Reclaiming Mary Magdalene In John 11

A rose petal on a walking path feels small until you realize it’s a practice of witness. We start with a Mary Magdalene feast day ritual, praying names into petals, anointing with oil, and letting ordinary beauty become a sign that love is still alive and moving through our days. From that grounded place, we ask a destabilizing question: what if the story we inherited left out more than we knew? 

We talk about Elizabeth Schrader’s textual criticism research on the Gospel of John, including the claim that a scribe may have scratched out Mary’s name in John 11 and inserted Martha. That single manuscript detail opens up big conversations about biblical translation, authority, and the long history of women being minimized in Christian tradition. Holy imagination becomes our tool for truth telling, not as make-believe, but as a spiritual practice that helps us see the people pushed to the margins and imagine a more honest, more generous gospel. 

From there, we widen into the divine feminine, the power of language, and the work of decolonizing scripture so it becomes good news for all people. We keep coming back to a practical takeaway: the kingdom of God is not just coming someday, it’s here right now, and the measure of our theology is whether it expands us into compassion, justice, and real belonging. 

If this conversation challenges you, share it with a friend who’s hungry for inclusive Christianity and a bigger faith, then subscribe and leave a review so more listeners can find this path of “only more love.”

Transcript

Roses And Prayer For Mary Magdalene

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake. At each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices, and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit, and love. I want to share this.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

It's a rose, I can see it. I've been cutting these um from the dozen or so that um that I gathered uh for last week's table uh in honor of our Mary Magdalene um um feast day. And so I've been I've been I've been cutting these off and placing them in different places in in the house, and then also um taking each petal off and praying for someone or uh anointing it with oil and placing it in this kind of wooden trough area. And then when I go on my walk um every day, sometimes twice a day, I take some of these and put them in places on the path where I walk. And so I just wanted to share that. Here we are getting ready to talk about our post-Mary Magdalene uh feast. Thank you for for being here today. Thank you for this time.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

I'm excited to talk about um some of the things that we have been rehearsing and some of the things that we have been cultivating and practicing together, embodied practices. Some of them just recently have expanded some of our practices, and that's exciting. And then even some of the things that we've heard recently with in regard to Mary Magdalene and in regard to the text being changed in John, in regard to what does it look like in this particular moment for us to stay fully grounded in love and in truth, but actually open up our minds and say, if this is possible, how much more is possible? And what does it look like

Holy Imagination As Spiritual Method

SPEAKER_00 2:00

to use our holy imagination and say, is it possible? Is this what Jesus was asking us the whole time? Can you imagine the kingdom is right here, right now? Don't wait until you die to experience these things. Bring it here now, expand your mind now, open your heart for justice for everyone, liberation, freedom for all. And so, what does it look like for us to recognize that Mary Magdalene is also a way or an invitation for us to experience and to know the spirit in a way that is outside perhaps the confines of the rules or the way someone told us that this is how you experience the spirit?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, that that's been a significant turn of events. I think. Um I think you and I are still um, I don't know, in in our in our olden days, we may have used the word shouting on the hills or something like that. Uh, with this excitement of news, this insertion point that um Elizabeth Schrader um Pulser has come across in her research and is moving into the hands of um translators to edit this text found in John 11. Wow, wow, wow. It's been a significant um moment uh for us all. And and I don't want to rush over that and maybe we keep talking about it until until we're we don't need to talk about it, but it it's huge. It is a huge piece in our lifetime, which is causing me to pause when I hear other stories where the women have been left out, and I have to imagine them. So today we're going to talk about holy imagination. Sometimes I have to imagine the women and the children in the story because they're not told. The story isn't told around them or with them. And so holy imagination, I think, becomes uh a theological, a theological construct for me. Maybe it's not for everyone else, but it is uh a way that I can expand a story and still believe that the ancient story has something to tell me, something to share with me, but reminds me, this work with Elizabeth Schrader reminds me that we didn't get all the story.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

There's a lot of things that this news does for me, as excitement is certainly one of them, but it does ask me to pause. I am so glad that you um invited us into that way of thinking right now to say, is it possible that everything that I was sure I knew is maybe not what I thought it was? Again, I think in my lifetime there have been many times where my life has actually lined up to say to me, would you consider this again? And it is exciting to consider again our faith, the things that we believe, the things that we, the limits that we have said here and no further. And then something shows up that says,

