4-22-09

Moses is over the top with the pouting of the pilgrims, the people he is charged to pilot to the Promised Lands. Called to be guru to a group of grumblers, what is their gripe this time?

A couple of days ago they were complaining about dying of hunger, yearning for their days of meat and melon in Egypt. God answers their complaint by giving them manna to eat. Whatever manna is, and the Hebrew word pretty much translates into "watchmacallit," manna from heaven is laid out upon the land like a smorgasbord every morning, such that upon waking they walk out of the tent, scoop up all the manna they can manage, and are satisfied for the day. Hardly roughing it in the wilderness, eh? God provides.

Next? Well, next they get thirsty? They have no water with which to wash down the "watchmacallit." So the children of Israel do what the children of Israel do best: they complain. To Moses they mumble, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?" Moses, as I say, over the top, gets on the horn and calls up the proprietor of the place, "Good Lord, what can I do with these complaining customers? Now they want water. And they are about to stone me." Of stones they have plenty.

God answers, "Remember the rod you used in Egypt to plague the Pharaoh? You know, Aaron's walking stick with which you struck the Nile and it turned to blood, and later you held it over the Red Sea, and the waters parted for you. Well, dig it out of your luggage, take some of your leaders, and go forth to a rock I will show you. Strike the rock and you will have water."

So Moses does, and behold, a fountain flows forth from the rock. And not just any old ordinary rock, but a rock in the midst of the wilderness of Sinai. It doesn't get any drier than this. Ask Julie, she was just there.

So the Hebrews name this place Meribah and Massah. Which reminds me of the Mad River in Northern California, another place named according to the incident recorded there. It seems the Jedediah Smith wagon train party was camped at the creek one night when an argument ensued, the consequence of which the next morning the wagon train split up. One half went north, the other half went south. So they named the stream the Mad River, not for its geology, but for the rhubarb which occurred there.

Meribah and Massah. Meribah in Hebrew means "complaining." How fitting, for here and everywhere the Israelites wandered, they complained. And Massah. Massah in Hebrew means "to put to a test." The children of Israel forever putting God to the test, and we have not even gotten to the golden calves yet.

Meribah and Massah. If the Exodus had been in the American west, we might have called our location "Complainer's Creek" or "Grumbler's Gulch." But we are in the Sinai and these are Jews, so it is Meribah, which means "complaining," and Massah, which means "to put to a test."

Yes, our group stopped there in the Sinai, where the Hebrews complained for lack of water and put God to a test. Ultimately, of course, the children of Israel are put to a test, as they wander in the wilderness for forty years, or long enough for this original generation of complainers to kick the bucket. If only they had purple bracelets.

They could have learned. But it will fall to Joshua and their children to enter the Promised Land, with the lesson, for those who focus on what they don't have; they will never truly know all that they do have.

But it is the theme of water to which I wish to turn to now. For as you may recall from your Lenten catechism, or not, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, which is today, is referred to as...? Refreshment Sunday.

As of today we are halfway through the wilderness of Lent. So the church tradition is to pause and replenish. A good Sunday to bring a friend, you are invited to extra refreshments during coffee fellowship. Welcome to our watering hole.

Jesus is traveling through the wilderness between Galilee and Judea. This wilderness is called Samaria. Not wilderness as defined by landscape so much as wilderness by association, for, would you believe, Samaritans live in Samaria, and Jews and Samaritans did not get along, as referenced by the parenthetical remarks in this morning's reading, "Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans." Actually, the Hebrew expression back then was, "Jews have no dealings with Samaritans."

So what follows is a scandalous story. Jesus is traveling through Samaria. Not. He is in need of refreshment and comes to a community watering hole. Not. Where he speaks to a Samaritan. Not. Who is a woman. Not. Not. Not. Not. This is a four-fold scandalous story.

Jesus asks the woman for a drink. She, who we will learn is a little liberal, at least knows the customs, and comments, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" Jesus could not get any further out of the box than this, to share a cup with a Samaritan, who is a woman. Remember, "Jews have no dealings with Samaritans."

Then this, a whole other layer of scandal. According to the customs of the day, Jesus is acting out what is called "a well betrothal." You see back then single men and women met at the well, well, just as they meet at watering holes today. The well was a publically acceptable place where one went looking for a partner.

It goes down the way it just went down with Jesus. First of all the man asks to drink from the woman's cup. If the woman says, "yes," he knows he has permission to pursue the conversation further. So they continue. If all goes well at the well, she invites him home to dinner with father, and if all goes fine over the food, the men next barter a marriage contract over tea.

A "well betrothal." Certainly a bit abrupt to us, but it is how they did it back then. You can decide whether we are doing it any better today.

So is Jesus asking the Samaritan woman to marry him? Well, no, she's been married five times before, and is currently living with a sixth fellow. So what's new?

What Jesus is doing is shocking us? Or, more specifically, shocking his disciples who are traveling with him and, as our text tells it, "were astonished that he was speaking with a woman."

The disciples know better.

What Jesus knows is the heart of God.

