Some thoughts on the Samaritan woman......Sunday, March 23, 2014

People will do extraordinary things in the name of religion.  Sometimes this will lead to unexpected peace and unity.  Other times it will be destructive and squeeze the life out of God.  Once someone begins to limit where and how God can be found and who it is God loves, you have entered dangerous territory.

Fred Phelps, who headed the Westboro Baptist Church, took his rejection of homosexuals in the name of religion to such an end that he, and his followers, with hateful, angry posters would picket the funerals of American soldiers.  Phelps insisted that the soldiers' deaths were God's just punishment on the US for its acceptance of homosexuals among us.

So it wasn't just long ago and far away that people drew lines over who was acceptable to God and who not.  In 1st century Palestine, Jews were acceptable and Samaritans (even though they shared heritage) were not; just 30 years ago in the ELCA men were acceptable proclaimers of the gospel and women not.  There continue to be folks who consider only heterosexual/straight individuals acceptable and those who don't conform sexually for whatever reason beyond the pale.

The Samaritan woman at Jacob's well falls into several categories of unacceptable.  Her life is a bad dream, a wasteland of widowhood, divorce, rejection and abandonment.  Perhaps it was all the heat she took from others that brought her out to get water in the heat of the day. We can talk another time about why commentators have historically implied this woman was of ill repute leading too many to look at her and only see a tramp.

What they fail to see is a woman without fear.  A woman who approaches a stranger, a Jewish man who would logically assume he was superior to her in all important things.  She challenges Jesus' ridiculous claims about providing water without a bucket and living water at that.  She held her ground, remembering her catechism, and the values she was taught.  She had the courage to listen closely to Jesus' answers, knowing full well she just might be proved wrong.  And here is the astonishing thing....she shakes off her pride, announcing to the entire village He. Told. Me. Everything. I. Ever. Did. in order to invite them to 'Come and See.  This one just might be the Messiah.'

Jesus stands in a place where he shouldn't have gone, talked to a woman he shouldn't have talked to and announces that God's hour is upon them.  God = Jesus.

If he did it before, he will do it again.  Jesus will cut across any barriers we erect: ethnicity, gender, income, tattoos, piercings, who we love and who loves us.  Just where you are sure you won't find Jesus, he will be standing, drinking some water, talking to the unacceptable.

If you want to know God, look for Jesus.  He'll be down at the local watering hole, having a drink with a woman only known by reputation.  He'll be at the bus station buying a Coke for a scruffy teen with a huge backpack who has been thrown out or run away from a home that is no longer safe.  He'll be on the street corner in the early morning hours, talking with the sex workers just coming off a night's work and the undocumented workers looking for a day's wage.  There is where Jesus is, talking with everyone he meets.

This Lent we are reminded of this Samaritan woman who carried the Good News to the very people who made her life a desert, because By George! Come and See! This guy knows me through and through and I think he is the real thing.  You really don't want to miss this.

Isn't that the Good News we carry?  Jesus offered me - ME!- true living water.  It is almost too good to be true.

Thirst and fear.....a bad combination

Do you remember when Hurricane Katrina hit and thousands of people were housed in the local football stadium....and they ran out of water?  Folks were desperate.   Those of us looking on from afar couldn't imagine how the government didn't plan for this eventuality.

Thirst can kill you......and a whole lot quicker than starvation.  So it is no wonder that the Israelites are an anxious group when they arrive at Rephidim and can't see any water anywhere.  This is not the kind of problem you can allow to simmer for a couple of days.  A couple of days without water is torturous.  Exodus 17.

So they turn to Moses.....in fear.  Fear for their own lives; fear for the lives of their children.  I can imagine them looking at one another and, like we did with the federal government, wonder what Moses was thinking when he took this route.  It is easy for us to suppose they should have trusted in God to provide, for God had provided before.  But a lack of water is something you need to be on top of.

They were afraid, and fear will erode faith faster than doubt any day....and at its core is death.  It is death we fear more than anything else.  Little deaths, big deaths.  Financial setbacks make us fearful; a dying relationship makes us fearful; a trip to the doctor makes us fearful.  Add to the list.  Each fear points to the death of some part of our self-image, our self-sufficiency, our hope for tomorrow.  Each fear has the potential to pull us away from God.  You don't have to stop breathing to experience death.

What do we do with our fear? (because we will continue to fear; it's human)  Two things:  talk to God and talk with a trusted person of faith.

Talk to God:  we are a resurrection people.  Not just the BIG RESURRECTION on Easter with lilies and trumpets, but a thousand small resurrections every day.  Every time fear creeps into our lives and we can see the shadow of death in the wings, we are ripe for a little resurrection.  We turn to God, confess our fear and watch for God's abiding presence as we walk through this place of darkness.

