This is Magdalene Sunday – the one nearest July 22nd, which is her feast day – celebrated by many disparate faith groups. We’ll always celebrate it at Between the Stools. But this weekend is also another festival. As I chose the date and theme, I felt a subtitle strongly suggested to me: Mama Wants In. It came during a lecture of Lauri Ann Lumby, priestess, writer and teacher. And I felt Mary Magdalene, and Mother God, and my own Mother speak.
I had expected today to be another service on breaking down the world’s injustices of dying patriarchy; on the importance of the divine feminine. If I had to preach on this theme of Whosoever, I would have chosen my text as the passage in Revelation about the mark of the beast. My Whosoever would have been commending those who avoided it. I would have extended last month’s service on Judgement to remind that whosoever explicitly and implicitly supports tyranny is culpable.
Yet, I felt that I was to do something different today. My views on Magdalene – many of which were encapsulated in last year’s service – were not to be repeated, although what I’ll say at the end will be more familiar to this community. I felt that I was to speak to a different audience in the sermon, and that the words would be given to me. They may not be my own.
As I was writing something else this week, I felt some words come to me. Last year, I dovetailed Magdalene with Wonder Woman. This weekend is the 70th birthday of Lynda Carter who played her in the TV series. But my Mum, also Linda, was born on the same day, and she too, in her way was a Wonder Woman. (Bet you enjoyed that, Mama). We were strongly brought up to believe that any contact with those who had gone before was forbidden: I see her waggling finger and hear her pronounce ‘Witch of Endor’. Yet I have gotten used to communities where asking for spiritual guidance is literal. Don’t even evangelicals feel that sometimes, as per Acts (and Matthew 10:19), they are given the words to say? Here is such a time.
Prayer
Yes this is your good old MOTHER here, who would have been 70 this weekend if I had not entered Glory as we put it just over 11 years previously. I am reunited with other loved ones who have gone before and come after. Yes, we are all here – those who had what I’d have called the saving knowledge of the Lord on Earth, and those we would have called ‘not saved’. My earthly self would have been surprised at this – relieved perhaps, but also cheated. Relieved in that I absolutely believed in Hell as a real place that all those who did not call on the Name of the Lord would go to for eternity after death, and this meant some good people, and people whom I loved, including those in my own family. So in one way, I was glad to know that they went to no such place, and are here with me and my parents in Heaven which is as blissful as you can imagine… and you probably wouldn’t from on Earth.
But some of me, fleshly me, brought up in evangelical circles, where I remained all my 58 years, felt miffed. Why had I spent a life following God, hearing sermons at least twice a week about our need to be saved (and better yet, baptised and active church members), who endured various sacrifices for her faith…. in my 40s, my husband and I [my dear Dad, still with us] began a ministry in Romania, which was lifelong. We, like others, gave up many things, were misunderstood and criticised, and were never wealthy. We did many brave and unsung things in the service of the Lord. We tried not to push our faith onto those we helped but let them ask about our motive for doing things. We did share our faith with many and were delighted when some took it on for themselves. We were very moved when our daughters joined us in our love of the Lord, and we earnestly prayed for close family and church friends and neighbours who did not have that saving knowledge. We believed and preached that there was but ONE way to God, and one God, triune, revealed solely through Scripture. I read the Bible every day, came to consider it the only book really worth studying by the end of my life, and saw it as God-breathed inspired literature on which to base my life. I would have told you most assuredly and waggled my finger like my good Mother who went before that the Bible clearly teaches that there is sin and judgement; God is mercy but also righteousness. There are the just and the unjust, the sheep and the goats, the chosen and those who reject God, the believers, and the unbelievers, the wheat and the chaff. No-one comes to the Father except by Me, Jesus clearly said John 14:6. Jesus will come again in glory to judge – not the quick and the dead, as the Anglicans I somewhat disapproved of, and the Catholics I most certainly did, would say. But yes, He is coming, and as I would listen with my dear daughter Elspeth (put ‘dear’, it’s what I said – all my children are), slippers sliding off my feet as I waved them to the record player, ‘The King IS Coming…. and praise God, He’s coming for ME!’ (But not necessarily you). You need to heed the challenges of the Gospel in your lifetime to ensure that He is. I didn’t want to think too hard about where the goats, the chaff, those not of the Elect went on their rather broad road to destruction.
