Read John 4:4-26
Woman at the Well - Song
Unlovable Scripture Video
Last Sunday, in Pastor Jeff’s sermon we learned that God is
approachable, God is merciful and his grace is available to us because of what
Jesus did for us on the cross. For me,
this connects to what I want to talk about today. In the great commandment,
Jesus reminds us to Love God and Love our neighbor. If God extends his love to us by offering us
access-ability, and mercy and grace – shouldn’t our love for our neighbor look
much like God’s love for us?
My mother-in-law was
born in 1935. Her birth certificate
lists the name of a man of whom she had no memory. She told me once she read an article in a
local newspaper that mentioned his name, the man in the article had a wife and
a family. But the article didn’t mention
her, or her mother, or her brother. Her
mother was never married to her father and in those days that isn’t something
you wanted to talk about. She told me
how her Mother took the family to Mississippi because her mother could get a
job at café while she and her brother were to pick a 5 acre crop of
cotton. I don’t think they knew what
they were getting into because she said another family of share croppers ended
up helping them finish the harvest that year.
My mother-in-law dropped out of school.
It may have been because they moved around a lot, it may have been
because she had to help her mom and needed to get a job…. It may have been because in those days she
wouldn’t have been accepted by others.
There was a line. (It wasn’t
because she wasn’t smart because she was. She loved to work cross-word puzzles,
she loved a good debate, you were not going to win, and I don’t know anyone who
didn’t love her cooking. Oh, she wasn’t
perfect. She’d lived a difficult life
and you might say she had some battle scars to prove it.)
When I first met her, I didn’t understand that there was a
line between us. I didn’t understand the
feelings she must have had about her life because my reality doesn’t even begin
to compare. But I started to get the
idea when she told me about an experience with “the church”. When she married and had children of her own,
an acceptable family, surely it would be different. So, she took her children to church. She offered to teach Sunday school. She wanted to belong. But the line was still there. I know she felt it. I know she heard it. It was probably the
mid to late 1960s and the world was changing pretty rapidly. She had
made an outfit for her daughter – kouhlats – remember those – they looked like
a skirt in the front and shorts in the back.
At church, that evening, she was told her daughter would have to leave –
she had dressed her inappropriately for church. Have you ever felt that – sinking
embarrassment, shame, the humiliation of not fitting in? I can’t imagine what that must have triggered
in her. All the past – rushing
back. You don’t belong – you are
different – you are not welcome.
When it comes to dealing with social misfits, outcasts and
those engaged in sinful behaviors, there seems to be an invisible line in the
sand and it’s socially understood that you don’t cross that line. In the scripture this a.m., Jesus, however,
refuses to be held by the boundary of a line. He knew there were unacceptable
behaviors for Jews and yet, he didn’t let those rules keep him from reaching
out to those on the other side of that line. For the women of Jesus day, there
was a line between the confines of home and the rest of the civilized world of
his day.
- Women were largely
confined to their husband’s or father’s home and in those days were not allowed
to talk to strangers in public, especially men.
To be called “Woman” would be a sign of respect.
- Women were not
taught the Torah nor allowed in the inner courts of the temple. They were excluded from worship and the
teachings of God.
- Women were not
allowed to testify in court. (In other
words, their word meant nothing)
There was a
line! Considering these rules for women,
I wonder if we truly understand how unacceptable Jesus’ behavior was to the
people of his day. We might be tempted to argue that it’s much better to be a
woman in the world today than the women who lived in Jesus’ day.
Perhaps it’s fitting to look at the Best Places in the World
to be a Woman today. TrustLaw Women
conducted a global perception poll in the Spring of 2012 based on the input of
Gender experts of the Group of 20 Nations (G20) on how well women fared in
these countries.:
The top 4 countries (drum roll please):
Canada, Germany, United Kingdom and
Australia.
These countries are cited for
the resources, opportunities and overall safety available to women.
The bottom 4 countries include Mexico there
on the list because of women being “used up” and murdered by
its own terminology of “machismo”, followed by
Indonesia, Saudia Arabia, and at the bottom of the list India.
Best and Worst g20 Countries for Women (Link)
Can we really say, “Its better to be a woman in the world
today, when in Afghanistan one in 11 women have a chance of dying in
childbirth; Some 87 percent of women are illiterate; and as many as 80 percent
of girls face forced marriages. As many as 1,000 women are killed annually in
Pakistan in so-called "honor killings." Additionally, families
defending their "honor" are also known to attack women with acid to
disfigure them, stone them to death, or simply beat them. (From CBS NEWS June
14, 2011)
Is it really better to be a woman in the world today when
virtually, every aspect of a women’s life in Saudi Arabia is controlled by men.
They cannot drive or enter the Olympics. They’re generally forbidden from
leaving home, traveling outside the country, working, studying, marrying,
filing a court case or seeking medical care without being accompanied by or
receiving the written consent of a male guardian. In India practices like
infanticide, child marriage, wife-beating and human trafficking are
commonplace. ***Forbes 6/13/2012 I make this little side track, simply to say
our WORLD is not all that better off today. Our world is still a mess. (BTW, 27 million people are enslaved in the
world today – the greatest number the world has ever seen.) – there’s a LOT of
work to be done.
If we could just put ourselves in the shoes of a woman from
India or Saudi Arabia this a.m. and imagine
Jesus as he speaks to this socially unaccepted woman of the gospel. Add insult to injury and the woman he speaks
to – is of a lower status not only by gender but by Jewish religious standards
– she is a Samaritan, a religious outcast, - and he knows of her many divorces
and he knows of her unspoken Sins. Why
would any man, degrade himself to address this women? And for anyone watching him – who sees him
talking to this woman…
He crosses the line.
