Jesus, the Unexpected

John 4:1-42

Psalm 42:1-3

Today we hear the story of the woman at the well.  It is a very familiar story, but I want to dig into the context just a little bit more for us today.  In this time of Jesus, the division between peoples, in particular between the Jews and Samaritans was very much like the growing divisions that we are seeing in our own country.  It was a time of great anxiety, just like it is now, and it was a time, just like now, when it was clear who “the enemy” was for any group of people.  Everyone knew which “side” of things they were on.  And they “KNEW” that the others were wrong.  This was so much the case that in today’s passage we read, in verse 9: “The Samaritan woman asked, ‘Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?’ (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.)”  There was so much animosity that people simply did not cross the lines.  They did not associate with each other, they did not talk to each other.  And yet, here was Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman.  And the woman, to her credit, talked back.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: we forget that we belong to one another.  We forget that we BELONG to one another.  You know that question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  For people of faith the answer is, always, “YES.”  

I found myself remembering when we had our first “crossing the differences” conversation here.  And it was about low-income housing and rent control.  One of our visitors who attended that meeting made the comment, “I find no reason at all why we should take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.  We subsidize them whenever there is low-income housing.  The rest of us are subsidizing them.”  And I found myself thinking, once again, that this is the core difference between our culture and what our faith calls us to do and be.  We are absolutely called to care for those who “can’t take care of themselves.”  God never asks the question of whether or not their care is deserved.  NEVER.  Jesus, when he offers healing, and help, and food, NEVER asks about whether or not it is deserved.  Instead, God’s question is always about what the other needs.  As people with families we understand this.  If our child were hungry, it would never be a question on our mind to ask if they deserved to eat that day or if they deserved to have a warm bed to sleep in.  We provide because they are our family and we love them.  We provide because they belong to us and we belong to them.  That call to remember that everyone else is our brother, is our sister, belongs to us, that is our call as people of faith.  

Outside of faith, that man with his comment was correct: there is no reason, outside of our love for God that calls us to love all of God’s children, all of God’s people, there is no reason.  But inside the bounds of our faith, there is, in fact, no option to fail to offer care, no option to fail to serve, to care, or to love.

As you all know, a group of us have been part of a belong circle now for about eight months.  This is a group of women from our church and a group of women from an African American congregation who meet together twice a month for the purpose of remembering that we belong to one another.  We share with one another where we are, what we are doing, our joys, our hopes, our dreams, our struggles, our pains.  We have come to love each other deeply.  Personally, I also feel that I have learned and grown so much from their example.  One of the women in our group, for example, is struggling with great unkindness coming her direction.  But her commitment to being kind to those who are treating her so unfairly and even, at times, cruelly, moves me every single time that I listen to her.  She understands at a deep place that people are unkind because they are hurting.  So she prays for them, she responds to their attacks with listening, with apology, with words of humility.  She touches and amazes me every day.  She lives out the understanding that despite differences, we belong to one another.  

I was reminded recently of a story called the “Law of the Garbage Truck”.  The person who wrote it said, “One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly.  So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.' He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.  As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, So ... Love the people who treat you right. Pray for those who don’t.”

The thing here is, Jesus did not change his mind in talking with the Samaritan woman.  He still said in this passage from John, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.”  He still has his same understanding.  But he does not then choose to hold her differences of belief and understanding against her.  He does not avoid her because her worldview is different.  He does not shun her or reject her.  He does not choose hate, despite what other Jews are doing, in the face of their differences.  Instead, he invites her close, he offers her life, he talks to her.  And in so doing, he breaks down walls rather than building them up.  And he crosses differences instead of upholding animosity.  He chooses connection over division.  

I’m reminded of a poem by Yehuda Amichai called, The Place Where We Are Right 

From the place where we are right 

Flowers will never grow 

In the spring. 

The place where we are right 

Is hard and trampled 

Like a yard. 

But doubts and loves 

Dig up the world 

Like a mole, a plow. 

