This is the first of a series of sermons about women as leaders in the Gospels and in the early church. It was inspired by this sermon about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. More sermons in this series to follow!

--Rev. Stephanie Spitzer-Hanks, 4th Sunday in Easter, 2026, Homer Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Homer, New York

Ceballos Fernández, Lázaro A.. The Proclamation, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt University Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://act.library.vanderbilt.edu/artworks/59863 [retrieved April 27, 2026]. Original source: Beth Maczka, Beth@BethMaczka.com.

If you prefer to watch instead of read the sermon, the video should begin at the beginning of the sermon.

Luke 8:1-3

Soon afterward Jesus went on through one town and village after another, 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 ministered to them out of their own resources.

Sermon Transcript

Last week, as we were on the road to Emmaus, I rattled off a list of names of women who were Jesus’s disciples and also a list of women who were leaders in the early church.
But then I got to thinking, what if rattling off a long list isn’t the best way of learning about these women? We have time. We can spend some time learning about and being inspired by them, and along the way, we can also learn a thing or two about the early church—how Jesus’s teachings spread, churches were formed, what they got up to, what sort of challenges they faced. And maybe that would inspire us, too, as we do our best to be the church in this day and age.
So for the next six weeks that I am here in the pulpit, we are going to look more closely at some of these women, and the ministries they were part of, and the churches they helped lead.
This Sunday I thought it would make sense to begin with some of the women who were disciples of Jesus: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna. And there were others! But this morning we will focus on these three.
We meet them early in Jesus’s ministry in Luke 8, which we are going to spend some time unpacking:
“Soon afterward Jesus went on through one town and village after another, 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 ministered to them out of their own resources.”
There’s a lot happening in these three verses.
First we learn something about the shape of Jesus’s ministry—the man really never stood still! He traveled, a LOT, “moving through one town and village after another.”
It is estimated that in the three years of Jesus’s ministry, he walked 3000 or so miles—maybe more! And yes, there are people in the world who have taken the time to note all of Jesus’s journeys, track the distances on a map, and tally up the results. I am going to take their word for it!
So he walked around 3000 miles, based on trips recorded in the Gospels. And he did all of this traveling to “proclaim and bring the good news of the kingdom of God” to anyone who would listen. This was who Jesus was—once he set out on his mission, he kept going, moving from place to place, preaching the kingdom of God anywhere he could draw a crowd—by the seaside, on a hilltop, on a plain.
He also had many conversations with folks on his travels. He was challenged by people who had other perspectives on the right way to be in relationship with God. He healed people.
And along the way people who witnessed all of this dropped what they had been doing and started following him. We call those people disciples, which is a Bible word for student or follower. And there got to be quite a few of them.
At one point Jesus decided to choose 12 men from this crowd of disciples, who were referred to from then on by the very original name: “The Twelve.”
These guys were disciples, but then Jesus gave them another role—he figured he could cover even more ground, heal more people, if he deputized the 12 to go out on their own, apart from Jesus. Their new role was that of “apostle”.
Now apostle is another Bible word—it just means “one who is sent on a mission.”
But even though the Twelve had been chosen from among a bunch of disciples and been sent out as apostles, they didn’t spend all their time away. They also spent a good bit of time being disciples, and learning from Jesus. It was sort of a dual role.
So, back to the passage we are looking at:
“Jesus went on through one town and village after another, 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:”
Ok so the Twelve were there, as were some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities.
Infirmities we get, right? We pray all the time for ourselves and our loved ones who are facing illness. But being cured of evil spirits? That hits a little different, and I don’t know about you, but the whole idea of curing folks of evil spirits or casting out demons makes me uncomfortable. It feels a bit too Pentecostal for me.
When I read such passages, I do not imagine Jesus or his apostles casting out actual demons. For me, it’s a metaphor—a way for people in ancient times to express an idea they didn’t have any understanding of: things like mental illness, addiction, or what we might understand today as invisible or hidden disabilities: things like chronic pain, diabetes, or autism (to name a few).
They would have called all of these things “having an evil spirit” or “being possessed by a demon.” When Jesus healed someone, whether that illness was visible or invisible—it was a miraculous, life-changing encounter with the divine. And many people who had such healing, life-affirming encounters with Jesus, chose to become disciples and follow him in his travels, just to be close to him.
And that was the case for the women named here: Mary Magdalene—and by the way, Magdalene was not her last name. It just means she came from the town of Magdala.
But these three women: Mary Magdalene (who had not one but SEVEN demons cast out of her), and Joanna, and Susanna had been healed by Jesus in one way or another, and they became his disciples.
And not only did they learn from Jesus, they also funded his ministry from their own financial reserves.
Jesus was an itinerant preacher, traveling around Israel with a crowd of disciples—his ministry required some significant funds to keep going.
