St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, March 27, 2011

Outside In – Rev. David Mundy

Psalm 95 Romans 5:1-11 John 4: 5-42

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Last week a group of women from our congregation joined a bunch of other women from area churches for a regional UCW rally. In case you don’t know what UCW stands for, it is the acronym for the United Church Women, an organization represented in most congregations that is spiritual and practical and few churches could do without.

That meeting and the gospel lesson for today brought to mind another UCW gathering that took place many years ago. Some of you have heard this story before but most of you haven’t. I didn’t attend the meeting but one of the other staff members in the congregation I served did, and when she got back she decided that she just had to tell me about her experience.

There were several hundred women in attendance but they were sitting at round tables with eight people at each. Early on they were asked to share what had brought them to this meeting and most of the participants shared rather conventional and similar stories. Then a woman who didn’t exactly fit the profile of the group, being in her late twenties or early thirties, asked if she could count on their ability to keep a secret.

Of course everyone was “in” and so she shared an eye-opener of a story. While she was at college she took a job as an exotic dancer to help pay her bills. If you aren’t sure what that term means, it’s what folk used to call a stripper.

Then she met a great guy at school and they fell in love. She gave up her extracurricular life in the clubs, and eventually they decided to get married and move back to the small town where he grew up. No one in his family knew about her exotic part-time job and they decided to keep it that way. She didn’t have a Christian background but when they moved to his hometown they began attending the church in which he grew up. The members were warm and welcoming and somewhat to her surprise she joined the UCW, the youngest member by far. Everyone liked her so much they voted her president and soon she was involved in leading worship and other church activities.

She admitted that while she loved her church family, she wondered what would happen if her secret was ever revealed. Well, when she was done speaking there was a palpable silence, probably because they other women were thinking that this was the best UCW rally ever! Then, to their great credit they offered their support and acceptance to this young woman. For my co-worker it was a wonderful moment of God’s grace extended to someone who still wondered if she was an outsider.

Last Sunday I pointed out to you that for four weeks in Lent we would hear stories of encounters with Jesus found only in the gospel of John. And I characterized them in this way:

Encounter with an Insider – Nicodemus -- John 3

Encounter with an Outsider – The Samaritan Woman – John 4

A Healing Encounter – The Man Blind from Birth – John 9

An Encounter of Death and Resurrection – The Raising of Lazarus – John 11

Today’s encounter is between Jesus and someone who has three strikes against her before either one of them opens their mouths: she is a foreigner, a woman, and of questionable moral reputation. Samaria was a region plunk in the middle of Israel but the people who lived there were considered to be outsiders when it came to their faith and cultural identity.

According to the story, along with mad dogs and Englishmen, Jesus and one Samaritan woman go out in the midday sun in search of water. This should be our first clue about this encounter, because the custom was and still is for women to go through the routine of procuring water for the day in the early hours and in the company of others. But this woman didn’t belong, she was also an outsider with her own people because of her questionable sexual history, so she was forced into the heat of the day for this basic task.

It’s interesting that these stories in John share the characteristic of a certain amount of confusion, and the story of the woman from Samaria is no exception. In Roman Catholic theologian John Shea’s retelling of this story the woman is edgy and world-weary as she comes to the well. She hears and sees Jesus as dozy, a simpleton, at least as first. He doesn’t even understand how a well works!

But she begins to realize that there is much more to him than her first impression. When Jesus often living water she begins to realize just how thirsty she is in her soul. In the end this is a good news story of acceptance and inclusion through an encounter with Jesus, the Christ. We all know the expression “inside out.” This was a story of “outside in.”

Have you ever been an outsider? The answer is almost certainly “yes” for virtually all of us here, and generally it is an unpleasant and even humiliating feeling. Sometimes it as innocuous as sitting at a table where none of the food is recognizable, or playing a game where we don’t know the rules. It can be more nerve-wracking, such as having to drive on the opposite side of the road in a foreign country, or finding ourselves in a situation where language barriers or skin colour make us feel vulnerable and even in danger.

