Encountering Christ in the need of others -Thoughts on "The woman at the Well" and the 3rd Sunday of Lent

 

 

“When a Samaritan woman came to draw water,
Jesus said to her: Give me something to drink.”

--John 4:7 

 Struggling this Lent to turn away from sin and return to the gospel, I am still holding on; hoping that perhaps my willingness to spend time with God’s word and in prayer will count for something against my constant hunger for distractions and my weakness with temptation. Yes, God is merciful, but I don’t want to be too presumptive.  Is that a form of pride? that hesitation to be completely dependent on the grace of God?  I wonder and I fear.  And so I am doing what I can to stay close to the well and wait for the grace to arrive? Or simply to reveal itself…

 

This past Sunday (3^rd Sunday of Lent) we heard the beautiful reading from John’s Gospel about the Samaritan woman at the well.  She encounters Christ and becomes one of the first evangelists; rushing to the village to tell everyone about this man who told her everything about herself; this man and His strange promise of “living water.”  There are many lessons we can learn from this story, from the woman’s life and actions, from the words of our Lord, from the reaction of the people in her village.  So many lessons, but listening to this story once again, I was struck by one in particular that I had never noticed before: 

 

Give me something to drink.

 

Jesus doesn’t just ask the woman politely; He tells her. Why?  To our modern ear this may sound a bit abrupt, even rude.  We teach our children to ask politely.  When a person is thirsty, we expect something like: May I have a glass of water? Please?  But instead, Jesus seems to almost command the woman to take care of His needs.  Why?  Certainly it isn’t because He can’t get water for Himself. This is a guy who can strike a rock and water would flow forth if He chose.  There has to be something more going on.  I wonder if what sounds almost like an order, is really –in fact-- an offer. But what is He offering her, perhaps the gift of His need.  And suddenly, sitting there in mass, listening to this beautiful and familiar story I could hear another lesson echoing in my head:

 

“Lord, when did we see you hungry, and give you something to eat? 
When did we see you thirsty and give you drink?” (cf. Mt. 25:31-40)

And I realized, that was it.  Here in this moment, with this Samaritan woman, in the middle of the day, sitting at this ancient well, Jesus was embodying an essential truth:

 

“In truth, I tell you, whatsoever you did for the least of these, that you did unto me.”

 

He was giving flesh to this one simple truth: whenever we serve anyone in need, we serve Christ; whenever and wherever we encounter the needs of others, we have the opportunity (quite literally) to encounter Jesus.  The opportunity to give Jesus something to drink, something to eat, clothes to wear, a caring heart, a helping hand.  Whatever you do for the least of these: sick, hungry, thirsty, prisoners, the lonely, the afflicted… That you quite literally do for (and to) Jesus.  It’s not an order, it’s an invitation. 
Looking to improve your Lent? Want to encounter Jesus face to face?  Look for someone in need. Reach out to them. Share your wallet. Share your lunch.  Share your love. Visit the sick, care for the afflicted, feed the hungry… Give Him something to drink.  It’s not rocket science… It’s just Love.

Left alone… Some thoughts for the 4th Sunday of Advent

 “And the angel left her.” –Luke 1:38

 

And the angel left her… In the story of the annunciation, the angel Gabriel appears to a young virgin named Mary, in a small town called Nazareth. While the young woman is alone, perhaps working on some chores, weaving a cloth, mending a tunic, or doing the Wordle, the angel comes to her with a startling message, something impossible even to imagine: that she, a young woman with little experience of life, and no particular security or position in the world, will become the mother of God. Mary is young and –like all of us—probably had plans for that day. She may have needed to go to the well and gather water for washing or for cooking, she may have had plans to do some shopping at the market, or to go for a walk and listen to the birds singing in the trees. And—like all of us—she had needs, desires and was disposed to the normal human limitations and difficulties of bodily existence: needing warmth and food and rest and a safe place to sleep at night. But this announcement of an unplanned pregnancy isn’t just some unexpected interruption to her plans to go hang out with friends. This announcement also put her life in peril, made her suspect in the eyes of her world, in the time and place where she lived the angel’s joyous announcement made her vulnerable to accusations punishable by stoning.  There is nothing easy or simple about the angel’s announcement. Like an earthquake, it must have shaken the very foundation of Mary’s existence, tipped over any well-ordered plans or expectations she had for the life she was planning, and shattered them like so much clay crockery.  And what happens next?

 

The angel disappears. Leaves Mary alone in a world that must have seemed utterly changed, yet still strangely “normal.” What was she supposed to do next? What would you do? What would I do? What would any of us do?  I think most of us would begin to doubt, begin to question? Did it really happen? Did an angel really appear? Or was it just a dream? Did an angel really say that? Or am I going crazy?

