19. Mary Magdalene and the Scandal of Sychar: Women Disciples of Christ

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MARY MAGDALENE AND THE SCANDAL OF SYCHAR

Women Disciples of Christ

She is ritually unclean—a woman not merely in her monthly menstrual cycle, but hemorrhaging profusely, a condition that has afflicted her for more than a decade. Such a woman should be confined to the home, surely not mingling in a crowd, contaminating others—particularly Jewish men. Indeed, the men in the multitude, if they had been aware of her presence, would have been alarmed. But she takes the risk, pushing her way through the throng in order to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. She is instantaneously healed. Now she can slip away unnoticed and make her way out of the mass of people.

But not so fast. Jesus turns around and demands to know who touched him. What kind of a question is that? There are people pressing in from all sides, the disciples point out. But Jesus is adamant. He demands to know who it was.

Unclean! Unclean! The words are ringing in her ears. There is no escape. She knows he knows. Terrified, she steps forward. Then, falling down at his feet, she confesses that she is the guilty one. She pours out her heart, telling him how she has found no relief from physicians with their dubious remedies. Jesus simply does what he does best. He looks with compassion on her. “Daughter,” he says matter-of-factly, “your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”[1]

Women are an important part of Jesus’ ministry. He is at ease with them and naturally reaches out to them—even to those with sullied reputations. He engages in an animated conversation with the woman of Sychar, and he serves as a spontaneous defense attorney for a woman caught in an adulterous relationship. Forever nameless, she is the woman taken in adultery, caught in the very act. The Bible leaves little to the imagination. How utterly embarrassing! But the matter quickly moves far beyond that of mere disgrace. She is hauled before a group of men, who intend to stone her.

Such is the legal code that holds the woman responsible while letting the guilty man go scot-free. Jesus will have none of it. He takes his time, kneeling down and writing something in the sand. The men, however, are not about to be put off. This floozy has transgressed the law, and she must pay. Jesus stands up, looks them directly in the eye, and dares any one of them who claims to be without sin to throw the first stone. He goes back to writing in the sand while her accusers, one by one, walk away speechless and humiliated.

But Jesus isn’t finished. He turns to the woman and asks if anyone has condemned her. She says that no one has. “Then neither do I condemn you,” he responds. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”[2]

On another occasion, when Jesus is being wined and dined in the home of a Pharisee, a town harlot interrupts the meal and anoints him with perfume. The Pharisee, mumbling under his breath, wonders why, if Jesus is a prophet, he doesn’t know that this woman with perfume is actually a prostitute. He should have sent her away before she started making a scene. Jesus is entirely at ease—and grateful for her lavish gift. True, she’s a sinner, but through her expression of love she repents, and Jesus forgives her.

Women—whether sick or widowed, poor or prostitutes—are on Jesus’ radar screen. And he is anything but condescending. Unlike the typical wags of the day, he does not perceive women as weak or helpless or deficient. Rather, he acknowledges their full personhood and recognizes their strength and independence. Among them are the Samaritan woman, Mary and Martha of Bethany, and Mary Magdalene.

Jesus Was a Feminist is the title of a book by Leonard Swidler. The use of the term feminist is offensive to many people, but the author’s point is that Jesus stood out among teachers and thinkers of his day. A well-known rabbi of the time spoke for many Jews when he wrote that it is better that the Torah be burned than be entrusted to a woman. Likewise, Jewish men often in their prayers thanked God for not making them female.

Such gender bias was simply not part of Jesus’ makeup. Rather than barring women from studying Scripture, he expected them to hear and understand the gospel message and to reach out with that message to others.

Perhaps it is no wonder that women were first at the cradle and last at the cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never had been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about women’s nature.

Woman of Sychar: Meeting Jesus at the Well

She carries the good news of Jesus to her hometown neighbors and thus becomes one of the New Testament’s first and most effective evangelists. With no more than a lunch-hour session, she is ready to hit the streets. Her lack of structured discipleship training, however, is not the only strike against her. Other barriers include her ethnic background, her gender, her questionable reputation, and her marginalized status.

In the biblical account there is yet another strike against her. She has no name. Yet she is a very interesting and approachable Bible character: a lively conversationalist who becomes a believer only after she dares to challenge Jesus.

