John 4: 5-42 (links validated 2/22/23)

(always good insights!)

(African American spiritual)

(always excellent exegesis with numerous quotes from commentaries on this text)

(also several links to other Woman at the Well videos)

("Greetings in the name of Christ! My name is Amos of Sychar. I am here this morning from a village in Samaria to give you my testimony. Yes, I greet you in the name of Christ, because I now count myself as a follower of this Jesus of Nazareth, who I have come to believe is the Christ sent from God to save us. But how I came to believe, well, that's the surprising part...")

(Video of monologue by Jan Boers)

Have you ever forgotten to eat? It’s a strange question – how can you forget to eat? Recently a bride and groom shared how that happened to them. After all the catering places they had visited and debates over the menu they had, when it came to the actual Wedding day, they had forgotten to eat. Between taking pictures, greeting their over 250 guests, toasts, dancing, and more pictures, the whole celebration and feast just flew by. So much so that it didn’t even register to them till the next day when their friends were commenting on how much they enjoyed the cocktail hour and how great the dinner was the couple looked at each other and realized neither one of them had a chance to eat themselves. That recently wedded couple is far from the first who found that in the excitement of the Wedding day those normal human urges could get lost. It is true on the other emotional extreme as well – when people suffer a loss, are grieving and mourning, sometimes that experience is so consuming they have to be reminded “you need to eat.” It is even true that people can sometimes get so engulfed in a project or task that they are working on that this very human need gets eclipsed...

In his article entitled “The Last Crusade”, Major V. Gilbert told of the early 20th century battle for Palestine against the Turks. At one point Allied forces outpaced the camel caravan that was carrying their water. There were wells in the territory occupied by the enemy. Gilbert rote, “We fought that day as men fight for their lives. If such were our thirst for God and for righteousness, for his will in our life, a consuming, all-embracing, preoccupying desire, how rich the fruit of the spirit would we be.” This is a good lesson for all of us to learn.

When the church is worshipping in spirit and truth, it is meant to be a picture of the dividing lines torn down. All that could (and does) separate us, race and ethnicity, gender, social class or financial status, even denominational identity (or clinging to the lack thereof), speaks to the unifying power of the Spirit through worship. So why does Sunday continue to be the most segregated hour? In Christ, by the Spirit, for the Father, don’t we have more in common than we are apt to admit?

James Baldwin was a black, gay man, an author and activist of the last century. He was a truth teller, one who brought uncomfortable issues into conversations about politics and history. In 1968, he testified before a US House subcommittee on Negro History and Culture. He said, “If we are going to build a multiracial society, which is our only hope, then one has got to accept that I have learned a lot from you and a lot of it is bitter, but you have a lot to learn from me and a lot of that will be bitter. That bitterness is our only hope. That is the only way we get past it.”...

In the book The Color Purple, Celie and Shug have a long talk about God. Celie has been abused by life. She tried to be what she was taught was a good Christian for a long time, but now she has given up. Shug asks Celie to describe the God she doesn’t believe in. Celie says “He big and old and tall and grey-bearded and white.” Shug replies “If you wait to find God in the white folks’ church, that’s the one who is bound to show up. When I found out God was white and a man, I lost interest.” Shug is the Samaritan woman. She hears a new voice and learns to worship in Spirit and truth. She says, “God love everything you love and a mess of stuff you don’t. Praise God by liking what you like. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see God always trying please us back. Once us feel loved by God, us do the best us can to please God.”...

Among other things, the Samaritan woman at the well was a spiritual seeker. Some years ago, writer Eugene Peterson found an analogy for modern spiritual quests in, of all things, a Winnie the Pooh story. In one of the many tales from the Hundred-Acre Woods, Christopher Robin and company decide to set out one day in search of the North Pole. At one point along the way, young Roo falls into a stream and needs to be rescued. Pooh Bear eventually uses a long pole to fish his friend out of the water. Once this emergency had passed, the animals stand around and discuss what had just happened. As they are talking, Christopher Robin notices that Pooh is standing there with the rescue pole still in his paw. “Pooh, where did you get that pole?” “I just found it earlier,” Pooh replies. “I thought it might be useful.” “Pooh,” Christopher Robin says excitedly, “the expedition is over! You have found the North Pole!” “Oh,” says Pooh, “I did?” Eventually Christopher Robin sinks the pole into the ground and hangs a flag on it with this message: “The North Pole, Discovered by Pooh. Pooh Found It.” Then they all go home again, satisfied that this quest was successful...

