Lent, day 15: grace notes in the wilderness

As part of our 'thinking about' slot in worship the other week, and to mark the first Sunday of Lent, I explained the custom of 'burying' the alleluias.
To gather them in and put them away - effectively, to rest the word over the course of the season and resurrect it on Easter Sunday, and so say it with renewed enthusiasm.
(a little like laying aside a favourite toy for a wee while, and rediscovering it after a period of time, perhaps)
Each person had been given out heart-shaped post-its, and on one side, were to write 'alleluia', and, on the other side to write or draw something that they would like to praise God for.
These were then collected and put into the special Alleluia box, sealed up, and a prayer said. Thereafter, the box was placed at the foot of the cross at the chancel step, waiting to be opened and the alleluias to be released.
I'd noted that there was potential to play a game of 'alleluia-spotting' over the following weeks - would any accidentally escape?

A couple of days after, at our Lent discussion group, one of the members commented on the alleluia slot in worship.
'How do you get through the wilderness without being sustained by the hope of an alleluia,' she wondered, 'it's quite tough, psychologically.'
A good question.
I suggested that although the alleluias were away, yet the box containing them was visible: the hope of an alleluia was still there.  With the benefit of time, unlike the disciples, we are on the other side of the resurrection story, and in faith, know that love wins and hope prevails: death does not have the final word.
And, as with Jesus, the alleluias don't seem to want to stay buried:
Sunday last, Communion Sunday, we sang 'Ye gates' - I'd forgotten about those alleluias in the hymn - in music, at least, they popped right back out of the box.
Grace notes in the wilderness.

Lent, day 14: field work, part 2

Yesterday, views from front of house, where the office is.  Today, although not photographed today, the view from the back of the manse [as requested by Mr Gerbil].
Love it.  I found myself a couple of weeks ago driving up to Edinburgh in the early morning light.
Half a mile down the road from the manse, heard myself say out loud 'I live in a beautiful parish'.
I really do.
Loving rural ministry.
Another gratitude-filled day.

Lent, day 13: field work

Yesterday morning, from the manse window.

All the sheep/ shepherd sayings and stories from the bible are taking on a new perspective 

now that I'm living and working within a rural context.  

Today's short blog entry is a wee note to record sheer gratitude: 

so thankful to have been called here among such good folk, and in such beautiful surroundings.

I am blessed indeed.

Lent, day 12: psalm 137 - lament and keeping it real

In the current Lent discussion group being run in 'a river runs through it' parish, we were thinking of that very Lenten theme of lament yesterday.  Within the course of conversation, Psalm 137 came up:

By the rivers of Babylon

   there we sat down and there we wept   

when we remembered Zion. 

On the willows there   

we hung up our harps. 

For there our captors asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,   

‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ 

How could we sing the Lord’s song

   in a foreign land? 

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

   let my right hand wither! 

Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,

   if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jerusalem

   above my highest joy. 

Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites

   the day of Jerusalem’s fall,

how they said, ‘Tear it down! Tear it down!

   Down to its foundations!’ 

O daughter Babylon, you devastator!

   Happy shall they be who pay you back

   what you have done to us! 

Happy shall they be who take your little ones

   and dash them against the rock!

It's a hard text.
A text of defeat, exile, alienation -
of despair.
A text of lament.

There's a raw honesty to the psalm:
from wondering how to sing the Lord's song in a strange land,
to an admonition to self not to forget home,
through to its shocking, angry conclusion.

There, amidst the hanging gardens, the exiles hang their harps.
They will not sing: they cannot.
How do they make sense of all that has happened?
Are they not the people of the covenant - the people of the promise?
Where is God?
They find words within the questions of their grief
and those words emerge as lament.
Those words are beautiful and terrible
and express a whole range of human emotion.

And perhaps, here is the comfort of the psalms:
to find that it is completely in keeping with the faith tradition
to express not only the nicey-nice stuff of life,
but to express the rage,
the hard things.
This psalm, even with that violent last verse,
teaches us to be real before God,
who knows what it is we're thinking and feeling anyway.