Nevertheless, she has not always had good press. In fact, one biblical commentator characterized her as ignorant and uncouth and gullible. She was anything but that. Indeed, in comparison to Nicodemus, who also encounters Jesus (one chapter earlier in the Gospel of John), her questions and interaction with Jesus indicate intelligence and clarity of thought. She stands her ground, but when she becomes convinced Jesus is the Messiah, she immediately acts on that truth. Hers is a rare conversion story in Scripture.

Known as the woman at the well, the account of her story opens right after she has encountered a group of men—strangers—as she is heading just outside the small town of Sychar to fetch water. She would not have recognized them as Jesus’ disciples. Had she been a typical woman of the era, she would have looked down and avoided making eye contact. But she isn’t typical. She appears to be anything but a properly cowering woman. She passes on by and arrives at the well, surprised to encounter one lone man.

It’s high noon, and it’s very unusual to find anyone at the well in the blistering heat. By going at this time of day herself, she avoids the stares and glares and gossip of the local women. But now she is alone with a stranger. It’s an awkward moment, but then he breaks the silence and asks for a drink of water.

She’s shocked. Of course she will give him a drink. But how is it this man is breaking custom and engaging a woman in conversation—a Samaritan woman at that? It is a serious breach of protocol. Even she knows that. And she’s bold enough to call him on it: “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”[3] Seriously.

Jesus jumps on her question and turns it around. He tells her that if she only knew who he was, she would not just be asking, but pleading with him for a drink. He has her attention. Then he adds that the water he is offering her is living water.

Everyday Life

Water and Wells

Jesus told the Samaritan woman that he would have given her living water if she had only asked for it. She is bewildered. The concept of water—living water, whatever that may be—free for the asking is startling. Water is a most precious commodity in arid regions of the world, and the very thought of being in possession of some sort of mysterious living water is intriguing.

Springs and wells were the center of everyday life in biblical times. Shepherds would bring their flocks to drink at wells while they themselves engaged in social interaction, unless rivalry prevailed and fighting ensued. Village women often transformed the arduous work of carrying water into a neighborly activity that marked the hours of the day.

The patriarchs and the generations that followed built wells and struggled with their enemies over wells. The Psalms repeatedly refer to water. Psalm 1 opens with a description of an upright person who is “like a tree planted by the rivers of water.” In Psalm 23, the Lord is described as one who “leadeth me beside the still waters” (KJV). Water is a symbol that relates to both the fear and the grace of God. Indeed, God (as depicted in Psalm 107) is not only the one who “turned rivers into a desert, flowing springs into thirsty ground,” but also the one who “turned the desert into pools of water and the parched ground into flowing springs” (Ps. 107:33, 35 NIV).

The wells of these semi-desert regions must not be thought of as like our modern wells which are narrow and deep with a raised curb. The wells of the Near East have a diameter at their opening of eight to twelve feet, thus enabling a fair number of shepherds to draw water at the same time. Obviously, the depth depends on the underground water level. Usually the well is surrounded by large rough stones to a height of between one and a half to two and a half feet above the ground to prevent the caving in of the sides. Over the centuries these stones have been worn into a series of parallel ridges by the rubbing of the cords pulling up the filled buckets.

She is used to men toying with her. Is Jesus one such man? Or is he just talking nonsense in this midday desert heat? (Does she roll her eyes?) While addressing him respectfully, she points out that he does not even have a bucket. The well is deep. How could he possibly offer her water? With that she could have simply taken her bucket and headed home. But she is eager to pursue the conversation and perhaps taunt him a bit.

She asks if he is a greater man than their mutual ancestor Jacob, who not only was responsible for having the well dug, but also drank from it and watered his livestock. This very same well, after so many generations, belongs to her and all the people in Sychar. So why is he offering her water? She thinks she has him cornered. How dare any man think himself greater than Father Jacob? He was God’s man, after all. He had issues, to be sure, but God had blessed him with a new name—Israel—that would be forever honored by his descendants. And she, with all her own baggage, was one of them—a proud one of them at that.

