The Mary We Forgot

Sharifa >> Hi, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Ordinary Women. My name is Sharifa Stevens, and I have the distinct honor of welcoming Dr. McNutt to our program today. Let me tell you a little bit about this scholar Jennifer Powell McNutt is the Franklin S. Dyrness Chair of Biblical and Theological Studies and Professor of Theology and History of Christianity at Wheaton College.

She is an award-winning author, a fellow in the Royal Historical Society and an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian tradition. Dr. McNutt serves as a Parish Associate at her church and regularly speaks at universities, seminaries and churches across the country. She and her husband co-founded McNuttshell Ministries, which is fun to say, which serves as a bridge between the Academy and the church.

They live with their three children in Winfield, Illinois. Dr. McNutt is also the author of a book that we are talking about today, which is called The Mary We Forgot. Go out and get it. Dr. McNutt, it’s an honor to be with you today. Thank you for coming.

Dr. McNutt >> Thank you so much for having me. I’m delighted to meet you and to get connected with your ministry and the good work that you’re doing.

Sharifa >> Thank you. Well, why don’t we just dive right into it?

So what compelled you to write The Mary We Forgot? And how did that conviction sustain you through the research and writing and in the process through the years—working and children?

Dr. McNutt >> Yes, I think, it’s been a long journey with Mary Magdalene. I talk a little bit about that journey in my book—about going to see Jesus Christ Superstar as a teenager and being super confused. And sort of wondering and I think, you know, because of the fact that in my church, we really did include the women of the Bible.

But with Mary Magdalene, it was so very muddled, very confused about who she was and what she means when she is this first witness at the empty tomb and before the risen Christ on that Easter Sunday.

You know, there’s so many questions. I think as a woman who was drawn and called to ministry, I have been, you know, wanting to understand the Gospels and women in the Gospels and how they have contributed to Jesus’s ministry. And also in the Pauline epistles as well. I think there are other women that I would go to before I would go to Mary Magdalene.

And a lot of that had to do with kind of the back story that, you know, traveled with her everywhere.

Then, you know, later as a scholar, I worked on the history of the Bible and history of the interpretation of the Bible. And I focused on the Reformation. And it was just so interesting to see how the reformers—both the male reformers and the female reformers—were engaging with Mary Magdalene. Sorting this out is a really important point in our history of interpretation that connects actually with Mary Magdalene’s biblical story. So that also became a question for me.

A friend of mine, a colleague of mine, we began to sort of combine efforts to think about the church, bringing some of this information to the life of the church through magazine articles. And that led to the opportunity to speak for a women in ministry gathering when they were like, “You can choose anybody who you know, who do you want to talk about?”

For me, it was like, “Oh, let’s tackle Mary Magdalene. Let’s retrieve her for the church and as a model of discipleship, not just for women, but for the whole church today.”

And so that was my passion. It just seemed like as the time was going on, I kept bumping into Christians with questions about it and just a lack of clarity.

And I think as again, as a scholar, my desire is to bring clarity—to highlight the things that we have misremembered or that we have forgotten. Or if there’s a part of something that can be edifying and illuminating, not only in the academy, but for me, with my heart for the church, you know, to bring that to the church. This book is meant for the church.

Sharifa >> It really does achieve what you set out to do. And what I appreciated as I went through, I wasn’t just reading about Mary Magdalene, I felt like you made church history quite accessible as we read through. I was just like, “Yeah, okay.”

So also introducing us to people like Gregory, to Charlemagne, and what happened with Charlemagne, and Charlemagne’s mother and traditions that maybe in the Protestant tradition we’re not necessarily aware of.

I think the Reformation was so pivotal in so many ways. But one thing that 500 some odd years later, one of the effects is there’s a lot of history, a lot of tradition that we are not aware of. And so the book does such a good job of uniting the cloud of witnesses. That’s our history, our shared history as Christians.

So thank you for that. I wish we had time to go through all of those nuances, but that’s a really good reason to pick up the book.

I did want to ask if there’s any daylight between Jesus Christ Superstar and what Protestant tradition is saying about Mary Magdalene now. Like, what do we forget as the Protestant church, especially in the United States, since a lot of our audience is in the United States?

Dr. McNutt >> Right. Well, one thing that we have forgotten that is part of the Western Church tradition (so not just Protestant) and then also part of the Protestant tradition is remembering Mary Magdalene as an apostle.
When I started my research, I had read and had heard from others that this moniker of honor that’s given to her by the Eastern Church, the Apostle to the Apostles, was not something that we had in our Western tradition. But as it turns out, that’s not the case!

