{"id":561,"date":"2017-03-21T11:16:07","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T15:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=561"},"modified":"2017-03-21T11:16:07","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T15:16:07","slug":"conversations-before-the-cross-3-samaritan-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2017\/03\/21\/conversations-before-the-cross-3-samaritan-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversations Before the Cross 3: Samaritan Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conversations Before the Cross 3: Samaritan Woman<<\/h1>\n

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY<\/h2>\n

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor<\/h2>\n

Third Sunday in Lent\/A \u2022 March 19, 2017<\/h2>\n

John 4:5-42<\/a><\/h2>\n

I\u2019m nobody! Who are you?
\nAre you nobody too?
\n– Emily Dickinson<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those words were written in the nineteenth century by Emily Dickinson but I wonder if they might not stand for the thoughts of the Samaritan Woman as she trudged down the hot dirt path to Jacob\u2019s Well and saw a strange man sitting there. One more man who would by his averted glance, his sitting aside, demonstrate his contempt for her and all she was. One more person who would demonstrate indeed that he believed she was nobody. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s walking down the path at the middle of the day, the sixth hour. It\u2019s an odd time to fetch water; water is usually fetched at the beginning and end of the day by young women who gather happily at the well. This woman has set herself aside and comes at the middle of the day for reasons about which we can only wonder. She is a minority in a culture of disdain. She is nameless even here in the Gospel. She is a woman in a patriarchal society, she is a casualty of relationships. <\/p>\n

Boundaries<\/h3>\n

All these things are like boundaries around her. The boundary of Samaria: as much a psychological boundary as a national one, one of those boundaries human beings create which seems to outsiders artificial and yet to those who observe it is crucial to identity. How many years have we heard about the troubles in Ireland and yet which of us could distinguish between an Irish Catholic and an Irish Protestant? But the distinction is life and death there. <\/p>\n

Years ago the television program Star Trek had a show in which the crew of the Enterprise visited a world of enormous conflict between two races who were half starkly white and half deeply black. Captain Kirk, trying to make peace, arranges a meeting between the leaders of the two factions. He says, \u201cI don\u2019t understand, you\u2019re both half white, half black.\u201d But both combatants look at him in amazement. \u201cBut Captain!\u201d, one replies, \u201cHe\u2019s white on the right and black on the left; I\u2019m black on the right and white on the left!\u201d. Jesus asks the woman for a drink and she\u2019s amazed! <\/p>\n

How Would You Respond to a Stranger?<\/h3>\n

\u201cYou are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?\u201d There she is with all her boundaries and someone enters her space. What do you think she expected? What do you expect when you, as a woman, walk into a public place and there is a strange and threatening man? I asked this question in Bible Class and every woman there said the same thing: \u201cI\u2019d avoid him\u201d. She expects to avoid him, she expects to endure his silent contempt, she expects to be nobody. But he asks for a drink. And before he\u2019s done, she\u2019s begging him for living water. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing more basic than a drink of water. Jesus asks for a drink and the woman asks for living water, the woman who was nobody, the woman who was nobody. The church is looking back and this is what they are remembering: once I was nobody. \u201cI once was lost and now am found\u201d, we sing. I once was nobody and I had living water poured on me and I became someone. One by one Jesus crosses the boundaries that have isolated this woman. He asks for water as if she were a friend; he offers living water as if she were family. He makes the well again a place to share for her, though she had been alone. Jew, Samaritan\u2014we\u2019re both thirsty, he seems to say. She wants to talk theology: a way to put the boundaries back. \u201cWhat about where we worship\u201d, she asks; \u201cworship in spirit wherever\u201d, he replies\u2014that\u2019s what God really wants.<\/p>\n