John 11 Manuscript Change From Mary

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Oh no, absolutely go further. We're talking about Elizabeth Schrader and one of the things that she discovered in the text was that a scribe around the year 180 to 200, so a long time ago, scratched out Mary's name and inserted Martha. And so what was given, or what was a script or a way of telling the story that Mary gives this Christological confession. And then the scribe changes it to Martha, who is like a side note, we don't even see her anymore. It diminishes the light or the intention of Mary Magdalene, who is giving the Christological confession, is there at the cross, is there at the tomb, and then also is given a commission by Jesus to go and tell about the resurrection. And so it strips her of authority and it strips her of this light. In fact, the Catholic Church believes that Peter's authority as the Pope comes from the fact that he gave this confession. Right. And so now we're saying that Mary also gave that confession. And not only has Elizabeth come to this conclusion when she presents her dissertation, when she presents these things, that all the other theologians who are gonna vote on this all say, absolutely, you're absolutely right. And so to have like Nelson, uh Nestle Allen to be able to say, No, we're gonna make those changes is huge. It's a reason to celebrate, it's a reason to be excited. Absolutely. But it also causes pause because we're like, well, what else was scratched out? What else was uh who else is missing from the story, like you said, that that may have given a bigger, more beautiful telling, more inclusive, more generous, um, more adventurous, even invitation into spirit, into our own sovereignty, into our own knowing, but ultimately into more freedom, including Mary Magdalene in this Christological confession, in her understanding of this, gives certain weight to what Jesus said when he uh declared every time my story is told, her story is going to be told too. And so this is a beautiful invitation to go, let's tell a better story, let's look at this and go, Oh, you took away the good part. I want the part that is a remembered of me to be, yes, that I confessed, you know, that I that I knew there is beauty and illumination in Christ.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

And in my holy imagination, Heather, I believe that she gave that confession many times before.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I I I think she would have would have known with a glance, with a gaze, with

What Else Was Scratched Out

SPEAKER_01 7:55

a handshake, with um a meal across the table, um, with the anointing, in my holy imagination, I believe it was not the first time. And perhaps others that were writing the story realized it wasn't the first time either. And so changing this story in John 11 to Martha uh does give us all pause right now. Um, but we've been at pause before. So this is not a new pause. At least at least for me, it's not a new pause. And um, you know, I was raised um by my uh grandpa to believe that it's okay for you to question the scripture, it's okay for you to have these doubts right now as a 12-year-old. Maybe when you're 18, this will make more sense. But he gave me permission to say it's okay, you know. I have changed my mind about some things after 40 years, but it's okay at 12 for you to not understand right now. And I think that kind of permission that we give people to use their holy imagination is the beauty of holiness, right? It's the beauty of it that we can say, I see this a little bit different in my experience. I see this, you know, from 6,000 feet, or I see this from 20,000 feet. But for some reason, Heather, we want to to make everybody think and say and believe the same thing. And I believe this, this moment and this announcement that came in June uh from Elizabeth, uh, you know, and then we move into Mary's feast, it is is almost like an enunciation, right? For for our hearts and our spirits to say, there's more here. There's more to this story than what we grew up hearing about Mary Magdalene.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

And if there's more to this story, is it possible that there's more to all the stories? Yes. And what does that actually mean then for us to say, is it possible that our hearts are supposed to expand, that our not only holy imagination expands, but that our life expands so much that we become these people of overwhelming radical love?

