“We are responsible for our own education. History is deeply subjective. There is no master version of history that tells for all of us all the stories we need to hear.” 

-Meggan Watterson

Mary 3: 1-9

Go then, preach the good news about the Realm. Do not lay down any rule beyond what I determined for you, nor promulgate law like the lawgiver, or else you might be dominated by it. 

“Lazarus was disabled.” 

“Lazarus is disabled.” I was walking out of the sanctuary after a 40 minute talk about Mary Magdalene when a woman stepped in the aisle, took my hand with urgency and told me Lazarus was disabled, that’s why Martha invited Jesus into the family home. I was a little stunned and shared, much to her dismay, that I had not read anything about that idea. She pressed again, to inform me. “How could I have made it this long as a pastor and not known Lazarus was disabled?”

I didn’t know that. But I did know that I had upset her with my talk. I had shared the work of five different scholars who in a sense stand on the shoulders of hundreds of others and some fairly new research about the Gospel of John and she wasn’t having it. I thought about acquiescing with false humility and a meaningless, “I’m sorry you must be right.” But it was just to get out of the room to the book table I was staffing. Then I thought about throwing down my credentials, my masters degrees and my years of study and that was tempting but not really what Mary would do. 

She wanted to know that I agreed and I shared I couldn’t make that kind of comment, I needed to read a bit more. I politely suggested we could talk a bit later. 

She found me again, determined and with a bit more “Grumpy Granny” energy if you watch Bluey. I invited her to take a look at some of the books I had shared.. She flipped through them, took one with her, brought it back and then another. I watched her tell her small group just how wrong I was because I didn’t know Lazaraus was disabled. And debating their longtime church member over Mary Magdalene, which was now all about Lazarus, wasn't the ditch they wanted to die in…so everyone listened politely and talked more after she left to tell me how wrong I was one more time. 

She set each book down. Looked with dismay at me. And ultimately left the conference. Sure enough if you google ‘Lazarus and Disability,’ you can find a ton of blogs by all kinds of people. Some speculate that when Jesus raised Lazarus…well he didn’t get there soon enough and there was some permanent damage. Some speculate about what kind of disability and if you scroll far enough one even proposed that Mary of Bethany had a cognitive disability. These blogs might have been well intentioned efforts to talk about ableism in our communities, or they could have tried to be. But it seems at the core, a conversation to find a solution to the problem of Martha’s authority to invite someone into her home rather than her brother’s home. 

Surely there is more to explore and this guide, just like every lecture and every book I studied in preparation is an invitation. To imagine what if? To wonder rather than judge. To consider the choices ancient people had just as much as we consider the choices we have in our modern context. 

The thing is, we love absolutes and certainty and are prone to making and believing orthodoxy. I think that is why Mary is so important to us, she centers us in practice. 

Orthodoxy is a tool of oppression.

I was grappling with comments from a professor in seminary when my favorite professor, Dr. Marjorie Procter-Smith said, “Debra, orthodoxy is a tool of oppression.” She said it without anger or spite, just a matter of fact that I needed to know. It was the most important seminary class time I had. We talked about not letting someone else tell me, I am or am not a Christian. 

Orthodoxy comes out of naming folks and ideas as heretics. It comes by means of othering and binding and limiting. It is different from boundaries where you know yourself and your faith is deeply studied and you identify how you will practice it. And while boundaries and orthodoxy can seem similar, I think the struggle comes when orthodoxy doesn't inform the practice but rather seeks to exclude, harm, minimize and limit. 

Orthodoxy shifted our tradition from practice to right and wrong answers. It shifted us from courage to control. It shifted us from stories to creeds. And ultimately it is why Mary’s gospel was hidden away rather than centered and celebrated.

I believe courage and curiosity are a practice. We like short cuts and short hand, we like to be able to make quick judgments and quick answers. This isn’t just in church but in every sphere of our context. We see this in rage about CRT and bookbans, debates about vaccines and how history is taught. And so much more. How do we keep our hearts and minds ready to take in new information? How do we stay present and listen in hard conversations? How do we work on ourselves so we can show up wholeheartedly for our community?

At the end of Jesus’ talk in the Gospel of Mary he warns against it. Warns against making laws and rules for each other. He warns about how it comes to dominate us and his words echo against the 2000 years of creeds, church law and church trials. It is time for us to lean into practice, get comfortable with being uncomfortable and examine everything, even ourselves deeply.  Mary the Tower shows us how to show up and stay in the storms. Now it's the time to lean in and listen to her story as we write our own. 

May it be so, Amen. 

Journaling 

Did you have to memorize anything? Was it helpful?

Who taught you about faith?

What are the goals and agendas that you can unpack?

What history, what stories do we need to look for and learn?