Of course communities of faith can be places where we feel as though we are outsiders, even though the sign on the lawn says “Everyone Welcome.” It might be as simple of coming into a place that is unfamiliar to us and not being sure how everything works or what the expectations are. I say “simple,” although even this can be extremely stressful for those without a faith background. All three of our adult children have been in relationships with people for whom the thought of coming to church has bordered on terrifying, a combination of publicly eating with chopsticks, speaking Swahili and tap-dancing in their underwear – all at the same time.

Of course this is about more than whether we feel comfortable when we walk through the doors of any place of worship, including this one. The far deeper question is whether we are recipients of God’s grace and whether we can be accepted by Christ for who we are. Who is “in” and who is “out” and who decides? For a number of years our United Church wrestled with the important questions around sexual orientation and who is welcome to sit by the well with Jesus, figuratively speaking. While the church made its big decisions and our congregation did its own soul-searching there are still folk who come here wondering whether acceptance is more than just talk.

And even those of us who may be perceived by others as insiders feel like frauds. In our spirits we feel that we are outsiders, with a haunting sense that we are not worthy or acceptable in God’s sight. We may have made destructive choices which aren’t known to our neighbours yet we are haunted by them. And let’s be honest, religious institutions including the church have often fostered that rejection as a form of power. The banner headline says “Jesus Loves You!” but the fine print says “some conditions may apply” and the list of those conditions is a kilometre long.

The story of the Samaritan woman reminds us that there can be another way to encounter Jesus. He is the one who speaks to her, invites her into a conversation that begins with confusion but results in a clarity which changes the course of her life. No longer would she be required to walk the predictable path of humiliation and rejection, back and forth to the well.

I mentioned John Shea who is the author of a book called An Experience Named Spirit. He reflects on who the gospels tell us Jesus was in the encounters and relationships he developed.

Jesus loved people with such an intensity that he drove the ambiguity out of their hearts. Their relationship with him became the event which they took as disclosive of ultimate truth and meaning. Under the impact of his love, people replied, “Yes! This is the reality I desire desiring me!” Part of this response was generated by the fact that Jesus loved people in the very “place” they could not love themselves – their hearts.

This isn’t some mushy, gooey love, but an honest and direct love that is able to transform our hearts and lead us away from that which is destructive in our lives.

So what does this mean for us in practical terms? If we want this to be the community where the living water of Christ pours out in abundance rather than dribbles out like single drops like a leaky faucet, what needs to happen?

Surely it begins with our own encounter with Christ. In some way we sit down with Jesus in the heat of the day and realize that he is offering us a way forward in our lives which brings healing and joy. I can’t speak for you, but I know I need the regular reminder that Jesus loves me in a way that drives the ambiguity and uncertainty out of my heart. If Jesus looks me in the eye and assures me that I am accepted then all things are possible. That well-worn path to humiliation or discouragement becomes the pathway to new life in Christ.

When that happens, we can take on that spirit of grace in our lives which is actually the grace of Christ flowing through us toward others, the spring of life gushing up to eternal life. The women sitting around the table at the UCW rally years ago extended that grace to someone who was choosing a new way, a new watercourse if you will. Every one of us can make this a priority, not to get people to join a club but to receive Christ’s living water.

Remember, too, that our story today is of someone who is surprised by the presence of the Messiah. Without any expectation of her part, Jesus the Christ reaches out to her and her, in turn, becomes an evangelist, sharing the Good News with others. In one of the other readings for today, from Romans, we hear “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

I will leave you with this reflection from a Chinese Christian, Wang Weifan.

My Lord is the source of Love; I the river’s course.

Let God’s love flow through me. I will not obstruct it.

Irrigation ditches can water but a portion of the field;

the great Yangtze River can water a thousand acres.

Expand my heart, O Lord, that I may love yet more people.

The waters of love can water vast tracts,

nothing will be lost to me . . .

Abandon not the measure of my heart, O Lord.

Let the waves of your love still billow there!

We celebrate the gospel of Christ, the good news of “outside in.”