Photina: The Woman at the Well, Harlot or Prophet? Lent 3 Yr A

I was a lucky and blessed kid. As a child strong and independent women surrounded me. And the men in my life—primarily my dad, my grandfather, uncle and various and sundry neighbors, church friends and clergy—were not at all chauvinistic. The kids my age in the neighborhood were mainly boys and when they tried to tell me I couldn’t do something because I was a girl, I just beat them …at basketball, baseball, or our never-ending game of Batman vs. Superman. I was lucky. I was blessed, for I was raised to believe that I could be whomever and whatever I wanted. On those rare occasions when someone said, no you can’t, you’re a girl, my mom and dad would say, yes you can, you’re a girl!

If only our Samaritan Woman at the Well had such an experience. Depending on what commentaries you read, she was either a harlot or lazy. Even the commentators who laud her as the evangelist she truly was—after all she converted an entire Samaritan city---still make reference to her being immoral, dim-witted, and unworthy. But, truth is, we don’t know what led her to her difficult circumstance, we just know she’d been married 5 times was now unmarried but being cared for by some man, probably her deceased husband’s brother and that for some unknown reason she traveled to the well at high noon, when most people would avoid the blazing desert sun.

Jesus, was coming off his conversation with Nicodemus—the Temple official who couldn’t seem to make sense of Jesus’ promise for a life infused with that living water, that spirit which is God. The man who comes to see Jesus in the dead of night, not because he has insomnia, but because he’s afraid of being seen by his friends, by his enemies and, in a certain respect, by Jesus himself. Nicodemus a well respected and powerful man who, shrouded in darkness, stumbles, trying to figure out Jesus’ message. He listens instead of hears. He’s shown the light, yet it takes him another two encounters with Jesus before he really sees.

The Woman at the Well doesn’t have to worry about power or respect, she doesn’t need to hide in the dark, for even in the brightness of high noon, she’s rarely noticed. The Woman at the Well just needs some water; so she goes to the well, bucket in hand.

Jesus is travelling from Judea to Galilee. The shortest route goes through the territory of the Samaritans but Jews took the longer route, avoiding this area. The Samaritans were a despised people. Generations earlier the Jews of Samaria—yes they were Jewish--had dared to contaminate themselves through inter-marriage with Gentiles. And, on top of that, they denied the sanctity of the Jerusalem Temple, preferring a temple they built atop Mt. Gerizim within their territory. In the Jewish world of Jesus’ day, no one was filthier than a Samaritan.

But Jesus, maybe because he was in a hurry, maybe because he never met a boundary or a bigotry or a hatred he could let stand, walked smack dab into the Samaritan territory. Tired, he stops at the iconic Jacob’s well—a place of great significance in the Hebrew scriptural tradition---to rest while the others went off in search of food. John is clear to let us know that it’s noon—high noon when no one in the right mind would be trekking to the well to draw water—high noon, where the lack of shadows leaves no place to hide, no shroud under which one may keep from being seen.

John, whom we’re reading during these four middle Sundays in Lent--LOVES symbolism especially those of LIGHT AND WATER. For John, if people accept the living water of Christ, they will be transformed, enlightened, as they move from the deceit, denial and death of the dark into the truth, the yes and the everlasting life of light.

As he encounters the woman at the well, Jesus begins to talk and, astonishing for that day and age and circumstance, the woman answers….questions…and debates! Even though Jesus, a faithful and observant Jew, should shun her, he’s eager to engage in a little theological repartee. And so they go at it.

Amazing as this may seem, it’s not the most incredible part of the story.

The most incredible, astonishing and miraculous thing in this story is that this woman, in a New York minute, gets it. She listens to Jesus and she hears. She watches Jesus and she sees. She is transformed by Jesus and she goes---dropping her water jug much like Andrew and Peter did their nets when Jesus come upon them and said, “follow me;” this woman takes off, heading back to her village to proclaim that she’s just encountered the One. The Messiah. And the town, the villagers, those people who had, apparently, been shunning her? They listened! And then they came to hear for themselves, to hear this man who knew all about our woman at the well, who knew everything she had ever seen or done, thought or felt…they came to drink this living water, to be washed in the fountain of a new life promised to them, through Christ.

