(prayer)
You may know that I am a
self-confessed news junkie. I like to
know what's going on in the world around me
Unless a CFL game is on -
or if it is a Survivor or Big Brother
or Better Call Saul night - if you
turn on my TV, it will likely be set to one of the Canadian or US 24-hour news
channels - the ultimate reality TV.
Consuming news has changed
a lot over my lifetime.
I used to read the Edmonton
Journal cover to cover every morning.
Now I almost never do.
Over the last couple of
years, facebook has actually become my main
source for breaking news.
I still connect to old and
new friends as a social aspect of the social network (following interesting and
inate aspects of their lives) and I have access to several church-related
people and pages...but as I scroll down most of my news feed is news.
I regularly see updates
from TV news channels, newspapers, blogs and several Internet news sites.
I intentionally follow
pages from across the political spectrum (I see CBC and FoxNews; the Huffington
Post and Breitbart; MSNBC and the Leduc Rep)
Add to this all of the
other articles I get to see because facebook friends of mine like or share articles from both well-known and
obscure sources and... I have plenty of ways to feed my addiction to news.
//
The real challenge when
consuming news today is... can you rely on the source of the information to
give you some semblance of the truth? Is
it real for fake news? Are they facts or alternative-facts?
Now-a-days, unfortunately,
unvarnished reporting is hard to find simply on its own. The details of what has happened and the
discovery of evidence is, so often,
very quickly followed by someone's opinion about what we should think it
means. Reporting and editorializing have
become (pretty much) the same thing.
I sometimes wonder if there
are any reporters left or if all we
have are commentators.
//
How can we decide what are
reliable sources?
//
//
My experience is that
people seem to define reliability based on how much they like the editorial opinions that accompany the basic news.
If we like the opinion of the
commentator, it is reliable news.
If we don't like that
perspective, it must be fake news.
As a result, I am afraid
that too many people are less interested in being impacted by new news and more interested in hearing
about the world through the lense of their already held beliefs and opinions.
//
As spring
hints that it is on its way, the green thumbs among us can remind us that just
having nutrient rich soil is not enough.
We won't see the flowers unless their roots can drink fresh water and
their leaves can be bathed in warm, new light.
//
In the same way...
How can we expect our minds
and hearts to grow if we don't allow them access to what is fresh and new?
//
//
//
Even though they had access
to a deep, reliable well, the fields couldn't meet the food needs of Jacob's
family or their livestock without new rains to replenish the drying and dying
soil.
But, Egypt had stores of
excess grain and was willing to sell.
Only three generations
after Abraham had settled in a new land after venturing away from his ancestral
home (buoyed by a promise of God), Jacob's family took up residence in Egypt...
chosing to remain there even after the drought ended.
Several hundred years
later, there was an identifiable community within Egyptian society known as the
people of Jacob (or - based on his nickname - the People of Israel). These people continued to nurture a faith in
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The Israelites were
eventually forced into slavery in Egypt, until Moses was able to convince the
Pharaoh to let the people go. The People of Israel set out on (what would
turn out to be) a 40 year journey through the Sinai wilderness back the land
that Jacob had left centuries earlier.
//
//
Today's reading from Exodus
relays a story from that wilderness time.
As they people made the slow, nomadic journey from Egypt to Canaan, they
were subject to the limitations of the environments they encountered. Naturally, they would seek campsites that had
adequate food and water supplies.
In our reading today, we
heard about the difficulties people experienced when access to water was hard
to come by.
They wanted to hold to a faith that God had secured their freedom and
was guiding them back to Abraham's land of promise, but times like this tested that faith. They even began to question whether slavery
was a better life: "Why did you bring us out of Egypt [only] to kill us ... with
thirst?"
Just when it looked like,
the people were going to have to move on without the rejuvenating rest they
needed, a reliable source of water was found: an underground spring was
released by chipping away at the mineral deposits that had sealed up the access
point.
//
The event would be
remembered as an almost miraculous occurance.
So strong was their faith that this exodus
was the work of God that - in retrospect - of course, God had guided Moses to
the water source and instructed him how to release the spring.
However you interpret the
news...
New water led to new
life... and renewed faith.
//
//
Thirst is a powerful need that
everyone relates to - in every era - no matter where they live in the world.
We may not necessarily know
how it feels to have a dying thirst, but even those of us who have easy access
to clean drinking water, know what it is like to feel the early pangs of
thirst.
More so... even from our
privileged first-world lofts, we can empathize with those who know the
realities of a life-and-death struggle with thirst.
