Listening into Being.

 

“When we listen, we hear someone into existence.”

― Laurie Buchanan, PhD

John 4:5-42 - The Samaritan Woman at The Well.

I didn’t even get a name. I mean, even Mary Magdalene, at least she got a name. It’s Zilpah, by the way, in case you were wondering. Named after the last wife. They always forget about her. I’ve been coming to this well for years. My whole life, of course. But I mean coming at noon. That’s a relatively recent development. 

When I was married off at 14, the women fawned over me, they’d let me go first in line, early in the morning, when it was cool and all the women would fetch their water. My hair was always braided. And even though my husband was thirty years older than I, he bought me the finest robes. And one day I was helping mother milk the goats, and the next day, I was a bride. Two of the goats came with me. My brideprice. Charlotte and Martha were their names. The only thing I took with me from my childhood. When we were married, he bought me my own water pitcher. I kept it on the shelf so everyone would see when they came in that I was a properly married woman. Then he died. It was so quick. And he had debts. And his brother sighed and took me in. It’s the rules after all. 

    Maybe it was me, maybe I’m poison, or cursed, or I neglected him somehow. But by the time I was sixteen, I’d been widowed. Twice. 

So I was passed on to the next brother. Charlotte and Martha came with me. And my pitcher. After the second husband died, I didn’t get first in line at the well in the mornings. Nobody noticed my braids anymore. My robes were faded. It’s just how life goes though, you know? The third brother was a drinker. He’d always start the day with the best of intentions, but then he’d get tired, and grumpy, and he didn’t like how I made the bread. So by about noon, he was slouched in the corner, wineskin in one hand, head drooped, a little bit of spittle on his chin. He’d snore loud when he was drunk. I guess it’s hard, being a man. One day he just wandered off. I kept house and fetched the water and milked the goats for weeks, and nobody ever knew. Those were nice days. Just me and the girls. I’d come later and later to the well, just to avoid the gossip. Just to be alone. 

Of course, they found out eventually. I’d distract and avoid and delay the bill collectors as long as I could. But, you know, a twice widowed woman in tattered robes can only distract for so long. And, you know the man, he always comes to find you. He always gets what he’s due. That’s when I got husband number four. I was twenty-two. I guess he was my husbands’ former landlord’s niece’s son, or something, so when he got the house, I came along with it. But three husbands gone and my womb still closed, I started to sleep in in the mornings. There was still water at midday. So I went then, especially when the morning sickness started. I was like a bingo card - one stillborn, two miscarriages, and then, finally a girl. Number four was pretty mad about that. The girl. The failures. The time it took to get my body back together. She was beautiful though. I named her Rachel. Jacob’s favorite. No one would forget her name. She came out hard and fast, I caught her with my own hands, he took one look and walked away. I didn’t even notice that he didn’t come back for a few days though. She was so beautiful. She nursed so well. Her eyes were so bright. She’d stare wide-eyed right at me whenever I gave her a drink. 

    When he did come back, he had a certificate of divorce. He wasn’t angry. Just matter of fact. I hadn’t met my end of the bargain. He gave me a day to gather my things. I took Rachel. I took the pitcher. I walked out into the kind of heat you can see rippling off the sidewalks. I’d turned one of my old robes into a sort of sling for Rachel. I knocked on doors, asked for odd jobs, the laundry, scrubbing the tile, milking the goats, and we got by. I rented a room. I tried to save so that I could go home. Introduce my family to Rachel. Maybe my mom would let me come home now. Would she remember me? Would she recognize me? Would she turn her back in shame? 

    But the woman of the house had a fever, and the next day her husband took me to the gates and made it official. I guess I was his now. I was twenty five. It was fine. At least I had a roof over my head. Some goats to milk. Rachel was getting strong. Her first word was “no!” The bruises healed eventually, but I couldn’t stand the stares I’d get waiting in line at the well. They were full of disgust. Full of pity. The first time I found a bruise on Rachel, I thought she’d tripped. She was always twirling and dancing in the sun. But the second bruise, I knew. 

