The fourth Sunday in Lent is sometimes referred to as Refreshment Sunday – a day when the strictures of Lent are relaxed a bit. (It is also Mothering Sunday for those who keep that festival).
At St Mary’s tomorrow, our refreshment is coming in the form of some of the most lovely choral must that we sing here. Fr Vice Provost will be preaching on the Prodigal Child. And we’re adding one or two guest choristers into the mix.
Expect something special.
How about the wife of Jesus, airbrushed out of the story by later misogynist Christians? See Starbird, M “The Woman with the Alabaster Jar” and other books by her. She is an ex-Catholic who set out to refute the Holy Blood, Holy Grail story and ended by being convinced that Jesus and Mary were a married pair (and an archetype of the male/female balance principle). There’s a wonderful window in Kilmore Church, Mull. Check it out – whoever created it intended it to represent J and M as husband and wife, and M is clearly pregnant. Of course, there is no unchallengeable evidence that Jesus was married, but what I would like to ask the sceptics is why, given that He was the word made flesh and dwelt among us, is it unacceptable for Him to have been a sexual being? Why have later Christians considered sexuality, even in a loving relationship, to be something disgusting? Because they have, we are now stuck with the nasty views of the NotW brigade that sex is either an acceptable leisure activity or something gross. As Margaret Starbird points out, if we restored Mary as Jesus’ beloved consort we would be creating a much more wholesome myth!
It is a little like the arguments that might be made of the relationship between Jesus and the beloved disciple though, isn’t it? All very attractive and neat if you come from a particular point of view but not really backed up with enough evidence apart from modern presumption, presupposition and desire.
I think the arguments on Jesus being married are very far from being liberationary. Rather, they’re the natural end-point of the Evangelical mindset that homophobically (and unbiblically) divides the world into Normal Heterosexual Married types and the demonised Other. “It is better to marry than burn” might have some mysognistic readings conducive to the fundamentalist world-view, but it hardly most naturally supports the idolatarisation of particular heterosexual relationships.
If I had a pound for every time a nominal Sola Scriptura type had told me that St.Paul had to have been married (presumably because Our Lord’s asceticism and disinterest in heterosexual marriage is bad enough) then I would be a very rich man indeed 😉
Interesting post Kelvin! Had no idea that St.Mary M even had red hair Perhaps she could be reclaimed as the Patron Saint of Gingers and Other Persecuted Minorities? 🙂
Oh, her hair was red, Ryan. Flaming Red I believe.
How reginal! 😉
Still reeling a bit from Holy Week and Easter, which were fantastic. Holy Week makes muscles hurt which never hurt in the same way at any other time of the year. There is nothing finer in the world than singing the Easter Exsultet and the gospel alleluias within a congregation that has journied to the…
People to see. Hymns to be sung. Feet to wash.
It has been extraordinary watching the story about the Scottish Episcopal Church roll around the world today. One story in the Herald on Tuesday which in itself was not saying that much and suddenly it gets picked up and hurled around the globe, even though the bishops’ statement was in the public domain days ago.…
No sermon this morning as it is Palm Sunday. We read one of the Passion Narratives instead of a sermon. This year, it was the Passion according to Matthew. And for the first time, I asked the congregation, as the Body of Christ to read the words of Jesus whilst I read the rest. Worth…
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