Not in spite of, but because of....

In our interconnected world, we must learn to feel

enlarged, not threatened, by difference....

 - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

One of the sweeter ironies of my adult life is that I now voluntarily attend church more often than my sainted mother and far more than I grudgingly did as a teenager being lugged there by her oh so many years ago.  I go to feed my soul, to share in a community of spiritually-minded fellow human beings and to nurture - and, most often, restore - the innate sense of hope that I treasure but so often feels besieged by life of late.

And today's service was one of those spiritual gifts that brings me back to the sanctuary at least three weeks out of every four now.  We had a guest preacher, the Rev. Dr. Sonia E. Waters, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary who just happens to be the Much Better Half of my dear friend and priest, the Rev. John A. Mennell.  (Like me, he's married way up, a gift for which we are both thankful and that we revel in often.)  She taught - and I do mean taught, even as she preached - a sermon on the Samaritan Woman by the Well in the Gospel of John.  And it'll go down in my all-time top 10 sermons.  Here's why: simply put, Rev. Waters (or Sonia, as she seems to prefer being called), flipped the script in such a paradigm-shifting way that it left an indelible mark and was one of those 'a-ha!' moments that rocks you in the present and lingers long and lastingly thereafter....

For those of you unfamiliar with the story of the Samaritan Woman by the Well as portrayed in the fourth chapter of John's Gospel, let's just say that it features a highly unusual interaction, in this case between Jesus and an unnamed stranger of a different gender ... and, thanks to Rev. Waters' illumination, I will never quite conceive of it - and, more importantly, its much deeper meaning - in the same way ever again.

[Rev. Waters' treatment was such a paradigm shift that it reminded me of others in my spiritual history spurred by the likes of Bishop John A.T. Robinson, theologians Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr, Bishop John Spong, Rev. Mennell - yeah, her husband's contributed a few over the years, too (which must be yet another thing that they have in common) - and the Rev. Dr. Obery Hendricks.  For example, the latter's exposition of the Lord's Prayer in his extraordinary The Politics of Jesus has so indelibly marked me spiritually that I have always conceived of this seminal prayer differently and more powerfully and resonantly ever since.  So, too, I suspect will I now see the Woman by the Well.]

In reviewing the context of the meeting and subsequent discussion between the protagonists of this story, Rev. Waters noted that it was unusual in antiquity for a Jew and a Samaritan to discourse (which we've mostly forgotten is the context of the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan) as well as for a man to speak to an unaccompanied woman.  So unusual, in fact, that the Disciples tried to dissuade Jesus from having it.  But He persisted.  And what follows was such a powerful moment, born of the interaction of strangers, that the woman was converted as were many of her neighbors when she shared her testimony thereafter.  

Further, the well is a familiar setting in biblical history, where many a woman met a man who changed her life.  More broadly, Rev. Waters noted, the well was a crossroads where different people met in the ancient world because they all had a common need, for water.

And this is the kernel from which she extracted a powerful testimony and lesson: that we are all different but share a common humanity and therein lies an opportunity to live into God.

But difference scares us, so we have a tendency to 'Otherize.'  As Rev. Waters described it, "It's our human nature to erase difference," which leads us to want to seek likeness and reject variety.  When faced with the opportunity to open ourselves to some who's different - be it a difference rooted in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. - we have choice, to be loving or to give into our fear, distance ourselves and virtually always demonize or in some way demean/deem the Other as lesser.

And yet those of us who claim to follow a person who always chose love too often choose fear....

But, as Rev. Sonia noted, Jesus chose the Woman by the Well because she was different: it was her difference that offered the possibility to bridge a gap in ancient culture and belief.  She pointed out that "Jesus doesn't (try to) fix her," but knows her and accepts her as she is, despite her difficult history.  She continued that "What Jesus is saying here is that shame is a useless emotion at the crossroads of God's Knowledge (of) and Love (for us)."  In fact, she pointed out, "differences are the exact things that can change us."  It's in our Otherness relative to each other that we can learn to live into God's love ... and thus we are called by God "not in spite of (our differences) but because of" them.  We all have difficult life histories - yet another thing that we share as human beings - and thus in these gifts of varied experience we find that "God has equipped (us) in the crucible of (our) own lives to be a vessel of Living Water," a living embodiment of His/Her/Its Love.

Hmmm....

As I sat and listened to Rev. Sonia speaking softly but passionately, I was jolted in one of those spiritual paradigm shifts that I've experienced over the course of my life: in fact, it's our difference that's the gift, even though we prefer similarity.  It's our difference that offers us the choice to fear and revile or to love and embrace.  It's our difference that makes us fallibly human and fearful or divinely human(/humane) and loving.  It's our difference that's why we're called to love as God loves, without respect to difference.  It's our difference that makes us the same, all and to a person, Children of God and vessels of Living Water ... if we choose to be.

So what will it be for you today?  Will you fear and avoid (and possibly demean) the Other?  Or will you embrace his/her/their Otherness as an opportunity to practice what Jesus preached by example in His life: love for all?

It's up to you.  And me.  But rest assured that God is calling us.  The question is how will we answer?  Will we choose fear or love?  Will we shrink from opportunity and separate ourselves to our mutual detriment or will we realize our full potential, be all that we can be, engage fully and love wastefully (as Bishop Spong suggests, based on Jesus' example)?

Today, thanks to Rev. Sonia, I now realize that our differences are our gifts and that we are called because of them.  Therein lies opportunity, specifically the opportunity to choose between fear and love.  And, following Rev. Dr. Hendricks' suggested moniker, as a self-considered Follower of Jesus, I'm committed to choosing love, as challenging and scary and messy as that may be at times.  Difference, the natural variety that Darwin noted so long ago, isn't a barrier but an invitation if we choose it.  And if I'm really going to follow Jesus, it means, just as He did with the Woman by the Well, I'll choose to love....

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.

Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,

if you have love for one another.

- Jesus Christ, as quoted in

The Gospel of St. John, 13:34-35