Much like Miriam, Ruth, Esther and Judith, heroes of Hebrew scripture and like Mary, the mother of Jesus, the first to say yes, the first to be transformed and the first to have her heart pierced, our Woman at the Well, was a prophet, an apostle, an evangelist and a preacher . She was a worthy sparring partner for Jesus as she questioned the wisdom of he who desired a drink yet had no cup, who claimed to be holy, yet trod on the unclean soil of Samaria and who, against all common sense, good breeding and religious observance, engaged in a lengthy dialogue with her, a woman of difficult circumstance, not because she needed to be healed, saved or rebuked, but because she was willing to be transformed.

She was willing—eager-- to drink the living water of this Jesus. She didn’t just “follow him,” she absorbed his Word, until she was overflowing with this water of truth and light.

The Samaritan Woman at the well, a saint in the eastern church , an icon in the western, teaches us that the Christ who lived and died and rose again brings us all to the fountain of living water where we’re washed clean of prejudice, renewed through a sense of belonging and comforted in knowing that Jesus is indeed the One, the Messiah given to all of us, even the girls.

Believing is a verb

In the old days, people didn’t really choose their religion. When I was growing up you were born Roman Catholic or Presbyterian or Methodist or Lutheran. You only changed because of marriage or some sort of scandal. The church I grew up in was established about 10 years before I was born, and the founders of the church were, for the most part converts, They hadn’t been raised as Episcopalians. I know many of you weren’t raised as Episcopalians, but something changed and you found yourself, one day, an Episcopalian—or at least regularly attending an Episcopal church. You choose to be here. Something attracted you and here you are.

In Jesus’ culture people didn’t choose a religion, you were born a Jew or you were born a Gentile. There wasn’t any crossover. And there wasn’t any such thing as conversion. You were either in or you were out.

Within Judaism there wasn’t much crossover either. The Pharisees ruled the temple and all other Jews were subject to their decisions. That’s just the way it was. The Pharisees, as we all know, were threatened by Jesus . At first, they considered his message harmless, just another crazy man, making noise out on the fringes of civilized society. But the closer he got to Jerusalem, the more serious he was taken and the bigger threat he became.

So when Nicodemus arrives, under the dark of night to visit Jesus, it would have been easy to assume, if you were Jesus, that this was the beginning of the end. That Nicodemus was a threat, a force to be reckoned with, a danger from which he should run and hide. But instead, Jesus assumes that Nicodemus has come of his own free will, attracted by Jesus’ message. And there is nothing in our reading to suggest that this wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, this encounter is the first of three encounters between the men, the final being when Nicodemus openly assists Joseph of Arimaethea in readying Jesus’ body for burial. From a stealth visit under the shroud of darkness, to an open defiance of Temple politics, Nicodemus evolves from curious questioner, to bereaved believer. But unaware (or unconcerned with what will happen in the future) Jesus, never one to shy away from a teachable moment, commences with Nicodemus’ lesson, telling him that all he knows, all he believes, means nothing until he is born again—born from above.

I don’t know about you, but the whole notion of being born again, startles me. Extremist Fundamentalist groups who employ reactionary, exclusionary and myopic theologies of hate use being born again as a litmus test for whether one is with them or against them. For them it’s a one-time event of conversion, which makes one Saved or Not. But that’s NOT what Jesus is telling Nicodemus. He doesn’t say, “Turn your back on all you know and follow me.” He says, “turn your heart over to God and let the spirit of God guide you into a new way of living.” For Jesus, being born from above isn’t a one-time event which stamps your “get into heaven free” card. To be born again, according to Jesus, is to work with our Creator God, opening ourselves up to the wind of spirit and truth, a wind that will carry us to places we never imagined.