 

The angel leaves Mary, with no assurances of safety, no security against the meanness and hardness of the world. Mary knows that many (probably most) people will not believe her, and certainly she knows what they will suspect, even accuse her of.  And yet there she stands, alone with the memory of what has happened, what has been promised.

 

Many of us can feel especially alone at this time of year. Christmas holds so many memories and expectations for most of us: the lights, the trees, the music, the gatherings. Families getting together, friends throwing parties, going to church, holiday pageants, opening presents on Christmas morning.  All of it involves being with others, coming together in groups small or large. And to someone with no family nearby or friends to invite them over for a Christmas dinner, this time of year can feel particularly lonely.  All around you others are celebrating and singing around tables crowded with laughter and conversation, while you sit alone watching one more Hallmark movie or one more version of A Christmas Carol. Maybe that is why so many of the best Christmas songs are nostalgic and filled with longing… dreaming of a “White Christmas,” that never comes. (Can I get an “Amen,” Houston?)

 

But left alone, Mary doesn’t sit pondering her fate, or even questioning her sanity.  She gets up and goes “in haste” to her cousin Elizabeth, whom, she has just learned, is also unexpectedly expecting…  The gospel reading for the last Sunday of Advent 2024 reminds us of Mary’s haste to see her cousin. And I think that reading is the perfect lesson for how we should “make a straight path” in the wilderness of our world.  Mary’s example is our lesson.  Instead of worrying about herself and her own safety, she hears of another person’s need and she goes to it. She makes a straight path toward it –in haste, even. I think that tells us something about how we might straighten out our own lives and our own paths.

 

This Christmas, do you know someone in need? Do you know of someone who will be alone?  Give them a call. Write them a letter.  Better yet, walk over and knock on their door.  Get up and go “in haste” toward that need.  Perhaps that need is the gift you will find in your stocking this year.  Is there someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time? A family member or an old friend? Give them a call. Have you heard about someone in the hospital? That knowledge is a gift. It is a seed planted—in your heart-- waiting to bear fruit in a visit, or a phone call.  

 

Too often, we miss those gits because we are too worried about what to say, or do, or what will people think of us? Maybe we are even afraid they won’t be glad to see us… Don’t let fear get in the way of kindness.  Make haste… Become the love you want to see in the world. And know, that love is always the straightest path to joy, to peace, to renewal, to Christ. And to the certainty that we are never truly alone. Even in our darkest hour, the love that lights the world, is waiting for us—there at our side, like a candle in a window, or a star atop a tree—it is always there just waiting for us to look up and see.   

 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all not just a good night, but a blessed one, too.

Rejoice in the Lord… Making your path straight (The 3rd Sunday of Advent)

 

“Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!

Sing joyfully… the Lord is in your midst,

you have no further misfortune to fear…

The Lord, your God, is in your midst…

He will rejoice over your with gladness…

He will sing joyfully because of you…”

--Zephaniah 3:14-18

 

“Rejoice in the Lord always.

I shall say it again, rejoice!”

--Philippians 4:4-7

 

Last week the readings for the 2^nd Sunday of Advent encouraged us to make a straight path, and there was a sense that this was the point of—a time of straightening our path, straightening our houses, straightening our hearts, in preparation for a special visit.  In some sense, at this time of year, our daily lives become a kind of practice for this Advent lesson.  We rush around preparing ourselves and our homes for visitors, straightening up rooms, straightening up the yard, the path from the driveway to the front door, the path from the front door to the living room and the dinner table. We pick up dirty laundry, put way half read books and unfinished puzzles, unread mail gets piled up in a closet, and the cat litter boxes get scooped and cleaned and fresh filter. The path through the hallway to the bathroom gets swept and lightbulbs that have flickered for months or gone out weeks ago suddenly get changed. Everything is freshened, straightened up—we say. Rooms are vacuumed and cleaned, even the lamp shades get dusted …  We are filling in those valleys we have allowed to form, and mountains (of laundry, old mail, dishes) are suddenly made low.   In a very literal sense, Advent is a time of making straight and smoothing out the rough ways.  But why? Because we are expecting someone, a visitor, a friend or family member, perhaps even a stranger or two –your sister’s new fiancé, or your brother’s college roommate, somebody from work is stopping by--with their spouse…  And sometimes all of this preparation and rushing around can feel exhausting, overwhelming, taking the fun and the magic out of the season, leaving us drained and feeling more like a humbug than a herald angel who may or may not sing.  

 

And yet, this week, on the third Sunday of Advent, we have an added instruction: Rejoice!  And just so we get the message, it’s repeated in the readings, and it is the focus of the day.  The third Sunday of Advent is called “Gaudete” Sunday, which is Latin for rejoice.  And as I ponder making straight my paths, both spiritual and literal, it occurs to me that prayer and fasting and changes of behavior and appetite are important, but perhaps the most important change we have to make is in our attitude.  We have to stop looking at this whole God thing –our relationship with Him—as fear based, as if God was out to get us.  According to Zephaniah, the only way God is out to “get” us is to sing joyfully because of us.  God loves us, wants to spend eternity with us… rejoicing.