Jesus talks right past her, going back to the matter of living water. Jacob’s well water, he explains, or that from any other well, is ordinary water. Anyone who draws from this well for a drink will soon be thirsty again. The water he is offering her, on the other hand, is an entirely different kind of water—water that will quench her thirst once and for all so that she will never be thirsty again.

She is now beginning to realize that he is speaking metaphorically, about the spiritual realm. Indeed, there is every indication by her next words that she is a seeker—someone who knows there is something beyond—far beyond—her mundane life. She asks Jesus to give her this water that will prevent her from ever thirsting again. In response, Jesus probes her on a personal level. He asks her to summon her husband and then return. She’s suspicious. What’s he getting at? She tells him she has no husband. Nice try is essentially how Jesus responds. What she has said, strictly speaking, may be true. But Jesus knows the whole truth—that she has had five husbands and the man she is currently living with is not her husband.

How could he possibly know that? But she doesn’t ask. She quickly moves the conversation away from her and back to him. Acknowledging him to be a prophet, she asks why, since their mutual ancestors worshiped God on the nearby mountain, do Jews worship exclusively in Jerusalem?

Jesus replies that Samaritans are not on the right track when it comes to worshiping God—that salvation comes through the Jews. But the time will come and is actually now here when people can worship anywhere—in Spirit and in truth. The woman is catching on and asks if the Messiah, when he comes, will clearly explain all of this. Jesus then identifies himself as the very Messiah. This is one of his early and no-less-than-astonishing self-revelations.

At that point the disciples—the same group of men whom she had encountered on the way out to the well—show up. They do not greet her and appear to be put off that Jesus would be talking in such a familiar way with a Samaritan woman. She realizes it is time to absent herself and does so in such haste she leaves her water jug at the well. But she doesn’t forget the eye-opening conversation. Jesus’ words have cut through to the core of her being.

As soon as she gets back to the village, she tells everyone she meets about the stranger who knew all about her personal life. She does not make any doctrinaire assertions. Rather, she invites the people to go out to the well and see for themselves. Her follow-up question piques their curiosity: Do you think he might be the Messiah? Her neighbors wonder if she is on to something. They hurriedly make their way to the well to see Jesus for themselves.

As a result of her enthusiastic witness, many of the Samaritans from Sychar believe in Jesus as Messiah. In fact, they are so convinced that they beg Jesus to come into their village and teach them. After his brief, two-day visit, the people know for certain that this woman has pointed them to the Messiah. Now with deep conviction they can say to her: “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”[4]

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus: Dear Friends from Bethany

They live together in Bethany with their brother Lazarus. Martha, initially named first, is likely the older of the two sisters, and perhaps the head of the home. All three appear to be unmarried, and they are good friends of Jesus. How this friendship developed is not recorded, but they are the only ones identified in the Bible as being simply friends of Jesus—very dear friends. There is no evidence that they were related to him, nor were they ones who followed after him. Unlike most of his other associates, they are not Galileans. Bethany is a small village just a short distance from Jerusalem.

Once the conflation of Mary Magdalene with the unnamed sinful woman of Luke’s gospel has been gently disentangled, the more gnarly question remains: how about Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany? If the woman who performed the anointing ceremony has been traditionally remembered as Mary Magdalene—except in the Gospel of John, where she is specifically identified as Mary of Bethany—could the solution to this puzzle lie in the fact that the two Marys are actually the same person? . . . Arguing against this interpretation are two significant difficulties. First, the Gospel of John itself clearly distinguishes between these two characters. There is no conflation in the author’s mind. Mary of Bethany is the one who performs the anointing, named as such. And Mary Magdalene, named as such, is the one who stands watch at the foot of the cross and engages in the resurrection drama. . . . Second, as we meet these women in the gospels, it is difficult to make the case that they are the same person because their energies seem so vastly different. Mary Magdalene is bold and brash, “out there,” witnessing and proclaiming. Mary of Bethany’s role is more “yin”: inward, passive, gentle, and softer.

He stays with them in their home, perhaps every time he travels to Jerusalem for Passover. Their connection with him is singular. They provide not only accommodations, but also warmth and easygoing camaraderie, allowing him to feel very much at home. In fact, their relationship with him in some respects seems more that of equals than of master and disciple. Perhaps he had visited them on many occasions in the years before his ministry began.