The Kingdom Is Here Right Now

SPEAKER_00 10:19

That the kingdom who it is promised is not just coming, but the kingdom is here. And what does it look like for us to imagine ourselves living in the kingdom of love? What does it look like for us to imagine ourselves living where there is no hunger, where no one's children starve to death? I think that this is an essential part of how the world actually changes. And I think sometimes the idea that we have to change the world feels overwhelming and too big. We need to change ourselves. And the process of changing ourselves is changing our minds. And we have to open our minds to say, what have I done to limit the power of love? What have I done to put um constraint on the spirit? And what do we do to actually unbind and unloose and allow the unruly Mary Magdalene to come and spill anointing oil all over these places that feel hard, that feel constrictive? And what does it look like for us as people of God, for us as people who are saying, I want to live unfurled, I want to live in the spirit, connected to the source. What does it look like for us to imagine that love is and always has been the way? That Mary has something to tell us, to witness to us, to show us. And how do we respond? What does it matter? I think it matters a lot when we show people there are other witnesses, there are other illuminations of Christ, there are other ways of experiencing the divine than the few that we've been shown.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

And we get some of this story and the backstory from uh other saints and mystics and other travelers and pilgrims uh along the way, particularly the women who have been written about now after their lives or after the fact, much like the Gospel of Mary was written after the fact. Mary did not write her own gospel, someone else wrote this. And so um when you say that, you know, we have this opportunity to retell or rethink uh the story um to expand our imagination beyond something that we were told, you know, this is this is the part that we call evolution that we have not arrived. And if you and I have talked many times about this um on podcasts, but also at table and other places, that this way of Mary Magdalene is a wisdom path. It is it is a spirit-led path, it is a path of love where um this combination of some sort wisdom, spirit, and love uh ignited in her and uh allowed her to be an interrupter, allowed her to say in in the crowd, um, you know, this is the Christ. Uh he is the Christ, allowed her to pour oil or allowed her to walk with Jesus and be identified as him loving her more than anyone else.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

And the invitation that Mary gives us to return to the good, to return to the good, this is such a hopeful thought that we would in fact return, that we would return to our true selves, that we would return to this understanding and to a really, I believe, ancient remembering that we are invited into this holy dance. We're invited into what the spirit is doing, that we're co-creating with spirit this new world that we're looking for, that we don't have to resign ourselves, that this is just the way it is, that women are dismissed, that women cannot speak, that no, beloved, no. The invitation is to follow the way of Mary and say, you know what, we'll look for um, we'll stay at the garden, we'll look for our love. No matter what happens, we will look for this. And so the practice of following the way of Mary Magdalene is recognizing not just the teachings that have been given, and they are beautiful, but this integration and this practice of overcome bypassing or uh integrating those powers of ego into ourselves and to be able to say, how do we live wholeheartedly? How do we live in spirit and truth? How do we live in such a way that we do not diminish ourselves, but we embrace our whole humanity, that we are people who look at not only the resurrection, but also the enunciation. Like you said, this promise of God with us, God with us as we are, God with us in the womb of a uh of a woman, God with us in the breasts of a woman, God with us listening and paying attention to the freedom that we know is possible outside the constraints of all the things that have told us no.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, and I I I appreciate what what you're saying here, uh, and it reminds me uh to maybe have us park for a few minutes and talk about the divine feminine uh spirit of God and that that force that um that spirit of wisdom that was with with with God in the beginning, but to somehow, Heather, begin to uh help others understand, including ourselves, that this power, uh this feminine power that walked with Jesus, that talked with Jesus, that anointed Jesus, um there's something that we haven't we haven't completely grappled with. And part of it is language. Part of it is how we use our language to identify um the work that that that spirit is doing in the world, that the work Mary Magdalene was doing in the world, that the work uh Julian of Norwich was doing in the world. Like somehow we minimize this activity based on gender and language. And so it gets stifled. The spirit gets stifled behind the patriarchy because it's not allowed to be spoken. And you and I were talking in the pre-show about community and why these conversations are important for us to have uh online and in person with others is because it gives us a chance to talk about the feminine spirit among

Share The Podcast And Join Community

SPEAKER_01 17:07

us.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

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SPEAKER_01 17:27

You know, I love Julian. I love Julian's posture on the Trinity, right? Like she saw Jesus as the mother of God. Like, how how do I see Jesus, right? Or how do I see Mary Magdalene? Or how do I see Miriam? Or how do I see Hagar or any of these other women that have been inserted into this gospel story or into this tradition of Christianity as the feminine spirit that God is embodying to move through our world? I think, I think this is, and the language behind that was my my original thought here. The language behind that is so important, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

