"He Told Me Everything I Have Ever Done"

“He Told Me Everything I Have Ever Done”

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

March 23, 2014; Third Sunday in Lent, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

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(John 4:5-42)  Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, `Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, `I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, `Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, `One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

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Nathaniel Hawthorn’s masterpiece The Scarlet Letter opens with the village gathered at the town scaffold for the punishment of Hester Prynne, a woman who has been found guilty of adultery.  Her sentence:  she must endure three hours of public shaming on the scaffold, and she must wear a scarlet “A” on her dress as an enduring sign of shame.  Her accusers, including the minister of her church Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, demand that she name the father.  Hester refuses.

Hester survives the sentencing and then goes on with her life, living with quiet dignity, raising her child, making a living with her needlework, and wearing her scarlet letter. 

Gradually we learn the identity of the father.  It is Reverend Dimmesdale, who has lived with such guilt and hidden shame that over time it ruins his health.  At the end of the story, knowing he is dying, Dimmesdale climbs upon the scaffold and confesses, dying in Hester’s arms.  Later, there are some who say they saw a stigma upon his chest in the form of a scarlet “A.” 

In the Middle East, women go to the well to draw water in the cool of the morning.  They go together in groups and enjoy each others’ company.  Our gospel story today opens with a solitary woman drawing water from Jacob’s well at noon, the hottest time of the day.  The inference?  She is ostracized.  Shunned in a culture where community, connection, and family are everything. 

The setting is in Samaria.  The scripture says, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.”  That’s putting it mildly.  A Jew was regarded as unclean if a Samaritan’s shadow crossed him.

Two other cultural notes.  In the Middle East, it is unacceptable for an adult man to speak to an adult woman who is not a member of his own family.  And further, to ask another person for a drink of water has a deeper meaning in the Middle East.  It is a coded message.  To ask for a drink of water is to extend an offer of friendship.  If the person addressed does not wish to accept the offer to share friendship, they will point to the jar or bottle and say, “Help yourself.”  If they wish to accept friendship, they will pour the water themselves.[i]

So, it is noon, and a weary Jewish traveler stops at Jacob’s well to rest.  He speaks (horrors!) to the lone Samaritan woman.  “Give me a drink.”  An offer of friendship.  The woman is stupefied.  “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”  Such an offer crosses unimaginable barriers. 

Then Jesus offers her even more.  Not just water, or even friendship.  But “living water… gushing up to eternal life.”  His offer touches some deep aching need in her heart.  “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water,” a daily reminder of her outcast status.

“Go, call your husband, and come back.”  I think at this point the woman caught her breath and paused.  Jesus has touched her shame.  Her past, and maybe her past history with men, is probably the reason for her exile.  Jesus has hit a painful note.

The woman now has a choice.  She can retreat into her protective shell.  She can cut off this unorthodox conversation, get her water and go back to her familiar life.  Or she can risk.  She can risk emotional honesty.  She can be vulnerable and tell him the truth. 

TED Talk star Brené Brown says, “Choosing authenticity means cultivating the courage to be emotionally honest, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.”  She says “we are all made of strength and struggle,” so we can be compassionate to one another.  We are all “connected to each other through a loving and resilient human spirit.”  Brené Brown asserts that “nurturing the connection and sense of belonging… can only happen when we let go of what we are supposed to be and embrace who we are.”[ii]

“I have no husband,” the Samaritan woman says to Jesus in courageous, vulnerable honesty.  “You are right,” replies Jesus.  “…for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.  What you have said is true!”

How will this woman react to this vulnerable knowing?

Listen again to Brené Brown.  “Authenticity demands wholehearted living and loving – even when it’s hard, even when we’re wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we’re afraid to let ourselves feel it.”

I believe the Samaritan woman felt a certain joy.  She knew herself as being known.  Yes, exposed as not good enough.  But there was something in the manner of the knowing that touched a possibility of joy she had never known.  This man could be different from the other men in her life.  Would her fear shut her down, or could she risk wholehearted living and loving even while wresting with her shame?

