<html><body><div>A draft for Sunday.</div><div><br></div><div>Part 1</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><div><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT a</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>EXODUS 17:107<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>19<sup>th</sup> MARCH, 2017</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>ROMANS 5:1-11 <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 95</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>JOHN 4:5-42</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Men are a funny lot! They seem to think they’re rational, they’re helpful, they’re understanding. And, of course, there <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ARE</u></b> times when they seem to be like that.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s unfair to say that men are any better, or worse, than women. But put men in certain situations, allow them to believe that they have certain responsibilities, and all sorts of patriarchal tendencies can surface. We don‘t need to delve into history to find that either. We can see it around us right here, right now – wherever we look, in fact. The question is, how do we deal with the grace with which God blesses us? How do we acknowledge the individual gifts and talents in each of us, and learn to share them? How do we, for instance, take the Good News of Love of which Jesus spoke and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOT</u></b> keep it to ourselves, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOT</u></b> try to use it to subjugate and control anyone else? As the apostle Paul wrote of the gift of the Sacrament of Eucharist, Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” Jesus said that we were to drink it. Not that some of us were to drink it. Not that a few of us were to drink it. But that it is the Cup given to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>US</u></b>. Full stop. We don’t ask that the Spirit bless the Wine so that certain people may find in it the love of God, and that others may not. The Sacrament, just like the Gospel, is for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ALL</u></b>, without reservation.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This can be so hard to accept and to make the pattern of our lives, though. This can and does lead to so much tension, so much abuse, so much isolation – often precisely at the hands of the Church.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Take a look, now, if you like, at the first illustration in this morning’s bulletin. <sup>1</sup> It’s a very early fourteenth century depiction of part of the Gospel that was read by Deacon Peggy.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The initial encounter of the Samaritan woman and Jesus has taken place. The pair have engaged in what was a discussion of really deep, important theological principles. Both had been enlightened. Both, now, according to the artist Duccio, are at peace with one another, so much so that each seems to be offering a blessing to the other. Their eyes are fixed on one another.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But look at the expression on the faces of some of the disciples. They’ve returned from the city and are completely floored by what they saw.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You don’t need me to rehearse all the reasons they think that Jesus had broken the rules – an unattended woman, a Samaritan, the middle of the day. But the disciples seem aghast that Jesus and the woman are engaged in such an intimate encounter.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Look at the second illustration, the bronze statue in the courtyard of Chester Cathedral, and try to tell me that this is not an incredibly intimate moment into which the disciples have stumbled. <sup>2</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yet this is one of the main points of the this recollection by the evangelist. Jesus and the woman have discovered Love, the intensity of God’s compassion for very last one of us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THIS</u></b> is what upset the disciples, perhaps more than the rule-breaking. Jesus was sharing with that, that, that woman what they assumed was for them, first and foremost, if not for them alone.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The theologian Jean Vanier puts it succinctly, “</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>The meeting of Jesus and this Samaritan woman at the well is a meeting of love. Jesus, the divine Bridegroom, came to reveal his love to all who are seeking to draw water from the well of love.” <sup>3</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Think of the sense of shock, the appearance of rivalry, that comes when an only child is told that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HER</u></b> parents, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HIS</u></b> parents, are going to bring in to the family a sibling to mean that love will have to be shared.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I know that it doesn’t always happen this way, but we all know that it can and does occur, that adjustments have to be made, that potential disappointments have to be faced and dealt with.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I can imagine the disciples coming back from town, laughing, joking, maybe teasing, and, all of a sudden, they’re stopped dead in their tracks. You could have heard a pebble drop, probably.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Good grief, it would have been shocking enough if Jesus and a Samaritan man had been talking to one another, and sharing about the intensity of Love. But a woman! Had Jesus lost His mind?</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We have – let me say it – men can have such a way that assuming that they’re the best thing that God invented since goat cheese.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>O.K., I know, it’s not just men. If we’re honest, it’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ANY</u></b>one who has, or assumes that they have, not only the power, but the divine right to exercise it over others.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Once again, though, Jesus bursts open every single preconception we may have. He even burst through some of His own, or rather, the Samaritan woman gave Him a helpful theology lesson on the Love of God. She taught Him that thirst for Love, both giving and receiving, is something which everyone experiences, and for which everyone seeks satisfaction.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This thirst was not new to the people of Jesus’ time.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Thirst for Life; Thirst for Love; Thirst for Justice; literal Thirst for clean water – it’s as old as the first creatures.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><br></p></div></div></body></html>