Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Beyond The DaVinci Code

Reverend John Beverley Butcher
July 17, 2005
Palo Alto, CA

We Unitarian Universalists do not have a creed. We are very clear about that. Even so, I carry several copies of our creed in my wallet. I get into conversations with people and then I reach in my wallet pull out a card with our creed, our UU principles, and hand it to the person I am having conversation with and ask, “What do you think about these principles?” And when the person is in agreement with each one, I like to say, “Perhaps, you too, are UU!” We do have things we stand for and they are clear!

One of the principles in our creed - our non creed - however you want to say it - states that we covenant to affirm and promote, “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” And that reminds me of Jesus who says,

“Seek and keep on seeking until you find.
When you find, you will be troubled.
When you are disturbed you will marvel,
you will rule over all,and then you will rest.”
— Gospel of Thomas II

There is a full process there. If you have done any seeking, I do not need to explain the text to you because you have been there. You have gone through that. You know what it is like to seek something of great value. And you know what happens if you find it. It is going to rearrange your life. It is disturbing. Usually out of that comes something very creative. Seeking is one of the major themes in the Gospel of Thomas. Jesus indicates where to conduct our search: both within ourselves as well as outside ourselves. There is an amazing correlation between inside and outside; Jesus says,

“Know what is in front of your face,
and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.
for there is nothing hidden that won’t be revealed and exposed,
and nothing buried that won’t be raised.”

— Gospel of Thomas 5

So: seeking, searching, and what are we really looking for? The Holy Grail? The search for truth and meaning takes many forms these days including the work of Dan Brown in his historical novel, The DaVinci Code, which has been on the best seller list for the past 120 weeks, in other words, ever since it came off the press in 2003. I checked my San Jose Mercury News this morning: it is in fourth place!

I do not read novels. Full stop. However, for some strange reason I read this one. The DaVinci Code is a gripping mystery novel written with bite size chapters. For me, reading it was like having a bowl of peanuts in hand and deciding to eat just one peanut: One peanut chapter led me right into the next until I stayed up late one night and realized I had consumed the whole thing!

Dan Brown’s novel, The DaVinci Code, is so enticing that it is drawing book lovers to Paris to visit locations in this mega-hit. Remember, this is a novel, but you can take tours of places where everything happened not only in Paris, but every place mentioned in the book. Walking tours of Paris start at $32.00 But the novel takes you into England and Scotland, so why restrict yourself to Paris? Beyond Boundaries Travel offers you a nine day scavenger hunt in October that starts in Paris and continues in the countryside. You can spend five days driving Smart Cars in pursuit of clues for a mere $2,999. You can also travel from Rome to Edinburgh on a 14 day Globus tour which stops in Milan to view DaVinci’s painting of the Last Supper and to Paris to see the Mona Lisa, and on to London to visit Westminster Abbey and Newton’s Tomb. That would be $ 3,099. See where it all happened!

Just curious, how many of you have read the DaVinci Code? May I see a show of hands? How many of you have been to the sites? Why do you suppose this novel has sparked so much interest? And I have some theories on that.

In addition to being a suspense mystery, it raises questions about the suppression of information by the church, particularly the Vatican. It raises significance questions about Jesus of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala, about their relationship: were they married? Did they have children? It races rapidly through the archetypal world: and so you need to fasten your seat belt for a wild ride!

Today I do not plan to give you a book review or an analysis of this novel - I am not qualified nor equipt to do that. But I will be including material from the Da Vinci Code. The novel is not our central quest. The novel catches our interest so that we can go further, much further, way beyond The Da Vinci Code. My intention today is to invite you to go with me right to the heart of the primary search in the Da Vinci Code which is for information on Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I was pleased to see that my favorite couple is on the cover of the bulletin this morning. [Our church secretary] found it, printed it, and there they are for us to see in an affectionate pose.

You might ponder why their relationship is of such intense interest to people today. I do not want to spoil the end of the book for those who have not yet read the Da Vinci Code. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have read it and those who have not read it yet! but I will say that the entire book of 454 pages is a search for documents with information on Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

And to all who have read the book, I want to whisper very quietly, “Let me tell you a secret. We already have some exciting new information on Jesus and Mary Magdalene. You will find it in authentic documents from the first and second centuries!” Actually, I want to shout as loud as I can for all the world to hear, “Do you want to know more about Mary Magdalene? Then read the gospel with her name on it, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala! Here it is translated into English for you and included with all the Gospels in The Complete Gospels which is the work of the Jesus Seminar." Also, there are other exciting discoveries with information on her and Jesus. You will find it in the Gospel of Thomas and The Gospel of Philip and a number of other documents.