Not only does he speak to her –
– he looks at her, he
listens to her, he knows her and her offers her respect, he offers her life and
he loves her.
Tony Campolo is a sociologist, pastor and president of
Eastern College
Tony says – if all you have to offer people is a “bowl of
soup and some clothes” – it’s not enough!
Jesus said, “I have come that my joy might be in you and that your joy
might be full” Tony says…We’ve gotta do
more than just give them bread and soup – we’ve got to bring joy and love into
their lives!
I’m a marriage and family therapist,
and in the counseling process we often ask the question, “What does it look
like when you’ve reached your goal?” And
if our goal is to truly “Love Others” we might ask, “What does that look like?”
Is it merely feeding and clothing people? I’m
afraid in this economy, that often we send them away without even the bread or
soup. Wait a minute – hold on now Cindy – we've heard about all the money we
send to missions all over the world – and that is good. As a church, we do give
to missions and go on missions and it is good. Have you heard St Jerome’s
“Good, Better, Best, Never let it rest, Until your good is better and your
better is best?” If you just look around, there is still plenty of room here and even if
our pews were full – if you remember – Jesus would leave all of these to go and
get the “missing” one.
As a youth leader for many years, after many mission trips,
I confess to you, it’s easier to go on a mission trip away from home – help
someone – tell them about Jesus and at the end of the trip come home THAN it is
to meet a person in need, form a relationship and be there when they need
you. Sometimes people are a messy. They have issues and real problems that don’t
come off when you wash your hands. We’re
like children playing in a sprinkler…you’ve seen how they’ll run into the
spraying water and run away as fast as they ran in. It’s as if they flirt with getting wet –
Sometimes I think we “flirt” with the others but we don’t really want to commit
to those who are different than us, the outcasts, the unacceptable, the ones
whose problems and issues don’t go away.
Do we really understand in the Greatest Commandment that
Jesus is not talking just about loving your family, loving those who love you?
We might ask as the expert of the law did – who is my neighbor? Sometimes the task of loving those who love
us can be a challenge for us. Then there
are those who randomly cross our paths, those who live in our community and
those who live across the globe. In
fact, in the story of the good Samaritan Jesus never tells us WHO the neighbor
is? He only asks “Who is being
neighborly?” Who is motivated by
love?
And It’s not how much money are we giving to support those
in our community – although that is a very good question – It really is how
well am I loving my neighbor? how am I
available to them, am I willing to cross the line and be seen on the other side
with them as Jesus does with the woman at the well or Tony with the prostitutes
in the diner.
Do you remember the children's song, “His Banner over me is
love?” Most commentaries about that song
describe the banner as a military flag carried into battle. Seems kind of a harsh way to represent love -
We'll beat it into you... But one
commentary explained how this song originates from the Song of Solomon (The
Love Book of the Bible) – and describes the intense desire of the lover for his
love. He calls her into the banquet hall
– a public place – and in front of everyone professes his love to her with
banners and a feast –In front of everyone he
expresses his inner most desire for her - vulnerable – Can you imagine? Please, not while I’m eating… Such an
announcement crosses the lines of what is acceptable – kind of like the
surprise birthday party for prostitutes.
And yet this what God has done for us – and isn’t this what we are all
longing for – we are created for this kind of love relationship and he commands
us to have this kind of love for Him and for one another.
If you think
about it, he did the same thing in the way he died – if front of everyone –
exposed – he stretched out his arms – I
love you this much – and he gave his life - while we were still “the other –
still full of sin – outcast and unacceptable.”
(We call this prevenient grace). Mike Kimpan
says, “it is in the realization of the
extensive grave i have received that i am able to extend that grace to others.”
By the time I met my mother-in-law, her church participation
consisted of going to weddings and funerals and attending special programs for
her grandchildren. It’s hard to be
excluded from any of those. Even though
she never made back into “the church” she understood what it felt like to be an
“outcast”. As long as I can remember knowing my mother-in-law went out of her
way to help people - she’d make
something, or she’d bake something and she would visit these social misfits
that would rarely reciprocate the generosity that she’d give. She rarely complained and even if she did,
she just “loved on” people her way. I
believe she understood God in a way that many of us miss. I used to think she missed out on being a part
of a “church community” and I still do.
But now I think, it is the church who really missed out on her. Who else might we be missing?
My mother-in-law passed away in
November of 2009, and at her funeral, all of those misfits and outcasts were
there, as well as some of us, and I know this is probably really “crossing the
line” but it’s just my opinion. I can’t
help but think that the gathering at her funeral –that mismatched bunch of all
colors and creeds, saints and sinners, looks more like the kingdom of heaven
than maybe this does.
Where is that line for you?
Is it at the door of the church?
Is it between you and someone of a different religion? Race?
Or social status? What are you
willing to do about that line? Jesus
crossed a line to leave heaven and humbled himself to live among us….he crossed
a line of social constructions to love people….and ultimately crossed a line
from death to give us everlasting life.
How should we respond?
John Wesley said,
“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
More You can do to Cross
the Line…
BIBLE
*Read Luke 10:25-37; The Parable of the Good
Samaritan
INTERNET
RESOURCES
*Visit the WayWard Follower – This blog exists not
merely to inspire conversation around loving God and loving others in the Way
of Jesus Christ…but to inspire movement.
You can join the conversation at
http://www.mjkimpan.com
GET BUSY
Read The Christmas Jars by Jason Wright and start
your own Christmas giving tradition.
Get involved by volunteering at one of these
local centers:
- Alvin Family Community Center (281) 585-4516 (Need help in the store)
- Alvin Food Pantry
(281) 824-8871
- Meals on Wheels
http://www.alvinmealsonwheels.org
- Alvin Senior Center (281) 388-4298 (Need cooks and phone help)
MUSIC
