Sermon - Aug 3, 2025 - The Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene

One of my favorite types of stories is a suspenseful mystery thriller—one with smart and courageous heroes and wise but reckless villains, numerous plot twists and secrets, and above all, a mind-bending puzzle. What all these great stories must do and do well is make us into seekers of the missing pieces—seeking to make known everything that the plotline attempts to keep hidden like an action-packed version of Hide and Seek.

Today and over the next three Sundays we get to explore the previously hidden scriptures known as the Gnostic Gospels. There are over 50 of these missing pieces now restored to the Christianity puzzle. We will look at two, beginning with The Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene.

Overview

But first, what exactly is A Gnostic Gospel? It is a document that’s as old or almost as old as the Gospels we have in the Bible. It has many of the same familiar main characters we’ve grown to know and wonder about—Jesus, Peter, Andrew, Judas, James, John, Levi—also known as Matthew---to name a few, plus they occasionally feature people like Mary Magdalene, a disciple of Jesus’ who stars in today’s Gospel but is only mentioned a handful of times in the conventional Christian tradition.

Now, I know some of you out there have probably heard the rumors about Mary --- rumors that books like Dan Brown’s bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, accelerated—gossip that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were more than friends, a fascinating yarn that Brown, in his provocative plot, digs up, claiming that there’s something going on between Jesus and that feminine looking character in Da Vinci’s most famous Lord’s Supper painting—a secret relationship hiding in plain sight but covered up for reasons we can only imagine.

Look, I don’t know. There are definitely some mystifying references to how Jesus felt about Mary in this text, things like “we know the teach the teacher loved you differently than other women” and even “he loved her more than us”---and those are certainly some things to ponder—but I don’t think it’s worth doing anything more than that. No where in the gospel is their relationship explicitly define. And if the Gospel’s author truly wanted to increase in its authority, then I’d think mentioning Mary was Jesus’ wife  probably would have qualified—but that is never stated, at least not in this Gnostic Gospel anyway. Instead, I think Mary’s words seek to do something far greater if we let them. Unlike the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Mary’s Gospel is set behind closed doors with her fellow disciples as they grapple with what Mary knows about the Teacher—knowing, or in Greek, Gnosis, about what Jesus wants from us.    

Historical Context

So here’s a little historical context thanks to several terrific scholars, but most notably: Karen L. King, Jean-Yves LeLoup, Bart Ehrman, and Elaine Pagels.

The first version of Mary’s Gospel was found on a garbage heap in Egypt in 1896, likely having been discarded by someone who accidentally dug it up from its hiding place. Scholars are unanimous in dating Mary’s Gospel to the second century; with Egypt likely where it was composed since all copies were found there. Authorship, like the other 4 NT Gospels is unknown, but clearly whoever wrote these words down was unapologetically a fan of feminist theology in tabbing Mary the title character.

Why were these words buried in an Egyptian garbage heap? Who knows. But they had been dug up and discarded there by someone. You see, way way back, when the death of Jesus was still 100 years or so “fresh” in the minds of his followers and fans, there were many words about Jesus circulating and being passed around as frequently as chatty middle-schoolers in math class; only these weren’t your ordinary words of gossip—they were stories about Jesus that people wanted to preserve to bless future generations. Over time, however, disagreement about which Jesus literature were worth keeping intensified and a big number of writings were discarded and destroyed so as to not distract from what the ruling Christian authority selected for the New Testament.

The Gnostic community belonging to Mary Magdalene’s teaching was one such scroll that hadn’t made the final cut and was supposed to be wiped from existence – until it was unexpectedly found buried along with 50 some other ancient missing puzzle pieces in clay jars hidden in Middle Eastern caves circa mid 20^th century.

The Ultimate Game of Hide and Seek

Any Hide and Seekers out there? Some of you are hiding from making eye contact with me as we speak! The key to any good game of Hide and Seek is not only the number of hiding places, but the determination of the players. A good seeker knows that reliance on their vision is only half of it, one also must rely on their hearing—especially since the most exciting games of Hide and Seek are played in total darkness as any St. Luke youth can attest from our Lock-ins. Successful Hiders on the other hand must rely on a different set of skills—namely their imagination and…enduring discomfort.

From hiding and finding easter eggs to playing countless games of Sardines with youth groups and in round after round of straight up Hide and Seek with my kids, I love Hiding and Seeking equally. But if I had to choose one, I’d have to say I’m most proud of my hiding skills. I’m a big guy but that has never stopped me from cramming myself into the tightest hiding spots imaginable over the years. Uncomfortable beyond belief, only in Hide and Seek am I a master of silence, making not so much as an whine or whimper despite usually crying like a baby in pain from within. A personal favorite victory was on my sabbatical trip to Greece when I stayed quietly hidden in a small closet cabinet about three feet off the ground, going undetected for 45 minutes before my kids finally gave up.