And a whisper will be heard in the place 

Where the ruined

House once stood.

Or as Wayne Dyer said it, “When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.” 

The Priest and spiritual leader, Richard Rohr, said it this way: “Henceforth, it is not "those who do it right go to heaven later," but "those who receive and reflect me are in heaven now." This is God's unimaginable restorative justice. God does not love you if and when you change. God loves you so that you can change. That is the true story line of the Gospel.”

Or, as the author of the book, When Breath become Air, Paul Kalanithi says, “The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.”

As I listen to those words I find myself wondering, once again, if we can’t work harder to do the same.  Can we learn to love one another, across our differences, despite our differences, with the hope of creating a society where we understand and remember that we belong to one another?  Can we be the people that we are called to be?  People of grace, of light, of compassion, of LOVE?  

When my son was coming home for Christmas from UAF, I was worried about how he was going to get to the airport.  The school has a shuttle service around campus and downtown so I emailed them and asked if they would be running kids the airport for Christmas break.  The person in charge said he did not believe so (most of the kids live in AK and don’t need that transportation), but if I let him know what time Middle needed to travel, they would come get him and take him.  I sent them back a note saying that was very kind and could I pay them for it.  His response, “no need.  This is the right thing to do.”  I was truly blown away.  But the fact that this kindness caught me so by surprise is a warning sign to me of the state of our nation.  We should always be that kind to one another, all the time.  The fact that it is rare?  We need to work harder to make it less so!

Someone said recently to me, “I don’t worry about putting the Christ back into Christmas.  I worry about putting the Christ back into Christians.”  We are to be known by our love.  Do we live that out?  Do we take that seriously?  We don’t need to pound on each other about our different beliefs, our different viewpoints, our different approaches to the world.  We need to treat one another with the same compassion, love and care that Jesus showed to the woman at the well.  Even his disciples couldn’t grasp it, so I know how hard this is.  Even his disciples struggled to understand why he would talk to a Samaritan, why he would talk to a WOMAN.  But he did it none the less.  Can we do the same with those with whom we disagree?  

Connie Schultz said it this way, “I learned that those who are most secure in their faith feel no need to hammer others with their certainty.  The walk of faith begins and ends with the journey within, and that’s a path fraught with mystery and best guesses.  My own faith makes me neither right nor righteous because it demands so much of me that I am still trying to find.  Empathy, forgiveness, compassion – I never have enough.  Mom would say that’s okay.  She taught me that being a Christian meant fixing ourselves and helping others, not the other way around.” – Life Happens p214

On this the week we begin Black History month in the U.S., I want to end with one more quote.  This one is from Erna Kim Hackett.  She wrote, “White Christianity suffers from a bad case of Disney Princess theology.  As each individual reads Scripture, they see themselves as the Princess in every story.  They are Esther, never Xerxes or Haman.  They are Peter, never Judas.  They are the woman anointing Jesus, never the Pharisee.  They are the Jews escaping slavery, never Egypt.  For citizens of the most powerful country in the world, who enslaved both Native and Black people, to see itself as Israel not Egypt when studying Scripture, is a perfect example of Disney Princess Theology.  And it means that as people in power, they have no lens for locating themselves rightly in Scripture or society – and it has made them blind and utterly ill-equipped to engage issues of power and injustice.  It is some very weak Bible work.”  

No doubt.  My invitation to us, then, is to accurately locate ourselves, not so that we are weighed down with shame: shame is immobilizing and unhelpful.  But so, instead, that we can take the history that is ours, learn from it, and make different choices together.  Will we walk forward hand in hand, or will we isolate and estrange one another.  Will we confront the issues of racism and other isms by separating ourselves into camps of us vs. them?  Or will we work hard to talk together, get to know one another and build relationships together?