Getting Personal<\/h3>\n

Finally, something happens that saves this from being theoretical and that\u2019s the moment when he asks about her husband; that\u2019s the moment when it becomes concrete, there\u2019s a moment when it becomes personal. There\u2019s a story about a woman in an evangelical church who was very judgmental. One day she got the Deacons to invite a noted fire and brimstone preacher to visit. He said, \u201cGod is going to judge everyone! Everyone who has take the Lord\u2019s name in vain, you’re going to have God\u2019s judgment!\u201d \u201cAmen!\u201d, the woman shouted. \u201cEveryone who has looked with lust is going to have God\u2019s judgment!\u201d he shouted. \u201cAmen! Preach it!\u201d, she said, rocking in her pew with her enthusiasm. \u201cEveryone who gambles and plays bingo is going to have God\u2019s judgment!\u201d, he yelled. And the woman stopped rocking and said to her neighbor, the one who had won $5 just last night with her at bingo, \u201cWell, now he\u2019s stopped preaching and gone to meddling.\u201d It\u2019s one thing to talk about theology; it\u2019s another thing to talk about personal things, private things. <\/p>\n

\u201cCall your husband\u201d, Jesus says. That\u2019s personal. \u201cI don\u2019t have a husband\u201d, the woman replies. Whatever this woman\u2019s history, and the church has imagined all kinds of histories for her, we know this: she has been dumped. We know it because the text says she has had five husbands and under the law of the time, she couldn\u2019t divorce anyone, women couldn\u2019t divorce their husbands, so five men husbands have left her. What does Jesus say to her? We don\u2019t know; the text doesn\u2019t t tell us but it is clear that whatever he says, she comes away from the encounter with a tremendous sense of acceptance, a deep feeling of having been heard and cared for, because her response is to ask, \u201cCan this be the Christ?\u201d He knows her: from his knowledge, she takes the courage to know him<\/p>\n

When the Lost Are Found<\/h3>\n

It is the experience Paul talks about:<\/p>\n

You see at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated God\u2019s own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God didn\u2019t wait for us to get right, God came when we were sinners, when we were a mess. God already knew us. <\/p>\n

That affirmation about God is at the core of what it means to be Christian. Christian life doesn\u2019t start when we know God nor is it founded on what we say about God. Christian life begins when we know God already knows us and loves us
\n.<\/p>\n

The church has all too often forgotten that we come from God\u2019s knowledge of us to our knowledge of God. We have fenced the communion table, we have created boundaries which kept people like this woman out. <\/p>\n

I want to say this one thing about the communion table: the invitation is for sinners. This table is a symbol that God is coming to us where we are, to give us the possibility of going to what God hopes for us. This table is a place to receive the food that can nurture us. And what is that food? Not just bread and grape juice. These are just symbols. They are symbols of God\u2019s nurture, they are symbols of God\u2019s call to move beyond the boundaries, beyond what we are, to what we can become.<\/p>\n

Who Do You Meet?<\/h3>\n

Just like Jesus with the Samaritan Woman, every day we encounter people who don\u2019t expect much from us. They don\u2019t know you are a Christian; they don\u2019t know you at all. In every one of those encounters, there is the possibility of someone being nurtured. In every one of those encounters, there is the possibility to share the well, to share the living water. <\/p>\n

God has for each one of us, for me, for you, this plan: that you will be a blessing. And everything you need to be a blessing is right there if you will look around and see it. That looking around begins with the woman\u2019s question. When she leaves Jesus, she says, \u201cCan this be the Christ?\u201d What do you think? Can it? Can you believe this is a Christ who can care for you despite all the boundaries?<\/p>\n

What this finally means is: can you believe in hope? It\u2019s frightening to believe in hope sometimes; it\u2019s scary to believe in a hope beyond reason. <\/p>\n

The movie Shakespeare in Love is the story of the young Will Shakespeare writing a new play he calls Romeo and Ethel, which you may know more familiarly as Romeo and Juliet. The movie has a romantic subplot and several conspiracies which all gather momentum near the end, as the play is put on stage. There are all kinds of obstacles and as they occur people keep rushing up to the stage manager and wringing their hands. To each in turn he replies, \u201cIt will all work out\u201d. \u201cHow\u201d, they ask. \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d he says. It will all work out\u2014How?\u2014I don\u2019t know: over and over again. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the hope Paul talks about; not a hope founded on reason, a hope founded on the faith that there is a God whose love is so powerful it can break the boundaries, there is a God whose love is so powerful it can call out of nothing creation, there is a God whose love is so powerful it called Jesus Christ from death back to live, there is a God whose love is so powerful it can call you to the same life. Share it, live it, offer it, as living water, as you share the well this week.
\nAmen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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