Jesus and the Woman at the Well

Jesus and the Woman at the Well

John 4:5-26, (29-38), 39-42

Link to John 4

 March 19, 2017

Today is the Third Sunday in Lent and for those of us in the Anglican tradition we are in Year A of the three-year liturgical cycle in the Lectionary.

This is the Sunday when we read about what many call “The Woman at the Well.” I prefer “Jesus and the Woman at the Well.” It is a very interesting story, a story that can be taught or preached from many points of view. Indeed, today I preached from an historical perspective, and in another church this morning my youngest son preached from a person-to-person perspective. 

Preachers use many resources in preparation for a homily of ten to fifteen minutes or sermons from twenty to forty minutes. Yes, even in some Anglican parishes we have clergy who preach for forty, even fifty minutes. But with a story like “Jesus and the Woman and the Well” it simply must be preached regardless of sermon length. The story is about an encounter. 

Today I preached for 21 minutes, my son for nine. Hear the Nine Minute Sermon, an eloquent presentation.

STORY-TELLING PERSPECTIVES

Both sermons provide a touch of biblical history, something necessary to place the gospel reading into perspective. The longer sermon’s perspective was one of "God seeking us." The shorter homily’s perspective examined personal prejudices that we all hold, prejudices similar to those held by the Woman at the Well and even Jesus’ own disciples.

HISTORY

We read of Creation in Genesis 1 and in John 1. And God made man(kind) in His image. So from the beginning of time God is seeking humankind, seeking us to live in Him and to follow Him. Later God created the Israelites and brought them out of slavery so that they would be His earthly vessel carrying and proclaiming His Word to the rest of the world. The Israelites were “chosen” for this purpose. But over the centuries this broke and Israel split into two kingdoms. By the time of Jesus the "northern" kingdom consisted mostly of Samaritans. The "southern" kingdom was Judah. They were distant cousins who deeply disliked each other.

AT THE WELL

“Give me drink,” Jesus said to the Samaritan woman. Shock. Given the vitriolic history between the Jews and the Samaritans, why would the Jew Jesus even talk to her. More shocking, Jesus was talking to a woman. The disciples upon their return to Jesus with food after leaving him alone at the well wondered why he was talking to a woman, but they would not ask. They remained silent on the obvious breach.

The Samaritan woman came to draw water at the noon hour. That was an unusual time of day to draw water. It was hot at noon. After all, they were in the desert. She was alone, too. Drawing water was usually a community affair in the cooler mornings or evenings. Community women would come as a group. Several different conclusions could be drawn from these circumstances.

INTERPRETATION

One interpretation concludes that the woman was a public sinner. How so? Jesus was offering her "living water" and she became interested. Jesus then invited her to bring her husband. She told Jesus that she had no husband. Jesus then told the woman that she was right because she has had five husbands and the man she lives with now was not her husband. That insight of Jesus was enough for the woman to take pause and notice of who Jesus might be. He knew too much about her. Now the dialogue was beginning to get sensitive or touchy. That is one interpretation.

Another interpretation of this Bible passage examines what is not known or what the passage actually does not report. The nine-minute sermon mentioned above poses questions about other possible reasons for the woman’s multiple marriages. Was she widowed (even more than one time); did her husband(s) leave her; was she deliberately made destitute? This homily focuses on the person, a perspective which drives home a question about making assumptions about the woman or any other person’s situation in life.

How do we treat one another? Are our actions or attitudes about other people based on faulty information? Are our actions toward others based upon assumptions or about what we might have overheard? 

Jesus, in this reading, does not dwell on the Samaritan woman’s circumstances. Jesus is SEEKING her. Her life can be transformed regardless of circumstances. His is the eternal “living water” and not the finite water in the well. 

Though the language in this passage seems cryptic, it expresses the eternal love of God through His Son Jesus to the Samaritan Woman and to us. The Samaritan woman and we must respond to Jesus' calling appropriately by surrendering our old lives and taking on the new. We drink forever the "living water" of the New Reality.