Jesus and Mary Magdalene

Let’s focus on Mary: When you hear the name of Mary Magdalene, what comes to mind? Who is she, really? In the book and film, "The Last Temptation of Christ,” she is portrayed as a prostitute. In "Jesus Christ Superstar", she sings, “I don’t know how to love him - I’ve had so many men before.” I like that song, but, interestingly, the notion that she was a prostitute is not to be found anywhere in the early records. The truth is that she did not become a prostitute until the 6th century. It was Pope Gregory the Great who preached sermons in which he identified Mary of Magdala, Mary of Bethany, and the unnamed "sinful woman" in the Gospel of Luke as being one and the same person. Thereafter, Mary Magdalene has been seen as a prostitute.

When someone's reputation has been smeared for many hundreds of years, it can be difficult to clear her name. Fortunately, we now have new evidence about her since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library and other texts from the first three centuries. It was found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, by Muhammad Ali; and you all know who he is: No, not the fighter, but a farmer who was digging for nitrates and found this jar with 13 old leather bound books in it. Very, very important. He took them home and threw them on the floor and his mother used parts of them to start the fire for supper. Priceless documents and they had no idea what they had discovered. Fortunately, most of it has gotten into the hands of reputable scholars and it gives us a whole new expansion of our information. These documents were hidden at the beginning of the fourth century in order to preserve them. And now we have them. Most exciting of all, we now have a copy of the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip.

We also have from another site The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene), the only Gospel named in honor of a woman. By studying carefully the early documents we may see a fresh perception of her character beginning to emerge.

Let’s look at the evidence. Mary of Magdala’s name is first mentioned in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Luke 8:1-3, Complete Gospels p. 135

1. And it so happened soon afterward that (Jesus) traveled through towns and villages, preaching and announcing the good news of God’s imperial rule. The twelve were with him,
2. and also some women whom he had cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary, the one from Magdala, from whom seven demons had taken their leave,
3. and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

From this account we know that Mary and some other women were travelling with Jesus. We learn that Mary is from Magdala, a small fishing village on the north western shore of the sea of Galilee. Jesus was from Nazareth, about 12 miles away. So it is conceivable they could have met and known each other when they were children, or in their teens or twenties. Had they known each other before Jesus was baptized at age 30? Might Mary have also been one of the people baptized by John? Perhaps they met through John’s ministry? We don’t know when Mary and Jesus first met. Neither Luke nor any of the other male Gospel writers bother to tell us. Luke is rather off hand about her and the other women, saying, ”Oh, by the way, there were some women travelling with Jesus: Mary from Magdala, Joanna, Susanna, and a bunch of other women!”

Sometimes I feel angry with the gospel writers about being so casual and giving us such little information about Mary and the other women. But Luke does provide some important clues: like the fact that when Jesus and the twelve went travelling around, it was the women who paid for the trip! You know, Jesus can say, “Look at the lilies of the field. Don’t worry about anything.” because he’s got the women behind him paying for it!” So when did Jesus and Mary meet? We don’t know. At the very latest, I think we must assume that Mary and Jesus met early in his ministry. She connects with Jesus and experiences some healing. Does Jesus "heal" her? Or does he enable her to be in touch with her own inner strengths that bring about her healing? There were seven demons. The number Seven is always significant. One interpretation is that it refers to the healing of each of her seven chakras, her seven energy centers. This we know, Mary has her own spiritual practice as illustrated by the Gospel of Mary that includes a dialogue between Mary’s soul and Desire.

All the wrathful powers within her are crying out and need to be dealt with. The struggle continues until there is transformation: and her soul cries, out, “What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been destroyed, and my desire has been brought to an end, and my ignorance has died.”
— Gospel of Mary 9:27

She is free. Reminds me of the song which is number 151 in our hymnal, “How I wish I knew how it feels to be free!”

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
I wish I could break all these chains holding me
I wish I could say all the things I could say,
Say ‘em loud, say e’m clear for the whole wide world to hear
I wish I could share all the love in my heart,
remove all the bars that still keep us apart,
I wish you could know what it means to be me
then you’d see and agree everyone should be free.”

That could easily be Mary Magdalene’s song before her healing. She and Jesus experience the freedom yearned for in this song and they spend their lives helping others discover their freedom.