I struggled with Calvinism [thanks – I needed a new paragraph, Mum] and the sense that God called some and not others, that some would be ‘drawn to Yourself’ and some would be cast forever in the lake of fire along with Satan and all those wicked devils who tempted us like Screwtape and Wormwood. (I enjoyed CS Lewis very much, and recall Shadowlands about his life, poignantly as my Mum left the world through cancer, like his wife did; 16 years later, I would be leaving the world in the same way). I believed him that pain was God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world from the nursery… but I wasn’t sure that some were not roused. Did God just know who would come to Him? I decided that He must, in His wisdom and prescience, and would not turn away anyone who wanted to come. I knew dear Christians, who had been devout and active for many years, who still wrangled with this doctrine. Might they not be one of the Elect? Might the Lord, on the day of Judgement that we so feared, actually turn to them, as per Matthew 25, and say: Away from me, evildoers, I never knew you?
When in my youth, we had to bring a verse to Sunday school. I chose “I will not sit in a congregation of evildoers” and having recited Psalm 26:5, I would slide up the polished pews away from the class. I was naughty then, and example of one who knew the Bible, thanks to my lifelong attendance and the teaching of my parents, but would not be saved on that dread day. I was schooled that a good Christian girl would not have misused Scripture in that way and behaved so in Bible class, and I might be extra punished in the next world for doing so.
That was an amusing aside to demonstrate the strong belief we had in casting off the wicked, in segregating, as our denomination had, not only from the established church (like my daughter, I give that no capitals), but from our parent denomination. We sat at the other end of the village and were careful about ecumenical events, especially where there were catholics concerned. My parents moved close to a catholic church but the alley along it was as near as we got. We did not know the congregation there, we had our own. At some points in my life, I would have said that these neighbours would not have joined us in Heaven.
However… unbeknown to some, at Bible College – an evangelical one, of course – I and some others snuck off to see a White Father. Yes, the very high Catholic priest. We got into trouble and I wrote a satirical poem in my neat cursive fountain pen about what I found. So when my daughter came to me 20 years later confessing something similar, I was less shocked and more sympathetic that she expected.
During the latter course of my life, I met many people who were good, and often faithful, but who didn’t share mine. In Romania, we encountered many Orthodox Christians, as that is the dominant church out there. I found myself having to be broader than previously, and living up to the maxim on the side of the lorry that started it all: sharing the love of Jesus. It wasn’t the judgment or the doctrine of Jesus, or even the truth or will, but the love.
I’m sad to admit that much of the teaching I was brought up with did not focus on love. I recall telling my daughter that I believed that Love was the ultimate message of the Gospel, but I felt slightly furtive in doing so. God’s attributes are holy, righteous, intangible, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal. The Good News of the Bible had to be taken in conjunction with bad news. You had to admit that you are a sinner, that you are unworthy, that you have offended Almighty God who made you and died for you (Jesus and God of course being one and the same). Without asking humbly for his mercy and forgiveness, and starting a new life with Him as your Guide, you earned the eternal punishment of rebellion and unbelief. Unbelief, I would have said when I was wearing those slippers, is the worst sin, the ultimate offence to God’s holy nostrils.
I hated liberalism. I hated woolly theology. I hated ‘all roads lead to God, all faiths are equally valid’. I did cede that some other faiths might contain true believers, and I stated my respect for the Dalai Lama – but I would not have prefaced him ‘his holiness’ – I won’t even write that in capitals – and there were other so-called ‘reverends’ who got that title off an American distance course, who I did not rate. I can recall their names but I won’t write them here. New agey types, blasphemers and misleaders, I’d have called them. They were not likely to be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, as I hoped mine was. Did I not have Fanny Crosby’s ‘blessed assurance’ that Jesus was mine, and I his, and that He would be waiting for me, holding out His hand, as I breathed my last, as I had so clearly felt when my Mum died in my arms? Well, that is what happened, although so did some other things which surprised me.