 

Have you ever been invited to a holiday party that you didn’t want to go to, but you felt obligated to attend. Perhaps your spouse had a work event, or there was a family gathering, a reunion, a holiday get-together… Whatever it was, think back: did you feel uncomfortable? Or did you feel at ease? Did you feel resentful or did you feel joyful?   And how did that attitude affect the party? Your behavior at the party? Did you try to put on a happy face and “grin and bear it?” Or did you (like I too often do) try to find a corner where you could hide with a cup of cider and a plate of cheese?

 

All around me people are chatting, laughing, talking –some even singing—and I am huddled on the edge of a couch with my little plate of cheeses and a wadded napkin that I keep unwadding to dab at some imagined crumb in my beard or on my lips. Trying to look pleasant, and yet desperately hoping not to be seen. And completely miserable. 

 

That discomfort and that constant self-awareness… That is a kind of Hell for me.

 

But does it have to be?

 

What if I made a straight path not for the cheese tray, but for the first person I see, even if it is someone I have never met before?  What if, instead of treating the party as an obligation, I rejoiced that I was invited. And what if I let that joy become my calling card, my greeting to anyone and everyone I met—whether I know them or not. What if I simply rejoiced, and let myself be seen? What if I took myself and my ego less seriously and let myself laugh and smile, be silly, be uncomfortable, and even occasionally embarrassed—and didn’t worry about what anyone thought about me or my cheese?

 

Well, what could happen?  Well…

 

One, I might find myself becoming more approachable —creating a kind of straight path for someone else to escape their own discomfort, for them to find someone to talk with, someone to laugh with or share their stories with, perhaps even someone they can rejoice with.

 

Two, it might allow God to work through me, to reveal through me the joy He feels whenever 2 or more are gathered…

 

Three, perhaps the best way for any of us to make a straighter path for God to enter into our lives, is to become more and more like Him. every day.  And perhaps the first step, the most important step, has nothing to do with rules or laws or even creeds and practices, but with our attitude.

 

But what does that mean? What does it look like in daily life? All smiling through the hard times and laughing off the struggles? Or just smooth sailing. No worries. Let a smile be your umbrella! Probably not.  Think about Mary and Joseph, given glad tidings by an angel, called to rejoice, but what happened next? No room at the inn, baby born in a stable, sent fleeing for their lives by Herod’s army, years in Egypt living in exile, and then her Son, the good news that the angel proclaimed, is cursed and called a madman by neighbors and friends, accused of blasphemy, abused by the powerful, and finally betrayed and crucified.  This rejoicing thing doesn’t sound like milk and cookies. It might be hard work, it might require a little more effort than simply turning your frown upside down.  Habits are hard to break. If –like me—you have a habit of trying to avoid crowds and hide with a book (or some cheese), you may find the Christmas season a little more challenging than merry and bright.  And yet, all we can do is try. Try to be joyful. Maybe that’s why Paul says it a second time: “Again I say rejoice.”  He’s reminding us, don’t give up! There is nothing more to fear…Just open the door. God will do the rest.

And if we need an example, someone to look to when we are struggling to rejoice, let us look to Mary. Ask yourself, how did Mary handle things when they got too big, too strange, too hard? She pondered them in her heart (cf. Luke 1:29; 2:19; 2:51).  And perhaps that is how we must handle things too. Perhaps that is how we train ourselves to rejoice. We train our hearts and minds to ponder, to contemplate, to allow the seed of God’s grace to be planted within us and give it time to grow, nourishing the soil of our soul with contemplation and pondering.  If something makes us uncomfortable, or anxious, let us ponder why. Perhaps, and let us ask God to open our eyes to the joy He is planting within us, the joy He feels at being in our presence—even when things aren’t going well, or at least not like we planned, or hoped.  Let us spend time pondering why we are afraid, and where we might discern God’s presence—even in what frightens us.  For me, that might mean looking for God’s presence in a stranger at the party, in the face of a stranger at the mall, or the eyes of an old friend I haven’t seen for years. In those moment of discomfort and challenge, where do I find God? And how?  That is worth pondering. And that is the path to joy.

This year, whether I am at the school Christmas party or the neighbor’s holiday gathering, or eating tamales with family I rarely see, when I get that urge to excuse myself and hide, I just need to take a moment to ponder and remember: There is nothing to fear. God is already here. With me. Right here. Right now. In this moment, and in these people. In fact, He is with me always…

 And even when times get tough, that is a reason for rejoicing.

