Seeing The Whole Person
Sermon
A Clearer Vision
Lenten Midweek Sermons
Not surprisingly, Jesus was dusty and thirsty under the noonday sun after his walk through the high hills and low mountains about forty miles north of Jerusalem. He had come as far as Sychar in the district of Samaria on his way to Galilee. The well near which he sat to rest has great symbolic significance for the story John is about to relate. It was Jacob's well, which means it went back to ancient Israel. Yes, the Samaritan woman even refers to it thus: "... our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself." She also had enough Hebrew religious education to testify, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ)." Near where she lived there had been a Samaritan temple; and she even gets into a discussion of which is the better place to worship, "on this mountain" or in Jerusalem.
How come, since the Judeans and the Samaritans seemed to have so much in common, had they reached such an impasse of bad relations? By the time of Jesus, not only should a Jewish man certainly not speak to a Samaritan woman, but very likely not to any other Samaritan as well. Jesus was definitely out of line here. Being a teacher of religion he should have known that these hill country folks were unclean pagans. Not only did it happen then, but it always happens. My group is better than your group. Back a century ago when this church was organized, there were two kinds of Lutheran immigrants from Denmark. You would think their common background and faith would have been a consolation so far from home; but no, the Holy Danes and the Happy Danes each considered themselves the better group and could not possibly cooperate. They formed separate synods, separate colleges, and separate seminaries, and each group sang out of its own hymnal. And this will always happen. Why? Because my group is better than your group, naturally. And I wouldn't be surprised but what you would say the same. We need a clearer vision.
How Did The Disciples See The Samaritan Woman?
Let us not be too hard on the disciples for adopting the standard prejudices of the day. I suppose they were like most redneck fishermen using stereotypes as a short cut way of judging character and worth. Can't you hear them bantering back and forth about passersby as they untangled their nets at the end of the day? "Oh, there goes another one; you know how they are." "I know the type; you can't count on 'em." "A Samaritan asked me if he could work on our fishing crew here on the Sea of Galilee. I said, 'No way, man!' I didn't want to start a fight; but I sure didn't want him hanging around." Did you catch me saying "redneck"? Isn't that stereotyping?
We must remember that, according to John's account, the disciples had only been in training a short while. There was the dramatic lesson at the wedding at Cana, when they really started believing in Jesus. Then there was the time they went on retreat at Capernaum for a few days. The encounter of Jesus with the money changers in the temple threw them for a loss. And maybe Jesus' counseling session with Nicodemus was confidential, and they hadn't been involved in that lesson. So here they were returning from downtown with the groceries for lunch when they stopped dead in their tracks. John reports that "they marveled that he was talking with a woman." No one asked, "Why are you talking with her?" or "Do you want to get us all in trouble? Have you forgotten? These are Samaritans up here -- these hillbillies."
Impetuous Peter was quick to add his caution, as he would later when Jesus had to rebuke him, "Get behind me, Satan." Peter said, "Remember when the Judean Ku Klux Klan had their rally just before we left Jerusalem. They urged the Sanhedrin to pass even stricter laws not only against marrying into pagan groups, but also against even fraternizing, which can lead to the same thing." Another whispered, "There was even talk about ethnic cleansing, pushing these Samaritans further north where they belong. Weren't they rightfully expelled from the people of God as Nehemiah reports at the end of his memoirs? Oh, it was awful when the son of our high priest married the daughter of Sanballat. Nehemiah fixed 'em as he reported in the last chapter of his book.
Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, the covenant of the priests and the Levites. Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign, and I established the duties of the priests and Levites, each in his work....
-- Nehemiah 13:29-30
Oh, Jesus, the time may come when the Serbian Judeans once again cleanse this region of the unclean Samaritans. He sat down all out of breath after making his point so forcefully.
After more training in the new Gospel of Discipleship course, these students of Jesus' teaching would forsake such bigotry and discover a whole new way of seeing people. Later on they would find that Jesus did not hesitate to draw near to "unclean" persons, sick people, disgusting cases of leprosy, a mental case raving with an evil spirit, a rich young ruler, and also a centurion; you name it, Jesus dealt with it, whatever the "it" might be. They would be in the Discipleship Course for several more semesters before they got the point and could see others with a clearer vision.
How Did Jesus See The Samaritan Woman?
Jesus begins the conversation in a remarkably simple and straightforward manner. Nothing about "Please," "You can understand how thirsty I am since I've walked a long way," or "If it's not too much bother, I'd appreciate it if you'd be so kind as to give me a drink since I have neither cup nor bucket." No, it is not even a polite request, but just a bald-faced command: "Give me a drink." And, as was so like him, he almost immediately departs from the mundane topic to a spiritual one: "living water." Now it so happens that this woman had made two bad mistakes. First she got born into a Samaritan family; and second, she fails at one marriage after another. Jesus may well have known this before even addressing her; but he does not focus on this or that stigma, failure, or mistake. He just begins by recognizing her as a person, a person with a bucket that can bring up water from Jacob's well.