Lament is a cathartic thing:
crying out in anger and despair at God is a helpful way of letting go,
of working through the process of grief.
A way of singing the Lord's song in both safe harbours
and strange lands.
A way that enables us to be real with God in the good and in the bad -
because, in the end, God calls us as we are, and where we are.

Lent, day 11: just to clarify...

I love the gentle wisdom and humour of Calvin and Hobbes.  The above cartoon snippet has been in my files for several years; it was a useful reminder to self when writing up my thesis to try and not write in the style of wee Calvin!  In the course of research, I began to learn how to 'smell out a rat' when I'd find myself writing in a particularly obscure manner.  Reading back, I'd realise I was either trying to write to impress - being pompous and pretentious just because I could - or, I was still processing and wasn't quite as clear in my thinking on the matter as I'd hoped to be.  

Words are important.  The language we choose to use to communicate can indicate more than the actual words themselves - from underlying assumptions to privilege and entitlement.  It's very easy to get caught up in specialist language, and subconscious norms, as per 'a holy bible' comment from the other day.  It's not just academia, it's also the church and, for that matter, any situation/ issue brings assorted folk together into a group.  But within the church context, perhaps my personal 'note to self' is to continually ask: 'what's my point?', and 'what's the message here?'

Because, easy as it is to write a gazillion elegantly phrased words, if it's not communicating the simple gospel message of God's great love for all, then there's really not much point at all.  

And, of course, communicating goes beyond words.

I like St Francis of Assisi on this:
'Preach the gospel at all times.  If necessary, use words.'

Lent, day 10: Sunday sermon - A cross carrying community (lent 2 yr b)

Sermon for Communion Sunday.  

The second in my Lent series  'The kin-dom of heaven: living as God's community'

Last week we explored being a covenanted community; this week we reflect on picking up our cross, and being a cross-carrying community.

1^st READING: Romans 4:13-25

2^nd READING: Mark 8:27-38

SERMON  ‘A Cross-carrying community’

Let’s pray:

may the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our 

hearts be acceptable in your sight, 

O God, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

It was all so upside-down.

Madness.

There’d been miracles:

healings,

the feeding of multitudes.

Surely, surely these were signs

that God was with them.

People everywhere had heard of him -

were speaking of him,

   were speculating about him.

Who was he,

this wandering rabbi

performing wondrous deeds?

‘Who do you say I am?’

he’d asked his closest followers.

And, in a moment of startled insight,

Peter found himself uttering words that generation after generation

had yearned for, had longed for:

‘You     are the Christ.’

Four little words,

weighed down by a myriad of hopes

and expectations,

and chief among these: liberation.

Liberation from illness,

from hunger...

and indeed, Jesus had shown

his credentials there,

but beyond these,

a liberation from the yoke of oppressive empire

that echoed down through centuries

of having been in thrall to other empires:

Egypt

Persia

Babylon,

and latterly, Rome.

‘You are the Christ’ expressed the hope

for a new David -

a deliverer anointed by God

to free the Jewish nation from

the tyranny of Rome,

a deliverer who would visit God’s judgement upon those who would dare to

crush his chosen ones;

 ‘You are the Christ’ came with expectations

of a warrior Messiah,

who would avenge the wrongs done to Israel

and restore Israel to her former glory;

who would resurrect national pride from the gutters of inglorious, humiliating subjugation,

and cause other nations to humble themselves and bow down -

to pay homage.

But...

it was all so upside-down.

Madness.

‘You are the Christ.’

Four little words that are immediately seized upon by Jesus

to teach those closest to him

just what it is to be the Christ.

What follows is plain speaking -

blunt talk.

In no uncertain terms,

the disciples are disabused of any notions

of glory they may have had when thinking of

the nature of Messiahship.

No amazing escape across a miraculously

dried sea-bed,

no joyous return from exile,

no heroic, battle-hardened warrior leading

God’s people to victory over Rome.

Jesus’ description of Messiahship

is completely counter-cultural,

and utterly shocking:

a Messiah rejected -

a Messiah...killed.

And Peter is unnerved by this teaching,

so much so that he pulls Jesus aside

and rebukes him -

because suffering and dying Messiahs

make absolutely no earthly sense at all.

Which is exactly what Jesus picks Peter up on when he says:

‘you do not have in mind the things of God,

but the things of men.’

