A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church March 27, 2011, 3rd Sunday in Lent.
John 4:5-42
One of the most common experiences in human life is to encounter strangers. Think about it. When you go to a restaurant or the grocery store, when you are waiting in the doctor’s office, when someone new is hired where you work, when you are out walking around your neighborhood or in the park. Again and again, we encounter other people, persons with their own stories and their own struggles and their own joys. And they are complete mysteries to us. We simply don’t know who they are. And they don’t know who we are. Often, it stays that way. We know the routine… We may say hello if someone inadvertently catches us looking at them, but more often than not, we go about our business paying very little attention to the other human beings whom we encounter during the course of any given day. A friend of mine told me about how one day she had gone into the drug store, purchased a number of items, walked out to her car and, all of a sudden, realized that she had never even looked at the person who had just served her at the check-out line. She didn’t even know for sure if the person had been a woman or a man.
Of course, we tend to notice certain people, some because they’re good-looking, some because of their manner, some because they make us nervous. For many, the appearance of a person, just how they look or who they are determines whether that is a person we would be willing to talk to. After all, there are rules, unwritten, perhaps even unjust rules that govern our human interaction. Each one of us has a set of them that guides our actions with other people. These patterns and rules of living tell us who we are and who others are and what is expected of ourselves and of others. They kick in impulsively when we encounter a stranger. Trust and distrust, judgment and acceptance, openness and fear.
Today, in our Gospel lesson, we get to see one of these encounters between strangers. Two lives meet during the course of everyday life, two human beings cross each others’ path, carrying with them the stories of their lives.
One story is of an outcast, a Samaritan, whose life, like all women of the time, is dependent upon others, dependent upon the laws of ownership and relationships of men. She has been through five husbands and now she’s living with a man who is not her husband, a circumstance that places her far outside the bounds of the acceptable moral code. We don’t know what circumstances led to this situation, but we do know that she is vulnerable. Her current companion has no real responsibility for her, to guard her reputation or to defend her from anything. She is supposed to live behind walls and veils, silent except when in private. In the world in which she lives, her thoughts don’t matter, her needs don’t matter, her reasons and the circumstances that have led her into her present situation don’t matter. Her questions and rebellions and challenges of the way things are are of no consequence to anyone. Even though she is a human being with a brain in her head and a heart that can break just the same as any other, she is pushed aside to the margins of the community, ignored and treated as a nobody. Her routine brings her to the well, carrying the burden not only of the water vessel, but also burdened by her acknowledgement of a dull, deadening truth: “It’s just not in my plan for someone to care who I am.”
When she gets to the well, Jesus is there. His journey has made him tired and thirsty. And what has that journey been like? Since he began his public ministry of teaching and healing, people only see the outward appearance of him. They see what they want to see. They want more signs and wonders. They want him to lead armies against those who have been oppressive to them. They want him all for themselves. They try to tell him who he is. They don’t want him to talk to children or to hang out with the despised rich or the “sinful” poor and sick; they get angry when he breaks their understanding of the law, of the rules, when he loves people of questionable character, when he heals on the wrong day. No matter what he does or how he tries to open their eyes and their hearts to the Truth, the Life, the Way that he is, it seems that people still don’t get it. The knowledge that he will do the will of the Holy One regardless of whether anyone ever knows him fully, as he really is, may be among the heaviest weights that he carries.
And Jesus is met at the well by the woman. All at once their stories overlap and in his weariness and thirst, Jesus asks the woman for a drink. At first she responds out of her well-learned, impulse-driven rules, the ethnic rules about Jews and Samaritans who hate each other, the purity rules about their not sharing the same vessels, the gender rules of men and women who are not to speak in public or to persons outside of their kinsfolk. And she, who is already outside the bounds of acceptability goes ahead and talks back asking, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” And then Jesus does an amazing thing. He reverses the acceptable roles of women and men and speaks to the woman of offering her a drink, of becoming her servant. Out of love and because he knows how parched this woman is for Life, he tries again to share who he is, to pour himself out across boundaries and into brokenness, to fill another human being with hope. And as usual, he is misunderstood. But as they continue their scandalous conversation, and as he shows her that he is willing to meet her right where she is, without judgment, and as he keeps affirming her for telling the truth, as he affirms her by listening to and responding to her religious questions, as he affirms that she is a human being worthy of notice, of care, of being listened to, a woman who is much more than the sum of her circumstances, another miraculous thing happens. Just as Jesus has seen into this woman’s life and heart, she begins to see, to understand that this man is more than just a Jew, more than just a prophet. [“Could he possibly be the Messiah?”] Both Jesus and the Samaritan woman came to the well thirsty, not only for water that can be measured in buckets and jars, but they thirsted for that immeasurable flow of Life-affirming, love-driven encounter with one who truly cares about who they are. Jesus and the woman are not equals in the scenario. But they were both thirsty. They thirsted to be seen, to be known, to be understood, to be loved.