The Belong Circle program is a program of crossing differences and building relationships.  Outsiders to the group have asked me on many occasions, “What’s the point?  What are you accomplishing together?  What difference are you making?”  But I can tell you the difference that I’m seeing.  We are no longer strangers to one another.  We are sisters in our group.  And for my sister, I would be willing to stand up, to protect, to speak out against injustice, against racism and prejudice.  When my siblings of color were just an anonymous group of people struggling, I still wanted wholeness and healing for them.  But it is not the same as when I know them, love them, have faces and names put to those I am defending.  That is a whole other matter.  The Belong Circle invites us to truly get to know each other.  We are starting a new circle this month and I hope that you will truly consider joining.  Let me know if you would like to be a part.  It may feel like a small step forward, but in my experience it is not.    

The same is true about forming real relationships with people who disagree with you on political issues. Form those relationships with people who disagree, talk to them.  Remember that despite our differences, they are your brothers, sisters and siblings.  They belong to you, and you belong to them.  Am I my siblings keeper?  Just as Jesus answered “yes” in his conversation with the woman at the well, we are called to follow and do the same.  All that easy and all that hard.

A Sense of Entitlement

Jer. 32:1-3a, 6-15

Luke 16:19-31

               Today’s parable has hard words for those of us who are the “haves” in our world.  There isn’t a lot of grace for the rich man.  And it isn’t that he was a horrible person.  The rich man in Jesus’ parable is not purposely trying to hurt Lazarus.  The parable does not paint him to be cold-hearted or angry or mean.  He just doesn’t see Lazarus.  He doesn’t see his need, his humanity, his worth - Lazarus doesn’t enter the rich man’s consciousness.  The same is true later in the parable…after they’ve died, the rich man still does not see Lazarus except as someone to be used to help him.  He doesn’t even talk to Lazarus, but instead, he speaks to Abraham.  The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus down, still seeing himself as someone who has the privilege and right to talk to Abraham but who would probably never consider talking directly to an underling such as Lazarus.  Lazarus remains invisible to him, someone he might be able to use to help himself and his family, but not someone seen.  His need was not seen, his personhood was not seen.

               Who is it that we don’t see who needs our help?  Who is it whose suffering we increase or contribute to, or fail to ease, without ever knowing it?  Around whom are we the privileged, counting on and expecting rights that others don’t have?  Where does our sense of entitlement over others tend to creep in?  Who is it that is invisible to us?   Of course, because they are invisible to us, it is hard for us to become aware of those we fail to see.  But I invite you to really think for a minute about who fails to enter your consciousness, or who you fail to understand, that has needs, real needs.

               Whoever it is, we have to remember that that person is Jesus.  We have to remember what we are told in Matthew, that whenever we do it to the least of these, we are doing it to Jesus.  He is the one hungry, thirsty, sick and imprisoned.  He is the one we don’t see, don’t feed – again either literally or in other ways, don’t care for when we do things, even unintentionally, that lead to another’s suffering.  Jesus is the invisible one, without the rights or privileges that we take for granted. 

As the commentary, Feasting on the Word puts is, “Perhaps the boundaries and walls we have drawn are not so much between us and others as between us and God. With a mixture of invitation and warning, in the book of Revelation, the angel says to the church in Laodicea, "Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me" (Rev. 3:20).  When someone knocks on our door (figuratively or literally), who is needy or hurting, we need to remember that that person is Jesus.  The person we find it easy to dismiss, or to not see, or to condemn, or to judge – that is Christ.  “That is God's Christ who stands at our wall, knocking. When we answer, we may not find someone who looks like us, but we may very well find someone who looks like our God, if we are paying attention.”

Based on today’s parable, then, what hope is there for most of the privileged?  The Rich man is told, when he begs for help saving his brothers, those still living, who are still not seeing those in need, not seeing how they contribute to their suffering, not seeing how they might help, that “they will not be convinced, even if someone were to rise from the dead.”  Luke was writing this about Jesus to an audience who knew that someone had risen from the dead.  Jesus had risen from the dead.  So, in your experience, are people who believe in the resurrection, convinced, then, that they must care for the poor and suffering?

