This Week's Sermon:

         Third Lent

               February 24, 2008

     A man was staggering and floundering down the alley carrying a box with holes on its side.  He just happened to bump into a clergyman taking a short cut to make a hospital call.  The man-of-the-cloth noticed the fellow was not in too good a shape, so he decided to ask a question or two.  “Tell me, friend,” he said, “What do you have in the box you are carrying?”

     “It’s a mongoose,” the man said, with a bit of a slur in his voice.

     “For what purpose would you carry a mongoose,” the clergyman asked?

     “Well, you know I drank way too much this evening.  When I drink too much I see snakes and I’m scared to death of snakes.  That’s why I got this mongoose, for protection,” the man said.

     “But,” the clergyman said, “You do realize those are just imaginary snakes.”

     “That’s okay,” the man said, showing the inside of the box, “So is the mongoose.”

     The story in John’s Gospel for this Third Sunday in Lent about the interaction between Jesus and a Samaritan woman probably began with her thinking she was imagining things.  She went, as she had done many times before, to draw water.  She approaches Jacob’s Well and a Jewish man is sitting there in the noonday sun.  She averts her eyes; women were not to look directly at any man except her husband.  In her imagination, he speaks to her.  Again, she hears a voice.  It is not her imagination at all.  This Jewish man has asked her for a drink of water.  It is a profound interaction and points out some things about the person of Jesus the Christ.  This is an encounter that deals with issues of life and death, guilt and forgiveness, acceptance and rejection, and inner strength that enables an outcast to stand tall and find her voice.  This conversation indicates that living the new life of grace in Jesus the Christ begins when the secret self dies and the errors are acknowledged.  It was this secret self that is addressed in the encounter between Jesus and a woman of Samaria.

     In this encounter is paralleled the nature of the meeting each of us must have with the living, incarnate God.  Three things happened to this Samaritan woman that I would submit happens in any real spiritual experience.

     First, she is compelled to face herself and see herself just as she was.  Our need to be in relationship with that which is greater than we are very often begins with a wave of self-disgust.  It is usually the case that the last thing a person wants to see is him or herself.  We find fault with everyone and everything when if fact the fault lies, not is our stars, background, upbringing, dysfunctional family, lack of nourishing environment, but in our hearts.  The first thing God in Christ compels us to do is look honestly at the one thing we have spent much time, energy, money, and wasted talent refusing to see; namely, ourselves.

     Second, the Samaritan woman is staggered by the ability of Jesus to see into her heart.  Like the little girl who heard a sermon on the modern American home, where all the members  of the family sit down to a meal together on the average of once-a-week, who turned to her Mom and asked, “How does he know what goes on in our house?”

     There is no shade dark enough, no wall thick enough, and no divergence strong enough to shield us from the knowing gaze of Jesus the Christ.  He sees not only that which is stunting our spiritual growth, but also the hero of the soul.  We are known is a way we can never know ourselves.  We say it every Sunday in the Collect for Purity, “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.”  That is one of the best reasons I can offer you for trusting in Jesus the Christ and turning the reins of your life over to him.

     Third, the first instinct of the Samaritan woman was to share her discovery.  The health and vitality of the Christian faith is based squarely on the twin pillars of discovery and communication.  No discovery is complete until the desire to share it fills our hearts to overflowing and we have no choice but to tell others.  To find Christ, to be found of Christ, and to tell others are the steps of the Christian faith and cannot be taken in isolation from each other. 

     It is crucial to hear and understand what the Samaritan woman said to others.  Remember that this was in a time and place when women could not even give testimony at a trial and were not to speak unless spoken to.  Jesus had spoken to her.  A Jew speaking to a Samaritan was bad enough, but a Jewish man speaking to a Samaritan woman was unheard of.  “Come and meet a man who knows everything I ever did and loves me anyway.” 

     It is amazing that we present the Christian Gospel in a way that makes others think they must have it all together, must have the face shining and the clothes pressed, and the shoes shined before God can bear to see or hear them.  The exact opposite is the case.  We come to Jesus the Christ just as we are or we can never leave that encounter a changed person.  If we think we are worthy to stand before him and talk with him based on our own merit, we run the risk of him walking right on past us.

     Knowing that she was loved just as she was, even with five husbands and living with another man who wasn’t her husband, led her to the desire to share her discovery and that fact killed the feeling of human shame.  Shame based living always leads to dis-ease and the one feeling the shame can never feel an equal among equals.

     Hemmingway was right.  He said, “Life breaks every person, but some of us are stronger at the broken places.”  The best evangelism in the world is to share our wounds with others who are equally wounded but ashamed to share them or show them to the world.  The only other option is to wallow in the shame and sell it to the highest bidder and appear on the Jerry Springer Show.  A nation of voyeurs will watch as long as there is no redemption.

     If you stop and think about it, I know that you know one other person who needs someone to say to them, “Come, meet a man who knows everything I ever did and loves me anyway.”

     Who knows?  Perhaps both of you will be able to bend the knees a little more and make fewer human errors.  I can promise that it will lead to a freedom like none other you have ever known.  The one who knows you better than you can ever know yourself will be at your side and will tell you what to say.  Amen.   

         ~The Rev. G. Thomas Mustard