You know, we do have even the reformers (though they, the male reformers, limit the impact that Mary Magdalene can have). But even they recognize her apostlicity—at least in that particular moment where she is called by Jesus by name, sent with a message and witness to proclaim to his remaining disciples this very rich theological declaration that God is our father and that Jesus is our brother, and that we are part of the family of God.

And so that has been something preserved in the Eastern tradition, something that in the West we’ve forgotten, and something that even our Protestant tradition connects with.

I take that even further to say not only is this the tradition, but it’s a good reading of the biblical standard of apostle, which means messenger-witness. Jesus makes her his messenger and witness. So there’s many other things to unpack there, but I’ll start there.

Sharifa >> I mean, right, I’m always in awe honestly of the fact that Jesus chose Mary Magdalene specifically to be a witness of his resurrection.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. Exactly.

Sharifa >> It’s empty tomb. She saw an empty tomb and the risen Christ.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. Right. Well, the Gospels go out of their way to highlight her presence throughout. So that’s one of the reasons why we can claim her as an apostle is because she’s part of Jesus’s ministry from Galilee to Jerusalem and therefore permitted to be part of that, in participating in that, contributing in that, walking literally in his steps with him.

It highlights her witness at the cross; she sees Jesus’s death. She sees his body being placed in the tomb and the tomb being sealed. That’s another detail that’s highlighted about her witness.

Sharifa >> Yes.

Dr. McNutt >> Then we see her come in early at the dawning of the day and see the empty tomb and then encountering the risen Christ. And two of the accounts emphasize her, as the first or among the first. John, chapter 20 says she was the first. So that has been baffling to the church for centuries across the traditions. “What do we make of the fact that this is how it happened, that if God could do it any way, why would he use her?’

And I feel like that question has not always been answered very well in the life of our church in the preaching on Easter Sunday morning. When we preached about the women there, even in the history of actually Jesus, sometimes there’s been really helpful, insightful answers and sometimes it’s been very clouded by our cultural and social readings of women.

And also our assumptions about her back-story have prevented us, have obstructed us from really seeing her rightly and seen what she means in the gospel accounts and what she means for how we understand who Christ is in that resurrection moment.

So those are anyway— I’m going off.

Sharifa >> Would you care to elaborate on any part of that? Like I don’t know which one because it sounds like we’re seeing that like Mary Magdalene is kind of a Rorschach test, kind of like a mirror to what we believe about who God is and about who women are and about the inter-relationship between the two.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. Exactly. Well, we have tended to read her story through the lens of prostitution, and that has been, that has been very harmful, or it’s been— sorry, I guess the way I would say it is a distraction. It’s been a distraction from being able to see what it means for not only a woman but a woman who was formerly demon-oppressed and delivered from that situation to be the one who witnesses Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

And, you know, so we’ve been missing that part of it. I think because we’ve been very focused on her model, her example as penitent prostitute.

Sharifa >> And that serves as a remembrance example.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. And it starts, it happens very early on in the history of interpretation, and it develops over time.

Then as you’re saying, she’s a test for how we are kind of a mirror for our own culture. Right? In the moments when the Christian culture was elevating monasticism, she becomes the perfect model of monasticism and as penitent prostitute, you know. When the church was emphasizing the need for preaching, she becomes a model of preacher-evangelist.

So we haven’t always rooted her in the biblical account and that’s what I’m trying to do.

Sharifa >> So when we rightly root her, who is she? What do you in your prophetic imagination see that she came from and was delivered from in order to be a follower of Christ?

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah. So I would say that this part of Jesus’s ministry in the West we have often overlooked that Jesus is an exorcist, and he’s a very successful exorcist. And I am a Presbyterian. I just, to qualify—I’m saying I’m not a Pentecostal, like I’m a Presbyterian.

Sharifa >> Talk about the biblical record which is talking about demon possession and exorcism.

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah, and exorcism because it is the signal of God’s kingdom coming on Earth. And when we too easily cut that out of our stories of Jesus and we focus on these other things.

So there’s a few chapters that I would point to. One would be Matthew 12 and Luke, chapter eight.