Awesome as my hideouts have been, they pale in comparison to the determination of the early Gnostics who easily won the longest game of Hide and Seek that was ever played---nearly 2000 years their outlawed scriptures stayed hidden and outlasted all seekers and then some! But what on earth were they hiding? What could have been worth such hassle?

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

The Gospel of Mary represents the only early Christian gospel ascribed to a woman. That’s a really big deal—something in a male-controlled world that would’ve definitely been worth hiding. Imagine if one of the four NT Gospels was ascribed to a woman—heck, imagine if any of the NT epistles were named after a woman. Clearly tensions about the role of women in the Church were already present at the time of writing as Peter and Andrew’s parts attest. In even this short book of limited character interactivity, two prominent leaders of the Church are openly questioning Mary’s audacity to teach them about Jesus. Other less risqué but fascinating observations of this mysterious text include:

·        Jesus is referred to “his Grace” and as “The Teacher.”

·        God is referred to as “The Good.”

·        The gospel shows no knowledge of the later fiction that she was a prostitute

·        Portrays Mary as a prominent disciple of Jesus

Comparing Mary to Accepted Christian Teaching

Now the depiction of Mary probably isn’t what comes to mind when most seasoned believers think of what a Christian heretic is. She is comforting, gentle, and humble, graciously but firmly insistent that she met the Risen Jesus in a vision. Allegedly, Jesus blessed her and the two chatted like best friends, and under Mary’s leadership, Peter and Andrew and the other disciples were made to grapple with hers and their own revelations of deep spiritual insights.

To say that differs from conventional Christianity is an understatement. For the Gnostics one is not delivered from their sins by believing the right things about Jesus, but set free through an ongoing process of inner knowing. In fact, the Gnostics went so far as to claim that to know oneself was the same thing as to know God. It was as if Mary said to the first Pope: “You have heard the Word, but I have seen it (in a vision.)”

Mary pulling rank on Peter? Whoa, whoa, whoa. The early Christian bishop Irenaeus of Lyons recoiled at such blasphemous content, directing most of his suspicion and rejection towards these personal visions of inner knowing which he had reason to think were causing people to develop “enormous fictions” and “human feelings, and passions, and mental tendencies about the divine Word.” For early Christian leaders like Bishop Irenaeus, faith formation was built on hearing the divine Word—and usually through people like him, bishops, clergy, and deacons. Period. No ifs, and, or’s, or but’s. For the early Gnostic-Christians like Mary’s community to assert that faith was centered on seeing and seeking inner knowing simply went too far.

I can’t dismiss Bishop Irenaeus’ rationale—I too wonder what and how to grapple with so many in our world today with similar claims and approaches to spirituality that range from beautiful visionary revelations and heavenly encounters at best but also just downright bizarre-o weird, unsettling, too-good to be true prophecies that sometimes feel like fearful propaganda at worst.

And yet, without these visionary experiences drawn from the likes of Jacob, Isaiah and Daniel, Paul, Peter, John and Mary, the Biblical witness simply would not exist.

Conclusion

So there’s a 40,000 foot view of the Gnostic Gospels and the gist of Mary Magdalene’s. Being as most of you are seeing and hearing these words for the first time, I intentionally kept things general to cultivate the Spirit of curiosity. We will revisit Mary’s words in two weeks, along with the most popular Gnostic of them all, the Gospel of Thomas, after digging into that manuscript next Sunday. We will conclude our exploration with a Discussion and Q & A style sermon on the 17^th—so bring your insights and questions if you dare.

Again, what appeared to be at stake for the early Christian Church was authority—what in the life of the disciple mattered most? Mary likely didn’t fit for two very distinct reasons, the first being that the early Church opted to go all in on Boys Rule, Girls Drool, and secondly, and was what level of authority should the Church assign personal revelation and visionary encounters like Mary’s Gospel relied upon? History gives us the answer, but I wonder, is there room today for knowing Jesus as the Church and also knowing him beyond it? Can one truly know God by knowing themselves, as the Gnostics believed? And what does that even mean ‘to know oneself’?

Go ahead, take your time and soak in these words from Jesus’ faithfully devout follower Mary, and contemplate whether there is capacity in today’s Church for both hearing the divine word and seeing it, too (wherever it may appear). Bless your time receiving this message and embracing God of The Good, who sees, hears, and loves you from above, below, beyond, and within, through the wonder of his Grace, our Teacher and Lord, Jesus the Christ. Amen.