This morning's reading from the Gospel of Mary is the Uncommon Lectionary reading for today.

Beneath the controversy is a fascinating history. It is a history of conflict regarding spiritual authority and the qualifications for leadership. It would later become a conflict over women's traditional roles as church leaders. We don't know all of the details of this history, but more is becoming clear as ancient texts which had long been "lost" are rediscovered and analyzed.

The earliest texts in our New Testament canon are the letters of Paul. In his letters Paul recognizes the leadership of several women, even referring to one of them as an apostle. Latter writings written in Paul's name will forbid women from assuming roles of authority in the church, a sure indication that this had been happening. Yet other writers would also write in Paul's name and use him to support and encourage women's leadership in the church.

Also in the New Testament gospels is the shared memory regarding the women, particularly Mary Magdalene, who stayed close by Jesus when all the male disciples had fled and who were the first witnesses to the resurrection. This part of the story simply would not have been invented by the early church; it is too embarrassing and left them open to too much ridicule. Surely there is a historical reality behind this memory.

One early text, the Didache, served as an early training manual for new converts. Many scholars find within this text evidence that both men and women were teachers and that some of the early Christian communities functioned in a more egalitarian way than we had previously imagined.

And then there are a few texts like the Gospel of Mary in which the main role of leader, comforter, and teacher is given to a woman: Mary Magdalene. In the closing chapter of this gospel we find the controversy over this leadership in the voices of Andrew and Peter. Fortunately, another disciple, Levi, is more enlightened and after chastising Peter affirms Mary's leadership and goes off to share the god news.

Let's look at some of the details surrounding the history of this controversy, a controversy which is still with us today in the majority of Christian churches which will not ordain women and which continue to question the fitness of women for ministry based on sexist patriarchal attitudes and a misguided understanding of the Church's history.

      1) Women were the first to believe that Jesus was still with them after he had been executed. They were the first to have visions of his ongoing presence with them and to encourage the community to continue the teaching and healing ministry that Jesus had begun. Without these early evangelists there might not be Christianity today.

Later, the concept of authority within the church would center around having had a vision of the risen Christ. As the first generation of leaders died, those who followed based their authority on the authority of the leaders who had gone before them. These would later be limited to twelve male apostles. Remember that the ancient world placed higher importance on being physically present to hear what someone said or taught than on simply reading about what someone had said or taught.

Later resurrection stories would be written that told how some of the men, like Peter and the beloved disciple, saw the empty tomb before the women did. You can compare the resurrection accounts in Mark, Matthew, John and Luke and see for yourself how these stories got changed to downplay the importance of the women and create a more secure basis for authority for the men.

      2) Women were important leaders in the emerging church from the very beginning. We now know that these communities were diverse and not at all unified. In some of the early church communities women's gifts of preaching, teaching, leading the community, and performing what we would later call the sacraments were welcomed and affirmed. This often takes us by surprise. What we may have thought was a later innovation is actually, from a historical perspective, very traditional.

      3) The expectation, among some early Christian communities, of an imminent return of Christ and the beginning of a new age may have encouraged greater social experimentation within the community. This would allow for the inclusion of Gentiles, the establishment of kinship ties between slaves and free, rich and poor, etc. and the acceptance of women's leadership, all of which could be seen as signs of the new age breaking into the present.

Time went by, and as the early Christian communities continued, often experiencing conflict and persecution, and the promise of Christ's return proved to be less imminent than they had expected, the emerging church had to settle in for the long haul. For many of these communities this meant adapting to the culture rather than living against it, and the male dominance that was the norm for their society became the norm within the church.

      4) The teachings of the historical Jesus, particularly his parables and aphorisms, had encouraged his first followers to think outside the box. They had evoked conversation, questions and debate among his listeners, encouraging them to reach their own conclusions and explore new possibilities. The earliest written gospels were thus most likely simply collections of Jesus' sayings like those we find in Q and in Thomas. I see reason to think that this could easily have led many of his followers to believe that leadership in the community should be based on one's spiritual maturity and integrity, not on one's gender. This is certainly the view of the author of the Gospel of Mary.

Interestingly enough, we find that as we get farther away from the historical Jesus the parables get encased in particular interpretations given to them by the gospel writers, often turning them into allegories, which limit their meaning, sometimes skewing it in the complete opposite direction of the parable. This would certainly allow the later institutional church to contain the novel possibilities Jesus' original parable offered. We also can see this happening in the canonical gospels.

      5) The practice of the historical Jesus laid the foundation for a more egalitarian community. I don't mean to imply that Jesus was a feminist. I wish that I could tell you he was, but alas, he was as much a product of his time as we are of ours. But since he didn't formulate any kind of organizational rules or programs, the communities that formed in his name had to improvise. Many of them remembered how Jesus had made them all feel welcome, accepted and honored as they gathered around a common table, sustaining one another with their shared resources. They remembered how he had welcomed women as disciples and was not afraid to challenge social norms and conventions that kept women in subservient roles to men.

Some of these communities also entertained a view of the spiritual life that saw gender as being irrelevant or worse, as a part of an evil world that they needed to rise above. These communities, like the one that wrote the Gospel of Mary, believed that one had to be clothed in the perfect human, which was a reference to a spiritualized, androgynous existence above the material realm. Karen King writes,

Within this way of thinking both men and women could serve equally as leaders of the community because gender was something they were supposed to transcend and the divine, transcendent Image they were meant to embody is nongendered and nonmaterial.

I hope that it is obvious by now that our history is vastly more interesting, more diverse, more surprisingly rich and complex than we often realize. While the church would organize its institutional life around an exclusively male leadership there would continue to be, throughout its history, individuals and communities that had a more inclusive perspective and practice. In the sixth century Gregory of Antioch would place these words spoken to Mary Magdalene and her companions on the mouth of Jesus: "Be the first teachers to the teachers. So that Peter who denied me learns that I can also choose women as apostles."

Even in the sixth century this man could see that women had been chosen by God to be apostles, teachers and leaders from the very beginning, and attempting to limit God's ability to choose was a denial of God's power, authority and freedom. It still is!

The gospel of Mary never uses the term "apostle." It comes from an earlier time in which authority and leadership issues were being debated primarily in terms of one's character and spiritual maturity and it cautions against laying down rules and regulations that would come to enslave them. In summing up this gospel, Karen King writes,

I believe that the gospel is unfinished and that as we see our past with greater accuracy we can live in our present and imagine a future with greater possibilities for love and justice. May the words we speak and the actions we engage in keep this gospel open and inclusive.

Andrew said, "Brother, what is you opinion of what was just said? I for one don't believe that the Savior said these things, because these opinions seem so different from his thought."

After reflecting on these matters, Peter said, "Has the Savior spoken secretly to a woman and not openly so that we would all hear? Surely he did not wish to indicate that she is more worthy than we are?"

Then Mary wept and said to Peter, "Peter, my brother, what are you imagining about this? Do you think that I've made all this up secretly by myself or that I am telling lies about the Savior?"

Levi said to Peter, "Peter, you have a constant inclination to anger and you are always ready to give way to it. And even now you are doing exactly that by questioning the woman as if you're her adversary. If the Savior considered her to be worthy, who are we to disregard her? For he knew her completely and loved her devotedly.

"Instead, we should be ashamed and, once we clothe ourselves with perfect humanity, we should do what we are commanded. We should announce the good news as the Savior ordered, and not be laying down any rules or making laws."

After he said these things, Levi left and began to announce the good news.