The most basic activity of
developmental world outreach work is to dig wells and provide communities with
reliable sources of water.
//
//
//
The New Testament reading
today from John, chapter four is (perhaps) my favorite water story in the
bible.
It is deep with meaning on
a variety of levels. [If you caught my
sermon last week, you will know that the fourth gospel often layers the literal details of a particular
narrative with more-than-literal
proclamations about who Jesus is for the late first-century early church
followers and what impact a faith in
Jesus can have on a believer's life.]
//
This morning, we only heard
eight verses of a story that is 38 verses long (Jn4:5-42).
There are other aspects of
the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman that are a ripe with
meaning that we won't spend much time on today, not because they are
unimportant, but because the section we did
read is deep with meaning all on its own.
I encourage you to take
time to read the full story: you will
get a little bit of an insight to the complexities of the woman's life; you can
eavesdrop on a teaching moment that came out of this for Jesus' disciples; and
see how, through this woman at the well, many people of the town were impacted
by having Jesus among them.
That all begins with... a
conversation that two strangers had at the town well in Sychar - a town of
Samaria.
//
//
The setting: Jesus was
tired from travelling. He sat, alone, by
a well because his disciples had gone to buy food.
This was not just any well
-- this was Jacob's Well. The well, that - although deep and reliable -
could not sustain Jacob's farm and family in the drought that sent them off to
Egypt.
Remarkably, Jacob's
Well was still producing water ~1800
years later when Jesus sat there.
Even more remarkably, go another two millenia down the road and... today, you can visit a site in the West
Bank proporting to be that same Jacob's Well (a claim going back at least to
the 4th century CE).
Christians have built a
church over the the rock-hewn well (actually a succession of churches over the
centuries). Today it is a sacred site
for all of the Abrahamic religions.
Amazingly... "Jacob's
Well" still produces water.
//
//
You heard the story from
John four...
Jesus mid-day solitude is
interrupted when a local comes to draw water.
It is Jesus who opens up
the conversation with a request: Give me a drink. I can't tell from the text whether Jesus
asked nicely or if he sort of demanded the water.
Even though,
Jesus was thirsty. He didn't draw water himself. The text later implies that, although there
was likely a public rope at the well, there may have been no common bucket for
everyone to use.
I like to
picture that it was the sight of that cool, fresh water in the woman's bucket
that prompted Jesus to say something like: Hey,
I'd like some of that.
As I said, we
don't know how nicely Jesus requested the drink, but the woman's response
reminds us that Jesus was in foreign territory
(literally).
Her reply strongly implies that she was shocked to hear Jesus say anything to her.
Why is it that you (a Jew), ask me (a woman of Samaria) for a
drink?
With these
words, she highlights two differences between herself and Jesus that are the
possible source of her confusion:
She was a
woman;
Jesus was a man.
She was
Samaritan;
Jesus was Jewish (not clear how she knew...
perhaps his clothing, or a distinctive accent ?).
The author of
the gospel keys in on the second difference by pointing out to his readers that
Jews did not share things in common with
Samaritans.
//
What I find
interesting (in the limited information that the gospel text provides) is that
the implied issue seems to be that it should be Jesus who is concerned.
Why are you even talking to me? The woman expected Jesus
to shun her.
//
It reminds me
of the practice of having segregated drinking fountains in the pre-1968 US
south (and washrooms, bus-restaurant seats, etc.).
Unless you are
a consumer of alternate facts or revisionist history, you'd know that it wasn't
the African-American citizens who demanded the segregation.
Segregation was
a product of systemic white-supremacist racism that was undeterred by the
elimination of slavery a hundred years earlier.
In the movie Hidden Figures, it wasn't Katherine
Gobel who put out a separate coffee maker labeled "colored" a few
days after she began working with the Space
Task Group. 'She' wasn't worried
about being contaminated (somehow) by drinking from the same urn as her white
co-workers.
If Katherine
had any concern... it was that her co-workers were going to be bothered by her
sharing their coffee pot. That is why
she felt the need to take 45 minute bathroom breaks: running to a building (a
mile away) to use the closest 'colored washroom'.
//
//
The woman at
the well seems to be concerned that Jesus should be concerned: Are you sure that 'you' want to put your lips on a cup that
Samaritan Woman uses?
//
That is the
basic context of our gospel reading today: by opening his mouth and starting a
conversation, Jesus was willingly crossing at
least one boundary of systemic cultural and religious bigotry based on a superiority belief.
