John 4:5-42 - Sunday, March 26, 2017
It might be easy to lose heart and stay
reflective at this point along the way of Lent. It’s the beginning of school
spring break after all. People are going away on holidays. Although. Lent can
travel with you. Three years ago we went on a cruise. The first night in the
dining room, our 16-year-old pointed out the flowers on the table and asked,
‘the flowers are purple cause it’s Lent right?’ There’s the feeling of spring
in the air. It’s getting warmer outside, there’s a freshness in the breeze. The
time we are spending in the darkness is becoming shorter. And yet, here we are,
still extinguishing candles, making our holy space more and more dim. Not
forgetting that the ministry of Jesus did not end well. Reminding ourselves
that the road we are on leads to the darkness of a tomb. In this time of Lent,
Christians are to take the opportunity to explore and examine within themselves
what their faith, what our faith, means to us as we live our lives in a world
that is vastly different and, I would venture, very much more complex than the
world in which Jesus lived. Our United Church of Canada has created a handful
of faith statements, written since Union in 1925, but we state still, that the
foundation of our Christianity is the Bible. We go to the stories of Jesus’
ministry, his miracles, his way of expressing God’s love to all that he met
along his way, and we use them to better understand how we, ourselves, can be
God’s love for all we meet along our way. And, as we well know, we cannot offer
peace, hope and love unless we have experienced, for ourselves, peace, hope and
love.
We cannot participate in Jesus’ example of
healing in the world unless we work at healing within our very selves. And,
this is some of what Lent is all about. Healing. Repenting. Recognizing where
you are hurting or where you feel broken, separated from God. Where your
actions have caused pain or where the behaviour of others have resulted in your
own pain. Over the past three Sundays we have looked at how our wounded hearts
can drive us out into the deserts of our own making, seeking solace and
understanding. We have looked at the despair that comes with loss, the loss of
a beloved, the loss of a dream or future plans. We heard how Jesus felt ‘disturbed’
with the death of Lazarus—that Jesus, through whom God chose to experience all
of what it means to be human in God’s own creation, felt the deepest sort of
human emotion, that God in Jesus despaired.
And, last week, we looked at the concept of sin, as expressed by the
Pharisees and as corrected by Jesus. Sin, to be in such a place so as to not be
able to offer one’s best self for the service of God, or to a neighbour, or,
even, to yourself.
We have talked about what it means to
recognize these areas that need repenting but, once you acknowledge healing is
necessary, what IS repenting all about? Catherine MacLean, one of the authors
of the United Church’s most recent statement of faith, called A Song of Faith, writes, “We are made at
one with God…by our participation in holy possibility…that the holy mystery of
of Jesus’ life, work, death, and resurrection includes our willingness to
change and [includes] our participation.” How do we move from being willing to
change and participate in our own transformation, how do we move into action? The
answer is actually quite straightforward. Those of you who have been
participating in the Daring Greatly book
study this Lent will know what it takes. Brene Brown will say, you need to be
willing to be in the arena and be vulnerable with others in your life—your
lover, your family, your friends, your neighbour, your enemy. To be vulnerable
means to have a willingness to admit that you do not have all the answers. Being
vulnerable is being willing to learn and to keep learning. Someone else might
have the answer you are looking for or may have the information you need to
understand things better. Being vulnerable means being open to the fact that
you could be wrong. And that another is right. Or, at least, less wrong than
you. Being vulnerable is being aware that you cannot possibly fully understand another
person’s experience, if only because you have not lived their life. Being
vulnerable often means conceding some of your power so that another can have
some power of their own. However, giving up ownership of power in any given
situation is uncomfortable. Being vulnerable and open to another person’s point
of view and their needs might make what has been CERTAIN in your world//uncertain.
And that doesn’t feel good because our society teaches us that we are responsible
for our destiny. Our goal in life, we are trained from a young age, is to make
certain what is uncertain. Vulnerability, by its very nature, introduces uncertainty
into our lives. No one said transformation would be painless.
At the beginning of Daring Greatly, Brene Brown quotes a speech by Theodore Roosevelt
in which he says that the person who is willing to enter into the arena to face
whatever struggle that is there, if that person falls down and gets up again,
they are showing a willingness to be vulnerable in front of all the spectators,
of their failures, not just their successes being exposed in front of so many. The
Samaritan woman in the scripture reading today was willing to enter into the
arena. She was willing to be vulnerable. How do we know this? Because the storyteller tells us in case we don’t get
the significance of this societal no-no by saying: “Jews do not share things in
common with Samaritans.” In today’s world, we know that
in the stories of ancient Israel when a Samaritan enters onto the scene, we,
the listeners are to boo and to hiss at them for Samaritans were always the bad
guys in the scene. The Samaritans were a disregarded people for the Jews Judea
and Galilee. The region of Samaria was once part of the northern kingdom of
Israel but they broke away during the reign of King David and set up their own
monarchy and form of worship until Assyria invaded and sent most of its
inhabitants into exile. We are told in the first book of Kings that the king of
Assyria brought five groups of pagans into Samaria to settle there, each
worshipping their own pagan gods. Even though the Israelites were joined in
covenant to the one true God, they intermarried with these foreigners and
adopted their worship and other practices. This is why the Jews, the
protagonists of our stories, would not have anything in common with
Samaritans—because their assimilation with these pagans had defiled them.