The Samaritan woman intuitively recognizes the symbolism of some kind of living water and finally asks a favor in return. She had been to the well often (five times to the marriage well) and had come away still thirsty for a fulfilling life, a refreshing fellowship. Maybe she had not had her thirst quenched at other kinds of wells of life; who knows? The point is that Jesus was not turned off either by her ethnic barrier nor her misfortunes. When she is finally caught in the conversation as Jesus reveals her present situation, Jesus does not bring the law of adultery crashing down upon her head, as he well could have since the Judeans and the Samaritans had had long controversy about how to interpret the Torah (Commandments). He even affirms her by saying, "... and he whom you have is not your husband; this you said truly." Layer after layer of her life unfolds in the conversation to the point where she exclaims that Jesus must be a prophet of some kind.
What kind of impact did Jesus' encounter with the woman have? It was very positive, and very likely quite different from the many negative experiences she had with relatives and neighbors, who would have said, "If I told you once, I've told you a thousand times, if you keep on like this you'll come to no good. You'll end up like a common prostitute the way you're headed." After this fairly brief encounter with Jesus, she rushed back into Sychar and exclaimed, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" The people must have been amazed that she did not flee from one who knew all this bad stuff about her. Here was the original "tough love," acceptance in spite of blemishes, handicaps, mistakes, failures, and sin. She experienced grace, the grace of God, and knew it. It was good news for her, the good news she wanted to share with others.
The Samaritans also sensed the blessing of Jesus' presence and grace and asked him to stay with them. One wonders how many others got a clearer vision for their lives because of their encounter with this prophet, who could see so clearly all that made up the whole person, the strengths and weaknesses, the shame of group rejection and prejudice as well as the guilt of failures.
How Are We Doing At Seeing The Whole Person?
If a person is below average, handicapped, or has a strike against her/him in the form of a stigma, it is a great relief to be accepted nevertheless. How gratifying it is to such a one to be accepted for the many other aspects of personality, ability, capacity, and potential even though there are those couple defects or deficiencies. And we all need that since none of us, I believe, is perfect; and even for the perfect one, the very fact of having to be balanced precariously is a problem. Just this past year a cheerleader was so wonderful that she was in danger of being killed out of jealousy.
On page 35 (see the printed book version for illustrations in figures 1-4) are four exhibits of persons who have something "wrong" with them, a problem to say the least. As you look at these pictures, is the defect the first thing you notice? Does it blot out the rest of the person? Maybe Hester Prynne, in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter (Figure 1), had other qualities like a good singing voice or great skill at weaving. I believe Jesus would have been as inspirational to her as he was to the other Samaritan woman. And, by the way, how would it feel to wear that chain of shame around your neck all day every day?
Figure 2 is myself before I had finished my therapy at the Speech Clinic at the University of Minnesota. Once I had come to accept myself, it became much easier to accept others who were different in some way, maybe missing an arm or leg, confined to a wheelchair, hard of hearing, or blind. Not that we fully understand another, but maybe we are at least less likely to reject the Samaritan woman before us or in the crowd. It is harder for a "perfect" or terribly normal and average person to accept deformity and deficiency. Jesus explained it like this in the case of another Samaritan Woman type. The Pharisees noticed quickly that the woman, anointing Jesus' feet at the dinner table, was a woman of ill repute.
If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him -- that she is a sinner ... [Jesus replied] she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, [or who has not been accepted] loves little.
-- Luke 7:39, 47
The little baby in Figure 3 may have very good hearing and perfectly normal arms and legs, but even if we try not to, we stare and are shocked by the startling-looking mouth and distorted nose. It so happened that this child was very fortunate because surgery did wonders for him. His after surgery photo looks normal with the exception of a slight scar. But I do not show that picture. I want to know if you can love him before he is improved. Or do you and I have to wait until he is brought back to normalcy before we say, "Oh, I see this is a child of God, created in God's image." It's a challenge. Every time we can react like Jesus did with the Samaritan woman and others who deviated from normal and ideal, that is another time we are blessing someone and growing in grace a little more ourselves. It is a good feeling when it happens, when grace happens within us by the help of the Holy Spirit.
When I showed Figure 4 to our confirmation class, there was a gasp just like when I showed it to my university Seminar on Stigma. But when I told them she was only twelve years old, there was another audible gasp. I never found out what became of her and if she was helped with this strange medical anomaly, but I know that both classes and I wrestled with our own feelings. Would I have been able to walk up to her in a casual way and say, "Hi, my name is David. What is your name?" As one person with cerebral palsy and a considerably distorted body in a wheelchair said to me, "I wish people would look at me and not just my shell." She would have been happy to have met Jesus because he would have seen the whole person, not just the shell. I am happy to say she belongs to a very supportive church, and she knows Jesus accepts her just as she is. She doesn't have to wait to get better to be loved by God. She's a lot like the Samaritan woman that way. Aren't we all? Amen.