I didn’t get to preach whilst on Earth. I loved to research and would spend the sermon scuttling through my Bible, faster than the preacher, looking up cross references to the text. In that way, I often made up my own sermon, using the preaching as a springboard for my own enquiry. I sometimes was frustrated by the speed and thought of the actual preacher. I did teach Bible Class – the teenagers – for a while, and this gave me much pleasure. One mother withdrew her son at age 16 because of the verse ‘I suffer a woman not to teach a man’ (1 Tim 2:12). I didn’t agree – I’m not sure the young man in question would have – but this is what I was up against. Women could teach other women, such as at the Ladies’ Bright Hour afternoon fellowship which my mother’s age group attended. Or I could do a brief epilogue at the middle aged outreach event, following flower arranging or another craft which I felt lacking in ability for. I hated too the sports of my youth that were the main activity when we weren’t singing, praying or Bible reading. Naturally, I liked the last. I was a Mary, but spent much time as a Martha (Luke 10:38-42). I yearned to be at the feet of Jesus, discussing his Word, but women were expected to be pushing hostess trolleys into the kitchen. They were not allowed to be deacons, and certainly not pastors. One gentleman allowed me his seminary notes, which I fell on with relish. But another pastor creased his forehead in rage at my questioning him. He did not believe women could assert Job 12:2 with any veracity. Women had very particular roles in our background. We were helpmeets, supporters, bouncing children on our knees, or with a can of polish in our hands. We were considered less intelligent, certainly intellectually, by men and often chose men who were mentally our superior. Happily, this was not how my marriage worked, and my dear husband loved me for not being that kind of woman.
Thus, in all my years of church attendance, regularly, despite my brood of children, my various studies, work, and charity work (yes, my son, I have recalled what you called me), I was never allowed to do the thing I really wanted to, and if I’m honest – humility, despite being encouraged was not really my strong point in many ways – I felt I was talented at. My exegesis and exposition didn’t find much of an audience in SB circles.
I did say that if I were able to preach, my sermon would be called ‘Whosever’. My text – we very much had to have those – would be John 3:16: the Bible in a nutshell. We were taught it as tots and encouraged to be able to recite it. More than the 23rd Psalm, this was the one piece of scripture we were expected to all know: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.”
And the word I wanted to zoom in on, like those Playschool windows, was WHOSOEVER.
But I wonder whilst on Earth, I might have put a proviso on that. Why did we have missions and missionaries if we were all coming anyway? I would have reminded that verse 17 goes on to say that we would have been condemned. Again, good news and bad news entwined. You were going to perish…but now you’re not. Because of God’s divine condescension – all His work, His idea. And we condescended too – to those who are marginalised, allowing them to share in His bounty, united in our undeserving, although perhaps a little proud that we had been magnanimous enough to see this and holy enough to be sufficiently humbled.
But now, after 11 years of Glory? Not that we have years as such here. Those around me include the churches I turned from – yes, Catholics are here, and Hindus, as I suspected. And even those liberal New Agers! But in droves, not pockets, as predicted. It’s so different here that I can’t really explain, and feel I should not, yet. I felt on Earth that it was important to proclaim, despite Calvin’s alleged tenets (I’m aware that the TULIP acrostic is neo-Calvin), that if we called, we were chosen and God would answer, positively. Now I realise that the mode of His calling is wider, His mercy is wider, than I had seen when a farmer’s wife. I realised that I was a grumbling labourer in the parable of Matthew 20:1-16 – not in terms of time, but in terms of: surely you won’t pay them the wages promised us? For despite the attack of those ‘faith by works’ churches, such as our established cousins, I felt that I, we, as True Believers had earned our place in heaven. We had toiled via our self abnegation (I’m proud of that word!), our hard work in the local church, the community, the mission field. Our sacrifice and our difference had bought our way as much as the fountain of Christ’s blood… what a gory image that hymn paints!
I know now that Jesus isn’t in the business of buying. Debts are a human invention, appended to God. And when we believed in Grace, really believed in true GRACE, we knew that we need do nothing. Not – yes but I must rush my head off, doing errands, paperwork, taking phonecalls, studying, giving things up to show God that I might be a little bit worthy. I don’t roll – Children, you will enjoy this image – as a hog in muck in my own destitution before a holy God who wants to abase me before he’ll tell me how much he loves me. I do not write ‘he’ in capitals, because that is not God, not the God I am with now.