Then we talk with a trusted person of faith.  Someone who can remind us of the stories of faith, of Israel's fear in the desert, of Peter's fear during Holy Week, of their cousin George's fear when cancer was diagnosed and then witness to God's constancy.  We ask someone to surround us with the stories of faith so our fear does not drag us down into a tomb but rather, we are strengthened for the journey.

What fear handicaps your trust in God?  Take a moment and name it to yourself and then talk to God about it....the same God who raised Jesus from the dead.  There is a resurrection waiting for you.

Let's talk about sin........

First it was Nicodemus.  We watch as he slips through the night to ask Jesus a few questions.  He walks away not at all sure what the answers were. Born again?

Then we met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well at high noon.  She needs water, Jesus starts making outrageous claims about the quality of his water and in the end she leaves with Good News for the entire community. Living water?

This week we meet the man born blind.  That's the only name we have for him: the man who was blind from birth.  He is simply sitting around, begging (that was his full time job) when Jesus approaches him.  It's hard to tell if the disciples see this man as a 'learning opportunity' or if they are trying to show off their smarts by asking Jesus who sinned, the man or his parents. Because you see, someone had to have sinned.  Otherwise, the man wouldn't have been born blind.

We don't get three steps into this encounter between Jesus and the blind man before everyone wants to talk about sin.  Ever notice how much fun it is to talk about sin?  Especially when we are talking about the sin of someone else?  I have often thought that we so urgently want to point the finger at the other - the sinner - so no one will look our direction and shine too bright a light on our failures and hurtfulness.

Many commentaries on the Bible will tell you that it was a common understanding that misfortune including disease and disability were a sign that God was not happy with you.  Your sin caused your illness or handicap.  They are right, it was common.  It is still common today.

A baby is born with physical challenges and we default to 'what did the mother do?'  (or 'not do' which is an equal possibility).  A friend is diagnosed with lung cancer and everyone feels obligated to point out that he was a smoker.  A neighbor joins the ranks of the long term unemployed and we are prone to comment that she should have been out there upgrading her skills if she wanted another job.

We have a tendency to blame the patient for the illness......and I believe that this is not mean spirited at its core but rather a sort of 'knocking on wood' for us.  If we can figure out what they did wrong, we will do it right and be spared!  At the same time, if we are leading fairly pulled together lives at the moment, we can give ourselves a ribbon for doing it right.

And we all know that is a bunch of hooey!  Matthew reports Jesus teaching "...for God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."  5.45

So while the disciples are trying to figure out who sinned, and the Pharisees are trying to figure out exactly what law Jesus broke, and the man born blind tells his story again and again......Jesus is only interested in sight and belief.  Do you see?  Do you believe?  Everything else in the story is just commentary.

What do we say about the cross?

Every Lent we move inexorably from ashes to cross and the question arises again.  What can we say about the cross?  How could the suffering of the 'good', our Lord Jesus, in any way be a part of the redemption of the 'broken' (you and me)?

For Christians the cross is everywhere.  It is held up as a sign of God's commitment born out of love for all of creation....'for God so loved the world that God gave the only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life....'  We even wear it as jewelry!

The truth is, the cross is an instrument of cruel, inhumane suffering and death.  It is a symbol of everything we wish to avoid in this lifetime.  To look on the face of the suffering Jesus, even if only in your imagination, and see the love of God takes a spiritual clarity that frequently slips away from me.

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles….” Foolishness.  A stumbling block.  

Oh, St. Paul.  Let's not put too fine a line on it.  The cross scares the pants off me.  At the same time, any effort to diminish the cruel reality of the cross, in my mind, serves only to dim the bright light on my brokenness and the cruelty of the world we live in. It keeps me from being truthful about myself.

To leap frog over Good Friday to Easter morning is to pretend that the pain and suffering of this world can somehow be avoided.  More than that.  It implies that Easter is a reward for those who 'live right' or 'live a good life' as if Jesus didn't do exactly those things!

And here is my final confession.  Confronting the cross on Good Friday, I know....KNOW....that I am so far beyond the pale of 'good' that I am sure God is exhausted from searching for me.  I do not understand.  I can interpret.  I can explain.  But I will never understand how the cross of Christ could cover me.

But in the midnight of my soul, it is to the cross I cling.  Perhaps I believe that something which makes absolutely no sense at all has to be the work of God.  The same God who brings us an empty tomb........

Light

 "My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning,

 more that watchmen for the morning."

