"Life's Disappointments" March 27, 2011

Exodus 17:1-7
John 4: 5-42
Recently, a note arrived, describing that the author had attended a beautiful Memorial, and it seemed there had been a lot more Memorials lately than usual, so could I cut that out. They were thankful that we seemed to understand they only attended worship sporadically. They closed by stating that in these gray leftover winter days of Lent, with so many more deaths than usual, the pastor's eyes seemed to have been sad, and they hoped the sparkle might return.

Last evening someone phoned with announcement of the birth of a child, that they hoped would be Good news for a change.

A certain man had been going to church all his life, his parents sang in the choir and were Sunday School teachers. He never went through rebellion as a teen, and was not expecting a mid-life crisis. There were no problems with drugs, no arrests, or real problems. By the community standards, his life seemed perfect, so why did he feel like such a phony.

A woman started coming to church when everything else in her life began falling apart. She would slip in during the first hymn, and leave during the last, in hope no one would notice her. She sat ¾ the way to the back, on the outside aisle. She had been having trouble with depression, with work, with relationships. She had come to believe she had more problems than anyone else ever could.
On the third week, having not identified herself on the friendship pads, the pastor asked if she might like to claim this as her church home. She smiled, with her eyes on the floor, and replied that she wouldn't be in town that long. The next several months she rarely missed a Sunday, but there was an odd routine. Week by week she would appear a little stronger, a little brighter, then she would be gone for a week and when she came back she looked pale, drawn and frail. She got thinner and thinner. Then she stopped coming all together. No one seemed to no where she lived, or anything much about her.

This morning's Gospel requires an acquaintance with overt Racism and Segregation. I remember as a child, growing up in St. Louis in the early 1960s, seeing signs on Restrooms larger than the ones that said Mens and Womens, which read “Whites Only”, and above a filthy, dirty drinking fountain that read “Coloreds.” Being white, and from the suburbs, I didn't really understand what it meant, except that my mother seemed to squeeze my hand tighter and say NO when I wanted to drink from it.

Like everyone else she needed to go to the well for fresh water daily. But, where others rose early, and went to the well while it was still dark and cool, visiting with one another as they pumped water for one another, She intentionally waited until noon, in the scorching heat of the day, when no one else would be at the well. She had devised a wooden yoke for her shoulders, so she could carry two buckets at the same time, rather than risking two trips. While allowing her to carry more, the wooden bar had worn a sore on her neck and shoulders. Carrying the empty buckets that day, she dreaded the long drudge back, carrying her burden.

As she turned the corner, she saw something worse than the burden home, there was a man sitting beside the well. As she approached, he lifted his head, and from the brown eyes and olive skin, she knew his race and class. What was he, a person of affluence and education, doing sitting at the well in a Samaritan Village? Did he not know he was on the wrong side of the tracks? At least, his being a man, he would not dare risk lowering himself to speak to her in public. But then he asked of her a favor! Could she draw water for him from the well, and offer him a drink from her cup? Imagine! A Rabbi of Israel, drinking out of the cup of a Samaritan Woman! Once, when she had gone to Jerusalem, Jewish people had crossed to the other side of the street to avoid having contact with her. And here he, a Man, a Jewish man, wanted her to draw him water, and from her Samaritan hand, he wanted to drink from her cup.
The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman is the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in any of the Gospels. It is an odd conversation, but clearly he demonstrates having something she wants. If he actually has this living water, that could mean she would not need to expose herself to public scrutiny every day, she wants what he has!

Then Jesus asks about her husband. She could have responded that this was getting too personal. She did not have to respond. She could have made up a story but instead she says “I do not have a husband” As if he had X Ray vision, Jesus tells her the rest of the truth about herself. Now she truly feels exposed and attempts to change the subject, repeating what she knows to be a conversation stopper: “Where should we worship God, on the Mountain at the Samaritan altar built by the Greeks, or in Jerusalem at the Temple of Solomon?” But this does not put Jesus off, he pursues the conversation with her, this outcast, mixed race, woman. Not knowing what else to say, she replies “Won't it be great when the Messiah comes?” And Jesus responds, “That day has come!”
All this has happened out in public, at Noontime, at the Well. It would be like having the most important, most revelatory conversation of your life, in the middle of the Supermarket.

Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan Woman at the Well reveals that God knows exactly who we are. Despite our best efforts to cover up, to hide behind race, behind education, behind class, behind what is easy, Jesus seeks us out where we are, revealing to ourselves the secrets we have kept.

Alice Walker, in her Novel The Color Purple relates a long conversation about God, between the women Celie and Shug. Celie has tried to be a good Christian Woman, doing whatever people told her. But she has been abused all her life, finally deciding God must be Dead, because the only gifts she ever received were her Daddy being lynched and her Ma running off, and a low-down dog of a Step-Father. By comparison, Shug seems to Celie to be the worst kind of sinner, but Shug challenges Celie about what the God she no longer believes in, looks like. Celie describes a picture she saw once in Sunday school, that God is very Tall, and very old, with a long white beard and bright blue eyes. Celie responds that she gave up waiting for a God like that. Like the Samaritan woman she found God where she least expected, that God loved everything she loved and a mess of stuff besides. People always think God only cares about people trying to please God. But any fool can see that God always tries to please us and care for us, and once we feel loved by God, than it seems all we can do is love God back.

A few days ago, the phone rang, and a man asked “Did you know Sharon and he gave a last name?” I thought a moment and said “No...” Then he described her, and I realized Sharon was the woman who used to come and sit in the Sanctuary, who claimed she would not be in town long enough to claim this as her Church. He described being Sharon's brother and that she had died. He was going through her belongings and found a pile of bulletins from the church, covered in notes, words and phrases, and names of people to pray for. The whole bundle was carefully tied up with a ribbon and bow. The man described that their family had never had much use for religion, they had never been baptized. He and his sister had had a falling out when she had gotten divorced. He could not believe her stories about being abused by her husband, could not believe her claim that her husband had given her AIDs, what had seemed to kill her was Cancer. But now, going through her apartment, there seemed to be a lot about his sister he had never known, and it was comforting to know she had found a home where she could feel accepted and which fed her spirit. Then he read one note off the back of a bulletin: They welcomed me. They invited me to receive. With everyone else, I walked up to the Table. As I took a piece of bread, they said “You are forgiven” as I dipped it in the cup everyone else had dipped in they said “This is the seal of the New Covenant of God's love”. After I sat down, some one said “Peace be with you” and they offered me a hug, not a bone crushing hug, my bones feel so fragile, but they opened their arms allowing me to hug them. I finally have found a home.