Quite a turnaround for Peter:
from profound insight to utter confusion.

From ‘you’re the Messiah’ to

‘but not that kind of Messiah!’

But it gets more alarming:

there’s talk of picking up one’s cross -

not only does the Messiah suffer,

so too, do his disciples.

No power, no prestige:

rather, a call to put aside personal gain;

a call to a very different kind of faith -

a faith not built upon material symbols

of earthly success,

but grounded in the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

It was all so upside-down.

Madness.

It    still    is,

in the eyes of the world.

To deny self,

to deny gain, fame,

...to let go of our preconceptions of success

and of what we think a Messiah should be:

to choose, instead, a very different way of being.

But we don’t do it alone -

as followers of the Christ -

as Christ’s body here on earth -

we are called communally to pick up,

and carry our cross -

we are a cross-carrying community.

Nourished, strengthened,

and sustained by the One we follow,

and at whose table we feast,

we are called to give of ourselves - to God -

and to others.

To be real, authentic:

understanding that to be fully human

is to allow ourselves to be vulnerable,

to open ourselves up to the possibility

of pain and of hurt

just as God, in Christ did.

...To follow, in faith,

is to love sacrificially:

love our friends, yes,

but love our enemies as well -

to seek ways of reconciliation.

To pick up one’s cross and follow in faith

is to call out political expediency

which relies on scapegoating those who are the most vulnerable in society

in order to gain votes in a ballot box;

to engage in society,

to question the growing gap between

rich and poor;

to uncover and challenge abuse of power -

on a grand scale -

and, at the domestic level.

To pick up one’s cross,

in the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero, is to:

enter ‘into the reality of a child,

of the poor,

of those wearing rags,

of the sick,

of a hovel, ....of a shack.

It is going to share with them.

And from the very heart of misery,

of this situation,

... to say to them,

“You aren’t trash.

You aren’t marginalized.”

It is to say exactly the opposite,

“You    are valuable.”

For Romero, picking up his cross

and walking in faith

challenging oppression

and speaking out on behalf of the poor

in El Salvador resulted in his assassination in the middle of worship.

As a cross-carrying community,

we are not called to look the other way

when we see others hurt,

we’re called to get involved,

just as God, through the incarnation,

got involved with the whole human race.

It was all so upside-down.

Madness.

Returning to the conversation between

Jesus and his disciples for a moment:

In the midst of all this odd talk,

this overturning of cherished

definitions of Messiah,

it’s interesting that one quite significant detail appears to get lost:

so shocked are the disciples,

that they seem to miss

what Jesus says immediately after he’s told them that he’ll be rejected, suffer, and be killed:

they miss the bit about

‘and after three days,    rise again’.

As we pick up our crosses,

we discover that in the very act of giving our lives - through sanctified love of God and neighbour -

we discover what it is to truly   live;

that in giving,

we discover that we truly receive.

As we walk towards Jerusalem

over the course of this Lenten season,

nourished and strengthened for the journey

by the bread and wine of communion:

let us pick up our crosses,

walk in faith,

walk with our brother Jesus,

‘in paths of love and justice.’

For this is the way of the

upside-down kin-dom of God -

the community of faith.

Madness, perhaps,

but a life-giving,

love-giving madness

that chooses to give glory to God,

being fully persuaded

that God has the power

to do    what he has promised.

Amen.

Lent, day 9: snowdrops

A funeral this morning.
The old-fashioned way: service at the house,
and then walking with the hearse to the graveyard along a quiet country lane in the beauty of the morning...

A drone as air met pipes.
'Highland Cathedral' sounding,
leading the hearse from home to grave.
We followed behind.
A tear here,
a hand held there
as we walked along the country lane.
She had been a gardener;
who, with skill and care,
planted and tended,
encouraged seeds to grow.
She had tended people too,
and, at this last, they gathered for farewell.
As we passed,
snowdrops, bowing heads, said goodbye.