THE NEW REALITY

The timing of the story about Jesus and the Woman at the Well occurs only days prior to the cosmic redefinition of reality. In other words, Jesus’ death on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter Sunday fundamentally changed reality - the core of the Gospel. Jesus became the fulfillment of Israel – Jesus indeed became/was/is Israel. At the encounter by the Well this was not yet known. But a glimpse of the new reality emerged.

God the Holy Trinity is THE seeker of human hearts. Nothing short of a transformation of each individual human heart will bring us to Him when He seeks us. Our transformation is a turning around – a metanoia – of our lives into living within the heart and light of God.

Chuck Berry 1983

Chuck Berry 1983

The year 1983 was a year of transition for me and several of my distant co-workers. For years we worked for The Singer Company – the venerable sewing machine manufacturer. The transition was not personal, it was business.

The president of the air conditioning division of The Singer Company acquired the assets of the division and formed his own company. Singer gave this new company one year to transfer its business records from the mother company’s data processing system to its own. My data processing friends from Auburn, New York; Carteret, New Jersey; Red Bud, Illinois; and Wilmington, North Carolina, worked diligently for eleven months to make a successful and seamless transfer of data from the BIG system to our new little system.

It took us one month to complete the transfer with one day to spare. We took the evening of the “spare” day to celebrate our efforts at the home of the data processing manager who lived in Red Bud. Our new headquarters would at first be in Red Bud before moving to Dallas. Well, to say the least, we partied all night. Our host had only Chuck Berry records. It was an all-night Chuck Berry festival with only eight of us. We imbibed too much, but we didn’t care, even though seven of us had planes to catch the next morning at the St. Louis-Lindbergh Airport. Red Bud is only about 30 miles east of St. Louis.

Tired, sleepy, dragging, and slow moving, the seven of us departed from the same gate, but at different times. We just sat there. After about 30 minutes I stood in order to stretch. As I looked up and down the concourse I thought I saw Chuck Berry. But, no, I thought. I’m just Chuck Berried to death after last night. As the figure came closer I blurted “Chuck Berry!”

Chuck Berry stopped, turned toward us, and walked over. My six companions and I could hardly believe who we were seeing and were now talking with. For about two minutes we were in “Chuck Berry Heaven.” We tried to tell him that we listened to ALL of his music the night before. He sensed that we might still be subject to the effects of intoxicants, but he was gracious and personable. He signed autographs – and then he disappeared into the crowd.

I learned this morning that Mr. Chuck Berry passed away yesterday, March 18, 2017 at the age of 90.

Rest in Peace.

Legitimacy, Law & Order, Union

Legitimacy, Law & Order, Union

When a sustained continuum of actions such as:

SECESSION

By municipalities, states, and commonwealths from the national rule of law

Followed by

DENIAL

Of the results of a legitimate electoral process

Leading to

ANGER

Over the results of that legitimate electoral process

Resulting in

OBSTRUCTION

Of other legitimate processes

Generating

DISRUPTIONS

In civil discourse and debate

Thereby attempting to justify

IMPEDING

The free flow of commerce and traffic

And

RIOTING

On campuses of education and elsewhere

To

FOMENTING

Fear among minor school children;

There will come a point when the legitimate, established government or authority

Identifies those actions as sedition, subversion, and insurrection

And then

Takes legitimate action to quell the uprising to preserve and maintain the Union.

Division

Division Within the Church

There is quarreling among you,

Or so I am told by Chloe.

Must I tell you what to do?

To whom’s allegiance owe we?

Some of you follow Apollos,

Others loyal to Paul.

Some teachings difficult to swallow,

It is Christ we follow, all.

None are baptized in Paul,

I was not crucified for you.

Just once a baptizer,

Was sent to preach as I do.

We are united in Christ the Redeemer,

The One never divided.

Quarrels of the evil schemer,

Are worse than mis-guided.

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

A Paraphrase

Valentine's Day - 1964

Rhapsody in Blue – 1964

Experiencing a sleepless night while in battle with a respiratory incapacity, I sought prior-dawn relief by walking from my bed to a television set. Sickened already by contemporary political banter, not to mention my physical influenza ailment, I keyed in to a cable channel of movies.