I must confess that I don’t spend much time laughing with God. Listen to this quote from the writings of St. Teresa: “Just these two words God spoke changed my life, “Enjoy Me.” “What a burden I thought I was to carry—a crucifix, as did Christ. “Love” which is Teresa’s name for God. “Love once said to me, ‘I know a song would you like to hear it?’ And laughter came from every brick in the street and from every pore in the sky. After a night of prayer, God changed my life when God sang, “Enjoy Me.” Enjoy Me. What a different place the world would be if we could only hear God beseeching us, “Enjoy Me.”...

Fill my cup, Lord; I lift it up, Lord; Come and quench this thirsting of my soul. Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more. Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole. Richard Blanchard (1925–2004) was an American Methodist minister and gospel songwriter. This most famous song of his was inspired by the story of the marginalized Samaritan woman whom Jesus engaged in conversation as the two of them were gathering water at a public well (John 4:1–45). Seeing that the woman was not only physically thirsty but also had a deep spiritual thirst, Jesus offered her “living water.”...

Lucie E. Campbell’s song “Jesus Gave Me Water” was first recorded by Artis Kitchen in 1947. For a partial list of subsequent covers, see secondhandsongs.com. I like Sam Cooke’s version best, from 1951, when he was singing lead for the Soul Stirrers—no one can beat his honey-smooth vocals. You might know him, as I first did, as the singer of hits like “You Send Me,” “Chain Gang,” “Another Saturday Night,” “Twisting the Night Away,” “Cupid,” and “A Change Is Gonna Come.” (I have fond memories of listening to Oldies 100.7 FM in car rides with my dad growing up!) But like many famous soul singers, Cooke, a PK (preacher’s kid), got his start singing at church, at age six. His leadership of the popular black gospel group the Soul Stirrers from 1951 to 1956 propelled his career, and he crossed over into pop with great success...

You have a bucket, don’t you? One that you lug around most everywhere, most every waking moment. Sometimes, it even keeps you from sleep. What’s in the bucket? The weight and worry that come with your life. There are loved ones in there. Why won’t the Good Lord answer your prayers for them? There are changes you’d like to see in yourself. You’ve tried, but nothing has worked. There are fears you already face and there is the gnawing worry about what may come your way. The bucket grows heavier, but you can no more set it down than you can stop living. You’ve got a bucket. And you are the one who comes to the well...

Everyone needs drinking water. Whether you are wandering through the wilderness (Exodus 17:1-7) or through the Samaritan countryside (John 4:5-42), you are going to need water. So you are always looking for a well or a river or some other way to stay hydrated. Clean, drinkable water means survival. No water...no survival. In Rome, Italy, you won't need to look hard for clean, drinkable water. Around Rome are more than 2,500 public drinking fountains called nasoni (literally "big noses"). The fountains were first placed in the early 1870s. The nasoni are made of cast iron and deliver fresh, cold water that travels through 70 miles of channels from the Peschiera reservoir to and through the city of Rome...

Deep in the heart of the West Bank stands a stone church guarded by a thin, wizened, Christian priest with a long white beard. He has been there for decades, despite living under the constant threat of death, escaping a death plot sixteen times. A crumbling chunk of the wall bears witness to the time someone threw a hand grenade at him. This priest, who spends his days writing icons, lived in the church for 14 years while surrounded by a hostile army, refusing to abandon the treasure he guards. He once refused a $1 million grant from Yasser Arafat to continue construction of the church because he did not want any political strings attached to his mission to keep the church open to people of all walks of faith. This priest is the protector of a treasure of the three Abrahamic faiths, and he fights with his simple, quiet presence to keep the site open to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. He is the guardian of the treasure that sits deep at the very heart of the church...

