Third Lent, 2005

A rather disheveled, unshaven man stopped a prosperous looking man on the street and asked him for food money. 

“I’ll do better than that,” the well-dressed man said, thinking that the panhandler really wanted money for wine or beer, anyway.  “Come into bar with me and I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” the man said, “I’m not a drinking man.”

“Well, then, have a smoke on me,” the business man said, taking an expensive cigar from his coat pocket.

“No, thanks, I don’t smoke.”

The well-dressed man was determined.  “Okay,” he said, “let’s go to the race track and I’ll place a $10 bet for you on a horse that’s a 20 to 1 long-shot.  He is a shoo-in to win the seventh race at Belmont Park this afternoon.  You can take the winnings and buy new clothes, lots of food, whatever it is that you want.”

“Please, sir,” said the man, “I’m not a gambling man either.  I just need enough money for a meal or two.”

“In that case,” said the prosperous fellow, “how’d you like to come home and have dinner with me?  In fact, I would consider it a big favor if you would.  I’d like my wife to see for herself what happens to a guy who doesn’t drink, smoke, or gamble.”

The short month of February is almost over.  March will perhaps come in like a lion and go out like a lamb.  Spring is just around the corner.  Baseball’s spring-training has begun, at least the pitchers and catchers have reported to Florida and Arizona for the Grapefruit and Citrus games.  Back in 1900, a man named Charles Taylor Hickman played third base for the then New York Giants.  His nickname was “Piano Legs.”  He got that name by making 91 errors in 120 games, which is still a major league record for third basemen.  It seemed that “Piano Legs” wouldn’t bend his knees to scoop up a ground ball.

It is not too much of a stretch to say that we might make fewer human errors if we would bend our knees more often.

The Gospel for this Third Sunday in Lent is about human errors.  The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman points out some of them.  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.