    We left at night. She asked “why” and “where are we going” about a thousand times. “I don’t know” I said. I said, “I think I must be cursed.” We wandered a long time. The pitcher of water I’d brought dried up, Rachel began to whine. And then to cry. And then she stayed real quiet. I didn’t have a plan. I just followed the road as it took us further and further away from that day I was fourteen, hair braided, new robes, the women fawning, and I was first in line to fill my beautiful new pitcher. It was so hot. The road was dusty. I just needed a minute to sit. Just a minute to rest. 

    I don’t know how long I was out. But it was dark. Rachel was nudging me awake. “Momma, momma,” she said, “a man is coming.” He stopped, he let us into his wagon. He made us some tea. He took us back to town. He let us stay in his home. I knew it wouldn’t be free. There is always a price. But he let us stay. And Rachel grew up. She’s fourteen now. Looking for suitors, always dreaming, always eyes above her station. She knows I have no goats for her.  

    And I went to the well in the middle of the day, in the heat of the day, as I usually did, because I couldn’t stand the whispers, because I knew I wasn’t welcome, because this place of gathering and community would be vacant while everyone took their midday naps, and I could weep in peace. I know I look older than 36. Years of avoiding eye contact have a way of forming a permanent hunch in your back. Years of getting water at noon have a way of turning your skin to leather. 

And there he was.

He looked as tired as I felt.

I don’t know how long he’d been waiting, but he had his head in his arms, and his back was rising and falling, up and down. 

I almost didn’t stay. Could we do without water until tomorrow? This man could demand anything from me, and I would have to give it to him.

I turned away, trying to do the calculations in my head, a gallon for the goats, a gallon for the wash, a few cups for the meals. Maybe I could just come back tomorrow.

But he cleared his throat. It was scratchy. He said, “Give me water, please.” 

I almost laughed out loud.

Seriously? You want some water, from me? Do you even know who you’re talking to?

Maybe he thought I needed permission or something, because then he said, “Go get your husband and come back.” 

Then I did laugh out loud. 

And then I finally said it out loud. 

The tears came quick. I wasn’t expecting. “I have no husband.” I swallowed hard.

“I know,” he said. “You used to have five. And the man you’re living with now isn’t your husband.” 

And he knew. He just knew. He knew my whole story. 

All I said was “I have no husband,” and he knew about the marriage at fourteen, he knew about all the dead husbands, the disappearing husbands, the beating husbands, even the night on the road and Rachel shoving at my arm to get me awake. My whole story. And he still wanted a drink. From me.

And he let me ask questions.

And we talked theology. 

And we discussed politics. 

Like I was one of the guys. 

Like I could be taught. 

Like I got to sit at the table, and not just set it.

And then he let me know him. He said, “I Am.”

    I was startled when the crowd of men came running up to him. I’ve seen my fair share of freaked out men, and let me tell you, these guys were freaked. 

I left my pitcher. 

I just ran off. 

What was I thinking, a woman talking to a man, a Samaritan talking to a Jew, a widow carrying her curse around in her weathered skin and hunched shoulders? I didn’t even give him a drink! I just ran. I left him there, thirsty, surrounded by scandalized men, my first husband’s pitcher set on the well’s edge like my whole life had been.

And then suddenly I was knocking on doors and shouting in the square, “Hurry. Come see. This man knew me. Really knew me. My whole story. And he asked for a drink. And then he said, “I Am.” Could he be the one we’ve been waiting for?”

My name is Zilpah. This is my story. I am Zilpah. And that man at the well in the heat of the day, he is I am. This is what I know.

    See, some people get their miracles through dramatic healings, fevers cured, eyes opened, children lifted by the hand from their coffins. Not me. I’ve never seen loads of fish straining their nets. I’ve never feasted with a crowd on five loaves and three fish. But for me, that dry and dusty road that stretches far ahead of me, that threatens to take the life from me, that weathers my skin and hunches my shoulders, for just a moment, there was a little fork in the road, an exit sign, a detour, and for just a second, I saw a different way, there was a different path, and I was free. 