These three women: Mary, Joanna, Susanna—and many others—kept everyone fed and in tunics and sandals. They knew that the kingdom of God is not built on an empty stomach. It was their practical support—money in the offering plate—that kept Jesus’s ministry afloat.
These three women were with Jesus from early in his ministry, and two of the three are mentioned as witnessing Jesus’s death—Mary Magdalene and Joanna. So they clearly had staying power—they stuck with him through the years of travel, the bickering among the Twelve, the persecution from religious leaders, the confusing parables—all of it. They were there, supporting Jesus from early on to the end.
And Mary Magdalene didn’t give up even then—she is also mentioned—multiple times, and in all four gospels, as one of those who rose early on the third day after Jesus’s death, and discovered that his tomb was empty. Even Jesus’s death couldn’t keep her away. She was *extra* committed.
But here I am going to take a moment to talk about what the Bible *doesn’t* say about Mary Magdalene. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Mary Magdalene was an adulteress, or a prostitute, or a fallen woman of any kind.
I have told you already all of the Bible passages that mention her: she was healed by Jesus of seven demons, she was a disciple of Jesus, she funded his ministry, she witnessed his death, she witnessed his resurrection. That’s it.
Yet there are rumors that persist about her being somehow sexually tainted. Where did that idea come from?
Well, we can thank Pope Gregory the first. He preached a sermon in the year of our Lord 591 that identified Mary Magdalene as the woman in Luke chapter 7 who washed Jesus’s feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and then anointed his feet with perfume.
Now *that* woman *was* described in the Bible as sinful, and her sin was part of a whole conversation among some Pharisees who said that Jesus should not be letting her touch him.
But that woman was UNNAMED. We do not know her name. It definitely was not Mary Magdalene, or I’m pretty sure Luke would have said so.
Yet, Pope Gregory felt he knew better, and that the woman with the tears and the hair and the perfume was Mary Magdalene. And the misidentification stuck.
And then through the centuries, religious artists often depicted Mary Magdalene as a sexual object. And even in our modern times, if you’ve seen a movie or a play or read a novel based on Jesus’s life—odds are that Mary Magdalene was depicted as somehow tempting or seducing Jesus. It’s a whole trope.
But it’s wrong. It was wrong when Pope Gregory started this rumor back in the the 6th century. It wasn’t until 1969 that Pope Paul the 6th finally set the record straight and officially clarified that Mary Magdalene was indeed *not a prostitute.* But even so, her reputation as a woman with a checkered past persists.
Mary was not a woman with a checkered past. Unless you count being possessed by seven demons as checkered. Which I don’t.
And even if she had a checkered past, it really wouldn’t make a difference to me. I don’t care about who she did or didn’t have sex with. But a lot of people did care, and used that slander as a way of diminishing her value as a person, as a disciple of Christ.
So she was not a fallen woman. What she *was* was the first to discover the risen Lord, and the one whom Jesus tasked to tell the others. In John’s gospel, he tells it this way:
“Jesus said to her, “But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.”
That is the image I chose for us to look at today—that of Mary Magdalene bringing the news to the disciples—news that she brought from Jesus himself—that he had risen from the dead.
She was the one chosen to tell them. She was the first person to see the risen Christ and the first to share the news of the resurrection with the disciples. She had been sent by Jesus on a mission: She was the apostle to the apostles!
———
What can we learn, how can we take inspiration from these women: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna?
Their experience of Jesus was life-affirming and life-changing—they gave their all to follow him. They spent their time learning from him. They funded his ministry. Their gifts enabled more people to have their suffering relieved by Jesus, their gifts enabled more people to hear Jesus’s message about the kingdom of God.
Aren’t these all things that we also could, or should, be doing? Shouldn’t our experiences of Jesus to draw us nearer to him? Shouldn’t we be taking in his words, learning from him how to live? And shouldn’t we be finding ways to fund and further Jesus’s mission in the world—relieving the suffering of others, and spreading the good news about the kingdom of God?
These women persisted in following him, through long days of travel, into situations where they were not necessarily welcomed. They followed Jesus all the way to his arrest, his trial. His execution.
Do we follow Jesus, even when it is hard?
Mary went and told the others about Jesus’s resurrection. Some of the disciples called her story a “idle tale.” I bet most of them didn’t believe her. But she didn’t care. She knew what she had experienced of the risen Christ, and she was not going to be quiet about it.
Are we quiet about Jesus, about who he is, about how our lives are changed because of his presence in our lives?
And there is also a lesson in here somewhere about not judging a person based on what other people say about them. For centuries, Mary’s reputation was smeared—perhaps because folks were threatened by her—by this woman whom Jesus chose to be his apostle? Perhaps the temptation to knock her down a peg or two—to put her in her place—was too great.
But let us not fall into that temptation. Let us not tear others down out of spite or jealousy. Let us not let any rumors about someone’s sexual history (or anything else) diminish their value as a person, as someone made in the image of God, like each of us are made in God’s image.
One of the reasons so many people were drawn to Jesus was that he had the ability to cut through all the noise and to see each person for who they truly are. He sees each one of us—each of us is a child of God, beloved by God, called to do God’s work in the word, with the gifts each of us have been given.
May we take Mary and Joanna and Susanna as our inspiration to answer God’s call on each of us to respond in faith and persist in following Jesus.
Amen.