On one occasion when they welcomed him into their home, he is surrounded by others eager to listen to his teachings. Martha, ever conscious of customary hospitality, is busy trying to prepare a meal. She feels pressured and indeed is overwhelmed by the amount of work to do. Word has quickly gotten out that Jesus is paying them a visit, and people seem to appear out of nowhere, some no doubt slipping in without an invitation. What can she do? It’s Bethany, after all, and neighbors are neighbors.

She is outside cooking and tending the fire and cannot hear a word Jesus is saying, though she is as eager as any of the men are to listen to his teachings. But she knows well the role of women—unless they happen to be out on the road, following along with the crowd. It’s unfair, but she does not challenge custom. What does irritate her is Mary’s front-row seat at Jesus’ feet. Mary, in fact, is so intent on hearing every word Jesus says that she ignores Martha’s signals to come out and help prepare the meal. Martha seethes. Mary is so selfish and inconsiderate.

Martha simply cannot do it all alone. Finally, she’s had enough. She marches into the sitting room and interrupts the teaching, thinking that Jesus surely must be aware that she needs Mary to come and help her. Jesus knows the plight of women. He’ll be sympathetic to her cause. She addresses him as Master, and asks if he does not care—or hasn’t he even noticed?—that Mary has left all the meal preparation to her. Would you please tell her to come out and help?

The response is vintage Jesus. He uses a mundane problem to teach a far-reaching truth: “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”[5]

Mary and Martha

Preparing a meal is part of the normal workday. Hospitality is an essential ingredient in community living. But Mary, Jesus tells Martha and all the other listeners, has her priorities right in this instance. The refreshments can wait. She is more than just a friend. She is a disciple of Jesus, learning all she can absorb from his teachings.

Sometime after this, Lazarus falls ill. Mary and Martha, well aware of Jesus’ miraculous healings, send word, asking him to come quickly and heal their brother. As the hours drag, their brother’s condition worsens. They very impatiently wait for Jesus to come, pacing back and forth, walking out to the road to see any sign of him coming. Lazarus is deteriorating rapidly, and they are more anxious and upset with every passing minute. Then they realize it’s too late. He is dying. There’s nothing anyone can do for him. He takes his last breath. Friends and neighbors gather to comfort and help prepare his body for burial.

A friend of mine recalls that her mother always sat sideways in her chair during meals. Whether the table was surrounded by family members or invited guests, she was poised for action. She’d jump up if she’d forgotten something in the kitchen, if someone wanted steak sauce rather than the ketchup that was on the table, or if it was time to pass the serving dishes around again. . . . There is biblical precedent for that instinct and posture in the account of Jesus’ visit to the home of two sisters, Mary and Martha. . . . One can imagine how the clatter of dishes in the kitchen grows steadily louder until Martha’s exasperation at working alone is audible to Mary, who is engrossed in what Jesus is saying. Who is to say that passive-aggressive behavior didn’t exist in New Testament households?

Four days later Jesus comes walking into town as though nothing is wrong. His disciples are with him. He has already learned that Lazarus has been dead for four days. He seems to shrug it off. When Martha hears that he is coming, she goes out to meet him. She is in deep mourning. Her brother meant everything to her. Why couldn’t Jesus have come right away? She is more than a little perturbed. Her first words are a rebuke. Master, if you had come sooner, my brother would not have died. She does, however, add a caveat, suggesting that even at this point he might be able to perform a miracle.

Jesus tells her that her brother will be raised up. She responds that she knows that—that of course he’ll be raised at the end, when all are resurrected. But Jesus insists that she doesn’t have to wait that long. He tells her that he himself is the resurrection and the life and that those who believe in him will not die. He asks if she believes that. Martha no doubt does a double take. But then she makes a profound profession of faith. She knows exactly who Jesus is—that he is the promised Messiah, the Christ, who has come into the world.

Then Martha goes back to the house and tells Mary that Jesus is asking for her. Mary hurries out of the house to meet him and falls at his feet, crying out in anguish and repeating Martha’s words. If he had only come earlier—if he had only dropped everything and hurried—Lazarus would not have died. Jesus feels her pain and is deeply moved. He inquires where they have laid her brother. By this time everyone, including Jesus, is weeping. Lazarus was a close friend, whom he dearly loved.

