Taboos
Rev. J. R. Luck, Jr. Th.M.,
M.A.
February 24,
2008 3rd Sunday of Lent
Grace United
In
Now that you have heard that story, you’re in a
little better position to hear today’s gospel lesson. You see, any
self-respecting messiah would have never been talking to the woman today in the
first place. First of all, she was a she and in the ancient near east,
and apparently in parts of the modern near east, no more need be said.
Now it was bad enough that Jesus was talking to an unrelated woman, but to make
matters worse, he was talking to a Samaritan, which meant she was considered to
be both a half-breed and a pagan. So Jesus breaks every rule in the Mutaween’s code book. What’s even worse is that he
asks her for a drink. Now the woman is in a bit of a pickle: should
she answer, or should she not? The prudent thing to have done was to turn
around and leave. But, for whatever reason this spunky woman snaps back
and engages Jesus. And Jesus engages her with some convoluted answer
which she doesn’t understand, but that’s okay because nobody understands Jesus
in the Gospel of John. Even the consummate insider and scholar Nicodemus,
was clueless when conversing with Jesus last week. But then, as if Jesus
hadn’t made matters bad enough, he asks her to go get her husband. If
this story had happened after the beginning of the feminist movement, I have no
doubt that she would have slapped him. But she’s not that spunky,
although she interestingly tells him the truth: she isn’t married.
It’s interesting how many assumptions are made
about this woman, especially regarding her sexual behavior. It has often
been said that because she was at the watering hole at midday, and not in the
cool of the morning with other women, she was a prostitute or sexually
promiscuous woman hoping to avoid other women. But the text doesn’t give any
such hints.
The only thing that I think is clear is that John the author is trying
to contrast this conversation with last week’s conversation with
Nicodemus. Last week, Nicodemus shows up in the darkest of night and this
week Jesus is talking in the brightest part of day. And yes, this woman
does say that she had 5 husbands, but what does this mean? Maybe she had
been divorced 5 times because she was barren; and in those days men would have
initiated divorce over this. Maybe she was a widow with bad luck; after
all in those days I would have been considered an old man. And as for the
current man she was living with, St. Efrem believed
that she had gone through the outward motions of marriage, but that it was only
a sham meant to protect her from scorn and scandal. The bottom line is we
don’t know. Our assumptions about her sexual innuendos say more about us
than about the text itself.
Jesus had no such assumptions. If anything,
I think he liked her assertiveness. At the very least we know that he
talks to her longer than he does to anyone else in Scripture. And there
in broad daylight, she allows him to see her, and he reciprocates and allows
her to see him and for the first time in the gospel of John he tells someone
that he is the messiah. He doesn’t tell John the Baptizer or Peter or any
of the other men. Rather, in the heat of midday, in an alien land with a
member of the other gender who also was a member of a different race and
religion, Jesus revealed himself as he did with no other. Last week Nicodemus
stumbles away in the dark, clueless. Today, a woman on the margins of
society rushes to tell others of the wonders of the messiah.
Now enter stage left the disciples who have been
doing some grocery shopping. They see Jesus talking to this woman and
they all manage to drop their grocery bags. In short they are embarrassed
and outraged that Jesus is damaging his ministry by talking to this woman.
Little do they understand that this is his ministry.
He didn’t come to earth to be limited by the rules of Miss Manners or the
Mutaween. He didn’t come to be limited by
xenophobia, or misogyny. He came to give water to anyone who was
thirsty. This Samaritan woman had every reason to expect Jesus would
ignore her; every reason to expect he would condemn her; every reason to expect
he would shame her. But instead of shunning her he stepped closer;
instead of shaming her; he blessed her. He asked her for water, but in
reality he quenched her thirst. He saw her as more than a demographic.
There’s even one tradition that St. Efrem remembers
that believes that he discovered her name – Photini.
Whether its then or today, it’s
hard to get past our biases of other. It’s hard to see past race and gender and
theological differences. In other words it’s hard to do what Jesus did
today. So let me confess one of my biases. Generally speaking I
have a pretty negative opinion of contemporary Christian music. I find
much of the music to be a bit syrupy and the lyrics to be shallow if not inane.
But this week in doing some research for this sermon I came across a song by a
Dutch musician by the name of Kees Kraayenoord. And while the music itself is okay, the
lyrics blew me away. For the first time ever, I downloaded onto my ipod a contemporary Christian song. But the surprise
didn’t stop there. I was interested in finding out more about this
musician and discovered that he had served at an Assembly of God congregation
near
We all make assumptions about others; we all tend
to think that we’re better than others. We all forget that God is God of
all and that Jesus Christ came to shatter taboos so that we might all be
one. I think this song touches on some taboos inasmuch as it uses a few
words I doubt you hear in any other congregations this morning, but I think it
does a great job of speaking of this God who dares to break taboos so as to
love all of us and not some.
God of the Moon and Stars, by Kees Kraayenoord
God of the moon and stars
God of the gay and singles bars
God of the fragile hearts we are,
I come to you.
God of our history,
God of the future that will be
What will you make of me, I come
to you.
God of the meek and mild
God of the reckless and the wild
God of the unreconciled,
I come to you
God of our life and death
God of our secrets unconfessed
God of our every breath, I come
to you.
God of the rich and poor
God of the princess and the whore
God of the ever open door, I come
to you.
God of the unborn child
God of the pure and undefiled
God of the pimp and pedophile, I
come to you.
God of the war and peace
God of the junkie and the priest
God of the greatest and the
least, I come to you.
God of the refugee
God of the prisoner and the free
God of our doubt and certainty, I
come to you.
God of our joy and grief
God of the lawyer and the thief
God of our faith and unbelief, I
come to you
God of the wounds we bear
God of the deepest dreams we
share
God of our unspoken prayer, I
come to you
God of a world that's lost
God of the lonely cross
God who has come to us, I come to
you
reverend james
"jim" r. luck, jr.
D. Min. c., Th.M., M.A.
grace united
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