Jesus is in a foreign land where he should not be, cavorting in a community where he should not be, conversing with a woman with whom he should not be, the content of which is inappropriate. Just ask the disciples.

Jesus is telling us, or at least his inner circle, that he does not conform to the patterns of prejudice and blogs of bigotry in this world. The separation of people, the hatred between people of different religions and races, which his own religion promotes, does not cut it with Christ.

Jesus uses the image of water. Jesus identifies himself to the woman as the barer of "life- giving water," which you have to admit is a pretty outrageous watering hole line. Drink from his cup and you will have new life.

What Jesus is saying is God is the source of life. Just as water is necessary for earthly life, ask the children of Israel who in our Exodus text were about to perish without it, God is necessary for spiritual life. God is the rock from which the water flows in the barrenness of our lives. God is the spring of hope which flows eternally in the desert of our lives.

Through Jesus the woman at the well is offered God's life giving waters, even though she is a Samaritan woman living in sin.

The woman is impressed. She says to Jesus, "I see that you are you a prophet." She is willing to drink from Jesus' cup, saying, "Sir, give me this water, that I may never be thirsty again."

Still this is a bit much and she is understandably confused. Confused between her Samaritan faith and Jesus' faith.

So she asks Jesus where is God to be rightly worshiped. On the mountain of Gerizim, ancient Schechem, where the Samaritans had their temple, or in Jerusalem, where the Jews had their temple.

Bad questions, Jesus responds. God is not in this place, and therefore not in that place. God is not with this people, and therefore not with that people. God is not in this religion, and therefore not in that religion. This is like the disciples arguing over who is the greatest among them.

Jesus announces to the woman, and to Samaria, and to his disciples, and to every reader of the gospel, "for the hour is coming, and is now, when the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth.

Which is where Jesus has been heading with all of this. "Those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth." God is not a rock. So put down the rocks. And, for God's sake, quite throwing them.

It is no longer my church versus your church. It is no longer my religion versus your religion. It is no longer my nation versus your nation, or the color of my skin versus the color of your skin, or my customs versus your customs, or my language versus your language.

Jesus is saying, the time for going to separate temples is over, believing that God is contained in this temple or this church alone, or on that mountain top or in that nation alone, or even this book or that book alone. God is greater than all this.

"For the hour is coming, and is now, when the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth. " Wherever there is spirit and truth, there is God. As Augustine said, "When I found truth, there I found God."

Jesus left the Temple and got out of Jerusalem. He went to a foreign land and a despised people, to teach a truth. God is not identified with any one place, or any one people, but with any place or any people who worship God in spirit and in truth.

Jesus is announcing a new world order. A new day. A new hour, which, he says, has come. And the hour is, if you want a phrase for it, "One Great Hour of Sharing." Remember when Iran took our embassy personnel hostage in 1979, initiating another hostile period of history in the Holy Lands? Thirty years ago. What has changed? Our first contact with our captive citizens was during Christmas of that year, when some of our clergy were allowed to visit them in Tehran.

Included in the clergy group was William Sloan Coffin, a well know and rather radical UCC minister, then preacher of our prestigious Riverside Church in NYC. He tells the story of his visit.

Two armed Iranian guards accompanied him as he was led into a room where four of the American hostages were brought in to join him. He recognized immediately they were marines, but a big, gregarious guy himself, he enthusiastically hugged them. Then he sat down and passed out little books of Xmas carols. Remember, it was Christmas time.

Then Coffin, who was nearly a concert pianist as well as a preacher, sat down at a piano there, and began to play Xmas carols as they sang. Then he got out his Bible, and as we might do in Sunday School, they read the Christmas story, passing it one to the next, reading it verse by verse.

The minister tried to bring the biblical story on home to the hostages. He reminded them how the Holy Family was rejected, turn away, and put out back in a barn, where the son of God was born in a place where animals eat, and do other stuff.

But the spirit and truth of God had changed that barn into a holy place. Coffin reminded the captive marines, "This certainly is not the most joyous Christmas in your life, but this, too, is a holy place and God is present."

Then Coffin asked them to join hands, including the Iranian guards. And they did. They joined hands, in a circle, all of them. Then he prayed that they might experience a moment of grace, where, in the sight of God, there will be neither American nor Iranian, captive nor captor, but our hearts will be large enough to receive God in spirit and truth, and that one day we would gather around as one holy family.

Coffin says, "I could see this one Iranian trying to fight back his tears. He could not wipe his eyes because there were two big marines holding his hands. I began to weep, too," he says, "because after all, this is why God gave us tears, to wash away all the bitterness and the sorrow and the anger."

One day God will be worshiped by everyone. Not on this mountain, nor on that mountain; not in this church, nor in that mosque, nor in that temple, but everywhere in spirit and in truth.

On that day there will be no more divisions, and we will be one family, joined together, holding hands. And there will be tears of joy that will wash away all the bitterness and the sorrow and the anger. Until this day comes, the purpose of the church is to be as scandalous as Jesus and live as if this day is now. May God bless your "One Great Hour of Sharing."