This was the sermon I preached the week before I was asked to comment on the Equal Marriage Legislation that was to come into law in England. May be I listened to myself and it is behind the rest of the radio and TV interviews. Maybe it was still in my mind when I asked ++Justin the question that has led to such controvosy in the Anglican Communion. As it was an important part of my thinking process at that time I thought I'd share it via my blog.
May my words be in the name of the living God, creating, redeeming and sustaining. Amen.
To me the woman is an interesting character. It would have been customary for women to travel together and collect the water early in the morning before the heat of the day was upon them. As there was no Facebook or texting, this was important community time when they could touch base with each other and support and uphold each other in life’s ups and downs.
Our woman is out and about in the heat of the noonday sun. She is alone. She is shunned by her community. She has had it hard. There have been 5 previous husbands. We don’t know whether they are dead or have divorced her. It is clear, and just from that little bit of knowledge, we can tell she has had it tough. She is with a 6th man and is not married to him. It would be easy to fall into judging her and thinking she is a shady character because of all these men in her life and then living in ‘sin’. We have to remember the culture though. Women had to pay a dowry to get married. It could be that after 5 husbands there was nothing left. We just don’t know and I think it’s important not to get dragged in to being judgmental.
Another bit of background information for you is the reason behind the animosity between the Jewish and Samaritan cultures. The Jews and Samaritans are actually related people. Both are Hebrews. The Samaritans are from the old northern kingdom of Israel, while the Jews are from the old southern kingdom of Judah. To cut a long story short, the Samaritans inter-married with non-Jewish people and lost much of their ethnic identity, while the Jews maintained theirs and kept separate. Each group ended up with their own temple, the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, the Jews on Mount Zion. And so it is a really strange choice that Jesus makes to travel through what he would’ve known was Samaritan territory. That he strikes up a conversation with a Samaritan and a lone woman is even stranger and is breaching lots of taboos
I think you could take this gospel reading off in a number of directions but to me its essence is about difference, compassion acceptance and forgiveness. Should be a piece of cake to us all these 1000’s of years later but it’s not that easy is it? All that forgiveness business is really challenging. As you know I work at St Augustine Academy. I don’t know if you can remember back to the emotional challenges of your teenage years but I am often called upon to mediate in disputes with the kids. They get very hurt and upset when they don’t feel accepted by their peers. Friendship issues can be very challenging at that age. We have a way of dealing with some of these challenges by using a restorative justice approach. This concentrates on the wrongdoer explaining what they were thinking and feeling at the time the incident happened and how they think and feel differently once they realise who has been impacted by their actions and in what way they have hurt someone. Then it’s their job to put it right. The young people come up with their own punishments which are often far more difficult than had it been left to a traditional model of staff sorting it out. It has a huge and beneficial impact on all who are involved. The key component is the wrong doer has to acknowledge the harm they have done.
A friend and neighbour of mine was murdered a few years ago. Life is sometimes not easy! And forgiveness is not an easy gift to give! Yet, for our own health, it is a necessity. Yet I also have to acknowledge I have a stumbling block over the word forgiveness. I don’t like the fact that Christians sometimes abuse the gift of forgiveness and sometimes people are forced into a position of forgiveness with the person in the wrong having never acknowledged any wrong doing. In order to get over that stumbling block I’d like us this morning to interchange the words forgiveness and reconciliation. It’s like when you change the word should to could it can be totally transforming. I should pray more becomes I could pray more. So when I’m talking about forgiveness I also want you to hear reconcile and reconciliation.
Ever since I can remember the world has been faced with great outbursts of hatred, bitterness, and anger; and various groups, countries and individuals have caused enormous harm to others. And what really gets me is that often these actions are done “in the name of God.” But our God is not a God of hatred. Our God is a God of unending and unconditional love. Jesus shows that by crossing the cultural divide with the Samaritan woman. He holds no animosity towards her because of her race or her ‘sinful’ state.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is one of my hero’s He used to also be the chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This is where restorative justice approaches came from. He says this, “to forgive is a process that does not exclude hate and anger. These emotions are all part of being human.” He continues, “You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things; the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger.” This great Anglican humanitarian and spiritual pioneer reminds us of our responsibilities. Tutu stresses that, “When I talk of forgiveness, I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred.”
You know until we find in ourselves the capacity to forgive and reconcile, and the ability to celebrate our differences and see our sameness, we continue to be linked to the cause of our anger and our unforgiving harsh emotions. Only as we reconcile/forgive/accept/love are we able to move on and become the person that God has called us to be.
There was a young woman interviewed on television not long after one of the London bombings. She survived the bomb on the tube, and miraculously escaped with only bruises and the psychological scars that such an event would leave. She was asked by a reporter could she forgive those who caused the bombing? She answered, “I would hope that I could, but I don’t know who to forgive. Until I am able to see the face of such hatred, I do not know how deep I must dig in my spirit to find forgiveness.”
Another woman who was a Non Stipendairy Priest stopped her role as a cleric because her daughter was killed in the same wave of bombing. She said how could she prech about forgivemness if she couldnt practice it herself.
Hatred comes in many forms; tragedies like 9/11, the suicide bombings in Palestine and Israel, Muslims killing Muslims, young gangs doing harm to other young people with guns and knives. Russia and the Ukraine and the Crimea. On it goes. It’s also important that we remember the awful crimes that are committed because someone is different just by virtue of their birth like Steven Lawrence.
I’m talking about big things, yet acts requiring forgiveness are often much more personal to most of us than what I’ve been talking about. Incidents of simple human frailties challenge each of us often on a daily basis:
- The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness in painful family relationships.
- The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness with an employer or a difficult boss.
- The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness with a friend who’s not been there for us.
- The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness for the teacher who may have judged us wrongly.
- The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness when in conflict with your husband/wife/partner
- The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness when “the church” turns against what we believe
We need to follow Jesus example and move on from things. We need to be reconciled. It will not be easy, but God is there to help. We can do this by simply offering that person who is driving us nuts up to God. That’s always a good starting point. When we forgive and move into reconciliation we make a choice that heals.
We may never forget the hurt we have experienced, but we can choose to move on. Time does heal memories. Time can dull the vividness of the hurt and so the memory will fade. We must never let the person who hurt us, own us. A quote puts it like this “bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”
My father was alcoholic. How did I move on from an abusive father who never acknowledged any wrong doing? I do it and have done it because that is the only way I can be free. I refuse to be bound by the things of the past. I can be reconciled without condoning the awful things that were done to me. None of us should ever excuse the atrocities which we experience or that happen in the world. We don’t accept what’s happened to us but we can change the way we react to it. What has helped me is knowing that God loves me utterly with such love that at times it overwhelms me. God shows that love to each and everyone of us through our friends, our families and neighbours and by our church communities. We are the channels of God’s love and healing power in the world.
What can you do today with all that love that is available to you? Is there someone you need to forgive or be reconciled to? Is there a group of people you are suspicious of like the Jews and Samaritans were? Do you hold hostility in your heart about certain issues? Is there someone you need to say sorry too? Why not go for it and let these things go remembering that Jesus has already shown you the way so you won’t be on your own.
Amen
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