The Gospel of Philip, not in the New Testament, but probably a first century book, tells us a bit more about their relationship: "There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary his mother and her sister and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion." "the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. But Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, 'Why do you love her more than all of us?' And Jesus replies, 'Why do I not love you like her?'" As often occurs in the Gospels, Jesus answers a question by asking another!

In the Gospel of Mary, Peter says to Mary, “We know that the Savior loved you more than any other woman.” Mary 6:1 And Levi says That Jesus “knew her completely and loved her devotedly.” Mary 10:10

I am working on a book entitled, Jesus and Mary Magdalene and this will be my subtitle, “He knew her completely and loved her devotedly.” Think abut that: What might it feel like to be known completely? What might it feel like to be loved devotedly? And what happens when two people enter into the depth of this relationship? Could be scary? Could be too good to be true? It could be lots of things.

This we know: out of this deep relationship, Jesus and Mary travel everywhere and do ministry with people together. They are soulmates doing shared soul work. Read the Gospels and you find that Jesus speaks differently from other teachers. He does not have to quote authorities to prove his point. The only time he quotes scripture is when he says things like, “You have heard it said, “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth,” but I say to you, “Love your enemies!”

It is my conviction that whenever Jesus spoke, his message came out of his own experience. One text in particular that may have come out of his experience with Mary is in the Gospel of Thomas 22
Jesus then says to them,

“When you make the two into one,
and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner,
and the upper like the lower,
and when you make male and female into a single one,
so that the male will not be male nor the female female...
then you will know the Way of the TAO.”

He says “the kingdom of the Father, but what he means is “The Way of the TAO!”

How might Mary be feeling as she hears Jesus saying this? Perhaps she knows what he means through what they experience together.
And Jesus goes even further:

“When you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand,
an image in place of an image,’then you will enter the Father’s domain.”
(You will know the Way of the TAO)

When two people are making really good, sweet love, what happens?
Words fail, but sometimes it is like stepping into the other like putting on the other person, like putting on clothes... or entering and becoming totally inside the other person. And this is what Jesus is telling us about:
“If you think sex can be good, how about putting on your New Humanity?”

When you experience this intimacy, you know what Jesus is talking about! (And you have the same problem Jesus had in trying to explain it to others.) He uses as many examples as he can until you get it! "You have Eyes to see, Ears to hear, Heart to feel, body to know what this is about!"

And Jesus and Mary know this from their own experience with each other. They know what it is to be Chalices of Holy Mystery!

We light the chalice at the beginning of every service and in other circle gatherings. The fire being lit is the fire within us.

The first time I came here I read in the bulletin I read that you were going to light a chalice, and I said to myself, “What? What is this about?” And then you did it and I understood. We are the chalice. The fire that is lit is the fire within us.

Jesus and Mary Magdalene are companions and partners in ministry. Were they lovers? Were they married? You can't prove they were married, and you can’t prove they were not married. But if Jesus was married to a woman, the most likely person is Mary. Whatever may have literally occurred for the historical Jesus of Nazareth and the historical Mary of Magdala, they can also serve as significant Archetypal figures who carry powerful symbolism for us now. There is historical material and archetypal material. They are both important in different ways.

Mary Magdalene might be an Anima figure for Jesus.
Jesus might be an Animus figure for Mary Magdalene.
Jesus and Mary Magdalene can serve as Anima and Animus figures for us.
I have enormous projections on Mary Magdalene. I love that woman!

Remember when Steven Walters was here and sang, “Jung’s Blues”?

"I’ll be superman and you be Lois Lane and I’ll save you again and again and again: if you’ll be my projection!” Remember that song?

Projections: let’s work with them. When we are fascinated by their relationship, our fascination may teach us something about ourselves when we explore our projections! What might we see in Jesus that we find exciting? Is that also in us? What might we see in Mary Magdalene that we find exciting? Might those qualities also be in us? What might we see in their relationship that touches ours? How might their awareness of the Mystery assist us in deepening our own awareness?

Joseph Campbell reminds us that people have always lived by story and myth and symbol. My thesis is that the rich mythic material in Jesus and Mary can enrich our own lives when we allow it to be released.

Next question: Did Jesus and Mary have a child?

Well, according toThe DaVinci Code they did. And then comes information about genealogy. For example, Dan Brown writes,

“The royal Merovingian line continued throughout the centuries through princesses of royal descent. Associated with this is the theory that Mary Magdalene married Jesus Christ and bore him children. Thus a direct line of descendants from the house of David continues to this day and is supported by the "Priory of Sion".... Many of these women were named Mary, Marie.”

