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[4
May 2008]
John 4:5-19, 2 Cor 3:12,13.18
Dr William Miller is a psychotherapist and he wanted to prove the
benefits of psychotherapy for alcoholics. He took a group of drinkers who
wanted to kick the habit and offered them psychotherapy with trained
psychotherapists for up to 18 weeks. He reasoned that this extra intensive
counseling would mean that more of them would keep off the booze. He also
had a control group who saw a counselor once and were sent home with some
self help resources. To his great disappointment he discovered that there
was only a very slight difference in the results. Those who received
intensive counseling performed only slightly better than those left to
their own devices. He was shocked and ended up repeating the experiment in
several different locations but always with the same results.
Finally by chance he measured the empathy levels of the therapists
involved in the study. The nine therapists were ranked by their ability to
be empathetically present with the client. This was measuring how they
communicated acceptance and warmth towards the alcoholics. This showed
some startling results for the therapists who ranked highly with their
empathy had a much greater success rate with the alcoholic clients, and
those who were not strongly empathetic had a very poor success rate in
helping their clients stop drinking.
Dr Miller discovered that psychotherapy itself was not that helpful in
helping clients stopping drinking, but psychotherapy and empathy certainly
was. Of course Dr Miller’s research tells us what many of us already
sense: that people who are loved heal more quickly, face issues in their
lives more successfully, and are happier. Communities in which we
empathize and take the risk of being open and caring with one another are
healthy communities, but those in which we keep each other at arms length
and practice pseudo love are not so healthy.
This is a message that is at the heart of Christianity, and at the
heart of the ministry of Jesus. So often as I read the encounters of Jesus
with people, at the centre of what is going on is the discovery of the
acceptance of God. I talked about this a couple of weeks ago when I looked
at the story of the woman caught in adultery. The poor woman was hauled
before Jesus by self righteous men who wanted to stone her, but discovered
in Jesus another way. One by one they dropped their stones and departed
when Jesus challenged them to cast the first stone only if they were
sinless. When they were alone and in private Jesus said I’m not going to
accuse you either, go and sort out your relationship with God.
Jesus it seems often met with women, because this week we read of him
meeting a woman by a well. It was a common place to meet women because
they were the ones who would come to draw water, but this well was a
Samaritan well and the woman who came about midday came when no other
women were there. She was a shamed woman who was not welcome in public
places. She was a woman who had heard many times others talking about her.
She is stunned that Jesus should even talk to her because she is a
Samaritan woman and he is a Jewish man of rank, a teacher. She is stunned
that he should talk to her because of her shame. But not only does he talk
to her, he asks for a glass of water. He gives her honour and pride by
saying you can help me, and there aren’t many human beings I know who
will refuse such a request. The shocking thing is that Jews and Samaritans
hated each other so much they didn’t share the same drinking vessels,
but with Jesus on the scene these walls of separation come crashing down.
We are never told whether Jesus got his glass of water but we presume so
as they go on talking and getting deeper. She gets a little confused and
excited when Jesus talks of water that you don’t have to get with a
bucket and lug back to your home and Jesus tells her to go and get her
husband.
She looks him in the face and freely admits she has no husband but it
seems Jesus knew this any way. She senses that she can trust Jesus with
the truth and that she can reveal to this Jewish teacher the deeper
secrets of her life. That she has no husband is nothing to be proud of
especially when it seems she has had five of them in the past, and now she
is living with a new fellow. Her shame is out in the open. The cover of
any respectability she had is blown and there she stands open to be
condemned and criticized. But Jesus doesn’t bat an eyelid because he’s
not here to condemn and criticize people. He’s here to give them the
life giving water that will sustain them, the good news that they matter
to God no matter what. He’s here to invite people to peel off the outer
husks of manicured image and to be the truly unique person they are. As
Eugene Peterson goes on to put it in the Message translation of this
passage, Jesus tells the woman: “It’s who you are and the way you
live that counts before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the
pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the father is out looking
for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their
worship.”
The story ends at that point because the disciples come back and are
shocked that he’s talking to this kind of a woman. But in an ironical
twist John tells us, “No one said what they were all thinking, but
their faces showed it.” No-one said anything, but their faces showed
it. The disciples were unable to be open with Jesus and with one another
and they hid the truth in contrast to this woman who opened herself. They
could only see what she was – a label, a woman, a Samaritan woman with a
reputation. What they couldn’t see was that she too had feelings, she
had a story, and she was a fellow human being. The woman sensing the
tension took the hint and left.
Paul is writing to a church in Corinth which is struggling with the
same issue. They were a congregation it seems who were not particularly
accepting of one another. Their religion he says has been good at keeping
the rules of what is acceptable. But somehow we have to get deeper than
this. He tells the story of Moses after he had gone up Mt Sinai and met
with God returned. His face shone with God’s glory because he had been
in God’s presence. But it didn’t take long for the glory to begin to
fade. Even he cast a glance sideways at his neighbour’s new car and
thought I’d love one of those, and even he called someone a useless git
in a moment of tired anger, and so on. Yes the glory of God soon began to
fade and so according to Paul, Moses put on a veil so people wouldn’t
see the glory fading and the real human being returning. Moses knew that
when people saw his face they would see that he was normal just like them
again and no longer special and so he hid behind a veil. You know what….
I think we are like Moses and we too hide behind veils. We don’t like
others to see how we really are. We hide our true feelings and thoughts.
We are nice with one another rather than honest and true. We engage in
superficial chit chat but never get deep. We carry scars and wounds and
hurts that we never reveal to anyone else. Paul goes on to say to the
Corinthians, that because we have the assurance of God’s love no matter
what, we can do a bold thing. Because God accepts as we are we can choose
to live with unveiled faces. Because we know that God sees us just as we
are and smiles with a kindly loving smile, we can do exactly the same. We
don’t have to hide ourselves from one another.
I think many of us are good at beating ourselves up. We hold on to our
failures, we compare ourselves with others and feel we don’t measure up,
we tell ourselves that we are useless, we are not religious enough and we
are not good enough and in the process we crush the living spirit of God
that is within us. When we focus on the failure we immobilize ourselves
and our gifts, and like a plant with no water we wither and dry up. Jesus
offered the woman life giving water and this water was surely the
acceptance and love of God. In Jesus this woman discovered not more
condemnation, but deep acceptance. She could simply be herself, and in
facing the truth of herself in the living presence of God she discovered
life. What others thought didn’t matter any more, even what she thought
of herself mattered less. God touched her soul and she found a new energy
to live and be the unique and wonderful person she was.
My prayer is that each of us may encounter this God. My prayer is that
each of us may be the living presence of this God, the Christ presence to
one another.
Dugald Wilson
4 May 2008
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