The long winter is almost over.  Not that I am promising that the snow will stop and the temperatures rise to reasonable.  But in just  few days, the sun will rise exactly 12 hours before the sun sets.

The Light is back.

We have waited and waded through a long and tiresome winter to reach this point, and my joy overflows.  I can sit in my bed and watch the sun rise in the sky.  First there is but a hint that a new, light filled day is just over the horizon.  Then everything is bathed in pinks and purples.  Then the color changes to a yellow which is white which is bright and so, in some ways, no color at all.  That's what we are waiting for.  That light.

When darkness threatens our life, our family, our soul.....we watch for the light, that sign that we can breathe again.  What seems impossible in the depth of darkness gains true potential in the breaking of the first light.

We hear the story....'early in the morning, on the first day of the week, the women went to the tomb...'  There the light frightened and overwhelmed them, that is, until they saw the light.  The Risen Lord Jesus is the light we all long for.....the light who marks the final end of the darkness which was the cross then and is the cross today.

Until the day when Christ's light fills every corner of this world for every moment in every day, I will take my joy in the breaking of the morning light and the breath of a new day.

Come to the table......

That's what my Mom would call when dinner was ready.  "Come to the table."  It was both invitation and command for children who  are apt to want to linger with whatever seems more important than the hot meal that waits.

Adam and Eve, on the other hand, should have lingered a little longer.  Their appetite had all kinds of consequences, the majority of which they could have never imagined.  When they saw that the fruit was pleasant to the eyes and good to eat, they said, "Why not?" and the results of that have played out through the ages.

Our appetites are still getting us into trouble because appetites are immediate and life is long. God had warned the first humans that eating of that fruit would have disastrous consequences but they chose to trust the serpent, the craftiest of all the animals God had made.  Interestingly enough, many Bible commentators when analyzing this story point out that the serpent was right, Adam and Eve did not die............not right away at least.  Instead they died a thousand deaths as they wrestled with the dark side of this creation and their lost connection with the Creator God.  'Why can't it be like it was?'  Don't we ask similar questions, seeking a gentler, kinder time to which to return?  You know, the good old days.

We fool ourselves if we think that there was no suffering in the 'good old days'.  We delude ourselves if we truly believe that life was easier, people were nicer, and neighbor helped neighbor.  Some did, some didn't.  Folks then knew their own kind of hard work, short lives, fragile health, unpredictable growing seasons and economies.  Folks knew what a destitute old age meant and most had buried at least one child from diseases that are now preventable.Their suffering might have been different, but it was suffering just the same.  Even their children lingered when Mom cried out, "Come to the table."

Jesus calls out the same invitation to us and it is primarily invitation but a little bit of command as well.  Come, it will nourish you.  Come, lay down whatever task is at hand.  Come, eat.  Eat with your brothers and sisters.  Eat with your neighbors and strangers.  Come and discover the human family again.

I will feed you.  I will place in your hands a bit of bread, the staff of life, the stuff of life and it will sustain you for a while.  I will place in your hands a bit of wine, to ease your thirst and clear your throat and prepare you for the tasks ahead.  Come to the table....that's where you will find everything to satisfy your appetites and focus your life.

At this table you will come back into yourself, find your humanity, find peace for your spirit....find the Creator God you continue to seek.  Come to the table and be made whole.

Something's a little fishy here..........

The liturgical season of Lent means fish to a lot of people.....and not always in a good way.  What is Lent?  You know, when Catholics have to eat fish.  In the circles I frequent, this wondrous insight is usually followed with, 'I'm glad I'm a Lutheran.  We don't have to eat fish.'

That's it?  That's Lent?  Fish?

However, you are right.  We Lutherans don't have to eat fish.  We don't have to pray or give food to the hungry.  We don't have to attend to acts of charity or read the Bible or even attend worship more frequently.  We aren't required to think about anyone but ourselves nor are we required to do anything but what we have been doing all the other days of the year.

For some all of that spells freedom.  Freedom from the oppression of the church.  Freedom from ancient and 'meaningless' traditions.  Freedom to worship God as we want.

Which is all well and good if 'worshiping God' is what you are doing and not simply avoiding the discomfort which comes with knowing that God is too often forgotten and the world too often in charge.

No, you don't have to eat fish.  It is only a strategy to remind us that God is the provider of all., and we give thanks. It reminds us that some of your neighbors will not be eating at all this evening, and so we give something extra to the food pantry.  It helps us think about God's creation and to consider how well we are caring for it and how we might change.  It gives us a specific time to give attention to our prayers for someone we know really needs God's help.

It's not about the fish.  But I guess you already figured that out.

Be blessed by this time of Lenten observation.  Use it to exercise your spirit and re-connect with God and neighbor.