She risks joy.  “Sir,” she speaks.  “I see that you are a prophet.”  And she opens up the conversation.  What a conversation it is!  She speaks of her people and their deepest hopes.  Jesus speaks and gives her hope.  The joy expands in her.  She finally wonders, “Could this be?  Could this be Messiah?”  “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

I imagine she barely took notice of the disciples who then arrived at this astonishing scene.  She was so excited she didn’t even notice the left-behind water jar she so laboriously had carried every day at noon.  Instead she hurries back to the village, the place where she was shunned, and she dares to speak.  “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!”  She knows she risks ridicule.  She risks stoning as an outcast.  Yet she claims her voice. And a miracle happens.  Many of the people of the city believe her words.  Then a second miracle.  Samaritans invite a Jewish teacher to stay with them.  And they come to know the Savior of the world.  A shamed woman becomes a missionary of truth.

I opened this sermon with the story of another shamed woman of grace, Hester Prynne and the father of her child, Reverend Dimmesdale.  Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story reminds us that there is public shame and there is private shame.  So I want to close with a reminder of last week’s gospel – maybe a story of private shame – the story of Nicodemus’ visit with Jesus. 

You remember.  A leader of the Pharisees, Nicodemus visited Jesus at night.  He must have been drawn to Jesus by something within him; something must have been eating at him.  But he didn’t have the courage to come in the daylight.  When Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born from above, born anew, born again, Nicodemus didn’t seem to get it.  He leaves, seemingly unenlightened.

But later in John’s gospel, when Jesus is being tried by the authorities, Nicodemus speaks up, reminding them of the rules of a fair trial.  He is shouted down.  Then, after the crucifixion, Nicodemus reappears.  He joins Joseph of Arimathea to claim the body of Jesus and give Jesus a dignified burial.

Rebecca Hass sent me a picture of a statue she saw during the choir’s recent trip to Europe.  It is a sculpture in the church of St. Gervais in Paris.  In the center of the image, Nicodemus is bearing Jesus’ body descending from the cross.  He stands shirtless, proud, serious, strong with an open, knowing intensity in his face.  He bears Christ’s body in the open, now in the light, willing to be seen by any, by all.  No shame; no perplexity; no fear.

Jesus brings living water to the Samaritan woman living in public shame.  Jesus gives new life to Nicodemus carrying his brokenness privately.   Each of them lets go of something old and receives life anew.  As Brené Brown says, “Nurturing the connection and sense of belonging… can only happen when we let go of what we are supposed to be and embrace who we are.”

"He told me everything I have ever done!"

Joy!  

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[i] Thanks again to my friend Paul McCracken and his weekly Lectionary Notes, email for the Third Sunday of Lent, March 23, 2014.  Notes archive at www.jibe-edu.org

[ii] http://brenebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Authenticity_download-1.pdf

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org

Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org

Videos of sermons are posted at http://is.gd/tiwuyu

"Child of God!"

“Child of God!”

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

March 2, 2014; Last Epiphany, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 17:1-9)  Six days after Peter had acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead." 

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My dear friend Craig Gates died last month.  We were priests together in Jackson, Mississippi.  For almost a decade Craig and I were in a small group of friends who met together weekly to share our lives in a forum for mutual accountability.  I teach the method we used regularly to our Journey to Authenticity class.  It’s a powerful tool for growth.  It’s a powerful context for friendship.

Craig was exuberant, extravagant, irrepressible, loud and outgoing.  A larger-than-life Cajun-Italian.  He always greeted friends with a huge hug, and usually a kiss.  It took me a while to get used to that.  And he called everyone, “Child of God.” 

He would be in the middle of a story, enjoying it even more than his listeners, and one of his boys might interrupt.  “Just a moment, Child of God, Poppa’s telling a story,” and he would resume.  At the end of the story, before the laughs could quiet down, he would turn with full attention to his son, “Yes, Child of God, what is it you wanted?”  Not, “Child of Mine,” but “Child of God.” 

That’s what he called all of us. 

Upon departure, Craig’s typical extravagant “Good-bye” was a loving look and the heartfelt words, “Child of God, I love you.” And maybe another uncomfortable kiss.

In the funeral homily, Bishop Duncan Gray mentioned how profuse Craig was with his praise of others, once embarrassing the Bishop with so much extravagant praise that Duncan just stammered for an appropriate response before Craig saved him, “Child of God, just say, ‘thank you’.”  With that word, “Child of God,” Craig was pointing us to our truest identity.