I want to piggyback on what you're saying because it is it is essential that we understand that language is an evolution, that it is not just one way, that through culture, through time, through our own expression, language evolves and the words evolve. In fact, that is very often why we need to go to the text and recognize that it is not given to us literally, that there are things, again, even what with what Elizabeth Schrader just uh came to, that like if we look at that, go that we have to go beyond the literal, that it is not just poetic, that it is breathed by spirit, but we understand that we are the manifestation of this,

Divine Feminine Language And Decolonizing Text

SPEAKER_00 18:50

that it is a conversation that we are being invited to in the spirit. And then how does it matter that we have this conversation with the spirit if we do not go out then nurtured, compassionate, right? Unlocking the doors for people that have been imprisoned by the language that we have used in our religious texts? What does it look like for us to decolonize the text? What does it look like for us to remove as a very fair-skinned woman? What does it look like for me to take away the whiteness from the text and be able to say, this has to be good news for all people? All means all. And so, what does it look like for us to imagine not only our own language, but for us to be able to hear? I think this is the beauty of Pentecost, where people heard in their own language. This is the work of spirit to change the language in such a way that people can hear the freedom that is coming, the message of Jesus that is good news for all people in all times, the kingdom is now. And I think for many of the people that I have even, you know, learned from and listened from them, there is so much hope in what will be in heaven. It will be glorious, it will be wonderful. But beloved, what about now? The table is now, the bread and the wine heaped up is now. What does it look like for us to say it's imperative that we open our hearts and our minds, that we allow? You said the feminine, and I'm pulling right up here with this. We allow the compassion of the Holy Spirit, the divine feminine, the comforter. If we look at our world, it is in so much pain. We need the spirit's comfort, we need the hope of a better way, a more nurturing way of living, a more hopeful way of not only viewing the text, but living the text. So, what if we know the scriptures, if the scriptures don't know off? If they, if by reading them, by eating them, by chewing them, by living them, that they don't expand who we are. And in that expansion, that it does not include everyone. If Jesus prays, Lord, make them one, it is an invitation into inclusivity. It's an invitation into taking the brokenhearted and saying, There is healing for you here. There is a space for you at the table.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yes, and the invitation, uh I believe if our work does nothing else except to expand people's understanding about the work of the Holy Spirit, the work of the feminine divine, that breath, that feminine breath of God that's stirring in our lungs, right? Like if we could just get people to see, okay, there is a feminine peace here that maybe I didn't get, right? That'd be like a starting, a starting point. But also the other side of all that you just said is if I read a story in the text and I can't see myself. In that text. Then I either have to imagine myself in it, or I have to see the women that are standing around the margins watching the story being taught or the parable being shared or the lesson. And then where that begins to take me in my holy imagination is how do I expand that? Like this is an expansionist podcast. And we named it as such in order to teach us ourselves how to move beyond the text. How do we reach beyond the stories that we've been told? Knowing that the stories have been written a long time ago by a specific group of people that wanted a specific outcome. But what you just described is unleash love, unleash this abandonment towards neighbor and friend, and allow that compassion and the nurturing and that understanding to be the conduit in which the text expresses to us. I just think our work is so important around this sort of conversation.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

It's exciting to me to think about the fact that perhaps we viewed the text through a particular lens, through a particular way our family told us to interpret the text, or our church told us to interpret the text, or a theologian told us to interpret the text, or the patriarchy told us to interpret the text, or uh colonizing, you know, told us to interpret the text. And for us to say, this is for the saving of the world, for everyone, this is the work of Christ. This is Jesus that is good for all. And so this allows us to look at something and say, if I believe this about the text, if I see myself receiving good from this text, is it good for me only or will it be good for my neighbor? Will it be good for my enemy? Will it be good for every person? And that's a way to allow the text to read us, to go, oh, wait a second. I need to allow this the story to really let me see myself. Who am I? Of course, we read the story of the Good Samaritan and we want to be the Samaritan. But beloved, sometimes we are in the place of, you know, the Levite and the priest. And sometimes we are the person who needs to be healed. And sometimes we are the donkey. And sometimes we are the woman who owned the inn and healed the man over time. And sometimes, you know, like so there's so many places that we put ourselves in the story, but then also we say, what is it like for us to imagine for the world? What is it like for a child who reads that story? What is it like for a teenager who reads that story? What is it like for a person who is beyond retirement age who reads that story and going, how does the story influence the way I live? How does it influence who I say is worthy of love? How does it influence the way I say that Jesus came and showed us the way? And that Jesus is a way to understand what it's like to be fully human and fully divine. What does it look like for us to embrace the spirit within ourselves to nurture that small still voice, to nurture the knowing. For so long, I think that at least this happened for me. I knew something else about the text. And then the people who were in charge of me said, Oh no, you can't think like that. We'll tell you why. And here's just rein that in a little bit, make your box a little smaller. And the invitation of the Holy Spirit, who is so unruly and who loves chaos, not chaos in a way for it to harm, but again, brooded over the waters, the void, and drew out the most beautiful creation. I think the Holy Spirit is up to the very same thing today, looking at the chaos that we have done and not asking us to be plucked out and everyone else to suffer, but for us to say, how do we change this now, Shelly?