We are born again when we choose to live as God’s instruments in the world, working with creation instead of against. We are born again when we treat one another and the earth we share, with respect and compassion and honor. We spiritually live when we work with God, we spiritually die when we resist the ebb and flow of God’s creation, when we deny the presence of grace in our lives.

To be born again is to accept that life changes all the time, that we are part of that great unfolding, which began at the creation of first light and will end on the last day.

For the evangelist John, the author of today’s gospel, faith isn’t a noun, it’s a verb . In his Gospel, one’s belief in Christ isn’t something we are born into once and for all, it is something we are born into through our own decisive action, day in and day out. Belief and Faith are not destinations, they are vehicles.

In John’s Gospel faith moves, belief grows and choices are made. In John’s view, the fundamental component of faith is living it. Just like the world wasn’t created in 7 days but is, instead, in a continual process of creating, our faith unfolds each and every day, growing in different ways, changing, enhancing, renewing.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that the only way we can become one with God is to act in tandem with God, to move with God; for God is never stagnant, God is never regulated, God cannot be codified, God cannot be catalogued.

Nicodemus, by approaching Jesus in the first place, is being born again. Because, as a Pharisee, Nicodemus had nothing to gain by visiting Jesus. He could have gone along with the others, assuming that any teaching which was outside the strict code of Pharisaic law, was wrong and that anyone professing such a school of thought should be silenced. But instead Nicodemus in approaching Jesus, in choosing to hear what Jesus had to say, to listening to his words decided for himself. Nicodemus’ faith wasn’t stagnant, his belief wasn’t static. Nicodemus’ faith was dynamic, his belief active.

The fundamental message of John’s Gospel is that God is Love and that God’s Love is poured out upon creation without discrimination and without reserve. That God will pour out this spirit of love, whether we think we deserve it or not and---more importantly---whether we think anyone else deserves it or not.

Our decision isn’t whether or not to believe that God is love. Our decision is whether or not we will accept that this love is moving through all of us, right now. And whether or not we have the energy, the stamina and the resolve to keep up with it. You see, God’s love moves like the wind, blowing where it chooses—our choice is whether we’ll allow ourselves to be taken up by it, for if we do, we’ll travel to places unreachable to those who refuse to move. By choosing to live faithfully and to let our belief unfold we are indeed born again, and again and again. +

Lent 1 Yr A: I can Do It Myself!

+“I can do it.” “Well, let me help you”---“NO, I CAN DO IT MYSELF!”

Child Development expert Erik Erikson posits eight stages of psychosocial development -- stages of identity formation that have been a cornerstone of child development theory since the mid 20th century. Generally, pre-schoolers are in the stage of initiative vs. guilt-- their core job being exploring and then trying to assert control and power over their environment. Success in this stage gives children a sense of purpose, failure results in a child exerting too much power, bringing on adult disapproval and leaving the child with a latent sense of guilt.

In other words, according to Erikson, children between the ages of 3 and 5 are testing the limits of their own power. And the job of the parental figures in the lives of these children is to patiently listen to the tantrum and then soothe the child saying, “I know you don’t like this now, but one day you’ll understand.”

Our reading from the third chapter of Genesis, commonly referred to as the story of the Fall, relates a similar experience between the first humans and God. From the beginning, we have rejected assistance, insisting that we can DO IT OURSELVES. As Dennis Olson, a professor of Hebrew Scripture at Princeton puts it: “[This reading] is less about explaining the origin of sin and more about describing the reality of what it is to be human and our mysterious human tendencies to rebel against God, to resist the gracious boundaries and limitations God places around us for our own good, and to desire to be like God.”

The story of the first humans falling away from God is the foundational story of how we, like pre-schoolers, want to do everything on our own, without assistance, without limits. When we fail to let our eternal parent, God set some limits on us, we get into trouble, We forget that we are the children and God is the wise and loving parent who says, “I know you don’t understand now, but one day you will.”

All three of our readings this morning deal with the down n’ dirty reality of what it is to be human.