When they arrive at the tomb, Jesus asks onlookers to roll away the boulder. Martha protests. He’s now been dead for days, and even with the cave covered, she smells the foul odor. But Jesus persists. They roll away the boulder, and Jesus calls for Lazarus to come out. When Lazarus appears, bound in grave clothes, Jesus tells the onlookers to unwrap the linens so that he can walk. Martha and Mary are as astounded as everyone else. Their brother four days dead—so dead that his body is decaying—is now alive and well.

Jesus takes the miracle in stride, and the three siblings bid farewell, with Jesus promising to return soon. When he does return, there are big crowds—those who have come to see Lazarus, the dead man walking, and those who want to see the holy man who performed the incredible miracle. Religious leaders are also there, many of whom want Jesus and his cult following to just go away. Jesus makes his way through the crowds and gets inside the house, where Martha is hosting a feast in his honor. Lazarus joins the lively conversation and enjoys the meal as well.

As they are eating Mary comes in with a very expensive container of perfume and pours it on the feet of Jesus. She then kneels down and wipes his feet with her hair. The fragrance fills the entire house. What a waste of money, Judas complains, adding that it would have been far better if she had sold it and given the money to the poor. Jesus defends her, saying that what she had done was an act of love intended for his burial.

Modern scholarship has tended to soften up the prostitute aspect. . . . But the memory of a broken person whose conversion was synonymous with her healing remains front and center in the portrait of Mary Magdalene. She is the “type” of the recovering sinner. . . . It may be surprising, then, to discover that this theoretically “scriptural” portrait actually hangs on the very slimmest of scriptural threads. It is almost entirely a concoction of patristic and medieval Western piety. . . . It’s “real” to the degree that it actually came to life within the church and both did and continues to exert a huge influence on Christian spirituality. But it’s not “true,” if by true you mean faithful to what actually happened or to what the scriptural accounts themselves actually say or imply. What scripture actually says about Mary Magdalene is a lot more positive—and for exactly this reason, a lot more unsettling.

Mary appears for the first time in the chronology of Jesus’ life in this brief passage from Luke’s Gospel (8:2–3). Luke indicates when she entered Jesus’ life and why she sought him out. Jesus’ reputation must have drawn her the ten hard miles from her home in Magdala to Capernaum. . . . She probably came to him alone, on foot, over rock roads and rough paths, possessed by demons, her clothing in tatters. . . . Given Mary’s demonic possession, there is little mystery about her being single. Possession carried the stigma of impurity, not the natural impurity of childbirth (for example), but the contagion of an unclean spirit. She had no doubt been ostracized in Magdala in view of her many demons.

Mary could not have known how fast the events of the coming week would unravel—that she had anointed him barely a week before his death.

Mary Magdalene: Bringing News of the Resurrection

Mary Magdalene is an enigma. One learns right up front that she has had seven demons cast out of her—almost as a badge of honor. Whether all at once or one demon at a time over the course of months or years is not recorded. Nor is there any hint of how those demons manifested themselves in her life. Perhaps she suffered from severe depression or bipolar disorder or some other affliction. Whatever the symptoms and the duration of her difficulties, Jesus healed her and she was one of his closest disciples—always the first named among his women followers.

Mary hails from Magdala, a fishing village lying on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Unlike most women in the Bible, she appears not to be dependent on a husband or father. Did she come from a moneyed family—with money enough to cover her traveling expenses as she follows Jesus? She is likely one of his earliest followers, since she is named along with other women who ministered to Jesus by supplying provisions. Like the Twelve, she and the other women traveled with Jesus from town to town, listening to his teachings.

She was perhaps the single most important person in the new faith’s most crucial three days. Yet she is not mentioned again—not in Acts, not in the various epistles. . . . Magdalene disappeared from the official record Easter afternoon.

James T. Baker, “The Red-Haired Saint”

It is during Passion Week, however, that Mary Magdalene comes to the fore. She is among the women (and John) who do not flee for fear of persecution when Jesus is arrested and crucified. Indeed, she not only holds vigil from a respectful distance but also comes close and stands at the very foot of the cross, seeking consolation and offering comfort to Jesus.

