Sit and Eat

No Bucket, No Rope

I preached this sermon on October 16 as part of our exploration of baptism at St. Lydia's.  The text is John 4:1-29; read it here. 

 

The woman at the well has become an easy target. Like women everywhere, the thing that most folks fixate on about this woman, is her sex life. 

 

We might notice that she is the first person in the gospel of John to recognize Jesus for who he is: the Messiah. 

We might notice that she is the first person to go and tell others. 

We might notice that just one chapter before, Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a religious leader fails to see what this woman so easily perceives.

We might notice the dignity and honesty with which she converses with this strange man at the well.  The masterful blending of plain speech and innuendo she employs as they banter.

 

But instead, many Christians tend to fixate, almost with pleasure on this woman’s five husbands, plus the one at home, casting her as some sort of ruined woman most in need of redemption for her sexual sins. 

 

Flinching as I did so, yesterday I googled “Samarian woman.”  The second hit read as follows:

 

“The Samaritan woman at the well is no angel. Mixed up with a wrong crowd, this poor woman from Samaria has quite a reputation. She had been married five times and was living in sin with a man who wasn't her husband.

Through her story comes the lesson that people shouldn't live by carnal pleasure.  Her story is also relevant because it becomes an antecedent of Christian practices — that one may seek God's forgiveness for wrongdoing.”

 

Why is it so tempting for us to reduce the gospel to moralisms?

To a simple equation in which a + b = c?

a: Here is the Samaritan woman.

b: She is doing things that are bad.

c: Jesus comes and makes it better.

 

To speak of this woman as “living in sin” is not only anachronistic, but misses the full impact of this story, strips it of gospel and reduces it to a waggling finger. Her sins (the word “sin,” by the way, appears nowhere in the text) are beside the point, for all of us are sinners. Nothing makes her any different from any of the other people Jesus encounters along the road, at least not in that respect. 

 

What is astonishing in this story is the woman and Jesus’ mutual recognition of one another.

 

“You have had five husbands,”

he tells her. 

And she leaves her water jug and runs to the city. 

Here’s what she doesn’t say as she runs:

“Come meet a man who cleansed me of all my sin.”

Here’s what does say:

“Come meet someone who told me everything I have every done.”

 

Come meet someone who knew me completely. 

Can he be the Messiah?

 

 

 

Underneath this story runs not sin, judgment, and its accompanying redemption, 

but the cool, clear spring of the water of life. 

 

Did you hear what he said?

Jesus offered this woman living water.

When we drink of this water we will never be thirsty. 

 

 

She is a woman who has been to the well before. 

Each day 

in the heat of the sun 

to draw water to drink. 

To lower her jug into the cool depths of the earth 

and draw out what she needs to survive. 

Again and again she comes there,

to fill a need that is renewed each day, 

returning over and over to take what she needs

and carry it back home. 

 

 

Here is the good news of this Gospel:

You can put down your jug. 

You have been thirsty, 

but you need never be thirsty again. 

 

Drink from the hands of the one who knows everything you have ever done. 

 

 

 

I had a tough week this week. 

A week where nothing seemed to line up quite right. 

I wanted to feel joyful, and somehow couldn’t. 

I kept coming to the well, 

but found it dry, 

found myself scraping along the bottom 

and coming up with nothing.  

 

I was in search of water in another way as well. 

Our community is going to baptize Rachel on November 6, 

and we’re not sure where we’re going to be meeting that night.

We want the place to be right, and we want the water to be abundant. 

 

Biking around the city this week, 

I’ve been seeing water everywhere. 

And seeing Rachel in it!

Every fountain I pass has me thinking, 

“Can we baptize Rachel in there?!?!”

Meanwhile, over at Redeemer, there’s too much water. 

Water that seeps in through the cracks in the ceiling and across the floors. 

 

I’m searching for the deep water. 

The living water, the spring, 

that will well up somewhere, 

giving me all that I need to be joyful, 

giving us all we need to immerse ourselves. 

To be baptized. 

 

The water is already there. 

Is has has already been offered.