The 1945 movie Rhapsody in Blue was just beginning. I knew well the music of George Gershwin. Hearing the memorable melodies again would sweeten my disposition and remove me from my seasonal discomfort. The movie carried me away, so to speak. It lifted me into a cloud of nostalgia.

The movie is about Gershwin’s musical elevation and though produced in 1945 it was approximately 20 years removed from its content. The mid-1920s were the years of Gershwin’s best musical output. But the movie carried me 20 more years, 20 years forward to St. Valentine’s Day 1964.

On Christmas Eve Day 1963 I arrived on ship at the port of Naha, Okinawa. As a military musician I was assigned to the 3^rd Marine Division Band after serving in the 2^nd Marine Aircraft Wing Band at Cherry Point, North Carolina. The band’s living quarters was Camp Hague, an old World War II-looking camp with Quonset huts and a couple of Butler buildings. It looked that way because it was indeed an immediate post-World War II Marine Corps base. In fact, the tiny base was headquarters for the entire 3^rd Marine Division for a while.

The United States Government administered Okinawa from 1945 to 1972.

Within weeks after reporting for duty, the band was in preparation for a Valentine’s Day concert at the large U.S. Army Base, Camp Sukiran which was located near the Kadena Air Force base. A large movie and stage theatre was at Sukiran, and during the final days preceding the concert the band rehearsed in that large, “showbiz” edifice.

Impressive efforts is a phrase providing scant justice for work that went into the total production of the performance. The Valentine’s Day Concert’s theme? “Rhapsody in Blue.” The musical score included most of George Gershwin’s recognizable melodies.

The stage’s backdrop situating the 120-piece band, was the skyline of New York City. That large mural was developed onsite by Okinawan artists. Theater technicians, including those who manned the lights, attended the final days of rehearsal just to get things coordinated – to get things right.

The band had the good fortune of having four pianists. Actually, three pianists and one piano player (me). Chief Warrant Officer Griswald, the band officer, selected the best of the pianists to play the lead motif.

On concert evening the theatre was packed, mostly with U.S. Army personnel and their families. In the early 1960s Army and Air Force personnel lived with their families on or off base. Marine Corps personnel were not allowed to bring their families from the United States to the island.

And so it was that a Marine Corps band of virtual bachelorhood presented a grand concert to men, women, and children of our Armed Forces on Valentine’s Day, 1964.  

I am happy, even if only by coincidence, that I saw the 1945 movie Rhapsody in Blue this morning. The movie swept me away from influenza and repositioned me into Valentine’s Day, 1964. The movie was a trigger. That 1964 experience might have been forgotten otherwise. But it was a wonderful time, and with a gap of 53 years, I am thankful for the coincidental recollection.

WENjr

February 22, 2017

Sensing Confusion, Seeing Clearly

Sensing Confusion, Seeing Clearly

A pull from the left,

A push from the right.

The national tongue cleft

Between day and night.

Demands from below

Seem the apex of power, of might.

Though just principalities, they know

Their own authority only darkness incite.

Though our battle

Against neither flesh nor blood,

But with cosmic powers rattle,

As if a raging flood.

Our stand against this force,

Is resistance girded in truth.

Our breastplate appropriately sourced,

Our anointed shoes to kick the sleuth.

No matter what,

Adorn the shield of faith!

To flaming darts you shut,

You thus equipped, merely a wraith.

Apply armor cover to your head,

Keep the Word in your mind.

Through the spiritual sword you are bred,

It is for Me you are designed.

Talk with Me all the daylong,

With your thoughts, your desires.

But be alert and persevere, bidding brethren in song

With un-cleft tongue and a heart on fire.

Ephesians 6:10-20

A Paraphrase

Foreign and Domestic

Foreign and Domestic

Who would have believed

That in our present

An alliance so conceived

Between those angry and those mid-orient?

To those angry

There is no order

Because they hang free

On imaginary lands without border.

The mid-orient think their entry

Opening wider each day

As if their ally killed the sentry

Keeping the guardian at bay.

The alliance is but chimera,

Whether accidental or not.

Soon exposed as guerrera,

Trounced and forgot.