Adam and Eve are wooed by the serpent’s tempting words, and as a result they unleash a desire for more power. In our reading from Romans, Paul describes Adam as the carrier and unleasher of the disease called sin and Jesus, who both Paul and Matthew refer to as the Second Adam, as the vaccine against it. The conflict between our desire to be all that God created us to be and our desire to be fully independent and self-reliant with no need for help, be it from our loving parent, or God is nicely summarized later in Romans when Paul states, “I do not understand my own actions .For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15). Turning away from God, engaging in things that carry us farther away from God, isn’t what we want to do, but it ends up being what we do.

In our gospel reading the devil tries his darndest to tempt Jesus into sinning, but our fully human and fully divine savior doesn’t succomb. Now it’s easy to brush this off as Jesus’ divinity, outweighing His humanity. That he saw the devil’s tricks and didn’t fall for them. But to assume this is, I think, insulting to Jesus the man. Jesus didn’t give into temptation not because he didn’t feel it---he felt it as powerfully as all of us would, but because he was strong enough, open enough, trusting enough, to not give in. Giving in would be to deny God’s love and Jesus --both in his humanity and his divinity--just wouldn’t do it.

Jesus was human in every way, except he did not sin. He didn’t sin, because he didn’t have too. Jesus had no need to exert dominance over his environment because he had spent time in conversation with God. He prayed. A lot. When we pray we engage God in conversation. When we don’t pray, we don’t give God time to talk to us. We don’t hear God. Jesus heard God. Jesus listened, He respected that God’s will was to be done. When we forget that God is really in charge, when we fail to listen, we open a hole deep within us, a hole of uncertainty and anxiety. A hole we try to fill through our desire for more and more---more stuff, more prestige, more power. In an effort to fill this hole of uncertainty and anxiety we behave in unhealthy and unproductive ways.

This hole deepens and widens each time we step away from God, each time we yell I CAN DO IT. Each time we forget that not only are we not alone….we weren’t created to be alone, go it alone or do it all by our self! God has, throughout all time, attempted to place loving, grace-filled limits on us—not to confine us, but to secure us to live a life of trust and discovery instead of a life of testing and consequences. But we break away, trying to fill this emptiness with noise, busy-ness, STUFF.

This is why Lenten Fasts are so important—you see the goal of the fast isn’t to make us miserable, the goal of the fast is to help us realize that there’s nothing wrong with being dependent. By removing all the distractions we come face to face with the uncertainty and anxiety of that hole. When we quiet ourselves we gaze into that hole and call out, praying, “God, I can’t do it, please don’t leave me alone, please help me.”

When we get to that place—that place of utter helplessness—we’ll discover something truly amazing: that hole, that empty space deep within us, the one we strive so hard to fill with stuff? The one we try to ignore through the distraction of doing, the distraction of needing, the distraction of wanting? That space is filled to the brim by a God who, long ago, learned that although we’ll test the limits and try to do it ourselves, we will, when we get quiet enough and hungry enough, run back into the arms of our loving and eternal parent—who knew that one day, we’d understand. +

Ash Wednesday Year A

My hope for all of us, on this first day of Lent, this first day of the journey which takes us to the garden of Maundy Thursday, the cross of Good Friday, the seeming finality of death on Holy Saturday and, finally, to the empty tomb of Easter morning, is that the journey be full of surprise, hope and joy. For Lent is not about feeling awful, it’s about feeling more alive than ever before. Lent is about being reborn, reborn into the wondrous Love of a God who has made us our unique selves, formed out of nothing but dust.

Yes I think----actually I know—that Lent can be full of surprise and joy.

It doesn’t have the same type of quietness as Advent nor does it have the unbridled giddiness of Christmas. It isn’t like Epiphany when we focus on the early ministry of Jesus. . It certainly isn’t the awe-inspiring events of Easter and Pentecost. Nor is it the steady passage of time we measure through the days following Pentecost through the summer and fall.