We need no bucket, no rope. 

Nothing at all.

 

Standing at the edge of the well, 

as we return day after day, 

is someone who knows everything we have every done. 

And we know him as well. 

“Come to the spring,” he’s saying.

“To the thirsty I will give water 

as a gift 

from the spring of the water of life.”*

 

 

 

 

*Revelation 21:6 

 

Manna and Magic

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, October 9.  The text is Exodus chapter 16; read it here.  

 

*

 

Morning by morning they gathered the manna, 

as much as each needed;

but when the sun grew hot, 

it melted.

 

 

Rachel and I were in Houston this weekend, and it was a great opportunity to see a friend of mine who lives there.  His name is Patrick.  Some of you know that there’s a group of six people out in the world who pray for St. Lydia’s, many of them every day.  And Patrick is one of them.  He’s been praying for us for two years now.  Every month or so, I send him an update about what’s happening in our community, and ask him to pray for particular needs that we have. 

 

So Patrick received a slightly desperate sounding e-mail just a few days ago when I learned that we needed to move out of Redeemer.  In Houston, I sat with my head in my hands telling him about how difficult this time is for us and for me, and he commiserated. 

 

And then he said, (and I swear, he did not know I was preaching on this text this week) “but your community is so much the Israelites in the desert!  You say ‘God, we need this,’ and it appears.  God’s sent you manna.”

 

Patrick is right.  

 

The e-mails that I write to that group of folks who pray for us make me more aware than I might be otherwise of the myriad of ways in which God has answered prayers for this community. 

 

Three years ago, before we were even a “we,” Daniel offered us his living room.  Months later, Pastor Phil was offering us Trinity’s sanctuary.  Last Spring, the Episcopal Diocese offered us the use of one of their church buildings.  This Fall, the congregation of Redeemer welcomed us into their midst.  

 

And last week, mere hours after I sent a letter to our community explaining the situation we find ourselves in, Richard left a voicemail on my phone, offering us his apartment, which just happens to be available during the time that we need it most. 

 

Our first year at Trinity, we started off with a budget of $20,000, and a little less than $5,000 in the bank account.  Every week Rachel and I watched the balance dwindle, hovering close to zero.  And then a check would come.  Or a generous person would drop an envelope in the plate. 

 

I told people that first year that St. Lydia’s was teaching me to trust God.  That I felt I was walking a path that only ever extended a foot or so in front of me. 

 

 

So too for the Israelites, who leave their dessert oasis and continue their journey with God. “We’re hungry,” they cry, and God gives them bread and meat.  But only enough for today.  They must trust that when the sun rises tomorrow, God will feed them again. 

 

It’s a notion that runs counter to everything we’re taught.  Think of the story of the grasshopper and the ant.  It’s the virtuous ant who works all summer long to store up for the winter.  The grasshopper enjoys himself, only to find himself starving when the snow begins to fall. 

 

“Save up!” the story warns us.  “Store up now, because there won’t be enough later!”

 

When the Israelites were in Egypt, Genesis tells us, they built the storehouses for Pharaoh, supported him in hoarding food so that they rich might never fear going hungry. In the wilderness, they are asked not to store up, but to let go. 

To trust that God will not let them go hungry. 

To gather their food for today, 

and let God take care of tomorrow. 

 

 

 

Is such faith naive? 

Is it to simple, 

to unadorned, 

to imagine that God will give us all that we need?

 

And what of those who do not have manna on their plates?

What of those who go hungry?

What of those who complain to God and yet are not fed?

 

 

There is notion in yoga 

that what we learn on the mat 

is connected to our practice in our lives. 

The same notion appears in the study of Christian liturgy. 

That what we do here, 

at these tables, 

is practice. 

That what we master here

is a rehearsal 

for how we live in the world. 

 

Here we feed one another. 

Here we remember that there will always be enough. 

Here we work together to build something that is beautiful. 

Here we approach the edge of chaos, 

allowing ourselves to be opened and undone. 

Here we creep up on our own discomfort. 