I think that’s those are the places to start because in Luke, chapter eight, in those first three verses, this is where Luke names Mary Magdalene and names three women, and then mentions that there are many others who are with Jesus’s ministry. And so they are traveling with Jesus, this itinerant ministry. And we should be surprised by some of the things there.

One is that she is not identified with a man. She’s not identified with the father or son or husband. She’s identified with a location which is also interpreted in the history of the church, as well, as perhaps a nickname for her strength of faith. And so she’s a tower. So Mary Magdalene from Magdala to Magdalene, meaning tower, tower of strength.

And so we see that part. We see that she is a contributor financially to Jesus’s ministry and that she’s named first among this group, so perhaps the single greatest contributor. So to me the other element that’s included is that she was freed from seven demons. That’s where we would maybe go to Matthew 12. Jesus talks about the significance of seven demons specifically in that chapter.

And I think that can give us an idea. He talks about the extreme experience of a person perhaps who’s had a faulty exorcism and was only experiencing this grip of demonic power to one extent but then became magnified by a faulty exorcism. And so she is kind of in an extreme situation, I would say.

Then if you go from Luke eight and keep going in that chapter, you can see the parable of the sower and then we get the story of the Gerasene man. I think that we can use the other passages of Scripture that are highlighting people’s experiences with demon oppression as a way to at least think about, you know, biblically, what she might have experienced.

In Matthew 12, when Jesus talks about the, you know, the seven demons, there’s also someone who’s brought to Jesus who is a demoniac, and he is blind, and he’s mute and, you know, maybe not even aware of what’s going on for him. The Gerasene man is shrieking and unable to wear clothing. You know, it’s just very extreme.

So we don’t know. And I think it’s important to say that the Gospels invite us to remember her as healed, fully healed by Jesus’s power, and so that’s how we’re supposed to remember her. But we can still see this was a very significant case of oppression and you know, she was freed from that.

And so then in my, as you say, prophetic imagination (I love that!), I see her as just completely transforming her life from whatever it was she was doing before. We don’t know. She obviously has money. And so whatever she was doing before to walk with Jesus, to give of her resources, to support his ministry, to listen and learn as a disciple and to partake—

Sharifa >> Invited to participate.

Dr. McNutt >> That’s right. Well, we don’t get to see that encounter, but we know that other people who asked Jesus to join don’t always get to join his ministry. So it’s not just anybody willy-nilly.

But I think, you know, Jesus knew what an important witness she was going to be. And the gospel writers then know what has happened. They’re either writing it at the time or right after. And so they know how important she is, and so they are including her, and they include her at a rate that is surprising for a woman, and that is even more than most of the disciples. So she is really prominent in our New Testament.

Sharifa >> There’s so much we would not get without her testimony here yet. I love that you concluded by using the word surprise because in your book you mention a hermeneutic of surprise, which I think is a delightful description. But I would like if you could describe the hermeneutical surprise to our audience and tell us what that means and what the implications are for that.

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah, thank you. I am speaking out of the field of biblical studies and hermeneutic, meaning interpretation. There are all these different ways to interpret Scripture throughout the history of the church. Sometimes there’s been controversy over what’s the best way. But in the modern/postmodern approach, the most prominent way has been a hermeneutic of suspicion. So just to suppose that the writers are maybe hiding something or simply reflective of their time.

And so but as a historian, I’m bringing historian eyes to the text.

Because, you know, sometimes the past surprises us in its context. Not just that I don’t know very much about the topic, and now I am learning, and I’m surprised by what I’m seen. That’s not what I mean by a hermeneutic of surprise.

The hermeneutic I mean is that actually in the text there are surprising things happening in its context that we need to be alert to.

So, for example, we may expect that the Bible would name women because of how our culture is more and more, I think, remembering and including the names of women. But we would be missing the fact that the literature of that time, that would not be the standard for the time. And so sometimes I hear a critique, “oh, the Bible doesn’t name enough women,” That’s not actually what we need to, I think, concern ourselves with as much as the fact that it is naming women and that is not the standard for its time. So it’s already going in a different direction.

And really the best example of that is Jesus’s genealogy. The fact that there are women included just defies the genre. So what is happening in the Bible when in its own time period it is pushing the practices and pushing, you know, it’s countercultural in that way. And so that’s part of it.

So I think Mary Magdalene and the fact that the women are with Jesus, you know, there are all these little elements of surprise that are present there, but especially the fact that she is at the empty tomb and then is the messenger of this news.