The text [Mark 16] also provides an opportunity to lift up the importance of women in the ministry and mission of Jesus. Because we are so familiar with the story, we are prone to forget what a startling thing it is that the apostolic commission is entrusted to women. History’s most important message is given to those who could not give legal testimony in court in their own culture. Here is a Markan irony with an important message for those who still question the legitimacy of women’s ministry in the church. In the Orthodox tradition, Mary Magdalene is called “apostle to the apostles,” an apt designation.

Indeed, Mary is the first mentioned of several women who are at the crucifixion, painfully standing by Jesus to the very end. She, along with Mary the mother of James and Joseph, stays behind at the tomb after Joseph of Arimathea departs. They leave and prepare the spices for burial. Then before dawn on the first day of the week they return to the tomb with their spices. This is the least they can do for their beloved Master. But now they find the tomb barred by a boulder and guarded by Roman soldiers.

The sky is still dark, and there is no place to go. What should they do with the spices? Even their smallest deeds of reverence are thwarted. Mary is weeping. It is so depressing. How can she contemplate anything but the awfulness of the crucifixion? Amid their sadness and the spooky half-light of daybreak, the women are suddenly jolted by an earthquake. More than that, the soldiers are struck down as though dead. At that moment the women are stunned to encounter a brilliant angel right in front of them, who proceeds to roll back the boulder from the entrance to the tomb.

Shafts of light are blazing from the angel as they walk inside, but the most startling detail is that Jesus’ body is no longer there. The angel tells them that Jesus is risen and that they must hurry and give the news to the other disciples. The angel adds a final comment—Jesus is going on ahead to Galilee, where they will find him.

Jesus and Mary Magdalene

So the women, gathering their skirts, run to tell the disciples the joyful news. But before they can get to them, they are stopped dead in their tracks by Jesus himself. When Jesus calls her by name, Mary recognizes him. She gasps as she addresses him—her dear teacher—and then falls down to worship him. He pushes her back, insisting that she not cling to him, because he has not yet ascended into heaven. He tells the two women to hurry on and inform the other disciples. When they arrive, out of breath, Mary tells the eleven apostles that she has seen the Master. What on earth is she talking about? How could the tomb be empty and the recently dead Jesus be walking around and talking to her? It’s impossible.

Whether the men believed her or not, Mary knew exactly what she had seen at the tomb. Her spices had been of no use. Jesus was alive and well, and she would always treasure that awesome moment when she recognized him risen from the dead—when he called her by name.

Concluding Observations

If Mary the mother of Jesus is the first lady of the Gospels, Mary Magdalene is surely the second—one who in many ways plays a more enviable role. She does not carry the load of demure perfection that the mother of Jesus has been saddled with. Rather, she is a friend and colleague, working alongside Jesus in the rough-and-tumble work of discipleship. She is the spirited redhead (as some artists have depicted her), complete with a questionable past. Tormented by demons, the girl with so much promise has no hope of recovery—until she comes face-to-face with a man who was himself severely tempted by demonic forces. He harbors no scorn for her as others have. He simply heals her, and her life is transformed. One can almost hear her joyful squeal of freedom, her laughter ringing out while Jesus looks on, beaming with pleasure.

From seminary scholars and preachers to neighborhood Bible study facilitators, people wrestle with Mary and Martha, making application to contemporary living. How would they have felt if they had known that down through the centuries their differences would be magnified and serve as talking points for proper Christian conduct? Mary is the one who is praised, though not without a loyal opposition taking the side of Martha. They are us, and we so easily resonate with their issues. But we do them a disservice if we see them only as sisters with opposing personalities.

The woman of Sychar, like Mary Magdalene, is an enigma. How on earth, living in the hamlet of Sychar, could she have been married to five different men? But basically it’s none of our business. With the exception of one memorable day in her life, this nameless woman is lost in the annals of time. Her ministry, therefore, stands out as a monument to nameless evangelists through the ages—a monument and a reminder to Christians worldwide: the expansion of the faith is largely due to nameless, untrained, ordinary individuals, some with serious skeletons in their closets.