Samaria, like the woman at the well, had five husbands and was estranged from
her true husband.
The mere fact that Jesus
approached the woman at the well put them both in very awkward social positions.
The Samaritan is right to be cautious; "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a
drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" She immediately recognizes and names
their differences; drawing attention to the fact that it’s unlikely their
conversation is going to be fruitful. Yet, she engages, even if guardedly. She
may not have high hopes at the moment, but neither has she allowed cynicism to
define her whole being. The conversation begins with mutual vulnerability—a
willingness to risk something for the sake of faith. Jesus risks critique for
talking to a) a single woman and b) a Samaritan. We see the impropriety of it
in the disciples’ behaviour. The woman risks ridicule when she testifies to
other Samaritans that Jesus is someone worth following, even though he’s not
one of them. Relationship requires vulnerability. This is where truthful conversations, which
lead to healing and transformation must start—from a place of reciprocal
vulnerability, from a space that recognizes that each party risks being known
and being seen.
Conversation is
essential for relationships to develop and thrive. Not the dialogue happens
today, particularly the so-called conversations that are taking place as
political discourse seem to dominate the news—“I’m right. You’re wrong. So
there.” We are living in a time when open and honest conversation needs to be
cultivated and valued. Practiced and pursued. Longed for and lived. Without
real conversation, we lack intimacy and understanding; connection and empathy.
Without real conversation, we risk detachment and distance. The conversation of
the Samaritan woman and Jesus is emblematic of what true relationship looks
like—mutuality, reciprocity, and regard. The components of conversation that
allow for vulnerability to exist and transformation to happen are questions,
time and being prepared to be surprised. Questions are critical to healing. Not
the types of questions in which you already know the answers or questions that
are asked only to be polite. The questions needed for vulnerability to thrive
are those that communicate curiosity, an interest in the other, a longing for
information and understanding. The woman at the well is full of questions,
thoughtful questions, questions that matter and lead Jesus to reveal to her who
he really is. We have seen throughout his ministry that Jesus affirms
questions, even invites them, as he does in this encounter at the well. Questions
strengthen relationship.
For these conversations
that matter and in which there is an intentional and genuine interest in the
other takes time. They take time because it is likely there will be moments of
misunderstanding. The Samaritan woman is first confused by Jesus’ offer, but
she does not let that halt the conversation. And, finally, when it comes to
having a conversation with those you are striving to be in relationship with,
with those relationships you are working at healing, with those conversations
with Jesus, asking him what would he do, what would he and God have you do, you
must be prepared to be surprised. Expect to hear something about your lover,
your friend, your neighbour, your enemy that you did not understand before but,
maybe, makes sense to you now. Expect God to reveal something about God’s self
that you have never seen before. We are not told this today but the unnamed
woman at the well is the first one to whom Jesus reveals his true identity—I
AM, the first absolute I AM in the Gospel of John—not to the Jewish leaders or
to the disciples, but to her, a religious, social, political outsider. Be
prepared to be surprised. There is one final characteristic of conversation
that strives for healing and to be life-giving and that is the anticipation of
being changed in the process. The woman at the well goes from shamed to
witness. From dismissed to disciple. From alone to being a sheep of Jesus’ own
fold.
The failure of the
disciples in this story is a failure of the imagination as they awkwardly
respond to Jesus’s interaction to this woman and worry about its
appropriateness. They do not enter into the conversation. Jane Goodall, “Change
happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing
something you don’t believe is right.” Dorothy Day, a founder of the Catholic
Workers Movement grew up in a middle-class, nominally Christian home in the
early 1900s. At university she paid her way. She refused to rely financially on
her parents. She dropped out of school after two years and lived a carefree
life while exploring socialism and other economies outside of pure capitalism.
Although her younger years involved several lovers, an abortion and then the birth
of a child out of wedlock, Dorothy’s religious exploration and ongoing call
from God, led her converting to Catholicism. She continued to question the
injustice experienced by labourers and unfair labour practices. Dorothy
recognized a lack of Catholic leadership in social activism and so began the
Catholic Workers Movement, which called upon Christians to use their gifts and
talents to help fellow workers and the poor.
I mentioned John
Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, last
week—about how his mind was changed and he went from being a slave trader to
being an abolitionist. He did not change his mind in one, mind-blowing moment
of revelation. Rather, his mind was changed over a number of years, as he grew
from becoming Christian in his younger years and began asking questions about
what it means to be human in God’s world, began asking why one type of person
is consider not worthy of being fully human while others are owned and
enslaved. His mind was changed, slowly, over time as he turned his face towards
God, to what God wants for this world, to peace and hope for every person, so
that no one suffers at the hand of another human.
Conversations matter. I invite you to stay in the conversation throughout this Lent. You will not be alone. Thanks be to God.
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