Sharifa >> Yeah, so it’s an optimistic also. It’s a lot of hope, but it’s also—when I read your words about it in in your book, I also thought of Jesus himself using the hermeneutic of surprise or at least using the rhetoric of surprise and impulse. And so there’s a Samaritan being the good guy.

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah. What do you do?

Sharifa >> You know, there’s a woman finding a lost coin. A woman as an example of God’s love, okay?

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> So it’s just the Scriptures use this rhetoric of surprise. Why not use a hermeneutic of surprise?

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah, right.

Sharifa >> Okay, so let’s see. How does Mary Magdalene’s story demonstrate what power looks like and how it’s manifested in God’s kingdom?

Dr. McNutt >> Well, I think her story is evidence of God’s power.

You know in art history you’ll see John the Baptist will be depicted, and he’s always like pointing to Jesus on the cross. So I think that that’s what she does. She is pointing us to the fact that Jesus is not only Savior Messiah, but that he is King and Lord.

And I think really that’s what we have been missing.

If we refuse or are uncomfortable, usually, I think it’s probably uncomfortable thinking about Jesus and exorcism, but that’s actually how the Gospels highlight what that means. And her story is one especially (I mean, we don’t know for sure) but if she’s not even aware that Jesus is saving her, then it is about God’s activity actively pulling us up out of the pit, whatever it is that is constraining us, leading us into that despair and that hopelessness and is coming to redeem and bring us and pull us out of that to give us hope that only he can offer.

And that is a hope that is permanent. It isn’t one that can be lost. It is a definitive defeat of evil in our world and in our lives. And that’s the thing we can, I think we can hold on to. And that that transforms us. It transforms who we are, what we do with our time and what we listen to and how we use our our money and where we go.

You know, it should all pivot around Christ because of that transformation that’s possible through him. So that’s partly what I think she says.

Sharifa >> Oh, absolutely. And the vulnerability and helplessness of a person who is beleaguered.

Dr. McNutt >> Mmm.

Sharifa >> But God, being rich and mercy and compassion. You know there’s a form of power that is only for itself, that is consumptive. And that is not the way of the Kingdom of God. The power that is exerted in the Kingdom of God, it heals. The power exerted in the Kingdom of God, it frees. When power is exerted in the Kingdom of God, it, it makes family out of orphans.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. Beautifully said. Yes.

Sharifa >> That’s also what I see with Mary Magdalene. We don’t know why she’s not associated with a family name. She is family.

Dr. McNutt >> She’s family. That’s right. That’s right.

Sharifa >> You know, she’s claimed. We don’t know what her experience—we know it’s got to be negative with demons. But we know that she was so fully liberated that she was trusted as the first to say, “I have seen the Lord.” There’s such a compassionate and merciful life-giving quality to power when it is in the hands of Jesus.

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> So anyway.

Dr. McNutt >> That’s was beautiful.

Sharifa >> Preach it.

Dr. McNutt >> I was just going to say that.

Sharifa >> I’m going to do a, like, shift but not really.

Do you have advice for women who feel called by Jesus, but also feel hampered perhaps by a limiting church culture?

Dr. McNutt >> Yes, I have so much compassion for women in those situations who long to be faithful and obedient and right to follow God’s Word. And I’ve met so many women in that situation. I actually don’t come from that tradition, from that experience as much. And so it’s so interesting to me that the Lord has brought me to speak into those contexts.

I hope that it can be a comforting encouragement. But one of the things, especially as I speak, we speak to Protestant Christians, you know. So when Martin Luther was facing this challenge of he’s just been excommunicated from the church—

Sharifa >> Right.

Dr. McNutt >> When he has been called to stand before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth. And he’s written these things and he’s been asked to revoke his writings. You know we have often remembered that he says, “Here I stand, I can do no other,” but that might not be actually something he says—but anyway,

Sharifa >> Get out!

Dr. McNutt >> Yes, sorry. Reformation scholar here.

But what we do know that for sure that he says this: “My conscience is captive to the Word of God.” So that is probably the dominant principle I would say, of being part of the Protestant church is that our consciences are meant to be captive to God’s Word. And we want to know what God has revealed there and to walk faithfully in that example.

This is where, like the women of the Bible (Mary Magdalene, is a great example.) we don’t hear the whole story of anybody. But so we want to see the different examples of women in the Bible—Tabitha, who’s named as a disciple, Julia who’s named as an apostle, and Phoebe, who’s named as a deacon, and Mary Magdalene who’s remembered as an apostle, and I think for good biblical reasons.