As theologian Barbara Brown Taylor points out, Jesus’s dialogue with the woman at the well is his longest recorded conversation in the New Testament. He talks to the Samaritan woman longer than he talks to his twelve disciples, or to his accusers, or even to his own family members. Moreover, she is the first person (and the first ethnic/religious outsider) to whom Jesus reveals his identity in John’s Gospel. And — this might be the most compelling fact of all — she is the first believer in any of the Gospels to straightaway become an evangelist, and bring her entire city to a saving knowledge of Jesus. So much for fallen women!...

Over a year ago, I saw this article that really struck me - but that I was afraid to use because of the political overtones to it. Overtones that post-election I thought would have abated by now. But... well... anyway. That reality aside, the story is almost too important not to share. It’s about Monica Lewinsky. For those of you not aware, quite simply, she had an adulterous affair with President Bill Clinton (while she was an intern at the White House). Here was a wide-eyed, naivete, young woman in her 20's who had gone from basically anonymous to enamored by a very powerful man who was attracted to her to a headline story. She describes it like this: "Overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one worldwide. Granted, it was before social media, but people could still comment online, email stories, and, of course, email cruel jokes. I was branded as a tramp, tart, slut, whore, bimbo, and, of course, ‘that woman’. It was easy to forget that ‘that woman’ was dimensional, had a soul, and was once unbroken."...

When I was in seminary, I heard about a South Carolina pastor’s careful efforts to introduce the “passing of the peace” to his congregation. He was very anxious about it because, like many long-established congregations, they did not adapt to change easily. Finally, the fateful day came when he turned from the altar and said to the congregation, in what he hoped was a warm and encouraging voice, “The peace of the Lord be with you always!” “And also with you,” came the mumbled, almost hushed, reply. Stepping bravely out of his appointed place in the chancel, the pastor went forward to the front row to shake the hand of the woman there and greet her with words of peace. She was someone he barely knew, who only sporadically attended services and always slipped out during the last hymn. The moment his hand touched her hand—her face crumbled, her eyes flowed with tears, and she fled the building by a side door.

This past January I read the book Lethal Decisions: The Unnecessary Deaths of Women and Children from HIV/AIDS (2017) by Arthur Ammann. For the last fifty years, Art has been not just a leading expert at the center of the AIDS crisis, but also a tireless and vocal activist, especially for the women and children who have been impacted by HIV-AIDS, but also ignored, and especially women and children in the poorest parts of the poorest countries of the world (like war zones). His friend and colleague Gottlieb has called him "the conscience of the pediatric HIV epidemic." His book is a highly personal, deeply passionate, and even polemical history of the defining public health crisis of our generation.

There’s a story about a woman in an evangelical church who was very judgmental. One day she got the Deacons to invite a noted fire and brimstone preacher to visit. He said, “God is going to judge everyone! Everyone who has take the Lord’s name in vain, you’re going to have God’s judgment!” “Amen!”, the woman shouted. “Everyone who has looked with lust is going to have God’s judgment!” he shouted. “Amen! Preach it!”, she said, rocking in her pew with her enthusiasm. “Everyone who gambles and plays bingo is going to have God’s judgment!”, he yelled. And the woman stopped rocking and said to her neighbor, the one who had won $5 just last night with her at bingo, “Well, now he’s stopped preaching and gone to meddling.”

When I was in eighth grade, my neighbor and best friend's father drove the two of us to school in his green 1976 Chevrolet pickup truck. Every morning, as we approached the school, Paul Harvey would give us the news and tell us a heartwarming story. If you remember that radio segment, you will recall that he would begin the story, interrupt it with a commercial read, and then pick back up with "the rest of the story." We loved that show. I loved it so much that, during the next year when it was my father's turn to drive me to high school, I insisted that we listen to Paul Harvey on the way. Like so many listeners, I always wanted to hear "the rest of the story"--the surprise ending that pulled all the pieces together and revealed what it was that made the story worth listening to in the first place.

A number of years ago, long before cell phones became common, a friend of mine had car trouble and she was stopped by the side of a busy road. She tried to flag down a car and finally, a car pulled to the side of the road a good distance ahead. She had written the number of the auto-club on a piece of paper and gave it to the well dressed middle-aged couple, along with a quarter and they agreed to make the call and drove off. She went back to her car to wait. By and by a guy driving a beat-up pickup pulled up behind her. She opened her window a crack to talk to him because he did not look like a trustworthy sort. She smelled the alcohol on his breath almost immediately. He offered to call the auto-club for her and off he went. By and by the tow truck came and hooked her car up. As she got in the cab the driver said, “Ma’am, I almost didn’t come, the call centre said that the guy who called it in sounded drunk or stoned or something and that it was up to me if I responded”.