Today we read the story of the disciples on the mountain with their friend Jesus, when their eyes are opened, and they see their friend as he really is – the glorified Child of God.  And they hear his truest identity confirmed by the heavenly voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” 

Some time later they will hear Jesus pray to the Father about all of this, saying, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”  (John 17:22-23) 

How might you live if you always regarded yourself as Beloved Child of God?  What if you consistently remembered, “I am God’s Child; the Beloved,” and embraced that as your deepest identity?

I used to direct summer camps for adults with physical and mental disabilities.  It was great fun.  The highlight of each camp was the Talent Show.  Every camper offered something.  And every offering was greeted with a standing ovation.  A piano solo of random notes – standing ovation.  A group of girls twisting to the Beatles – standing ovation.  Another piano solo of random notes – standing ovation.  A 3-second interpretive dance – standing ovation.  A woman who speaks not a word and seems without the gift of personality sits at the piano.  We wait for the random notes.  She plays “Twinkle, twinkle little star” – standing ovation, with tears.  And the Elvis impersonators – standing ovation, with screaming, fainting female camp counselors.

One of the regular Elvis impersonators was Ross.  Ross was big and round, with a voice that resonated across the camp.  You heard him when he first got off the bus.  “Hey, hey, hey everybody!  Ross is here!” he announced.  “I wanna see all the girls.  I wanna invite all the girls to come up to Greenville to visit me.”  Oh, Ross loved the girls.  And he feared them so.  The girls were wonderful, and awe-ful.  Full of awe.

Ross taught me the meaning of what theologian Rudolph Otto called mysterium tremendum et fascinans – the ineffable numinous mystery that attracts us with dreadful awe and fascination.  Oh, the Girls were mysterium tremendum et fascinans to Ross.  The way he said the word:  “The Girls.”  Full of reverence, wonder and fear.  He gave voice to what so many male adolescent counselors were also feeling but could never express. 

Ross understood mystery and wonder in the presence of numinous power.  He knew The Girls had that power.  So did Elvis.  “The King,” he spoke with respectful wonder.  “Elvis is the King,” he announced in words of praise.  Ross loved Elvis.  And on Talent Night, Ross became Elvis.  He grabbed the microphone, he shook his hips, he waved his scarves, he sang with passion.  And when the girls rushed the stage in screaming adulation, he nearly fainted.  Oh, it was transcendent.  Transfiguring.  Wonderful.  Then followed:  a standing ovation.

There was another mysterium tremendum et fascinans that Ross knew.  Jesus.  Jesus was even more wonderful, powerful and numinous than Elvis and The Girls.  Ross spoke the name with reverence, with whispered awe:  “Jesus.” 

I’ll never forget giving communion to Ross.  I would place the bread into his hands with the familiar words, “the Body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”  He would look at it with reverent awe and speak the Holy Name, “Jesus.”  Then glance to heaven, where it seemed that the veil over eternity must have parted for him to give him a glimpse.  Then he consumed the bread, and his countenance changed into something powerful, energized, renewed.  And he walked away purposefully, empowered with joy.  Chills went up my spine.  Every time.

Ross and the others at that camp lived with challenges I can only imagine.  One of my favorites surprised us one night with a grand mal seizure.  She wasn’t prone to seizures according to her medical form.  Sometime later after she had recovered, I went to see how she was doing.  “I’m retarded, crippled, partially paralyzed in one arm, and legally blind.  Now seizures!  Good Lord!  What next?”  And the way she said it, you knew she knew, she would get through whatever was next, and the Good Lord would be with her to help her through it.  She was radiant, transcendent.  A Child of God.

What if we all lived our lives knowing that we are a Child of God, Beloved?  What if we knew that whatever we offered, it would be received with a standing ovation?  A standing ovation from heaven, where we are loved without qualification.  What if we met our next disappointment and challenge with the honest lament, “Good Lord!  What next?” knowing that we will get through whatever is next, and the Good Lord will be with us to help us through.

In a few moments you will open your hand, and bread will be placed there with the words, “The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”  When that moment comes, will you hear within you the sound of the Holy Name – “Jesus”?  Will you sense the opening of the thin veil between heaven and earth, and will you feel the life, the energy, the empowerment coming upon you?  Can you hear the sound of the heavens?  They speak your name: “Child of God.”  “Child of God, I love you.”

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org

Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org
Find Video Sermons at http://is.gd/tiwuyu