All of those kinds of things can, I think, bring encouragement and bring a zeal that is allowed, and really that God encourages through the gift of the Holy Spirit you know, that is not gendered. The Holy Spirit’s gifts are not gendered.

And so I would say, the women of the Reformation when they were hearing what Luther was teaching (and they were reading Scripture often for the very first time and engaging with Scripture for the very first time), they looked to the parable of the talents as something to convict their hearts—to say, am I in this situation? Am I bearing my talents or am I growing and offering them to Christ?

And if you are in a place that is forcing you to bear your talents for Christ, then it’s probably not a good place to be in. But I wouldn’t say, I wouldn’t be able to say blanket statements in all of these cases because I think that the Word can be at work again in unexpected and surprising ways.

And, you know, we seek to be faithful in and also the place where God has given us.

And so that’s kind of my answer. You’re sorting out with the Lord. You know, what does the Lord have for me in the time that I have on this Earth? (None of us knows how long that is, you know). And in the disruptions of the Holy Spirit, in internal disruption to the Holy Spirit, pushing us to go beyond sometimes the limits of what we can see is also a gracious thing and a gift.

So yeah, those are some thoughts.

Sharifa >> So my last question, I wanted to ask you who you would identify as the Mary Magdalenes of our day who are unexpected people called by God to work in unexpected ways, or and how do we train ourselves to identify Mary Magdalene and run with them.

Dr. McNutt >> Right. I love that.

Yeah. So well, here is where I would think about that story of the widow giving her two coins, which those two coins together are worth the least out of the currency of the Roman Empire.

What I love about that scene is I think it’s that hidden faithfulness. It is that, you know, Jesus is like, “Hey, pay attention here. Do you see what’s going on here?” So it’s like putting on the eyes of Jesus to look around and to see some of that hidden faithfulness.

The fact of the matter is that because Jesus knew her and knew the sacrifice that she was making, it turns out it was a much greater contribution than any of those who are parading around in their wealth and showing off their great deeds and these kinds of things.

So I think there is something about the anonymity or the hidden, faithful life that is such a beautiful thing. Things that we would not esteem, you know, really are value that are actually these great contributions to the Kingdom of God.

Like Sunday school. Like teaching Sunday school. And raising children and caring for children and in equipping them in their spiritual lives, I think is something that is sometimes demeaned in our culture or even in our churches, sometimes as not a great kingdom builder. And yet it is this wonderful contribution and necessary one.

So I think it’s more about that is putting on to not be necessarily dazzled by the big expressions of faith but to also see it in those in the small moments, in the small things as well.

Mary Magdalene, the Mary Magdalene of our age I guess would be, kind of, could be anybody.

Anybody. Yeah that’s the beauty of it—it is anybody who has been called by the Lord to contribute and to proclaim who Christ is, the Risen Lord and all that that means for us—the kingdom come.

So yeah. So I wouldn’t want to just put it on one person, but it could be anybody.

Sharifa >> It’s the person who’s running, pointing saying, “I’ve seen the Lord.”

Dr. McNutt >> Right.

Sharifa >> Yes. I mean I could go on with you forever. I know you have to go, but your book is such a great remembrance of who Mary Magdalene was.

There is so much we did not talk about in this interview. I had no idea about who she is to France and her ministry to France. So people who are listening or watching can learn more about that, learn more about books like, oh, my goodness, is it The Golden Legend?

Dr. McNutt >> Golden Legend? Yes.

Sharifa >> Wow, what an epic!

So to learn more about our family history in the medieval times that you make so accessible to us. And so The Mary We Forgot is something that I think our audience will benefit from if they want to delve more into the historical, even extra biblical evidence of who Mary Magdalene is and just receive encouragement from one of our sisters in the faith. And that’s something that both men and women in the faith always benefit from.

So thanks again, Dr. McNutt, for being here.

Dr. McNutt >> Thank you for having me. I loved our conversation. Thank you so much for having me. You’re so funny. We have to talk more.

Sharifa >> I would like to thank you for taking my giggles through it.

Dr. McNutt >> I love it.

Sharifa >> And I want to remind our audience who are listening or watching that you can find more resources about this topic and others by going to our website. We are Beyond Ordinary Women, and the website is beyondordinarywomen.org.

Thank you.

Dr. McNutt >> Thank you.