We do a lot in this church for those who are poor.  We do tend to see certain people – those who come to Winter’s NIghts we see, we feed, we talk to, we care for.  Those children who we tutor or who are in our music camp in Pittsburg, those in the CCIH programs, we see them.  Those who go to the meals through Loaves and Fishes we see, feed, care for and talk to.  So for us, this story encourages us to think a little wider.  Who is it that we don’t see who needs our attention and care?

The unfortunate truth is that Luke’s Jesus does not have a lot of good news for those who are privileged and who do not care for those who are not.  Jesus says, “It is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”  Jesus says “woe to those who are rich because they have already received their comfort”.  And today Jesus says through this parable, that if we do not cross the gaping chasm between the rich and the poor in this life, we surely will not be able to do it in the next. At least for those who have more than their share on this earth, we are told, there won’t be a way to cross the chasm in the life to come.  The basic bottom line message?  For the Rich man in our story, he still thinks he has the right to ask for help and receive it, to have Lazarus ordered around.  He still cannot see him as an equal child of God.  He can’t do it.  The greater message then is that “Stepping out of one's privilege is perhaps one of the most difficult journeys of transformation.”   But again, while Luke focuses mostly on the privilege given to those who are economically sound and do not help others, I think we do a pretty good job of trying to serve those who have less here in this place.  But we still have privilege and there are still blind spots in that.

As I reflected on this passage this week, I found myself thinking about all of the ways in which we are privileged.  All of the MANY ways in which I am privileged.  Economically, certainly.  That is the primary way that Luke addresses our inequalities as well.  And I want to share with you that I understand how easy it is to move from a place of just using what we need, to thinking that all the luxuries we have are actually needs.  I know this because most of my adult life I have had to live very simply because we simply did not make enough money to live any other way.  For the majority of my adult life, housing costs were more than half of what I brought home each month and the rest of my pay went for food, medical necessities, and the children’s needs.  For most of my adult life, a vacation looked like camping because that was what we could afford.  But now I am married to David and my income for our small family is twice what it has been.  We took a vacation to Scotland this summer, the first expensive vacation that I’ve ever been on, the first vacation I’ve been.  And while much of the time I felt guilt about going, at the same time, I could see how very easy it would be to start seeing these vacations as “necessities”, as “normal parts of life”, as “part of the kids’ education”.  For the first time in my life, we’ve been able to fix things in the house without begging for help: paying someone to come in and replace the shattered living room glass door, for example; and the washer that went out this week, and even the bathtub with it’s hole in the bottom.  And again, how easy it is to start seeing these as necessities and forgetting that these resources we have are for the people of God, all the people of God, so that all might eat, and have a place to sleep, and have health care.  They are not “mine” to use on my own luxuries.

But, putting aside economics, there are other ways, too, in which we are privileged.  One of the more subtle ways we exercise our privilege is by wearing name tags when we are volunteers or helpers.  We separate ourselves from those needing the help, we make a wall through a simple name tag, between “them” and “us”.  I want to share with you a few stories that I hope will not make you uneasy or uncomfortable.  I am sharing these because they are stories which point out to me my own privilege, my own sense of entitlement.  These are lessons I learned doing prison visitations in Ohio.  And I share them in the hopes that they will encourage you to think more about areas of your own privilege which you may not see, may not name, and may not usually reflect on.

First of all, there was a real difference between myself and most of the other people visiting the prison.  There were racial differences – I was one of the few white women visiting one of the few white men in the prison.  There were language differences – I speak an academic or educated American English, while many of those visiting had not finished high school and their language reflected that.  There were clothing differences. While we were required to dress in a very specific way to visit the inmates –  we could not wear sleeveless shirts or shirts that were “low cut”, we could not “reveal” any body parts between neck and just below the knee, and a full set of undergarments were to be worn at all times (don’t exactly know how they checked this, but I had heard of women turned away for not wearing a slip under a dress or skirt, for example).  None the less, there was a difference in dress between myself and most of the other visitors.  I dress rather conservatively.  Many of the other women found ways to get around the “no provocative clothing” rules. Their pants were too tight.  When they bent over, body parts showed which they were quick to hide from the inspecting guards.  Every time I went, someone was turned away and not allowed to see the inmate they’d come to see because of the way they had dressed that day. 