Lent, day 8: wholly Holy

'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.'  Isaiah 6:3

A memory from many years back...
It was morning.
A blue-sky day.
The heat and humidity of the tropical sun already cranked up to nearly full-blast.
Walking to the school assembly hall that doubled as church on Sunday, a small voice called from behind me:
'Nik! Nik!'
I waited for this little one to catch up, white-blonde ponytail bouncing, catching the sun, as she raced along.
We walked into the hall together as she told me about her week.
And then, the sudden solemnity that only a child of 6 can muster.
There was something else.
I stood still, waiting for her to tell me this Important Thing.
'Mummy bought me,' a wee pause, 'a bible.'
I nodded, my expression matching her own solemnity.
This was an Important Thing indeed.
Curious as to what kind of bible she'd been given - where there pictures, was it child-friendly? -
I said 'that's a very special present, isn't it?  What kind of bible?'
Big blue eyes looked up to me.
A face filled with sheer awe and wonder.
Words said in hushed, reverent near-whisper:
'It's a holy bible.'

Of course it was.
Sometimes it takes a child to remind us of ordinary things made extraordinary:
God's word, contained in scripture.
Wholly holy.

Lent, day 7: mid-week soulspace

A wee respite from wordy posts.
Today, a peaceful meditation...

Lent, day 6: 'Homesick'

'Homesick'

When we love, when we tell ourselves we do,
we are pining for first love, somewhen,
before we thought of wanting it.  When we rearrange
the rooms we end up living in, we are looking
for first light, the arrangement of light,
that time, before we knew to call it light.

Or talk of music, when we say
we cannot talk of it, but play again
C major, A flat minor, we are straining
for first sound, what we heard once,
then, in lost chords, wordless languages.

What country do we come from?  This one?
The one where the sun burns
when we have night? The one
the moon chills; elsewhere, possible?

Why is our love so imperfect,
music only echo of itself,
the light wrong?

We scratch in dust with sticks,
dying of homesickness
for when, where, what.

Carole Anne Duffy - from New Selected Poems 1984-2004

The season of Lent is one of wandering, wilderness, exile.
We have buried the Alleluias
and wonder how we will find strength to keep walking.
It can feel an odd, dark time; hard.
Without the shout of acclamation,
how do we sing the Lord's song in this strange Lenten land?

Lent reminds us that we are exiles.
Pining.
Looking for light and straining for lost language.
Lent reminds us of our imperfect love;
a season that brings about homesickness
as we long for our heart's true home.
Amid the Lenten reminders, however, is hope.
We have buried the Alleluias
but we know they are there, waiting to burst forth from the tomb.
'We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song'. [St Augustine]
Now is the time of yearning, longing,
of scratching in the wilderness dust with our sticks,
but soon and very soon the day approaches
for heart's-rest, and Alleluias,
and hope fulfilled.

Lent, day 5: grace

On the Sunday closest to Epiphany, I shared out 'star words' amongst the congregation, as we thought of the journey of the Magi starwards to Jerusalem.  The word I happened to pick from the offered basket was 'grace', which now sits in the manse study above my desk.  I remember smiling when I saw what word I'd received, for 'grace' is a word I bang on about quite a bit, and also, brings to mind what I love so much about the works of both Augustine and Calvin...and anyone who has hung in there with this blog over time, or who knows me, knows just how misunderstood I think these two guys are.  Rephrasing a song that's been pretty much viral over the last several months, for Augy and Johnny C, it's all 'bout the grace, bout that grace'.
Having journeyed in Advent to Christmas and the crib, now is the season to journey through Lent to the cross and towards the hope of resurrection.  In grace, death is not the end; love wins and hope will have its way.
What then, is it to walk in grace through Lent, and through life, I wonder?
Called as God's own, not of our own doing but through God's limitless grace and mercy, how does the turning of our hearts impact upon our inclinations, our way of being - both within the context of living into the identity of who we are in Christ, and of the effect that this has upon how we are and interact with God, with others, with creation?  As God's workmanship, created for good works in Christ - not works to earn salvation, but works stemming from salvation - what good works flow naturally as a result of grace...both intentional and almost automatically?  But this is not a measuring stick to beat up on one's self, nor is it a competition in order to win a gold star.  That way lies the madness of never measuring up and the harsh, exacting God of Pelagius - and what Augustine and Calvin get so well: the whole point is that we never measure up.  The beauty is, God's grace is more than enough.