Consider the story of Norma McCorvey. Her father left when she was 13; her mother was a violent alcoholic. Reform school represented the best years of her life, freeing her from a sexually abusive relative. Married at 16, she left the husband who assaulted her and put their baby up for adoption. Yet Norma’s life didn’t improve. No more marriages but two more children, both put up for adoption. The third pregnancy gained great fame, because NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League, needed a plaintiff who was poor, someone without the means to obtain a foreign abortion. That’s how Norma McCorvey became the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that found a right to abortion in the constitutional protection of privacy.

I have been reading the first Harry Potter book to my daughter at bedtime. It had been a while since I’d read of young Harry’s entry into the wizarding world, and many fond memories have bubbled up to the surface. As we got deeper into the book, however, something began to bother her. Before Hermione emerges as a main character, she’s just Harry’s classmate and a bit of a know-it-all—and she got on my daughter’s nerves. So it was with great delight that we reached the end of chapter 10. After a harrowing encounter with a troll, we see the effect upon Hermione, Harry, and Ron: There was a very embarrassed pause. Then, none of them looking at each other, they all said “Thanks,” and hurried off to get plates. But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them. Finding Refreshment

I got to listen to this wonderful writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, talk about "The danger of the single story." Like her story about growing up in Nigeria, comfortable and middle-class on a university campus where her father was a professor: her family, like many others, had "domestic help" who came from a nearby village, a boy named Fide whose poverty moved Adichie to pity whenever her mother offered his family extra food and old clothes. That was how Adichie thought of Fide: as "a poor boy." So when she visited Fide's home, she was shocked when his family showed her a beautiful patterned basket made by Fide's brother. That didn't fit into the "single story" she had in her head about Fide's family: she didn't think they could do anything but "be poor." And then, when she came to school in America, she was dismayed that her roommate asked her how she learned to speak English so well (English is Nigeria's official language), and when her roommate asked her to play some of her "tribal" music, it was her turn to be dismayed when Adichie played a Mariah Carey CD.

The conversation may be either clarified or further confused when filtered through the brush of Indian artist Frank Wesley (1923-2003). Wesley places Jesus and the woman in proximity to a well and to each other. The conversation proceeds. But there are some unusual touches to this artist's interpretation. Jesus wears the saffron robes of an Indian holy man. He is sitting in the half-lotus posture (a traditional yoga posture). His blue skin identified with Krishna, and his forehead glows gold. This is Jesus who speaks across cultures and is found near wells in all communities.

I have witnessed similar tears in the grief support groups I now lead for a hospice. One person says something to another. The words were spoken with love and empathy. One person hears something from another. It was received with understanding and a sense of connection. The grieving person, speaker or listener or both, discovers they are not alone. And the person weeps. They are known. They are loved and not judged. They are seen as fully human and completely a child of God. Yes, I read between the lines.

I can only ask that Hope Publishing, and Brian Wren, will forgive me for posting this text in full. In the ongoing circles of life, I come back to it, and find deerp truth. I have no bucket, and the well is deep. My thirst is endless, and my throat is dry. I ask you, stranger, silent at my side, can words refresh my longings if you speak? I have no bucket, and the well is deep. Can love unbar the strongrooms of the mind and scour the tombs and warrens underground for toys and treasures lost, or never found, for all I cannot name, yet ache to find? I have no bucket, and the well is deep.

You have heard it said that water finds it’s lowest point – well, living water finds your lowest point The Living water offered by Jesus Christ finds your lowest point. It flows to your original wound. The thing that you spend so much energy trying to heal through all the insufficient ways – relationships, religion, success, more graduate degrees, more therapy, working out, trying to get your parents to love you more. There are a million ways we try to use substitutes for God to try and make sure our damage is not seen. James Allison says faith is relaxing. I think this is what happened to the woman at the well. I think living water found a crack in her defenses and trickled down to her lowest point, her deepest wound, her greatest need and she finally exhaled. In fact, she relaxed so much she totally left her water jar at the well.