That being said, the power in the prison, the privilege if you will, was with the guards.  And if they liked someone, or, unfortunately as I saw happen regularly, if some cute young thing offered something back to the guards in exchange for being let in, then dress restrictions were over-looked.  I wouldn’t flirt or offer anything to the guards though.  But they enjoyed wielding that power, over everyone. And so on one of my visits to the prison, I was refused entrance for wearing this shirt, which I was told was too low cut.  I was furious.  I was outraged.  But as I left, I realized that a lot of my anger was simply my own sense of entitlement.  Why should I be treated any differently than any of the other visitors?  Because I’m educated?  Because I’m a pastor?  The guards had as much power over me as anyone else, and that reality was hard for me to face. 

There are many other examples I could give you.  I used to believe that prisons provide for the inmates.  As a matter of fact, this week I saw a Facebook post about how much better prisons are than nursing homes.  All I could think was that the idiot who posted that had never actually been to a prison.  There is no medical care in the prisons I visited – except in extreme situations, and even then, the medical care was very minimal.  One of the inmates I spoke to was legally blind, so blind that he could not find the bathroom without his glasses.  However, when his glasses broke, they would not provide a new pair.  That particular inmate had to have an outside family member order a new pair for him with an old prescription and then jump through a series of hoops to get the prison to actually give him the glasses – a process that took well over a month.  Prison is supposed to pay for the food and lodging of the inmates, but at one prison I visited, inmates weren’t given breakfasts on the weekends, for example.  None of their basic toiletries are paid for, jackets for the winter time, underwear, socks, hair cuts, tootpaste, toilet paper, etc., while necessary, were not paid for. 

Talking with families who have incarcerated loved ones taught me that most families must spend about $500 a month for their inmates to simply survive there.  This is not on luxuries, there aren’t luxuries that can be bought inside the prison: the money goes for basic survival.  Things like razors, toothpaste, soap, toilet paper, coats for winter, shoes for winter.  The inmates who didn’t have people to pay for these things?  Well, they stole stuff from other inmates.  They threatened violence if not given what they ask for (and they follow through with it).  I realize that in contrast the rest of us are extremely privileged. 

Another woman who visited told me that she was propositioned by one of the guards and when she did not give the guard what he asked for, the loved one (her husband!) whom she was visiting was beaten to a pulp and almost died.

So where is the good news in all of this?  Where is the good news for those of us who are privileged?  The words of comfort in these stories are spoken to the poor, to those who suffer now, to those without rights and privileges.  They are reassured that their lack of privilege will change, that they will have the rights they may not have now.  That they will have a place at the table.  But where is the good news in this for us, who are privileged NOW?

First, I believe we can learn to see those who are displaced.  We can learn to give to and share with those who have less.  We can learn to see our privilege and we can learn to not abuse it.  It isn’t easy, but what is impossible for humans is possible for God.  In that is good news.  The good news is also that God is a God of grace and mercy.  The rich man in the story appealed to Abraham, and Abraham said “no”.  But we appeal to God.  And as we do, as we ask for God’s love, care and mercy, God will answer us, give us help to grow, understand, see, and love more fully, to not use or abuse our privileges.  God is the God of abundance, grace, love and there is enough for everyone in God’s realm.  We are called to see the invisible, to care for the poor, to offer mercy and compassion.  But we are also given the strength, grace and love to be able to do that, to respond to this call, with God’s help.   Let us pray for the eyes to see and the grace to love even the loveless.  Amen.