But God, who is rich in mercy,

out of the great love with which he loved us

even when we were dead through trespasses,

made us alive together with Christ - 

by grace you have been saved

- and raised us up with him

and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

so that in the ages to come

he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace

in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith,

and this is not your own doing;

it is the gift of God -

not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are what he has made us,

created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
                                                                    Eph 2:4-10

Lent, day 4: arc of covenant

Genesis 9: 11 

'I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; 

never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth...'

Never again.

And in the sky, mark of rainbow sealed the deal; 

mercy a-glimmer in the heavens,

translucent shimmering hope

of life,

of love. 

Etched and stretched across blue.

Arc of covenant

bending,

extending grace.

Lent, day 3: not gods, but God's

We confess and acknowledge one only God, 

to whom only we must cleave, 

whom only we must serve, 
whom only we must worship, 
and in whom only we must put our trust'

opening words, ch. 1, Scots Confession of Faith, reflecting the texts: 

Deut 6:4; 1 Cor. 8:6; Deut 4:35; Isa 44:5-6

In these early, baby-step days of Lent, the opening words of the first article of the Scots Confession came to mind.
I'm still convinced this one's much better than the Westminster Confession, but I digress.
Earlier today, thinking of ashes and Ash Wednesday, the thought that 'we are God's, not gods' came echoing back.
Whose are we?
Who do we serve?
What is our point and purpose?
I love how the Scots Confession sums it up so succinctly.

Lent, day 2: a bar on a boat to the Bahamas

a belated ... Lent, Day 2

A piano bar, on a boat to the Bahamas.
The piano man schmoozing his late-night clientele, telling stories, playing old favourites, gathering up snippets of his listeners lives.  Entertainer, sometimes Father-confessor and pastor-comforter:
'...so that's when we divorced.  I got in the car and heard this song.  Can you play it?'
He obliges.
A group of women filter in.
He discovers they are clergy.
Occasional smiling commentary between requests.
And then, unbidden, in the midst of the mojitos and ministers and everyone else, accommodation.
A new song begins: 'Lord I lift your name on high'.
The bar crowd sing, even some of the ministers.
The hand movements done in church now transported to the high seas.
It's jazzy, it's fun, it's cheesy.  But there are huge grins all around.
Another song follows: 'Amazing grace'.
The atmosphere changes to near-reverence.
Memories of loved ones mingle with the music of a song
so often played in very different circumstances.
The song lingers for a moment, and then a quip, and he deftly moves to 'Sweet Caroline'.
I sit with a friend and wonder.
She turns and says something along the lines of: 'He worked out his audience.  And he accommodated us, made us welcome, spoke our language.  How often do we do that as the church to those who wander in from other life contexts?'
I nod, reflecting on this unlooked-for parable of hospitality in a seemingly unlikely place.
We pick up our drinks silently, thoughtfully as the piano man plays on.

of dust, and ashes, and rending hearts: Ash Wednesday

Some Lenten reflecting...perhaps on a daily basis, perhaps not.  We shall see!

ASH WEDNESDAY...

'Yet even now, says the Lord, 

return to me with all your heart, 

with fasting, with weeping, with mourning;

rend your hearts and not your clothing.

Return to the Lord, your God,

for he is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, 

and relents from punishing.'  Joel 2:12-13

It was written, in mid-Scots, on the frontispiece of 'The Order of the General Fast and of Public Repentance'.  The classic text for those moved to, or encouraged towards, making acts of penance.
In his 'Order', Knox urged the community of the faithful to corporate penitence, an octave [8 days] of fasting, prayer, and meditating upon scripture.  To do so was to demonstrate to a watching God a conscious re-turning towards holiness, to faithful living; simply, of putting God first.  To do so was to also demonstrate to a watching world a conscious turning away from words and actions and attitudes that were unkind, unloving, that broke down relationships
both sacred and divine.
For penance is always about relationship -
tied in utterly with what it is to love God, and to love neighbour, and even to love oneself.
John Knox got that; he got the relational and the communal nature of penance.
Penance has never just been about 'me and my God': it is about us and our God.
One God, in perfect Triune community, demonstrating in very being, the intricate and beautiful weaving of relationship based on love; of connection and inter-connectedness;
of unity, diversity, and of harmony combined

