Don’t react to what is, create what you would rather have!” (Jose Stevens, The Power Path, June 2006) This will no doubt include using our own divine feminine to enhance beauty in our lives and in the world. So may it be!

Reference

The following have informed and inspired this sermon:

Brown, Dan. The DaVinci Code, 2003.

King, Karen, L. The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, Santa Rose, CA: Polebridge Press, 2003.

From “The Gospel of Mary”

Discovered in Egypt in 1896
Finally published in 1955

Pages 1-6 and 11-14 are missing. This is a small part of the Gospel of Mary:

3. [The Blessed One] greeted them all, “Peace be with you!” he said. “Acquire my peace within yourselves!

4. Be on your guard so that no one deceives you…. For the child of true Humanity exists within you.

6.Follow it!

7. Those who search for it will find it.

8. Go then, preach the good news about the Realm….” After he had said these things, he departed from them.

5. But they were distressed and wept greatly. ”How are we going to go out to the rest of the world to announce the good news about the Realm of the child of true Humanity?” they said. “If they did not spare him, how will they spare us?”

6. Then Mary stood up. She greeted them all, addressing her brothers and sisters, “Do not weep and be distressed nor let your hearts be irresolute. For his grace will be with you all and will shelter you.

7. Rather we should praise his greatness, 8.for he has united us and made us true Human beings.”

9. When Mary said these things she turned their mind toward the Good and they began to debate about the sayings of the Savior.

Peter said to Mary, “Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than all other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, the things which you know that we don’t because we haven’t heard them.”

Mary responded, “I will teach you about what is hidden from you.” And she began to speak them….

NOTE:

The teachings of Mary are too long to read to you here, but I know that we can recognize that the words were actually much influenced by the teachings of Greek philosophy, particularly those of Plato and the Stoics. Peter rejected Mary’s teachings but another disciple, Levi, supported her teachings reminding them how much Jesus admired and respected Mary and her spiritual maturity. This Gospel is quite short and can be downloaded easily from the Internet. I’ve put a few copies on the table in the hallway at church for those of you who would like to read it.