Many of us come today with this same thirst. It is the thirst for relationship, for connectedness; it is a thirst to know and to be known. Some of us come to church seeking to know and be known by God, to be connected to God. Others of us come to meet other people. We come looking for friends, for connection with other people who might be willing to enter into a real relationship with us. Some of us are here for both. And yet, it has always made me sad that there is this sense that when we come to church, we can’t really be ourselves, we can’t be fully who we are. Of all the places that we go, the church may be the place where we guard our secrets most carefully. After all, I can’t tell people at church that I’m cheating on my spouse or that I have drinking problem or that I’m broke or that I’m in an abusive relationship. I can’t bring my anger or doubt or resentment to church can I? I can’t admit my ignorance or my grief or my fear…And so, often, the church gathers on Sunday after Sunday, a community of so many strangers, pretenders, hiders. Opportunities to gather and know one another and to study together are avoided—yes, sometimes due to time constraints—but often because of the fear of rejection, of having to acknowledge what we don’t know or how we struggle. We fear asking our questions, admitting our need. You know, I just have to wonder what the disciples might have learned if they’d been willing to ask the questions that went unspoken—those questions mentioned in verse 27 of our Gospel. What do they miss because they didn’t risk being honest about where they were, didn’t risk asking the questions?
Many of us wander through our days never really expecting anyone to care what we are going through, figuring that we’re on our own to just figure it out. And it’s true that sometimes when we risk ourselves with other people we can end up getting hurt or being misunderstood or blown off. But here’s the thing: no matter where you are today, the Christ is there waiting to meet you. And Jesus does care who you are and what you’ve been through and what you’re going through today. After all, Jesus knows what it’s like to be misunderstood, to be under pressure, to feel weary and thirsty. If Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman teaches us anything, it is that Jesus meets people—you and me—right where we are and KNOWS US; knows that we are more than the sum of our circumstances; that we are more than the roles and ways of being that have been assigned us; that we are worthy of being heard and of being taken seriously, of being cared for regardless of the brokenness and secrets that we try to hide, that we are thirsty. And in this encounter with Jesus we are offered living water—Jesus’ love, God’s love, that flows from the divine heart with gentle, strong, transforming power. When you open your eyes and recognize that Jesus is waiting for you wherever you go to try to quench your thirst, you’ll see that you’re invited into a relationship with God who knows everything you’ve ever done and loves you still. The Samaritan woman’s life changed in this encounter with Jesus. Because the living water that Jesus offered made her alive again—a human being again; people began to see her and to listen to her story. Jesus sees you, knows you, understands you, loves you—right where you are. And that kind of acceptance changes things and encourages us to grow beyond where we are today. The living water of God’s love seeps down deep into our souls to make us more alive, more brave, more compassionate, more human.
Perhaps, if we can even begin to acknowledge the way that Jesus meets us where we are, we can begin to offer that same gift to others. Perhaps we will acknowledge that in every human encounter, between strangers or in the most intimate of relationships, there are persons involved, human beings who have stories of their own, needs, and wishes, and struggles. They, too, are more than their circumstances, more than their appearance, more than their attitudes. Perhaps we will see that when we break out of the safety of the walls that surround us, Living Water bubbles up in our midst and we see more clearly, more deeply, more compassionately. Perhaps we will even see Jesus Christ. You never know who you’ll meet at the well, at the store, on the street, in the sanctuary. But you can count on this: they are thirsty just like you and me.