With its dust and ashes and marking of cross on skin, Ash Wednesday is that first Lenten call to God's people to re-align, to re-turn: to turn again to the Lord, to express sorrow for looking elsewhere, getting caught up in other things, and in the process doing harm to others and to self.
The mix of ash and oil marking us as God's own,
called to move from out of the darkness and into his marvellous light.
The mark reminding us of our mortality - for we are not gods, we are God's.
The mark reminding us that, even in the act of falling in the dust upon our knees in humble sorrow, there is hope:
God does not leave us dust-bound, and death is not the final word.
As God's faithless, faithful, wholly human people, we are marked as God's own
restored, forgiven, free.
Called, as community, to be relational:
to turn to God
to turn to each other
to turn to our neighbour and the watching world.
To reach out, having first reached inwards and examined ourselves and discovered
God's wide, wide mercy.
To share the good news of God's steadfast love.
To rejoice, and give thanks that there is hope.
To remember that sorrow and weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
Time to wait,
to watch,
to pray.
To sorrow, yes, but in this Lenten season of preparation, to know that we prepare in order to rejoice:
to celebrate the resurrection joy of Easter Sunday.
In a hat-tip to a friend:
now, where did I put those ashes...?

Sermon for Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, 2015 - John 4:1-42

It would appear that I have been somewhat occupied tending to parishioners in my 170sq mile charge.  Loving it.  Fabulous folk, gorgeous parish - currently looking like Narnia.  We dug ourselves out of our homes and dug our way through the snow to get to church this morning - where we worshipped God, pondered 'living water', and reflected on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Here's the sermon:

Reading:
John 4:1-42 The woman at the well.

Let us pray:

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

Two people.

A woman.

A man.

Given what we learn of her background,

her life experiences,

she’s probably older than him.

He’s a young man.

A teacher,

a rabbi,

in the early stages of his ministry,

wandering the countryside with his band of disciples.

Two people.

Two different, yet similar cultures.

Cultures that are...antagonistic

towards one another.

An antagonism that demonstrates that they have a past history.

Two cultures that had,

many hundreds of years ago,

been one culture

until stronger neighbours

effectively caused a schism.

A schism that, as the years rolled by,

widened into a chasm of misunderstanding;

that misunderstanding resulting

in mutual suspicion and open hostility.

Two cultures that perhaps, were really more like an estranged family.

Instead of working towards reconciliation -

of celebrating the many things

they had in common,

these two cultures - Jews and Samaritans -

focused instead upon their differences;

distinguished their own identities by

not being like ‘them over there.’

Part of the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ strategy included a very common tactic still used today:

using language to lessen the ‘other’ -

to dehumanise them.

So, for Jewish people, for example,

Samaritans were thought of as animals,

and described as such:

they were labelled, not as a people,

but as ‘a herd’.

The worst insult a Jew could make against another Jew was to call them a ‘Samaritan’.

Samaritans were outsiders:

not       like      ‘us’.

And the interesting thing, when you begin to dehumanise someone who is different,

who is other,

is that there’s a knock-on effect in the way that you interact with them,

in the way that you treat them.

When you tell yourself that your enemy is not even human, you find yourself justifying all sorts of inhuman behaviour upon them.

In this case, behaviour that resulted in burning down the Samaritan holy place -

the temple on Mt Gerazim by Jewish people.

Or behaviour that resulted in Samaritans lying in wait to attack Jews travelling

from Galilee to Jerusalem -

which is why Galileans tended to use the longer road on the other side of the Jordan River: they feared for their lives.

Such division,

such a deep well of bitterness.

But back at our well in Samaria, to:

two people.

A man.

A woman.

From two cultures that mutually

despise each other

and if at all possible,

try to have nothing at all to do with each other.

Two people

now face to face,

having to look each other in the eye,

and see each other.

Really see each other.

And, in the seeing,

recognising their common humanity.

In this story of outsiders,

ironically, it’s Jesus who is the outsider -

he’s the foreigner, the stranger,

stepping into Samaritan lands

because it was the quickest route

to get to his actual destination.