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This sermon was the inspiration for the sermon series to follow: at the beginning I wonder about whether the unnamed disciple (i.e. not Cleopas) on the road to Emmaus could have been a woman. Which later got me to thinking I need to spend some more time learning and preaching about the women who served as leaders in the Gospels and in the early church. Sermon series to follow!

--Rev. Stephanie Spitzer-Hanks, 3rd Sunday in Easter, 2026, Homer Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Homer, New York

Hochhalter, Cara B.. On the Road to Emmaus, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59269 [retrieved April 27, 2026]. Original source: Cara B. Hochhalter.

If you prefer to watch instead of read the sermon, the video should begin at the beginning of the sermon.

Luke 24:13-35, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?"
He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.
"Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him."
Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"
That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Sermon Transcript

This morning I’m going to talk about how sometimes our expectations keep us from being able to see what is really happening, or maybe our expectations blind us to what could be possible.
How many of you, when Lori read this story to us, in your mind’s eye you pictured three men—Jesus and the two disciples—walking and talking along the road to Emmaus? (Don’t worry, I won’t make you raise your hands!)
The text names one of the disciples—Cleopas (which is a man’s name)—but the other disciple not only doesn’t get named, but Luke also never uses any singular pronouns in this passage. It’s always “they” when referring to both of the disciples together, but Luke never says “he” when referring to either of them.
So why did we (and I include myself here) assume it was a male disciple? We are not alone in this assumption—every artistic rendering of this story I could find showed two dudes walking with Jesus. I picked this image because it is at least a bit ambiguous. That center figure *could* be a woman.
And the truth is, that second disciple could just as easily have been a woman as a man. She could very plausibly be Cleopas’s sister, or wife.
After all, the 12 disciples *were* all men, but they were just a subset of a larger group of disciples, which definitely included women. Cleopas even mentions his female co-disciples in this passage: he said to Jesus, “some women *of our group* astounded us” with their news about how they had gone to the tomb that morning and found it empty.
So clearly, the Three Marys (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mary of Clopas) were part of the group of disciples. Other female disciples named in the Gospels include: Joanna, Susanna, and the sisters at Bethany—Mary and Martha.
And then in the early church—there were several more women named as leaders in Acts and in Paul’s many letters. There was another Mary (the mother of John Mark), Priscilla, Chloe, Lydia, Apphia, Nympha, Euodia, Syntyche, and Junia—who were all mentioned by name as leaders in the church—and then there were the other women who were referred to by their relationships, such as the four daughters of Phillip, who were considered prophets.
So why did we assume both disciples on the road to Emmaus were men? Because that is what we expected to see.
Because it didn’t take too terribly long before the male leaders of the early church conformed to the cultural standards of their day and pushed the women aside, out of leadership roles. Because for most of Christian history it has been only men serving as pastors and priests.
Because some people pluck out from Paul’s letters—which he wrote to specific churches facing specific challenges—they pluck one or two verses that say that women should be silent in church. And they ignore all the other examples Paul gives of actual women *not being silent*—who were leaders of the church, whom he names in his letters, and of whom he speaks with respect and admiration.
So with all of that history behind us as well as the current practice in many other churches today being that women must be silent and submissive—it is completely understandable that we would not recognize that the second disciple could very well have been a woman.
———
But speaking of those two disciples, the question I have every single time I read this passage: How on earth could they not recognize Jesus?!? Like, how?!?
They are walking along, Jesus starts to overtake them (because of course Jesus is a speed walker). Jesus asks, “What are y’all talking about?”
And they are like, “Who are you, you total stranger?”
They have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA who he is. These disciples. Of Jesus.
And they say, “We thought Jesus would be the messiah, the one who would come to redeem Israel (and through Israel, the whole world). But it turns out, we were wrong on that point, since he allowed the religious and political leaders to execute him three days ago.