My very own Mother, Elizabeth Van Dyck Ford Butcher, did some extensive genealogical work with the help of her eldest brother, Edwin Samuel Ford, was able to establish that we are descendants of Charlemagne. Now Charlemagne represents the Carolingian line who are descended from the Merovingian line who are descendants of Sarah, the daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdalene! So there you have it: I just want you to know that my daughter, Marie, and her daughter, Suraya, are undoubtedly the direct descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

For some reason, Dan Brown doesn’t mention our family in his book: must be an oversight. Just thought I should mention it.

Of course, if all that genealogical information is true, and I tend to be a little skeptical, there is one small problem created by Jesus himself. I am thinking of the scene where Jesus is teaching inside a house with a crowd sitting around him, and someone says to him, “Look your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside looking for you.”
In response (Jesus) says to them: “My mother and brothers - who ever are they?”
And looking right at those seated around him in a circle, he says, “Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God’s will, that’s my brother and sister and mother.”
So Jesus says can be irritating for anyone relying on genealogy for their claim to fame, or it can be very freeing for anyone who is in touch with the same Mystery that Jesus knew and feels related to Jesus through that Mystery!

One of the many fascinating parts of The DaVinci Code is what Dan Brown says about Leonardo DaVinci’s painting, The Last Supper. And who is this woman seated to the right of Jesus? Why Mary Magdalene of course!

In Kepler’s bookstore in Menlo Park (world’s greatest bookstore) right next to great stacks of The Da Vinci Code is a beautiful art book open to a picture of the restored painting of Leonardo DaVinci’s The Last Supper. Just for fun, Google the painting and see what comes up!

Jesus and Mary live freely. They help set other people free, like the bent woman who is able to stand up straight and live her life!
like the paralyzed man who becomes free to move and get on with his life;
like the blind, not just the literally blind, but all who listen to Jesus Wisdom teachings and begin seeing themselves and life with fresh perspective!
Jesus teaches people to live freely and unafraid: “Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill your soul!”

Jesus and Mary Magdalene undermine the control of Empires then and now. They go further and confront the Powers that Be with acts of civil disobedience: they go into the Temple and dump the tables of money changers, a symbolic act confronting the way in which religious authorities are cooperating with the Roman Empire in oppressing people. Empires all operate this way: conquer, install puppet regimes, extract natural resources, get cheap labor, back it up with torture and violence, and call it “Peace.” The Romans did it in Palestine; The U.S. Empire is doing it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Did you read this morning’s paper about the covert U.S. actions controlling Iraqi elections? And there’s a long list of countries we already dominate in our grasp for domination of earth and space! We want to control space so we can lob weapons of mass destruction onto this planet.

When we started bombing Iraq in March 2003, something snapped inside me. I needed to be with a community of people who were not afraid to address the issues of empire and war so I started coming here. I listened to Kurt Kuhwald’s intellectually stimulating preaching drawing from a wide variety of carefully selected sources. Kurt preaches from his head and his heart with genuine feeling: he means what he says and he says it with his entire body. Sunday after Sunday Kurt had me sitting on the edge of my seat.

I have high expectations from preaching and they are well met and much more from the sermons I hear from Kurt Kuhwald, Amy Zucker Morgenstern, and Darcy Laine. I like the lively forum discussions that we have that Scott Christenson leads and the peace actions of the Peace Umbrella and the movie series. I get damn tired of coffee hours in churches where conversation is restricted to the weather and other safe subjects. Here at UU I can have intelligent conversations with people about anything: no holds barred.

I feel at home here and last December I became a member with the proviso that I am continuing to be an Episcopal priest. I took that huge step and while signing the book, I said, “I am bi-ecclesial – I hope you can accept that,” Someone in the choir said, “We accept anybody!” I do not know who said it, but that comment was perfect! It was the cherry on top of a hot fudge sundae for me! I like it here. I like our creed: In our UU living traditions, we are free to draw on “Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.” Among those prophetic men and women are Jesus and Mary, soulmates and partners in ministry.

What empowers them? It is what our principles describe as “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the force which create and uphold life.” Ritual is a way to do that: to transcend into Mystery and so on Thursday evening at 7:30 you are invited to the Fireside Room and become part of a Chalice of Mystery ritual centered in Jesus and Mary. We plan to invoke and experience the same archetypal energies that empowered them. Our purpose is to discover more of our own true humanity and be empowered for confronting the Power structures of our time without fear. If you feel you would like to explore Mystery with us, come join us!