How come, since the Judeans and the Samaritans seemed to have so much in common, had they reached such an impasse of bad relations? By the time of Jesus, not only should a Jewish man certainly not speak to a Samaritan woman, but very likely not to any other Samaritan as well. Jesus was definitely out of line here. Being a teacher of religion he should have known that these hill country folks were unclean pagans. Not only did it happen then, but it always happens. My group is better than your group. Back a century ago when this church was organized, there were two kinds of Lutheran immigrants from Denmark. You would think their common background and faith would have been a consolation so far from home; but no, the Holy Danes and the Happy Danes each considered themselves the better group and could not possibly cooperate. They formed separate synods, separate colleges, and separate seminaries, and each group sang out of its own hymnal. And this will always happen. Why? Because my group is better than your group, naturally. And I wouldn't be surprised but what you would say the same. We need a clearer vision.
How Did The Disciples See The Samaritan Woman?
Let us not be too hard on the disciples for adopting the standard prejudices of the day. I suppose they were like most redneck fishermen using stereotypes as a short cut way of judging character and worth. Can't you hear them bantering back and forth about passersby as they untangled their nets at the end of the day? "Oh, there goes another one; you know how they are." "I know the type; you can't count on 'em." "A Samaritan asked me if he could work on our fishing crew here on the Sea of Galilee. I said, 'No way, man!' I didn't want to start a fight; but I sure didn't want him hanging around." Did you catch me saying "redneck"? Isn't that stereotyping?
We must remember that, according to John's account, the disciples had only been in training a short while. There was the dramatic lesson at the wedding at Cana, when they really started believing in Jesus. Then there was the time they went on retreat at Capernaum for a few days. The encounter of Jesus with the money changers in the temple threw them for a loss. And maybe Jesus' counseling session with Nicodemus was confidential, and they hadn't been involved in that lesson. So here they were returning from downtown with the groceries for lunch when they stopped dead in their tracks. John reports that "they marveled that he was talking with a woman." No one asked, "Why are you talking with her?" or "Do you want to get us all in trouble? Have you forgotten? These are Samaritans up here -- these hillbillies."
Impetuous Peter was quick to add his caution, as he would later when Jesus had to rebuke him, "Get behind me, Satan." Peter said, "Remember when the Judean Ku Klux Klan had their rally just before we left Jerusalem. They urged the Sanhedrin to pass even stricter laws not only against marrying into pagan groups, but also against even fraternizing, which can lead to the same thing." Another whispered, "There was even talk about ethnic cleansing, pushing these Samaritans further north where they belong. Weren't they rightfully expelled from the people of God as Nehemiah reports at the end of his memoirs? Oh, it was awful when the son of our high priest married the daughter of Sanballat. Nehemiah fixed 'em as he reported in the last chapter of his book.
Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, the covenant of the priests and the Levites. Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign, and I established the duties of the priests and Levites, each in his work....
-- Nehemiah 13:29-30
Oh, Jesus, the time may come when the Serbian Judeans once again cleanse this region of the unclean Samaritans. He sat down all out of breath after making his point so forcefully.
After more training in the new Gospel of Discipleship course, these students of Jesus' teaching would forsake such bigotry and discover a whole new way of seeing people. Later on they would find that Jesus did not hesitate to draw near to "unclean" persons, sick people, disgusting cases of leprosy, a mental case raving with an evil spirit, a rich young ruler, and also a centurion; you name it, Jesus dealt with it, whatever the "it" might be. They would be in the Discipleship Course for several more semesters before they got the point and could see others with a clearer vision.
How Did Jesus See The Samaritan Woman?
Jesus begins the conversation in a remarkably simple and straightforward manner. Nothing about "Please," "You can understand how thirsty I am since I've walked a long way," or "If it's not too much bother, I'd appreciate it if you'd be so kind as to give me a drink since I have neither cup nor bucket." No, it is not even a polite request, but just a bald-faced command: "Give me a drink." And, as was so like him, he almost immediately departs from the mundane topic to a spiritual one: "living water." Now it so happens that this woman had made two bad mistakes. First she got born into a Samaritan family; and second, she fails at one marriage after another. Jesus may well have known this before even addressing her; but he does not focus on this or that stigma, failure, or mistake. He just begins by recognizing her as a person, a person with a bucket that can bring up water from Jacob's well.