 

We do it not because it is nice, 

but because we are so hungry for it. 

Hungry to care for one another.

Hungry to love one another. 

Hungry to feed one another. 

 

 

Scholars tell us that the manna the Israelites found in the wilderness is, in fact, a naturally occurring substance that can still be found in the area today: a sweet, flaky sap that collects like dew on the grasses below the tamarind tree. 

 

God is not a magician. 

God doesn’t answer prayers with snapped fingers or the flourish of a wand. 

God answers prayers through the whole of creation:

bread doesn’t fall from the heavens, 

but seeps from the sap of the tamarind tree.

 God answers prayers

through the generosity of God’s own people:

Money doesn't rain down from heaven, 

but comes slowly and faithfully from those who love us. 

A space for St. Lydia’s didn’t rise up from the sidewalk, 

but was offered with generosity: 

a living room in the financial district. 

A sanctuary on the Lower East Side. 

A church in Brooklyn. 

An apartment on Baltic Street. 

 

We must offer our prayers 

like the Israelites offered their complaints. 

A cry to a being who has carved out a relationship with us. 

Who will not give us magic, 

but has promised to never let us go. 

We can wake each morning and trust 

that though the world lives so often with clenched hands, 

there is enough bread to feed us all. 

 

Water We Can Drink

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on October 2, 2011 as part of our exploration of baptism.  The text is Exodus 15:22-25; read it here. 

 

After the Israelites cross the Red Sea, there is some party.  Miriam takes up her tambourine and all the women follow her, singing.  There is feasting, and dancing, and, definitely some drinking.  “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously!” the people sing.  “Horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”  The celebration goes late into the night by the shores of the water.

 

And in the morning, 

when the sun rises, 

the people of Israel wake,

to find that the sun is hot and bright, 

and there is no water to drink. 

 

Have you ever had a moment like this?

A moment when the fanfare of victory has only just faded, 

and you are smacked in the face with reality?

 

For three days the Israelites trudge through the wilderness with no water, carrying all that they have on their backs.  And on the third day, their throats parched and dry, they see a spring!  They run toward it, cupping their hands to their lips, only to find that the water is salty. 

 

Have you ever had a moment like this?

When what you need is right in front of you, 

Yet you can’t get to it?

 

There’s a sense in this story of running suddenly and unpleasantly into a wall.  The spring is filled with water, the water you need to live, yet you can’t drink. 

 

 

The last two months for St. Lydia’s have been all about getting to Brooklyn.  Back in the Spring I met pastors and wandered around neighborhoods. Richard went on covert missions to check out parish halls and kitchens in churches all over the place.  After I learned that Redeemer might be a possibility for us, there were planning meetings with bishops and canons and phone calls and e-mails and letters back and forth. We planned out a timeline.  We said goodbye to Trinity, we packed up all our things and stuffed them in a car and unloaded them and unpacked them.  We began to make ourselves at home, here, in this place. 

 

And then learned we need to leave, at least for a while. 

 

What we need is right in front of us, 

but now it seems like we can’t quite get to it. 

 

There is a sense, a very real sense, of running unpleasantly into a wall. 

 

 

Reading the Exodus story the other day, I started thinking about wilderness.  The euphoria of victory, and the sudden slap of reality that inevitably follows, in this story as well as in our own. 

It’s easy to imagine that God delivers us from our bondage and deposits us straight in the promised land, our cups overflowing with milk and honey…but that’s not the story we’re here to tell.  If anything, this story reminds us, as one commentator put it, “That we’re not really all that different after we’re saved.  The difference is that now we have a relationship with the God of life.”

 

It’s a little like getting married. 

There’s dancing and singing and tambourine playing, and probably some drinking.

There’s celebrating late into the night, as there should be. 

But after the songs have faded 

and the flower petals have been swept away, 

you’re left not with dream,

not with a fantasy, 

but a relationship. 

 

Something real and live, 

fragile and imperfect, 

a covenant of love. 

 

On the other side of the Red Sea, 

we find not dream, not a fantasy,

not a land of promise, 

but a journey with a God who refuses to leave our side. 

