the third sunday in lent: the samaritan woman at the well

by now you may have noticed a pattern to the eucharistic readings in lent. the tempter is surprised that jesus, fresh from his baptismal anointing, does not express his messiahship as one might legitimately expect if the salvation of the world were a reality television show. instead jesus choose the messiahship of isaiah's suffering servant, who a bruised reed shall not break, nor smoking flax quench.

(the motifs of the temptation will reappear in the ministry of christ jesus and his church. he will ask, what father whose child asks for bread would give a stone. james, the brother of jesus, would be flung from the parapet of the temple, resulting in the conversion of many and the pleasure at his death for many more. some would interpret the conversion of constantine as all the nations of at least the imperial world coming under the rule of christ. others would see it as the church yielding to temptation at an opportune time.)

the second sunday it is nicodemus, a ruler of israel, who is suprised by the works and words of the messiah.

and now it is the third sunday, and jesus comes, not at night as had nicodemus, but at noon, to the well jacob had given to his egyptian grandsons, and speaks to a samaritan woman, who is also quite surprised.

lent is not primarily about our works of penitence, although we often speak proudly as if it were. rather it is primarily a time to prepare for the surpassing surprise of the passover of the lord.

if we are honest, the surprise is always greater than we expect. by the grace of god it may be possible to let more of the old man die each year, that more of the new man may rise to new life. but some times we resist the grace, living not the good news, but the alfred hitchcock movie psycho, keeping the old woman alive in the attic so we can put on her clothes to act out the phantasies of death.

in my lent this year i struggle with the big koan of ezekiel, of whose prophetic work is written,

"son of man, the members of your nation are talking about you on the ramparts and in the doorways. they keep saying, 'come and hear the word that has come from YHWH.' . . . and my people sit down in front of you and listen to your words, but they do not act on them. they cannot tell the truth and their hearts are set on dishonest gain. as far as they are concerned, you are like a love song beautifully sung to music. they listen to your words, but no one puts them into practice. when the thing takes place--and it is beginning now--they will learn that there has been a prophet among them." (33:30-33 JB)

These words seem so accurately to describe the church.. this morning we sang "my song is love unknown", and i thought, how sadly true.

the samaritan woman at the well heard the words and put them into practice. then she disappears from our view, except in the legends of the church, a grain of wheat that has fallen on the ground and died, one who loved life and so lost it.

never have i heard the necessary paradox of losing one's life to find it (the gospel according to matthew 10:34) expressed better than by rebecca solnit in a field guide to getting lost:

"lost really has two disparate meanings. losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing. there are objects and people that disappear from your sight or knowledge or possession; you lose a bracelet, a friend, a key. you still know where you are. everything is familiar except that there is one item less, one missing element. or you get lost, in which case the world has become larger than your knowledge of it. either way, there is a loss of control. imagine yourself streaming through time shedding gloves, umbrellas, wrenches, books, friends, homes, names. this is what the view looks life if you take a rear-facing seat on the train. looking forward you constantly acquire moments of arrival, moments of realization, moments of discovery. the wind blows your hair back and you are greeted by what you have never seen before. the material falls away in onrushing experience. it peels off like skin from a molting snake. of course to forget the past is to lose the sense of loss that is also memory of an absent richness and a set of clutes to navigate the present by; the art is not one of forgetting but letting go. and when everything else is gone, you can be rich in loss." (pp. 22-23)

of course. this is what the apostle paul wrote to the church at phillipi: "for him i have accepted the loss of everything, and i look on everything as so much rubbish, if only i can have christ and be given a place in him." (3:8-9 JB)