“I mean, yeah, the women of our group have told us this wild tale about not finding his body in his tomb, and instead finding a bunch of angels who said that Jesus is alive. But how can that be? It is really too far fetched to be believed.”
That’s when Jesus calls them fools and then proceeds to give them a detailed theological discourse in which he walks them through every single instance in the Hebrew Law and Prophets that explains who the messiah is, specifically in relation to who Jesus is, and what his death really meant.
And still, through all of that, they had absolutely no idea who he was. Because they didn’t expect Jesus to show up like that. What they knew is that Jesus died three days ago. They expected that Jesus would stay dead. And can you blame them?
They didn’t expect that Jesus could rise from the dead, and walk alongside them. Jesus failed to meet their expectation of staying dead.
Friends, Jesus also fails to meet *our* expectations. But at the same time, he exceeds them.
What are some foolish expectations we have of Jesus?
Well there is the popular one, that if we just believe in Jesus, then life will be easy. That if we follow Jesus, we will be blessed with wealth, and health, and a good parking spot at the mall.
Jesus promises none of those things. So if that is what we expect from him, he will fail to meet those expectations.
Some folks expect Jesus to be vengeful and to sanction violence in his name. The current Secretary of Defense thinks this. He prays prayers of retribution in worship services held at the Pentagon. He expects that Jesus will bless war, and he is not alone in thinking this. Will Jesus fulfill this expectation? I don’t think so, and neither does the Pope. (To be clear, I don’t always agree with the Pope, but on this point, I do.)
So what should we expect of Jesus? We should expect him to surprise us, to show up in surprising ways, in ways that we maybe cannot imagine could be possible. I don’t think Jesus *means* to be sneaky, and catch us out. It’s just that we often try to constrain him with our expectations, and so when we look where we expect him to be, then he is not there.
So,where can we expect to see Jesus? Well, he did give some pretty clear direction on this point. In Matthew 25, Jesus was explainig how things would go at his final judgment, and he says that those who will inherit the kingdom of God will be the ones who served him during their lifetimes. He said:
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
So, if we are looking for Jesus, we can always find him among the poor, the hungry, the stranger, the sick, the incarcerated. With the sad, with the lonely, with the grieving, with the dying.
He also pretty clearly said that whenever we bless bread and break it and share it with one another, that he would be there. So maybe that’s why the light bulb finally clicked on when Jesus sat with those two disciples at table, and Jesus blessed the bread, and broke it. Then they knew who he was.
And that is when they remembered that their hearts had burned within them when Jesus had been speaking with them earlier, when he had “opened the scriptures” to them. What does that feel like—to have one’s heart burn within? Has your heart ever burned within you? What were the circumstances of that?
I think it must not be so common an experience. Not the kind of thing that happens every day. I think the experience of being faced with a truth so whole, so complete, so life-changing that it is not enough for your brain to simply process this truth. You also feel it in your heart, it burns within your soul. I think most of us probably only experience that a few times in our lives.
But that is what those two disciples felt, and could it be that you or I could feel it, too? Or at least, could you imagine what that might feel like, to finally see Jesus when you weren’t expecting it, to be so surprised by the joy of resurrection, that your life must be forever changed.
We have to stop trying to constrain Jesus with our small-minded and foolish expectations of him. We have to stop living as though he is there to serve our own ends, but to understand that we will find Jesus in the unexpected, we will find him in relationship with others, in moments of connection, in moments of joy.
Where might you recognize Jesus this week? Where can you expect to find him? In the face of a stranger in need? In the face of a friend whose life is falling apart? In your own dark moments of grief? In the joy of seeing a new baby? In the buds on the trees, and the bulbs breaking forth from underground? In the communion of sharing a meal? Where might you encounter the risen Christ?
Jesus doesn’t mean to be sneaky. We can find him. We just have to remember where to look, and to be open to finding him where we least expect.

--Rev. Stephanie Spitzer-Hanks, 4th Sunday in Easter, 2026, Homer Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Homer, New York

Luke 8:1-3

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--Rev. Stephanie Spitzer-Hanks, 3rd Sunday in Easter, 2026, Homer Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Homer, New York

Luke 24:13-35, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

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