("The famous psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl, once repeated a public poll amongst his own patients and clinic personnel. The original poll had found 89% of respondents admitted that they needed 'something' for the sake of which to live. And further, an incredible 61% said there was something or someone in their own lives for whom they were even ready to die. Frankl's own survey produced similar findings, and he concluded,'In other words, the will to meaning is in most people fact, not faith'..." and several other quotes)

("It can happen anywhere and anytime. It happened near Bethlehem one night. A couple of shepherds were going about their ordinary everyday task of looking after sheep on the edge of town. It was just another night like any other night and wham out of the blue, with no invitation, completely unexpected, something happened that changed their lives forever. They weren't looking for the Saviour, God brought them to him. It rarely happens that we are the ones who move towards God. Far more often it is God who moves toward us...")

("Every story worth telling begins with something being out of place. Every story worth re-telling begins with a conflict. Every story told over and over again is about obstacles overcome -- or not. Otherwise there is no story. A couple of weeks ago I officiated at the funeral of a 91 year old World War II Veteran. He had been a bomber pilot in the South Pacific and had to land his plane in an emergency on a different aircraft carrier than the one they had taken off from earlier. He did this in the dark. When he and his crew woke up the next morning, others looked at him and shook their heads and pointed at his plane and said, 'That plane is too big to land on this carrier.' And yet, it had...")

I used to love watching All in the Family. One of my favourite episodes told us the story of Archie's surgery. He needed blood during the surgery and it was donated by a black nurse, a fact that was the cause of some good natured ribbing from Gloria and Meathead and a lot of consternation on Archie's part. The fact is though, blood type knows no racial barriers; as long as it's the right type, its okay...

("historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto accounts for the peaceful reception of Spanish explorers by many, though by no means all, American Indians by citing what he calls the 'stranger effect', which is: 'the propensity some cultures have to receive the stranger with exceptional honor. In our modern Western societies, the propensity is hard to understand, since our attitude to strangers is like that of the peoples who resisted the Spaniards...")

("When my oldest son was a little boy, he was shopping with my mother and father and saw something on a display shelf that he wanted. He said so. 'I want that, I want that'. My mother explained that you cannot have everything you want, but that we buy what we need. He thought about that for a while and then said, 'I need that, I need that.'...")

("When I was a first grader at Bucher Elementary School there was only one shoe that you had to have to fit in on the playground: a pair of high-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars. My parents, frugal as they were, wouldn't spend the money to buy a pair of real Chuck's, so I wore the K-Mart equivalent, and was teased by spoiled brat rich kids whose parents bought them Chuck's in every color under the sun...")

("Hosea dearly loved and married a prostitute, Gomer, who ran off and had sex with another man, then came back home when Hosea sought her. Is John drawing a picture of Jesus as Hosea here, and telling us the same truth about God's deep love, and in particular about the Cup we share? Is the woman at the well Jesus' Gomer, and by extension, all of us?....")

("A reporter once asked the great opera singer Marion Anderson to describe the proudest moment of her life. She has many to choose from like the day the great Toscanini said she had the finest voice of the twentieth century. How did Marion Anderson respond to the question, The proudest moment of my life was the day I walked into my house and told my Mama that she didn't have to take in washing anymore.'...")

("On December 9th, 2013, Sanaz Nezam was declared brain dead. Her husband, Nima Nassiri, was in the Houghton County jail facing domestic assault charges. Nurses researched the special care required for a Muslim woman, but contacting Sanaz's family was difficult. Since the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979 to 1981, the United States has not had an embassy in Tehran...")

("When Mary Oliver's partner of many years died, she wrote a series of poems entitled . Her reflections are the thirst to see and perceive with such eyes. 'Another morning I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. O Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time...")

"One of the 'new things' that the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship introduced was the passing of the peace. This was not met with, um, universal enthusiasm shall we say, amongst traditionally stoic and reserved German Lutherans in the South. One pastor had written a newsletter article about it, preached a sermon about it. Finally, the fateful day came when he turned from the Altar and said to the congregation, in what he hoped was a warm and encouraging voice, 'The Peace of the Lord be with you!'..."

