Joanna, and Mary, and Susanna, and Mary, and Salome, and Mary … and many others

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,  and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Luke 8.1-3

There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.  These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.

                                                                                                 Matthew 15.40-41

I am sometimes a tad cross with the extent to which women are marginalised, left on the periphery, in the Gospel narratives. And here it goes again. Thankfully, some are named, we know there were many, and without them Jesus and his crew would have had a miserable time of it for three years. It reminds me of some words hidden in Jeremiah which I am sure you never have heard preached about.

How long will you hesitate, faithless people? I have created something new and different,     as different as a woman protecting a man.

Jeremiah 31.22 (Good News Bible)

We know that ‘a woman protecting a man’ isn’t all that new and different really – it happens most days in most societies. It’s part of our mutuality. Anyway, here Joanna, Susannah and friends show us the way as providers, if not protectors … and they are there right to the end.

Let’s live in the spirit of the disciple women.