January 31, 2010
Our worship series, characterized by the stories of selected women in the Bible is nearly over.
We have retold the stories of these women with the hope of answering the question, what do their stories teach us about God, and about God’s relationship to us?
Each of these women in her own way has contributed to our understanding.
From Lot’s wife we learned that God is calling us forward and sometimes looking back endangers our future.
From Ruth we learned that faith can be far more tolerant and open than we often understand it to be.
From Esther, we saw that God calls us to holiness, and doing good through whatever circumstances present themselves to us, is a way to be holy.
From Martha and Mary, we saw two sides of the same coin, and that whether we identify with Martha’s service or Mary’s desire to know more – it doesn’t matter; it’s the peace of Christ in heart, and mind and soul that is the better part.
Today our story is about an encounter that Jesus has with a Samaritan woman, and she too has something to teach us.
If I could change one thing about myself that would, I think, make a huge difference in my life and in the lives of others, it would be to see people as Jesus sees them. I would like to be able to accept people the way Jesus does in this story.
The reality is that I don’t work that hard at it with those around me - people I know casually as neighbors, as colleagues and even you – the people that I ought to know a lot about…
Living next door to us is a young family, Darrin, Theresa and their daughter Sienna, who Judy tells me is almost 5 years old. Notice, I said “Judy tells me”…See?
They have lived next door to us for I imagine about six years or more, the entire life of the little girl at any rate; and yet I can’t remember the most significant event in their family life beyond their union as a couple: the birth date of Sienna.
We have watched them come and go; we have seen grandma and grandpa drive up for visits, staying for days at a time; seen Sienna and her daddy in the yard working on landscaping, going for walks; Judy has baked Christmas goodies for them, and Darrin has been a good neighbor and taken his snow blower down the sidewalk in front of our house.
But I don’t know where Darrin or Theresa works, or the kind of work they do. I couldn’t remember Sienna’s name as I was preparing this sermon.
It is a little disappointing to me that I can’t tell you more about them.
And when it all comes down, I haven’t tried very hard to know them. And if this is true for neighbors who live next door to each other, how much more is it true for people who live a continent or more away?
What about you? Are there people that you see, but don’t really see?
I imagine there are several reasons that we don’t see each other as Jesus saw the Samaritan woman:
· We lead very busy lives
· We have our most important relationships to care for: our family and closest friends, and that takes energy and time in the healthiest of families
· We have met some people and have decided that they are people we can do without; either we don’t have that much in common with them, or perhaps in moments of brutal honesty, we just don’t like them very much and aren’t willing to spend the effort to change that.
But that is not the way of Christ.
Jesus' walk into Samaria and his talk with the woman at the well call attention to his way of seeking to know people; and this particular story shows us Jesus reaching out to someone who was really outside his normal circle.
Just look: He was in territory that was considered off-limits, and he was talking to someone he wasn’t supposed to. He could hardly have picked anyone with a lousier reputation for conversation – a Samaritan, a woman, and someone with a history that is right out of Hollywood.
But given the opportunity, Jesus built a bridge where there was a wall.
Jesus has always done that.
You would think this would be nothing but a tremendous victory for Jesus.
The truth is the whole thing drove the religious establishment crazy – the fact that Jesus spoke to her, drew her out, and revealed the truth of his identity to her.
What’s more, in John’s Gospel, this woman then becomes the first evangelist – one who proclaims the good news of the Messiah’s coming. Did you get that? The first missionary of Jesus in John’s gospel, is not one of his disciples; it is a woman who was branded untouchable by her own community.
Let’s look at what’s going on here.
When Jesus left the Judean countryside and headed for Galilee, John tells us he “had to go through Samaria.”
Geographically speaking, that just wasn’t so. The more common travel route north and south for Jews in Jesus’ day would have been to follow the Jordan River valley, where there would have been ample supply water and food along the way. It made no sense to head for the desert, with rocky and hilly terrain, when there was a perfectly smooth route through more travel-friendly ground to the Galilee.
John is telling us, the need for Jesus to go through Samaria was a missional one. God’s mission in the world sent Jesus on this path. He needed to go through Samaria in order to build a bridge with some of God’s children who were to be included in the realm of God’s love no less than the so-called chosen people.
Break it down like this: Jesus knew something that we are only beginning to see in our age. He knew that the planet is really quite a small place.
In his book, The Hungering Dark, Frederick Buechner compares humanity to a giant spider web:
If you touch it anywhere, you set the whole thing trembling .... As we move around this world and as we act with kindness, perhaps, or with indifference, or with hostility, toward the people we meet, we too are setting the great spider web a-tremble. The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt. Our lives are linked. No man [no woman] is an island .... (Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark [New York: Seabury Press, 1969], 45-46)
I would like to be able to see people as Jesus does, and see that every person I meet is someone whom God loves, and wants to be part of the wondrous human family.
I would like to see people as Jesus does and accept people wherever they are, and see the potential for common life instead of seeing the barriers that need to be overcome.
I would like to see worship as Jesus does; I would like to see the day when $50,000 of our annual income does not go to a mortgage.
Can you imagine what even half of that money could do, spread throughout our budget for ministry and mission?
Dream for just a moment, about those funds being devoted to serving the people of greater Grand Rapids and beyond, who are hungry, thirsty, homeless, friendless; who are without proper health care, and who need more educational services than our legislators are willing to devote to them.
Can you dream about that?
It’s hard to dream that, because I just don’t see people as Jesus saw that Samaritan woman.
I filter every person through human terms --- race, culture, economics, religion, gender orientation – and I can’t seem to get past those surface differences, and get to the spirit and truth, get to the sacredness of human beings who seem different than me.
Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, that “…the time is coming - it has, in fact, come - when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter”.
What if I really acted as if I believe that?
Then wouldn’t I see others without that filter, with an open mind and heart? Wouldn’t I look for what new experience God can bring to me?
When it comes to worship, wouldn’t I try to see the wonderful variety in the ways that people adore and give praise to God; the many ways they approach God in prayer; the myriad names they have for God?
Instead, I am afraid that I take the Jordan River valley route, bypassing some of God’s children that are just too different, too strange, to far outside my comfort zone.
If I could see people as Jesus does, and accept people wherever they are, then I might ask myself who is the Samaritan woman that Jesus would have me offer the living water?
What do I think this Samaritan woman teaches us? I think she teaches us that the planet is really quite small.
Those who have ears; let them hear.
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