Who makes bitter water sweet.

Whose manna, though spartan, will sustain us. 

 

 

We may not feel prepared for a journey, 

but a journey is where God calls us. 

And unlike the Israelites, we don’t need to carry everything on our back. 

 

What do we need to make a Dinner Church?

A folder of hymns, 

the shruti box.

A few scripts and some post cards to share.

It turns out Heather can make pasta sauce from three ingredients. 

A bible. 

But mostly we need all of you. 

Your voices and your stories. 

Your minds and your hearts. 

Your prayers. 

Your hands. 

We need God.  And God, we know, will not go away. 

 

If there is one thing that I know in this moment, 

it is that life and death hold hands in the midst of resurrection. 

 

This building is crumbling around us, 

and yet there is new life springing up even as we speak,

new life that will find someplace to take root, 

whether it’s here, 

or someplace we have yet to imagine. 

 

God has, and will continue to 

bring us safely through the sea, 

bring us through to the other side, 

and provide us with water to drink. 

 

It’s not a dream, 

not a fantasy, 

but a relationship that only grows stronger 

in the midst of the unknown. 

 

 

I don’t know what’s going to happen next. 

But I know that this is water we can drink. 

A People on the Move

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on September 25, 2011 as part of our exploration of the waters of baptism.  The text is Exodus 13:17-14:31; read it here. 

 

Last week, we read the story of creation:

of God shaping the darkness and wind 

of the formless void,

slowly but surely, 

into the world that we inhabit. 

 

The book describes God dividing the waters, 

creating a dome 

that separates the waters 

into the waters above the dome (the sky)

and the waters below the dome (the sea.)

 

God is creating a space for us, 

God’s creatures, to inhabit. 

A home that exists like an island 

between the blue chaos of the sky and the sea. 

 

In our reading from this week, we find that once again, 

God is separating the waters, 

holding them back to create a space for us. 

But in this story, something is different. 

In this story, we are on the move. 

 

In Genesis, God creates a dwelling place in the midst of the water. 

 

In Exodus, God gives us the means to pass through the water. 

 

 

I have one very clear memory of Sunday School from my childhood.  I was visiting another church with a friend, probably after a sleep over or something.  And some very industrious Sunday School teacher had created this sort of obstacle course-style reenactment of the book of Exodus. 

 

I think the teacher was Moses, and she led us out of classroom  (which I suppose must have represented bondage in Egypt) and around to the back of the church where there were all these sprinklers going.  And magically, as we approached, the sprinklers stopped, and we passed through, and then they started up again behind us. 

 

I think after that we all went and sat in the sandbox, which represented the wilderness, and there was some kind of eating of pita bread, which represented the manna in the wilderness, or something along those lines!

 

This experience clearly stuck with me, and what I remember about it most is that, at the end, when we returned to our classrooms, it felt like we had been on a journey.  It felt like we had been somewhere, that we had moved through something. 

 

 

Exodus is all about being called out and through. 

Out of Egypt and through the sea, 

into the wilderness 

and through to the promised land. 

But, as things so often are in these stories, 

the journey is about more than journeying, 

and the movement is about more than moving. 

 

As the Israelites travel, 

they are forming a relationship –

a bond with the one God, 

who is leading them out of slavery and into freedom. 

 

Every step of the journey, 

they are forced to be dependent on God to give them what they need. 

God instructs Moses. 

God leads them through the Red sea. 

God gives them food to eat in the wilderness. 

God brings them to the promised land. 

 

I love the line in the section we read tonight when the Israelites see the Egyptians coming and start to panic, saying to Moses, “it would be better for us to be slaves than to die here in the wilderness!”  And Moses basically tells them to be quiet.  And he has this wonderful line, “The Lord will fight for you.  You have only to keep still.”

They cannot save themselves.
Only God can do that. 

 

 

The journey is about creating an abiding relationship between God and God’s people. 