Many Witnesses Expand The Gospel Story

SPEAKER_00 26:18

This is the turning point. What can we do collectively to awaken to the way of Mary Magdalene who said, Oh, I understand what you're saying, and how that means that we live. And what does it mean for me to share this with my disciples? And how do I share the good news? Love is not dead, love lives eternally.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

I'm excited about the work of Mary Magdalene, and I'm excited about holy imagination, and I'm excited about moving beyond the text. Um, and and and I believe much of our work, uh even before connecting with each other was was about these things. And so here we are, we have this opportunity to even expand you know our own story and our own belief that that there is more. Um, that that Mary and Jesus had a collective uh consciousness that that I believe transcended what was going on around them, and offered to bring other people into that, into that knowing and into that understanding. Like don't slice, don't slice the ear off. Let me put that back right now. And this is not the way, this is not, this is not how we do things, this is not the time, to offering how do we take a story like Mary Magdalene and Jesus and expand that story? And some people will say, well, you can't just add this stuff to the story, and maybe that's that's true, but what I can do is I can look at other people's stories, and I can hear Jesus in that story, I can hear Mary in that story, I can hear Julian in that story, and I can say these stories are part of the collective. These stories don't get to be left out just because they're not canonized. The canonized version of Scripture is one group of stories, but there's millions of stories around us that we are ignoring because we keep paying attention to John 3.16 or Matthew, you know, 5 or John 11. I heard it again today on a particular app on my phone, and I was meditating, and here comes the story of Mary and Martha, and I just had to chuckle for a second, and then I let the fire in me kick in, and I'm like, oh no, this is not the story anymore. The story's different now. Uh and so yeah, I get I get really stirred up that you know, I can use your story, I can use my story, I can use other people's stories to expand the gospel story because we are all one. If we if we think we're telling a different story, we're not telling a different story. We're telling the same story since the beginning of time. I know you've got something firing there. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

But Jesus asked us and said, Will you be my witness? Each person gets to witness the light of Christ, gets to witness the body of Christ, gets to witness the love of Christ. And then we get to say, This is how I see it. This is how I experience it, this is how it has appeared to me. And we need each other. We do need community because if your your witness is that it's a very narrow uh gospel and only a few people are allowed to be in, we're like, oh, Jesus has come for the saving of the whole world, that there is an invitation to expand, and we do need each other to mirror maybe some of the ideas that we have that are um exclusive instead of inclusive, yes, that say that some people are out and some people are in and be able to say, oh, isn't the love of Jesus so big? Isn't there a possibility that in our intention to magnify the way of Jesus, we have in fact only made it smaller? And so what does it look like for us to say, no holes barred? Like this is a love that is so big. This is a story that is so big, no one person can tell it all. That the story evolves as we evolve as people, that it we need every single person to be able to tell their witness, how did I see him? When did I know that love was no longer buried, but love was still living? When did I hear love call my name? Every person gets to witness and be a part of the storytelling. Let's keep imagining, let's do it with our holy imagination. Mary Magdalene is leading the way. We're following the charge. Indeed. Only more love.

Closing Blessing And More Love

SPEAKER_00 31:06

It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheology.com.