This is my story. I’ll not be ashamed.

This couldn’t be the Messiah, could it? Could it?

Thanks be to God. 

The Reign of Wondering - Reign of Christ Sunday

Colossians 1:11-20

 Sometimes, I wonder about silly things. I’ve always been this way. When I was little, I’d sit at the top of my steps, my two thumbs tucked into one of my shoes to spread out the laces, and just be transfixed, stuck in time, totally still, wondering about the mice that might have once crawled through the stairway walls. My mom would call up to me from the bottom of the steps, “Jennifer! Put your shoes on!” And I’d snap back into reality and say, “I AM!” Seven minutes later, my mom would come check on me, and there I was, laces untied, the heels still crunched down. My mom would put her hands on her hips, she’d say, “Jennifer! What are you supposed to be doing right now??” And I’d say, “Geez mom, I’m coming! Why do you always have to rush me?!” 

When I come back to my childhood home, sometimes I sit right back up there at the top of those steps and I’m transported back to that moment, or moments I guess, where there was a whole mouse world right on the other side of the grainy wood panelling. 

When we let ourselves wonder, we get to cross worlds. When we let ourselves wonder, space and time sort of fold in on themselves. Anything becomes possible. Mice can talk. The floor is lava. The guy next to you in traffic in the rusty Honda Civic is a spy for the CIA with superpowers, but he’s really a double crossing spy, so you’d better start reciting your times tables so that he doesn’t find out where you’ve hidden the secret codes for the nuclear arsenal. And then the whole world depends on you remembering how to count by 8s. When we let ourselves wonder, a jewish peasant, poor, mocked, and crucified, could become the king of the world.  

“Oh, Jenn,” you’ll tell me. “But none of that is real. Mice don’t talk. The floor isn’t lava. The guy in the Honda is just another exhausted middle aged man coming home from his dead end job, and you were never fast enough reciting your eights.”

And what can I say to that? What can I say when you rightfully point out to me that wondering never got me medical insurance, or a dental plan, or a pension? What can I say when you remind me that my kids don’t eat imaginary chicken nuggets, and nobody makes a living writing poetry, and dirt is just dirt, and I really just need to put my shoes on and get to work?

On my hardest days, I will tell you, “you’re right.” I will put my shoes on and ignore the mice in the walls and in my head. I’ll do the grocery shopping and cut coupons and only half believe it when I tell my kids that they can do anything they put their mind to if they just work hard enough.

But on my good days, on my good days, I’ll wonder what’s really caked in the tread of the bottom of those shoes. I’ll think about all that dirt that they’ll walk over, trudge through, and collect. How it’s mostly carbon. The stuff that feeds plants and fish and birds and trees. The stuff I walk on and dig through and get caked under my nails and try to wash out of my kids soccer jerseys are the very building blocks of life. 

On my good days, I’ll remind myself that I took a shower, poured milk in my cheerios and brushed my teeth with ancient dinosaur pee. 

No, seriously. It’s true. The water that has been here for billions of years is still the same water we have now. Your latte once passed through the kidneys of a tyrannosaurus rex…

I will let myself wonder where all that water has been. I’ll wonder what that dirt beneath my feet is really made of.

Was the dirt I’m washing off my carrots once a woolly mammoth? Or maybe it was the remains of a wildebeest, carried across seas and mountains and continents only to land in my front yard, only to get stuck in my tread as I imagined that the trees were magic houses for fairies who protected the forest from the evil trolls who want to tie everyone up with ropes and consumerism and feelings of inadequacy until they’ve trained us all to drive our old Honda civics to our dead end jobs. 

Did the water used to steam my latte or grow that dandelion come from the sacred Ganges River, blessed by shamans, drunk by kids playing cricket on the banks, then evaporated and turn to clouds which traveled thousands of miles only to fall in the highland park reservoir?

