Sunday March 27, 2011

The Samaritan Woman at the Well

I love this story too. I think mostly because of how much I love the chapter on it in Fulton J. Sheen's Life of Christ which really takes it apart and makes something beautiful better than I ever could.

Since I lent out my car and had snow to deal with anyway, I attended church at St. Francis in Staunton (walking distance) rather than St. John the Evangelist in Waynesboro (2o minute drive) the way I usually do. Mostly because St. John's is a much more welcoming parish and I love the priest there. Also, and I had forgotten this, there's a lot of mumbling that goes on at St. Francis - especially the cantor. Perhaps it's the space, but my point being that I'm not entirely surprised that my appreciation of the homily pretty much became sidetracked by one of the pastor's remarks.

He called made a reference to the Samaritan woman's "deplorable lifestyle" and I really just thought that was such a strong word to use these days for someone who has been married several times and is now living in sin. Because, yes, that's not the way you're supposed to do it, especially back then, but, well, I'm sorry but people living together before marriage is just the way it goes these days. "Deplorable" is just really a strong word that risks turning people way off the message - like it did me, and I am still a virgin. So why would you use it? Why alienate? When your point isn't even directly related?

That's what I don't like at St. Francis - how willing to use condemning language (that and their blatant anti-Obama political messages) that closes you out of the community - just like was done to the Samaritan woman. We're not supposed to do that. By shutting her out, by calling her deplorable, her community only sent her running into the arms of more men. Jesus, by accepting her and talking to her and treating her like a person and a good one at that, brought her back into the fold. He made her a leader of her community. He chose her even so. By treating her the same as if she weren't "living in sin" in a "deplorable lifestyle," He brought her back. Calling her "deplorable" just kept her out. That's not what we're supposed to do.

Father's use of the word also made me want to defend her from the rest of his assumptions about her. He suggested that she changed the subject to where we worship God (mountain or Jerusalem) as something "safer" to talk about than her own life and his homily jumped from there to facing our own weaknesses and not giving ourselves a pass on our sins because we have religion. Valid idea, but I was still upset by his utter dismissal of the woman because of her lifestyle. So I took and ran with my thoughts on why she changed topics.

Because she had found a prophet, a man beloved of and speaking for God - and what she really wanted from that person was the central question that divided her people from those who should be her brothers and sisters resolved. She wanted to know the truth of that conundrum that kept the Chosen People of God divided. She wanted a chance to heal that breach. Her instinct was as a peacemaker, a seeker. She sought love in the arms of so many men and now she was seeking truth in the first place she may have ever seen it offered. From the first man to treat her like a full-fledged person. From the first Man she believed could really and truly answer the question.

Would our one question be so wise? At the beginning of the semester, my playwriting professor had us make a lot of lists, and the last one was five questions that we would ask God if we could do so without dying. I don't think any of my questions were aimed at such a thing - at finding the answer that could bring people together, could settle a bitter rivalry and heal wounds that only grew worse over time.

Wouldn't we want to know something more personal? Or demand something? Why did that happen? Why did you build the world this way? I think that my instinct with questions for God's is to go to the "Why?" questions, and I don't think that's terribly uncommon. Rather than the "What?" questions: "What is it that God wants us to do?" "What is the truth"; or, better, yet, the "How?" question that was Mary's: "How shall I serve God?" "How shall I accomplish His will?"

She was curious, and she was smart, and she was brave, and she was a peacemaker at heart. And I have little tears in my eyes for her right now, because I think Jesus might have been the first person in her life to look at her and see that. See her: the beautiful woman with so much more to offer than the world than she had been giving because it was all that anyone seemed to want. Because her lifestyle was so "deplorable" that no one saw her anymore. Never saw the woman living it. Never demanded that she be better because she could be. That's what Jesus did for her, look at her and see her beauty. And it gave her the strength to not care what her community would think, if they would believe her, if they would shy away from the Word of God on the lips of a deplorable woman. He gave her the strength to be what she always was - by seeing it.

That is what we, above all, should seek to do. See the beauty in others, and acknowledge it, and help it to grow. And we should, for that matter, follow her lead. When we ask of God, let it be the kind of question that will bring people together, that will make peace.

Dear Lord, especially as I get ready to start teaching middle schoolers tomorrow, help me to always remember to look for the light and the beauty in others. Help me to empower Your people as You did for the Samaritan woman, to look past what the world sees and to see Your beloved children with Your eyes. Please Lord, when I falter, help me to remember how You see me, and help me to become always the person that I can be.