March 19, 2006 (David Hyers)


I Corinthians 1:18-25

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

John 4:6-30

Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

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In the cold dark of the early morning, my father would go to our old green Pinto and crank the engine. After forcing the car to a reluctant start, he would place a sleeping bag in the passenger seat, unzip the side of the bag, and crank the heat. Coming back inside, he would urge me out of bed, slide me into my brown corduroy suit, and set me down on the washing machine to stay as he polished his shoes. I can remember the smell, the sound of the brush across the leather of his dress shoes, and the knobby texture of the metal frame he used to steady the shoes. When he finished, we were ready to go outside. Bundling up, we would crunch through the Tennessee snow, tasting the cold morning breeze. He would zip me into the sleeping bag and connect the lap belt. This was our early morning ritual once a month for many years when I was in elementary school.

Each weekend that my father had drill, I would accompany him to worship at the Reserve centers in the next two towns. We would pull out into the quiet night streets. The unsteady rumble of that old beat-up Ford would shake a lullaby into my sleepy bones. As we drove into Johnson City, I remember through-half opened eyes those unnamed, un-housed few, milling about downtown streets, looking for warmth, looking for direction, and looking for home. As we passed over the tracks on the way out of town, my eyes would finally close, and I would dream of shoe polish, frosty breath, and the hot McDonalds breakfast awaiting us following worship.

I can remember trying to make sense of the discipline, the marching, the strangeness of this ritual my father participated in, this uniform my father wore as chaplain, the changing ranks upon his collar as the years went on. I was very much the proudest child in the world because my father was the chaplain. I didnt quite know what that was, but I knew it must be important because my dad was doing it.

But most of all two things I remember. The first thing is my father polishing his shoes, the smell of the shoe polish, the rhythmic sound of the bristles on the leather as the shine was worked into the leather, and the second thing is the breaths of steam from those unnamed, unwanted, and unknown shapes, walking, looking, searching in the dark of the morning when they owned the street to themselves.

An interesting contrast in the sacred of that morning ritual arises with the woman at the well in todays reading from the Gospel. It is in the same way I wonder that the woman went to the well seeking anonymity in the quiet of the noonday sun. Why else did the woman go to get water during the hottest part of the day? Why did she go when no one else was around? Why did she brave the sun and the heat of the road? Was she seeking to avoid the heat of scorn perhaps? Along with the bucket, what burdens did she carry? What burdens would make her seek water in the heat of anonymity?

While close in geography, close in lineage, and close in religious traditions, she could not have been farther away from Jesus. She was the wrong gender, the wrong ethnicity, the wrong religion, the wrong moral status. She was unclean, untouchable, unwanted, unseen even in the brightest part of the day, and like in the dark of the night, she was still unseen by all except Jesus who sees, who speaks, who touches, and who claims this unseen woman.

What good news we have that God claims that which the world would discard, sees the true worth in those deemed worthless! And for us Gods naming is such good news. However, it is not always without its challenge and discomfort.

Jesus sees and speaks and loves and to an extent heals this woman. It is a miracle of ministry, not the kind of miracle of body and bone but of soul and society. That kind of miracle I can attach to. Jesus sees this unseen woman, claims and names her as Gods own, and shows her the invaluable worth she possesses. Jesus sees this unseen woman and calls her to new life to live into the potential she is called to seek.

Taking the text seriously, we not only know Gods claim but also hear Gods call. God claims our brokenness and calls us to work towards Gods healing, the healing of ourselves and of the world around us. The call is not to avoid the wrath of a vengeful God but to claim the love of a gracious God.

Like the Samaritan woman, we are invited to take a deeper look at our lives and common life of this world. At the same time we ask what are those things about ourselves that are untouchable? Who are those untouchables in our midst?

Corinthians reminds me that Gospel can seem to be foolishness. There are even times when I think it is even harder to believe that Gods love desires healing for us today than it is to believe that Gods mercy promises hope for hereafter. It does seem foolishness that God would love such broken souls as ours. It would seem far more logical for God to take a position of protection and of non-critical self-interest.

Id rather sit in the dark than stand and face the details of the light. Coming to an awareness of a loving God can have that effect upon you. It might shine a light upon those parts of your life you'd rather not see. This is light by which to see our lives in relationship to Gods love of us, the vision to take ownership of grace and be realistic about our brokenness and to seek after that narrow path I spoke of. We must move beyond simple assumptions of ourselves and of others and dare to touch the untouchable in our hearts and to touch the untouchable hands of others.

This isnt very sophisticated theology, but our baptisms continue to point us to seek out the deeper truth of our lives and from that truth up to Gods love.

There are times when we are the woman at the well and it may not be easy to look with such introspections at our lives. But the mercy that we find in Christ is the mercy that finds itself at work in us. In the brokenness and venerability of God, we receive hope for a measure of wholeness to be who God has called us to be.

There are times we are called to see those who stand at the well in the heat of the day. We then are challenged to take Gods love with humble boldness out to each other, to our neighbor and our enemy. We are challenged to seek out the women at the well and hold out for them the great love that is given to us and to them.

My father tells a story about a man who, trying to teach his son, would go into his room at night
and polish one of his shoes. God, my father says, is like that man: God will polish one of our shoes and offer us the task of polishing the other one. God calls us to the task of owning that brokenness in ourselves and to nurse it with the balm of determined grace and polish the rough edges with lifelong determination.

How might our lives look if we sought to see ourselves as those with one shoe polished, as ones with irreplaceable value, yet also as ones with brokenness in need of mending? How might we find energy for this journey, courage to seek out our brokenness even as we seek to heal the brokenness of others?

Would we see the dark of our hearts with courage? Would we see the dark of the world with compassion? Would we too go to work polishing that other shoe?