And the carbon dioxide you are exhaling right now - that is going to feed that tree out there, which will someday tear cracks in the sidewalk, and then one day die, and rot and become food for earthworms, or maybe a home for carpenter ants - that same carbon dioxide grew the grapes that will be fermented into wine and passed around by our savior at the last supper. These same elements formed the rain that fed the wheat that made the bread that Jesus broke with his friends just as his body was broken when he hung upon the cross under a sign that said, “Here is Jesus, King of the Jews.” 

All this, is real. Really real. It’s not just some idea that becomes true if I believe in it hard enough. It just is. Whether I consent to it or not.

In the real world, dinosaur pee really does turn into drops of prisms that become rainbows. In the real world, fallen trees rot into homes for morel mushrooms, cow dung is laid upon fields that will grow the French fries. In this world, this one, right here, the dirt Jesus wiped from the feet of the disciples is under our feet too, or transformed to books that tell our stories, some stories where the mice really do talk. 

In this real world, if given enough time, enough attention, enough love, everything is always being transformed into something else. We are always growing, changing, always evolving, and, in some ways, anything becomes possible. What an important thing to remind ourselves on this special stewardship Sunday.

In this real world, we celebrate things that don’t make sense, but are really real nonetheless. Like how, as Richard Rohr says, “Christ is just a word for everything.” Like how Jesus walked around pointing at the birds and the flowers and the heartbreak and the struggle and said, “God is here.” Like how a pile of dirt can take us to kings and sequoias and dining room tables and soufflés and art and music and the actual, real, presence of Christ in it all. Like how the blood of the cross can make all things new. 

When I was a young, earnest Christian, I thought I had to find a dark quiet closet, I had to furrow my brow, really focus, really concentrate, and somehow will myself into God’s presence. “Ok, God, I’m here, I’m ready. Time to speak!” And then…nothing. Silence. Just the shifting of my weight on the floor. My breath, inhaling, exhaling. The hum of the furnace. The flicker of a struggling candle. “No really, God,” I’d say, “I’m here! Say something!” And…nothing. So I’d fix my posture, furrow harder, read the Bible passage again, focus better. And in all my trying, in all my striving and reaching, in all my working to make the presence of God real to me in that moment, I’d miss it. I’d miss the wondering. I’d miss the mouse family as they gathered food for a picnic just on the other side of the wall. I’d miss the generations of stories and stuff that were magically hidden in the soles of my shoes. I’d miss that it’s all connected, me, and the world, and the wonder, and the stories, and the presence of God in it all. In all my trying, and striving, and forcing, I’d miss it. Hidden in my wondering, right there in plain sight. 

So when we say “Christ is King” on this Reign of Christ Sunday, we are lifting all things, all the real stuff, all the good, earthy, concrete, tangible, tasty, life-giving stuff, no matter its current state, and saying yes, that’s what directs our lives, yes, God reveals God’s self in these things. And in you. And maybe even in me. Christ reigns in the breath. Christ reigns in the earth. Christ reigns in the turning of the seasons and in our building up and in our tearing down. In that last red leaf that refuses to let go. In the pile already composting under the branches. In the bulb that will wait until spring to come out of the darkness. Christ reigns. 

And this is a political statement. It’s a pronunciation that Christ is the ruler — not princes or principalities, or billionaires, or corporations, or credit scores, or tax breaks, or presidents, or democrats or republicans, or even the almighty dollar. Christ. Christ in all things. And so. All things are sacred because they hold the sacred incarnation of the one who calls us to wonder, who calls us to see connection and community and creation - from the beginning of time, to right where we are, right here. Right now. 

For Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in Christ all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-all things have been created through Christ and for Christ.  Christ is before all things, and in Christ all things hold together. Christ is the head of the body, the church; Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that Christ might come to have first place in everything. For in Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Christ God was pleased to reconcile to God's self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross.

So grab your shoes. Let’s dig in the dirt. We have wondering to do.

Thanks be to God.