As counter intuitive as it might sound to our modern ears, 

it is a story of a people who escape involuntary bondage at the hands of the Egyptians, 

only to be bound again:

this time to the God who has redeemed them, 

this time, by their choice. 

 

Their time in the wilderness serves to teach them again and again:

“I am your God, and you are my people. 

I will deliver you. 

You only have to keep still.”

 

 

A friend of mine died this week.
He had been in the hospital for a long time with cancer. 

 

In the hospital, we used to talk about many things.  He was a church musician, and he spent some of his time in the hospital working at his keyboard, writing out hymn arrangements.  He spoke with courage and faith about his illness and God’s agency and presence in his life, even as he was dying. 

 

He spoke also about his disease:

How he imagined what it was that he was going through. 

“Some people talk about it like it’s a fight. 

Like they’re battling the cancer. 

It doesn’t feel like that. 

And some people talk about creating a relationship with the cancer,

Like they’re befriending the cancer. 

It doesn’t feel like that either. 

It feels like going through a storm.”

 

He was also on a journey through the water. 

Not along the sandy bottom of the Red Sea,

The waters forming a wall on his right and on his left, 

But through a powerful storm that left him battered and exhausted. 

 

That was his story.

What is your story?

What is our story?

 

What bondage is God liberating you from?

What waters is God leading you through?

How has God sustained you through the journey?

 

Living Between the Seas

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on September 18, 2011 as a part of our exploration of the waters of baptism.  The text is Genesis 1:1-10; read it here. 

 

 

One of the things that sticks out to me about this text

is that it’s really more of a project of organization and categorization

than it is a project of creation.  

God separates the light from the darkness, and names them.  

And God separates the waters under the dome from the waters above the dome, and names them. 

And then God separates the dry land from the seas, and names them. 

 

One of the most important concepts in this passage is a this wonderful Hebrew word, tohu wa bohu which in our text is translated as “formless void.”  It means chaos and nothingness.  And in the beginning the earth is covered with this tohu wa bohu, and there’s only darkness and wind.  And then God does something curious.  Instead of vanquishing the chaos, or destroying the chaos, God simply separates the chaos into discernible parts, and gives them a name. 

 

There are plenty of other creation myths from this time period, and many of them describe the world being born out of great violence.  For instance, the Babylonian myth of Tiamat, a sea monster symbolizing chaos, tells of Marduk, who slices Tiamat's body in half, creating the two halves of creation: heaven and earth. 

 

But the Hebrew story is different.  The chaos is not slain, but instead, calmly divided into parts and labeled, as if God is cataloguing specimens.  Chaos, the tohu wa bohu has not been vanquished, but inhabits the realms above and below us: the sky and the water, which continue to represent chaos for the Hebrew people.

 

This creation story has us living in this incredible tension.  Instead of the waters of chaos being vanquished or conquered, God merely creates a place for us to live in the midst of the waters.  We continue to live lives that are set in deep relationship with the waters of chaos.  We live between the sky and the water, on this island of dry land. 

But God continues to call us back to the water.  

To be baptized

To be born again. 

What does that mean for us?  And how do we do it? 

 

 

So tonight I’m curious about playing with this idea of living with, and in the midst of the waters of chaos. 

What does it mean that we live our lives between these two seas: the sky and the ocean?

And what does it mean to enter those waters, 

and be born new from them through baptism?

 

I’d like to lead you in a meditation.

There will be some significant periods of silence.

Just allow your imagination to roam.

After, those who wish to can share their experience.

 

//

 

Imagine that you are standing at the edge of the water.

It might be any type of water, but it is very deep.

This water is a symbol of all that you cannot control. 

What does the water hold for you?

Standing on the edge of the water, where is God? 

 

Imagine that you are immersed in the water. 

It is all around you. 

What does the water hold for you?

Immersed in the water, where is God? 

 

Imagine that you are climbing back to the shore.

You are wet and breathless.

You lay your face on the ground. 

What have you seen in the water?

Emerging from the water, where is God? 

 

 

 

Questions:

What did the water look like?

What did it hold for you?

What did you find when you were immersed in it?

What did you find on the shores?