Year of Luke

Luke’s Gospel is often designated “The Gospel for Women.” From the women Luke highlights, I select Mary of Nazareth, Mary of Magdala and Joanna.

Mary is the premier disciple in Luke’s Gospel. Her “your will be done” has echoed down through the centuries as disciple after disciple answers the Lord’s call. As many contemporary studies and Pope John Paul II’s 1987 encyclical The Mother of the Redeemer have emphasized, Mary speaks forth God’s will as a prophet through her Magnificat. Every day at Vespers the church makes Mary’s prayer its own and speaks those revolutionary words that our God is the God who casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly. And most obviously, Mary is Jesus’ mother, but a mother who struggles to grasp the deep significance of her son and his actions and whose heart a sword pierces. Mother and faithful disciple to the end, she gathers with the disciples in the upper room after her son’s crucifixion, resurrection and ascension to wait for the promised Holy Spirit. We rightly herald Mary for her faith, love and perseverance. But before she had spoken a word or accomplished anything, she had heard those marvelous words: “You have found favor with God.” Mary is a powerful symbol of God’s utterly gratuitous grace for all of us.

What’s in a name? For us Americans the 1990 census indicates that the name “Mary” is the most common name for females of all ages. So we don’t stop to think that it may have been an uncommon name in another era. Recent studies indicate that “Mary” was not a common name in Galilee until the Hasmonaean Queen Mariamme (Mary) married Herod the Great, bore him children and was murdered by Herod. Then “Mary” became the second most common woman’s name in first-century Palestine, for it was a people’s way of keeping their hopes alive of regaining the independence they enjoyed under the Hasmonaeans. As we know with the accuracy of historical hindsight, the Romans dashed those hopes. Moreover, the evidence indicates that the name of Mary subsequently dropped out of favor. Could it be that the revolutionary content of Mary’s Magnificat is reflected in her very name?

We turn to another Mary, Mary of Magdala, along with Joanna. I provide my own translation of Luke 8:1–3, a passage that is one long sentence in Greek and is rarely noticed. “Soon afterward Jesus was going on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God, and the Twelve with him, and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod Antipas’ steward, Chuza, and Susanna and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.” Recent archaeological studies have led to the surmise that Mary from Magdala was a traveling businesswoman who marketed the dried and salted fish from the fish industry of her hometown of Magdala on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Why would she get the name of Mary of Magdala if she never left the town? People in her town knew who she was. And her occupation of businesswoman was not unique to her. On jars found in the storeroom of Herod’s fortress of Masada archaeologists have discovered that “Salome,” a woman and local purveyor, had supplied four jars and Mary of Kypselos had supplied an amphora (of wine or olive oil).

How did Mary of Magdala get to know Joanna, wife of the steward of Herod Antipas? Magdala is just a few miles down the coast from Herod Antipas’ new city of Tiberias. Herod’s extensive household, managed by Joanna’s husband, Chuza, also had need of local food products from Magdala. Joanna’s social and economic position offered her the wherewithal to assist Jesus and his other disciples in the work of the Gospel.

So Luke 8:1–3 suggests that businesswomen and disciples such as Mary of Magdala traveled with Jesus and the Twelve and cared for them out of their resources. But that is not the whole story. As Luke 23:49—24:10 makes clear, Mary of Magdala and Joanna not only traveled to Jerusalem with Jesus but also were faithful witnesses to his crucifixion and the first messengers of the good news of his resurrection. Although Luke does not call Mary of Magdala and Joanna “apostles,” they function as such.