Yes, this has been long – but not by the standards of services I was brought up with! And I have waited rather long to say all this. I wanted to say that I understand lots of things differently now that I am in Glory, and that WHOSOEVER wasn’t lots of contrite people, asterisk, who had to fit the mould that I did – although often I seeped out. A God, who like one of my heroes of the faith, Joni Eareckson, gave us rubies, hardly won with bloody knuckles. [pronounced Johnny – I forgot].
I always liked the hymn My God, I love Thee (by Francis Xavier, translated by Edward Caswall, 1846) which said, would we love God if it wasn’t for avoiding punishment and gratitude for what He did for us in Jesus, but to just love Him, for Him? I assure you it is how God loves us.
As you live in times of fear, you are tempted to obey to avoid punishment or perishing, or owe a debt to those who you are told have given sacrifices to serve you. Some of you have done so as your Christian duty. I can tell you that debt and duty are not part of knowing God.
This is an extraordinary time and we in Glory watch over you with great care and interest, rallying for you to come through. We know that you already have, just as we know that our Lord already has. No, I’ve not done the skilful biblical exposition I wanted and could have – may I come again? – but I felt that sharing was more important than teaching at this time.
I can tell you that the ‘perish’ part – I think of a cartoon of my children’s day – is misconstrued. Perhaps I will set a little homework. Look again: does v16 really suggest that Jesus said we were going to perish if we don’t contract with the Holy Trinity? Would that be so loving?
I close with another passage. In Matthew 12:46-50 Jesus is asked: “Who are my mother and brothers?” And He answered: “Whoever does the will of He who sent me”. This is your ‘whosoever’. This is not only those whose name is written in the Lamb’s Book Of Life, but the people you will be sharing eternity with. It might be a good idea to start getting along now, avoiding the division to which you are being incited, and standing FIRM in TRUTH.
Yes, Mama wants in – I do, but also our God has a maternal side. I always liked the Mama Chook image in Luke 13:34, but now I understand that it was less of a picture and more a description of God’s nature. Your Mum longs to gather her chicks under her wing – do not be scattered. My wings are broad and my nest has many roosts.
With great love to you all, your one and only MOTHER, Mama Chook, etc…
wants you to know she ensures that the candle of hope never extinguishes.
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I believe that the one and only MOTHER – the Great Mother – also wants us to know that she and the angels and our loved ones are right with us, always, and here when we ask.
She’d also like me to remind you of 1 John 4 vs 7 and 16. Another ‘whosoever’.
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Why no music this month – there will be next.
Invite to listen to Gounod’s St Cecilia’s Mass… holding a few moments of silence.
Now a few words of my own to the community:
My first novel Parallel Spirals is 5 years old, and felt that I was to choose that day because of her. I now learn that was the year that the pope changed Magdalene’s status. I will choose another auspicious time for the sequel, and you – and I – will make sense of the timing.
I’m aware of the differences between what I spoke and how I would normally talk; my Mum’s beliefs and mine. I don’t think I’d have told my Mum that I think the Trinity is a four leafed Clover, and that the fourth leaf has her day so close to Mum’s.
It’s a full and a blue moon – Mum loved blue; but Magdalene’s colour is red and I felt a clash between my Mum’s earthly understanding of God with her male pronouns and my own, especially on this day. But I see this as a purple time – the balance and blend of divine male and female. We’ll be hearing from the other Mother Mary – the blue one – in November.
I am often hearing of more awakening, getting closer to a breakthrough, and I heard the reason why it didn’t happen around Christmas, as so many of us hoped – as I had publicly. Not only were many yet asleep, but the forces of darkness did something unexpected. I thought that God was meant to be omnipotent and omniscient, but I decided that She must extend freewill to higher beings. The darkness seemed to have posited that if the forces of Light tried to remove them, the world would be endangered. Hence, the liberation was not possible at that point, and a slower method needed to be used. Much progress has been made and the dark forces are flailing as they know they have lost and look duckier by the minute.
This is a time for the voice of Mother who has not yet been really heard, to speak to us all.
Thank you – love and blessings, and go well.
Back on 8th August for Lion’s gate – Mum was lioness.
Elspeth R - A skewed world view 