The Samaritan woman intuitively recognizes the symbolism of some kind of living water and finally asks a favor in return. She had been to the well often (five times to the marriage well) and had come away still thirsty for a fulfilling life, a refreshing fellowship. Maybe she had not had her thirst quenched at other kinds of wells of life; who knows? The point is that Jesus was not turned off either by her ethnic barrier nor her misfortunes. When she is finally caught in the conversation as Jesus reveals her present situation, Jesus does not bring the law of adultery crashing down upon her head, as he well could have since the Judeans and the Samaritans had had long controversy about how to interpret the Torah (Commandments). He even affirms her by saying, "... and he whom you have is not your husband; this you said truly." Layer after layer of her life unfolds in the conversation to the point where she exclaims that Jesus must be a prophet of some kind.
What kind of impact did Jesus' encounter with the woman have? It was very positive, and very likely quite different from the many negative experiences she had with relatives and neighbors, who would have said, "If I told you once, I've told you a thousand times, if you keep on like this you'll come to no good. You'll end up like a common prostitute the way you're headed." After this fairly brief encounter with Jesus, she rushed back into Sychar and exclaimed, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" The people must have been amazed that she did not flee from one who knew all this bad stuff about her. Here was the original "tough love," acceptance in spite of blemishes, handicaps, mistakes, failures, and sin. She experienced grace, the grace of God, and knew it. It was good news for her, the good news she wanted to share with others.
The Samaritans also sensed the blessing of Jesus' presence and grace and asked him to stay with them. One wonders how many others got a clearer vision for their lives because of their encounter with this prophet, who could see so clearly all that made up the whole person, the strengths and weaknesses, the shame of group rejection and prejudice as well as the guilt of failures.
How Are We Doing At Seeing The Whole Person?
If a person is below average, handicapped, or has a strike against her/him in the form of a stigma, it is a great relief to be accepted nevertheless. How gratifying it is to such a one to be accepted for the many other aspects of personality, ability, capacity, and potential even though there are those couple defects or deficiencies. And we all need that since none of us, I believe, is perfect; and even for the perfect one, the very fact of having to be balanced precariously is a problem. Just this past year a cheerleader was so wonderful that she was in danger of being killed out of jealousy.
On page 35 (see the printed book version for illustrations in figures 1-4) are four exhibits of persons who have something "wrong" with them, a problem to say the least. As you look at these pictures, is the defect the first thing you notice? Does it blot out the rest of the person? Maybe Hester Prynne, in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter (Figure 1), had other qualities like a good singing voice or great skill at weaving. I believe Jesus would have been as inspirational to her as he was to the other Samaritan woman. And, by the way, how would it feel to wear that chain of shame around your neck all day every day?
Figure 2 is myself before I had finished my therapy at the Speech Clinic at the University of Minnesota. Once I had come to accept myself, it became much easier to accept others who were different in some way, maybe missing an arm or leg, confined to a wheelchair, hard of hearing, or blind. Not that we fully understand another, but maybe we are at least less likely to reject the Samaritan woman before us or in the crowd. It is harder for a "perfect" or terribly normal and average person to accept deformity and deficiency. Jesus explained it like this in the case of another Samaritan Woman type. The Pharisees noticed quickly that the woman, anointing Jesus' feet at the dinner table, was a woman of ill repute.
If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him -- that she is a sinner ... [Jesus replied] she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, [or who has not been accepted] loves little.
-- Luke 7:39, 47
The little baby in Figure 3 may have very good hearing and perfectly normal arms and legs, but even if we try not to, we stare and are shocked by the startling-looking mouth and distorted nose. It so happened that this child was very fortunate because surgery did wonders for him. His after surgery photo looks normal with the exception of a slight scar. But I do not show that picture. I want to know if you can love him before he is improved. Or do you and I have to wait until he is brought back to normalcy before we say, "Oh, I see this is a child of God, created in God's image." It's a challenge. Every time we can react like Jesus did with the Samaritan woman and others who deviated from normal and ideal, that is another time we are blessing someone and growing in grace a little more ourselves. It is a good feeling when it happens, when grace happens within us by the help of the Holy Spirit.
When I showed Figure 4 to our confirmation class, there was a gasp just like when I showed it to my university Seminar on Stigma. But when I told them she was only twelve years old, there was another audible gasp. I never found out what became of her and if she was helped with this strange medical anomaly, but I know that both classes and I wrestled with our own feelings. Would I have been able to walk up to her in a casual way and say, "Hi, my name is David. What is your name?" As one person with cerebral palsy and a considerably distorted body in a wheelchair said to me, "I wish people would look at me and not just my shell." She would have been happy to have met Jesus because he would have seen the whole person, not just the shell. I am happy to say she belongs to a very supportive church, and she knows Jesus accepts her just as she is. She doesn't have to wait to get better to be loved by God. She's a lot like the Samaritan woman that way. Aren't we all? Amen.
