All Y’All

John 4:1-30, 39-42

Prayer: Open our hearts, O Lord, that we may be changed by your word to us this day. Amen.

Jonathan looked at me late on Friday night and said, “Lord, this week has been a long year.”

Mercy, if that doesn’t feel true.

When I think back to Monday and my first passes at this text, where I thought this sermon was going, it seems laughable. Then there was Wednesday, where I thought I’d have to scrap this whole scripture passage and start again because it just didn’t relate at all to what was happening in the world.

Then Thursday, and Friday, even yesterday–things have been changing so quickly all around us this week it has made my head spin. The sermon I was writing in my head on Monday would be ludicrous now.

But this text, this text seems perfect. Put away the old baggage it may have for you, go ahead and lay down any notion that this text is about a sinful woman, or even a theological argument, set aside all the trivia about this being the longest recorded conversation Jesus has with anyone in all of the four gospels, and instead let’s see it for what it is: a story about isolation, with questions about where we should worship, a revelation about who Jesus is, and a call for us to respond in real and tangible ways.

First, this is a story of isolation.

By the time Jesus meets the woman at the well, the enmity between Jews and Samaritans is ancient, entrenched, and bitter. The two groups disagree about everything that matters: how to honor God, how to interpret the Scriptures, and how and where to worship. They practice their faith in separate temples, read different versions of the Torah, and avoid social contact with each other whenever possible. Truth be told, they hate each other’s guts.^[1]

On top of all of that, this Samaritan is a woman–common custom demands that Jesus, as a Jewish man, should not even speak to her in public, let alone ask her for help.

This woman in particular must be doubly isolated for some reason–or else she wouldn’t be at the well in the heat of the day. She would have come with all the other women in the early morning, she would have been part of a group instead of alone.

But now here she is, high noon in the desert, heavy chores to do, and some man, some Jewish man, is breaking every rule there is, asking her for a drink and going on and on about “living water.” She probably thinks he is crazy at first. She tries to remind him where he is, who she is, and just how out of sorts this whole thing is, but he doesn’t seem to hear it. Then he stops her in her tracks by telling her about her personal life, by knowing things he should now know. Perhaps he is a prophet. Maybe he can settle the dispute between Samaritans and Jews that goes back hundreds of years–where are we supposed to worship? On the mountain, in the temple, what really counts in God’s eyes?

It’s no small question; not then, not today. Whether we’re arguing over venues in 1st century Palestine or fretting over livestreams forced upon us by a global pandemic, where and how we worship has always mattered to us.

But beloved, hear Jesus’ response to her:

But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.^[2]

It is not the geography that matters, it’s the authenticity and intentionality of it.

I have to admit that that is good news to me this week, beloved. As I stand here in the space that we usually inhabit together each week it seems so odd to be preaching to an empty room…but this room isn’t empty. We are still gathered together as a body not by our geography, but by our intention to be in community together no matter what. The gift of that is overwhelming. And it’s possible not because of who we are–but because of who God is. Because of who Jesus reveals himself to be. Ego eimi, he tells her there in the desert, I am he.

It’s a phrase that takes us back to another deserted place, this one at the base of a mountain. Another isolated stranger, another revealing conversation. This time between Moses and a burning bush. Who do I tell them that you are, God? How will they know that it is really you?

I am who I am.

My favorite translation of that verse is Dr. Carson Brisson’s — I shall be who I shall be. Tell them that–I shall be sent me to y’all.

From the garden of Eden, to the mount of Horeb, to the desert of Sychar, to right this very minute, and every second to come after, beloved. It’s the same name. The same promise. The same God.

No matter how scared, how isolated, how alone we may feel, God’s promise never changes. There is nothing–no disease, no disaster, no not even death, that can take that away from any of us.

I don’t know about you, but I needed that reminder this week. In the middle of the chaos, God is with us. And because of that, we are called, just like the woman at the well, to leave our work and to go and tell the world–you are not alone!

I shall be sent me to y’all.

While the events of our world may make all traditional ways of doing that difficult, if not impossible, that doesn’t absolve us from the call. It just means we must get creative–figure out how to use our gifts for the good of our neighbors in new ways.

I was reminded of that this week as I watched video after video of deserted streets in Italy being filled with song. A trumpeter serenading his neighbors, an opera singer filling the streets with her song, villagers joining their voices, singing together, cheering and clapping for the nurses and doctors headed into work, using their gifts in creative ways so that no one felt alone, being in community together, holding each other up even when they must be physically apart.

In the coming days and weeks, the world will need us to do the same in whatever way that we can. To find creative ways to meet those in isolation and fear and introduce them to the One who promises never to leave or forsake us.

There’s a poem circulating around that says this more poignantly than I can.

Lockdown – – Fr. Richard Hendrick, OFM^[3]

Yes there is fear.

Yes there is isolation.

Yes there is panic buying.

Yes there is sickness.

Yes there is even death.

 

But,

They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise

You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet

The sky is no longer thick with fumes

But blue and grey and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi

People are singing to each other

across the empty squares,

keeping their windows open

so that those who are alone

may hear the sounds of family around them.

 

They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland

Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.

Today a young woman I know

is busy spreading fliers with her number

through the neighbourhood

So that the elders may have someone to call on.

Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples

are preparing to welcome

and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary

All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting

All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way

All over the world people are waking up to a new reality

To how big we really are.

 

To how little control we really have.

To what really matters.

To Love.

So we pray and we remember that

Yes there is fear.

But there does not have to be hate.

Yes there is isolation.

But there does not have to be loneliness.

Yes there is panic buying.

But there does not have to be meanness.

Yes there is sickness.

But there does not have to be disease of the soul

Yes there is even death.

But there can always be a rebirth of love.

Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.

Today, breathe.

 

Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic

The birds are singing again

The sky is clearing,

Spring is coming,

And we are always encompassed by Love.

 

Open the windows of your soul

And though you may not be able

to touch across the empty square,

Sing.

^{[2]John 4:21-24, The Message.}