The riskier route.

And, he’s alone, initially.

The disciples have headed off into town

on a shopping trip.

It’s the 6^th hour of the day -

in our reckoning, midday -

and he’s been walking,

and walking

the dusty roads.

He’s weary.

Bone-crushingly so.

And he pauses to rest.

A stranger,..

alone, ...

and    tired.

Three reasons in and of themselves

that make him vulnerable.

She - and we never learn her name -

she comes to the well at midday. 

It’s not the usual time to gather water,

for that’s normally done in the cool of the morning or early evening

in the company of other women.

We don’t know why she goes alone to the well - the text doesn’t give us the reason.

But she, too, is vulnerable.

She’s a woman.

She’s alone.

And she’s just turned up to this place

and finds herself face to face with a man...

and a Jewish one, at that.

Perhaps as she looks at him, she thinks:

‘ah, he’s really just a laddie, I can handle him’

She’s got experience of having to handle men.

Often, when this story comes up,

this unnamed Samaritan woman is described as a less than moral character -

promiscuous.

This, based on the number of husbands,

and of her current domestic arrangement.

Certainly, that’s one way to look at her.

But there are cultural contexts here that are not a part of our lives now,

and we need to take these on board.

It was a culture where women

were virtually property -

a culture where women who found themselves alone were especially vulnerable:

a woman needed the protection of a man.

This particular woman could easily have been widowed, abandoned, divorced - and it was very easy for men to get a divorce.

She could also have had a series of Levirate marriages - married to her deceased first husbands brother, or brothers, in order to procure him an heir.

For whatever reason, this woman found herself repeatedly vulnerable and needing protection. 

She married.

She may have been immoral,

or she may have had

a simply hellish and tragic life. 

There’s no hint at all in the text that Jesus sees her in terms of ‘a sinner’

Nor is there any sense that he’s absolving her of guilt from a shameful past. 

It’s just not in the text.

I wonder if the tragedy of her life is what Jesus sees, when he looks at her?

Talks with her?

Comments upon her life?

She doesn’t take his comment in any way

as a judgement call.

He’s seen to the heart of things

seen beyond easy, shaming labels,

has seen her for who she truly is.

Her response?

He speaks the truth he couldn’t

possibly have known -

‘I see you are a prophet.’

Perhaps there’s almost a confession of faith

in her comment?

By the well, these two strangers have a deep, profound conversation.

It’s the longest recorded conversation Jesus has with anyone.

It’s a barrier-breaking conversation:

between Jew and Samaritan,

between male and female.

People, who in normal, everyday contexts would not give each other the time of day.

It’s a life-giving conversation

about thirst-quenching water:

the water of eternal life.

Water, that was previously thought to be available only for the Jewish nation.

Water that bubbles and flows and is available for all who will drink from this deep well.

In this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we are invited to go to the well,

the place where barriers are broken

the place where we can see beyond labels

beyond differences of race,

of gender or orientation,

beyond differences of religion

beyond even differences within our own faith.

Here, at the well, we are invited to drink deeply of the living water,

and to go and share this water with others -

to invite them to ‘come and see’.

Come and see the One who sees us fully.

And, as we are seen, so too, we see one another fully,

and realise that we are united

in our common humanity;

and that each of us is 

‘seen by Jesus,

loved by Jesus,

and has the capacity to bear witness

to the one who comes to enlighten our lives and world 

and to give us living water that will satisfy even our deepest thirst.’  (David Lose)

Let’s pray:

God of life,
Shower us in your living water,

bringing us to new life, fresh and clean.

Walk with us as we share the knowledge

of your living water with others,

so that all might live.  Amen.  

rural isolation...

'...the minster reflected on the diversity of pastoral situations she was encountering within the parish.
She suddenly realised her training, when it came to small abandoned creatures by the roadside, was somewhat ... lacking.'

The parish where I serve as minister is, geographically, one of the largest in the Kirk.  Population, on the other hand, is small and very scattered.  Isolation can be quite an issue pastorally amongst folk; nothing, however, prepared me for this...

Seen on a pre-lunch drive to some of the more remote corners of the parish :)