First Women
What Sarah Mullally and Mary Magdalene Teach Us
The Church of England recently installed its new leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a ceremony that has been taking place for more than 1,400 years. For the first time in history, the archbishop is a woman, Sarah Elisabeth Mullally. She is the 106th person to hold the job.
NPR reports that Mullally prepared for the ceremony by walking 87 miles from London to Canterbury, a journey made famous by Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic story of pilgrimage, The Canterbury Tales. After she arrived, the March 25 ceremony began when she knocked three times on the west door of Canterbury Cathedral, and then entered with a group of local schoolchildren. The installation service was attended by the Prince and Princess of Wales, as well as Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Starmer said Mullally “will play a key role in our national life,” adding that he wishes her “every success.” King Charles III approved of the nomination, as did Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, who described Mullally as “a person of huge courage, wisdom, integrity and experience.” Mullally replaces former archbishop Justin Welby, who resigned in 2024 after an investigation revealed that he failed to respond properly to serial physical and sexual abuse by a Christian camp volunteer.
“As I respond to the call of Christ to this new ministry, I do so in the same spirit of service to God and to others that has motivated me since I first came to faith as a teenager,” Mullally said in a statement reported by Fox News. “At every stage of that journey, through my nursing career and Christian ministry, I have learned to listen deeply — to people and to God’s gentle prompting — to seek to bring people together to find hope and healing.” She added, “I want, very simply, to encourage the Church to continue to grow in confidence in the Gospel, to speak of the love that we find in Jesus Christ and for it to shape our actions.”
In addition to becoming the head of the Church of England, Mullally is the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, which includes tens of millions of members around the world. The installation ceremony reflected the church’s global reach by including sections in languages such as Spanish, Swahili and Urdu.
Although the ceremony was celebratory, Mullally’s appointment has sparked opposition from groups such as the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON). For more than 20 years, the global Anglican Communion (including the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Church of Nigeria, among others) has been divided over issues including same-sex marriage and the ordination of women and L.G.B.T.Q. people. According to The New York Times, GAFCON believes that “the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy.”
Emily Onyango, assistant bishop of the Diocese of Bondo, was the first woman ordained as a bishop in the Anglican Church of Kenya. She told NPR that leadership roles in the church can be harder for women. “Most people have never seen a woman church leader,” Onyango said. “Everybody thinks that you should be twice as good as the other bishops to be recognized.”
But why should leadership in the church be “male-only,” and why should women have to be “twice as good” in order to be recognized? One lesson of Easter is that women were among the first apostles and church leaders.
According to Matthew, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were the first people to visit the tomb on Easter morning. As soon as they arrived, “an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone” (Matthew 28:2). The appearance of the angel “was like lightning and his clothes white as snow” (v. 3). The soldiers who had been posted to guard the tomb “shook and became like dead men” (v. 4). They were overwhelmed with fear.
“Do not be afraid,” said the angel to the women, “for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said” (vv. 5-6). The very worst thing that could possibly happen — the death of God’s son on a cross — had been overcome by the resurrection. Darkness had been replaced by light, and death had been replaced by new life.
“Then go quickly and tell his disciples,” said the angel: “’He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’” The women were told to “go quickly and tell his disciples” about the resurrection. The word “apostle” comes from the Greek apostolos, which means “messenger.”
These two women were the first apostles in the sense that they were the first people sent out as messengers of the good news that Jesus had been raised. Matthew tells us that “they left the tomb quickly … and ran to tell his disciples” (v. 8).
Mary Magdalene was not only an apostle. She was also a leader of the community of Christ’s followers. John says that she came to the tomb while it was still dark, and saw that “the stone had been removed from the tomb” (John 20:1). This discovery upset her, since she assumed that grave-robbers had been at work. So she ran to Simon Peter and to John, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”
Notice that she calls Jesus “the Lord,” and she says to them that “we do not know where they have laid him.” By calling Jesus “the Lord” and using the plural “we,” she is identifying herself as part of the community of Jesus’ followers. Clearly, there were more than twelve disciples, and not all of them were men. As a leader of the community, Mary knows that Jesus is Lord, and she is following him faithfully.
Peter and John take Mary seriously and respond to her by running to the tomb. John peers in and sees the linen wrappings, but he does not go in. Peter arrives, enters the tomb, and sees both the wrappings and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head. Then John enters the tomb, and the gospel says that “he saw and believed” (v. 8). He saw that the tomb was empty, and he believed the truth of Mary’s story.
So, what do Sarah Mullally and Mary Magdalene teach us? How to listen deeply, to people and to God’s prompting, and to seek to bring people together to find hope and healing. How to grow in confidence in the Gospel. How to be apostles — messengers — of the good news of the resurrection. And how to be people who claim Jesus as Lord, and allow him to shape our words and actions. For all of these gifts, we can be thankful for these first women.