And even when
given an 'out', Jesus doubles down and takes the conversation deeper.
//
//
Like the
Nicodemus story from last week, Jesus offers a teaching - in metaphor - that is
taken literally:
I
asked you for a drink from Jacob's Well to quench my thirst right now, but
you're the one who should be asking me for Living Water that can quench your
thirst forever.
Sir, give me this water, so that I [won't] have to keep coming
here to draw water.
There is a
physical reality to what Jesus was saying and... a Spiritual promise. His words work on the literal and more-than-literal
levels. You
can drink from Jacob's Well, but you will be thirsty again; on the other hand,
once you take it in, Living Water quenches thirsts forever.
Like Nicodemus
last week, the woman tried to make sense of Jesus' teaching only from a
physical perspective rather than seeing it through a spiritual lense.
As we can read
a bit later in the story, the woman has no reason to see Jesus as a reliable
source on spiritual matters: afterall, from her perspective, Jews wrongly believe that the right place to
worship is on Mount Zion (at the Temple in Jerusalem), when every Samaritan
knows that the ancient and true House
of God (Beth-el) is on Mount Gerizim.
Although Jesus was not quite ready to
give up his Judea-over-Samaria superiority around the importance of historical
locations, he did claim that, because God is Spirit, true worship is
spiritually located not physically located.
John 4:21,23 >> The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither
on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ... The hour is coming, and is now here,
when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
//
This was fresh and refreshing for the
Samaritan Woman. The more she listened
to Jesus (the more he gave her insight to her own life), the more she regarded him as a prophet.
Jesus, increasingly became, for her
(and eventually others in Sychar), a reliable source on matters of The Spirit.
//
//
If the woman had limited her definition
of truth to assertions that were consistent with her already held beliefs, she
would not have been able to detect wisdom and welcome in Jesus' words and
actions.
She was open to the notion that there
was revelation of the divine that she had not noticed yet.
//
Therein lies a message of encouragement
for all of us.
Spiritual growth happens when our
current spirituality contains enough humility to allow for enhancements.
//
John Wesley, the founder of the English
Methodist movement (which is part of our UCCan heritage), is credited with expressing
that there are four aspects to theological and doctrinal (and I would add
Spiritual) development:
·
Scripture,
·
Tradition,
·
Reason,
and
·
Experience.
The Wesleyan
Quadrilateral encourages us to recognize that - in
addition to what has been passed on to us (scripture and tradition) -
engaging our faith also involves what we can come to know through simply living
in this world and... what we think about the totality of our spiritual
experiences:
- with our sacred texts,
- the history of faith and
- the new revelations which we can
glean by opening our eyes and ears and hearts each day we are blessed to breath
creations air.
//
//
As their bellies ached, the Israelites
relied on their memories of the full flesh pots and accessible drinking water
of Egypt when they looked at the cracked soil and dry rocks of the wilderness.
But... a new experience with a,
previously unknown, reliable source of water in the desert, opened their eyes
to a presence of God that their memories could not see.
And... as a result, Moses' reputation
as a reliable leader was enhanced, as well.
//
//
Jacob's Well was (and had been for 1800
years) a reliable source of water in Samaria.
It was a symbol of the providence of God and the sacredness of that
place.
This northern tradition saw itself as
challenging the Judean fake news that King David was inspired to
build Jerusalem as a holy city and King Solomon was inspired to end the nomadic
tradition of a movable tabernacle with the construction of a stone temple.
The woman's long-held belief was that
no significant understanding of God could come from an adherent to
judaism. Her understanding of that
belief structure was that a jew (like Jesus) would be so offended by her
presence that he wouldn't even talk with her.
So, when Jesus put a crack in that wall
between them (with an open request for water), the woman's ears began to open.
Once opened, she was able to hear about
how new experiences could led to new revelations about a much wider view about
the nature of God than her tradition had taught her was possible.
The woman's heart, mind and soul helped
her to see Jesus as a reliable source on spiritual.
//
//
All of this relies on an openness
expressed in some lines from our United Church Creed: that...
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.
//
"Our God is not done with us
yet."
If we find that a reliable statement, then each moment is an opportunity to
quench our thirst for spirit and meaning.
//
Thanks be to God.
//
Let us pray:
Holy One, sometimes we complain;
sometimes we pre-judge. And yet, you
still offer us grace upon grace - abundant new life. Amen.
#144MV
"Like a Healing Steam"
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