Lent is none of those things. Lent is a pause button in the relentless passage of time, nestled in the middle of our church year. A time when we reflect on the fact that we are wholly and totally dependent upon our relationship with God and one another. We are, without the divine intervention of God, dust. And we are, without the love and respect of each other [to paraphrase St. Paul] destitute; a noisy gong, a loud, yet insignificant, pile of dust. We were formed out of the dust and we will return to the dust.

And that’s fine…because the dusty part of us---our corporal being---is just an instrument, it isn’t the whole orchestra.

An orchestra is made up of many instruments each being played by a musician. The sound that the orchestra produces is dependent on the relationship between the instruments and the player of the instrument. If the player isn’t handling her or his instrument well, there’s a problem. Likewise, if each player and his or her instrument don’t relate well with the other instruments and players in the orchestra, there’s yet another problem ----the sound, in a word, will be awful. You could even say it was wretched. You could even say it was a sin to botch such a symphony.

Sin and wretchedness. Besides dust, we hear a lot about sin and wretchedness on Ash Wednesday. But sin and wretchedness isn’t a value judgment as much as a state of being. We can be wretched and we can be sinful. But being sinful doesn’t mean we’re being intentionally evil. It just means, as I have said many times, missing the mark. Not behaving as we really wish we would. Wretchedness is an inside job—we cannot be names wretched, we must define ourselves as such. To be wretched is to be deeply afflicted, dejected or distressed in body mind or spirit.

How many of us have been, are and will be again, afflicted, dejected or distressed in body mind or spirit? Oh let me count the ways!!

Lent is all about turning this wretchedness, this dis-ease, into wonder. It’s all about stripping ourselves clean of our afflictions, freeing ourselves of our distress and turning our attention from dejection to delight…clearing away the chaff of our lives by opening ourselves up to one another and to God. To right our relationships so we can accept the wondrous Love, which pours out of the empty tomb on Easter morning.

On this Ash Wednesday we need to remember that without God we are but dust. On this Ash Wednesday we need to remember that we can only experience the astonishment of that empty tomb by working on ourselves, clearing out space within us where the harmony of Love of God and love of neighbor unite in a symphony of joyful resurrection noise.

Last Epiphany, March 6 2011 Yr. A

Have you ever been transfigured-- been so effected by an experience that your actual appearance—how you look, and your countenance, how you carry yourself, changes? It can be negative—when something horrible happens and the wind is taken out of your sails, or positive, you’re in love, you’ve gotten your life back on track after some rough spots. Something about how you appear, how you present yourself to world changes.

But sometimes the causes of these transformations, these transfigurations aren’t as easily explained. They’re more mysterious, less concrete.

I had such an experience when my dad died. It’s too long to get into now, but I speak of it often. It was a tremendous moment when I was, albeit briefly, fully aware of being in the presence of the Divine, of being present for a very holy and sacred moment. Although it didn’t—it doesn’t—ease the sting of my father’s death, it did transform and transfigure me. It started a decade plus long return to my long-held heart’s desire to go to seminary, to pursue the priesthood. When it happened, I had no idea where it would lead; but I now realize how much it fuels me, how much it enhances my comprehension of who I am and what I am to do.

These experiences of the Divine, these experiences of the sacred are described, in Celtic literature, as Thin Places.

Thin Places are those times, those moments, those experiences when one feels especially close to the Divine. When one feels, simultaneously, incredibly small, miniscule in the whole of the universe and yet larger than life, one with God, one with all of Creation. Maybe it occurs when witnessing a gorgeous sunset, or maybe after the birth of a child. Or in the midst of an ordinary day—driving the car, washing the dishes, balancing the checkbook. Thin Places are available to us all, at any time and in any place. Thin places occur when we let the guard of our humanity down long enough for the fullness of the divine to breakthrough.

I think that the Transfiguration was a Thin Place experience for James John and Peter. I don’t know what exactly happened on the top of Mt Tabor that day but I do know that something happened.