Not for death, but for the glory of God—thoughts on the Gospel for 5th Sunday of Lent

 

“This Illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God,

that the Son of God might be glorified through it.” –John 11:4

 

This Sunday’s Gospel is a lengthy section John 11, telling the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. There are so many elements in this story worth our contemplation.  The resurrection of Lazarus, coming out of the tomb still bound in burial cloths. What a striking image. Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus are models of faith and prayer, service and contemplation. The fact that Jesus waits 2 days before he responds to their plea is certainly something worth our attention.  What does that mean? Why would He do that? And there is, of course, Martha’s own confusion about the behavior of Jesus: 

 

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died…”  (cf. John 11:21)

 

How many times have we all felt that way? Asked almost that very same question: Where were you God, when my father died? Why weren’t you there to protect my husband, my wife, my child,  from cancer? From that car accident? From depression? From temptation? From all harm??

 

This chapter is so rich, in fact the readings for these past three Sundays have been so very rich; such fruitful food for prayer.  But, for me there was that strange and wonderful word from Jesus that comes early in the chapter:

 

“This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God…”

 

And yet, Lazarus is sick, and Lazarus does die. His sisters and friends begin the process of mourning and burial for him.  They are not spared that suffering.  They must still endure it.  His death is real. Their grieving is real.  The suffering is real—and yet… there is something more: the glorification of Jesus that arrives somehow within the suffering, the grieving.

 

There are two things I am pondering about this reading today;

 

First, there is the reality of that suffering; the sorrow and mourning of Martha, Mary and their friends, as well as the actual suffering of Lazarus (unto death).  The fact that we have faith, or that we might offer up our suffering, does not in any sense diminish the pain.  It still hurts, still makes us question, challenges our faith and our heart and our soul—and may even cripple our bodies.  Being a “Christian” doesn’t spare you any of that human suffering; though it may give you comfort, it won’t take away the sting.

 

Second, that idea of Lazarus’s death being for the glory of God, and the glorification of Jesus.  That—I think—is what I am trying to get at when I talk of the value of need.  In this story Lazarus is facing the ultimate question, the ultimate insufficiency: death.  Lazarus cannot control death, he can’t work his way around it. Can’t, pull up his bootstraps and defeat it with gumption and positive thinking.  Like every single one of us, he is insufficient to that task.  And hence, his sisters calling out to Jesus for help.  They need help.  They cannot do this on their own. Their vulnerability overwhelms them.  And what does this vulnerability, this need do to their community?  It draws people to them. Friends, family, neighbors, come to offer comfort, to offer consolation, to share the burden of this suffering with Mary and Martha. They come to give of themselves, they leave the comfort and security of their own homes and lives and travel to be with Martha and Mary in their time of need.  And—in some small way—this self-giving, this coming together as community, this sharing of a burden, this entering into another person’s need, is a reflection of (or participation in) God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s compassion—God’s glory.  

 

And then, on a whole other level, there is Jesus coming to them, entering into their suffering, their need, and calling out of it life itself.  When Jesus calls Lazarus from the tomb, restores him back to life, He reveals something new about Himself to the people watching, even to His apostles standing nearby. He reveals to them His glory—the glory that shines from the very source of life itself: the Father.  But to us, today, who have heard this gospel reading all our lives, who have become overly familiar with the names and the events and just want mass to end so we can go get our coffee and doughnuts, what is Jesus revealing to us? 

 

I think it is Irenaeus who said: The glory of God is a person fully alive…

 

Jesus is glorified by restoring Lazarus to life, but He does this by entering into the sorrow and suffering of Mary and Martha and the mourners; by going to them, toward their need.  And He reveals the fullness of His glory by walking toward the cross, into his own suffering and passion and death—in order to meet us in our sorrow, our suffering, our need for salvation.

 

Walking away from church this morning, I was humbled by the power and mystery of this story, and by the question: How do I follow in His footsteps, unless I am willing to turn my face toward Calvary and walk always toward the cross?

 

Last, let me also say: finding a spiritual value in our insufficiency does not mean that we simply give in to any weakness or that we celebrate a weakness.  An addict or alcoholic may need their drug in order to avoid the pain of withdrawal; but real as that need may be, it does not mean that the best way to help them is to buy them a bottle of gin. A husband may say he needs his wife, but that doesn’t mean she must submit to him.  Helping others, entering into their vulnerability and need, does not mean becoming a doormat or enduring physical abuse.  It does not mean that we feed the addiction or sin of another. But it might look like sitting in silence with someone in their time of crisis, holding their hand, and wishing we could do more but knowing this is all we have to give.  There is a blessed humility in that as well. And God’s glory is revealed there, too.

 

Humbling ourselves, and truly entering into the suffering of another will often be uncomfortable, it will stretch our patience, our love, our faith even.  Like giving birth, it could even be painful at times, but it should always call us to come forth out of the tomb and into the light, where we can reflect the glory of God by becoming vulnerable and fully alive.