In other words---who knows what the actual facts are, but I believe that what happened was transfigurative for Jesus, transformative for his friends and sacred for us all.

It helps to set the stage a bit: After weeks of hearing from the Sermon on the Mount, today we skip ahead in Matthew’s Gospel, to the 17th Chapter….Peter identifies Jesus as the Messiah and Jesus has just made the first of his predictions regarding his death and resurrection. He’s trying to get the apostles ready, to stop focusing on a long-term ministry with Jesus at the lead and to prepare for carrying his message out into the world. Peter may identify Jesus as the Messiah but Jesus knows Peter doesn’t have a clue what this entails. They need to end their Galilean travels and turn toward Jerusalem, where Jesus knows trouble awaits. He needs his friends with him for this journey. Jesus needs them to get it. He needs them to prepare. He needs them ready for the increased scrutiny, for the arrest, for the torture, for the death, for Jesus being gone. They need to feel all of this, for only in feeling it---really feeling it---will they be open to the ultimate Thin Place: the glory wonder and awe of the Resurrection.

And they aren’t getting it. Maybe they don’t want to, maybe they simply can’t. And so they go up the mountain. Jesus needed to get away and in his wisdom Jesus knew they—James John and Peter needed to get away too. Because when we don’t want to hear something, when we just can’t get something it’s usually because we just don’t, or won’t shut all the extraneous noise off…we don’t get quiet enough to let God break through. By going up the mountain, they get away, they retreat, they quiet all the noise of the world.

It’s only then, when they shut off all the other noise, that this thing happens. Jesus’ appearance, his countenance changes. “The indwelling Deity darted out its rays through the veil of Jesus’ flesh; His face shone with Divine majesty, like the sun in its strength” (citation lost). At that transfiguring moment, God’s glory could no longer be contained within Jesus…it burst forth.

Sometimes, God’s glory just can’t be contained. Sometimes it just over flows, overwhelming our senses.

That’s what happens in Thin places: we’re overwhelmed by God’s Glory. In Thin Places, God’s Glory can no longer be contained.

Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary was a Thin Place, as was Christmas morning, Jesus’ baptism, and the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. Each of these moments were times when, in the course of a routine action---Mary going about the household duties of a young Galilean woman, the birth of a baby to a poor traveling couple, the baptism of a follower of John, the fulfilling of Jewish purity laws by a devout Jewish couple, and the quick trip up a mountain for some retreat time with friends----in the course of these ordinary events, God’s radiance bursts through, our efforts to shut the Divine out of our lives, the noise of daily life which tries to outshine the radiance of God, fails, and we are overwhelmed with what is pure and holy and sacred.

Our humanity can’t manage a steady diet of this radiance. We spend a lot of time and energy layering “life” upon the in-breaking of the Holy—the radiance of God. Therefore, moments of the Holy, Thin Place experiences are usually fleeting—not because God retreats, but, being overwhelmed, we reach back into the familiar—the noise of daily life--to ground ourselves in the routine, the ordinary, the familiar and unchallenging ebb and flow of our days.

This is why we read the story of the Transfiguration right before Lent. We’re embarking on a stripping down, a quieting, a simplifying of our daily life. We’re preparing ourselves for an encounter with the Divine and this story, this account of a Thin Place experience, plants something deep within us. Something transformative, that, as we settle into the barrenness of Lent, marinates, stirs, grows. So that, like James, John and Peter, when we walk that walk to Calvary, when we weep with Mary at the foot of the cross, when we linger in the seeming finality of death on Holy Saturday we are strengthened. Strengthened to feel that loss, to realize what life is like without the Divine Radiance of God through Christ. So that, just when the rigors of Lent, the nakedness of the desert, and the restriction of discipline becomes too much, when our senses long for stimulation, we stumble upon the empty tomb….overwhelmed –not by the sights and sounds of our daily world, but by the radiance of the Divine which, this time, will burst forth from our own skin, crying out Alleluia, God is alive, Alleluia, we are alive.

Amen.