("The Brazilian Paulo Coelho's books have sold 100 million copies, been translated into 70 languages, and sold in 150 countries. But life was not always so sweet for Coelho. When he followed his childhood dream of being a writer, his parents twice committed him to a mental institution, where his treatments included electroconvulsive therapy....")

There is a thirst in every human heart. Each of us is like that lonely Samaritan woman. We are thirsting for something, something that will satisfy all our longings. But often we search in the wrong places. We draw the water from many wells: the water of praise to quench our thirst for self-esteem; the water of success to quench our thirst for importance; the water of pleasure to quench our thirst for joy. And, yet, we still remain thirsty. For only God can give us what we are looking for. God alone can cause a spring to well up inside us and the water from this spring will sustain us in our journey to the Promised Land of everlasting life.”...

("Some years ago, writer Eugene Peterson found an analogy for modern spiritual quests in, of all things, a Winnie the Pooh story. In one of the many tales from the Hundred-Acre Woods, Christopher Robin and company decide to set out one day in search of the North Pole...")

("What most Americans don't realize is that Muslims also ask the question, "Why do they hate us?" Why do Americans (and many in the West) hate Muslims? Why? Because we have wrongly equated Muslims with terrorists. The media and our own prejudices have dehumanized and even demonized Muslims — resulting in irrational fear and hatred...") (You will need to highlight the text with your mouse in order to read it but it is there!!)

("Once, while jogging to my cabin, two men ordered me to stop. They were aggressive, grim-faced, and confrontational. They flashed badges. Undercover park rangers. Yikes! They barraged me with questions . . . Why was I running? Where did I live? Where was I staying? Where was I going? Who was I with?...")

("If you stand at the edge of this blessing and call down into it, you will hear your words return to you. If you lean in and listen close, you will hear this blessing give the story of your life back to you. Quiet your voice quiet your judgment quiet the way you always tell your story to yourself....")

("Shortly after ordination, doing replacement work in a parish, I found myself in a rectory with a saintly old priest. He was over eighty, nearly blind, but widely sought out and respected, especially as a confessor. One night, alone with him, I asked him this question: 'If you had your priesthood to live over again, would you do anything differently?'...")

("Every community has them. We don't like to speak about them. We turn our eyes away when they pass so that we don't have to look at them. We wish they would go somewhere else. They devalue our properties and make us fear for the safety of our children. They don't conform to our accepted patterns of behaviour and, though we would really prefer not to, they force us to face the brokenness of our systems...")

As I look around the landscape of our modern world, I see that there are many wells where people gather. Some offer drinks to keep a body warm, offering $.50 worth of coffee for $5.00 to those willing to pay. Others offer phantom warmth from the bitter emotional cold of the world, places where customers meet in congenial groups to drown their pain in alcohol...

On September 4, 1957, Elizabeth Eckford got ready for her first day of school. She put on the new pleated skirt she'd sewed, along with her white bobby socks and new white buck loafers, gathered her books and boarded the 7:30 a.m. bus for the ride to Little Rock Central High School. There were eight other African American students scheduled to attend Little Rock Central High School that day, but Elizabeth was the first one to arrive. Fifteen years old and painfully shy under normal circumstances, Elizabeth was an unlikely representative of what came to be known as "the Little Rock Nine," the first group of African American students to integrate a major Southern high school. But Elizabeth Eckford became a symbol of the struggle for racial integration because she happened to be the first to arrive, and because she arrived in the path of photographer Will Counts, who was taking pictures of that morning. As Elizabeth Eckford slowly made her way through the press and the protestors, Will Counts shot a picture that would be a haunting representation of the hard hearts that resisted integration in Little Rock that day. See, in that picture, right behind Elizabeth Eckford, there is another young woman, a white woman, whose face is contorted in hatred. Her whole body is protesting; she's leaning toward Elizabeth Eckford screaming something . . . and you can tell it's not something nice. That white girl's name was Hazel Bryan, and spectators reported: she was angry...

("the higher we went, the more women and girls we passed carrying loads of firewood on their backs down the mountain. Bent over at the waist, often barefooted, these women carried seventy-five pound bundles of eucalyptus saplings, seven feet wide, back down to the city center about ten miles away, all for a few pennies....")

("Recently I discovered the work of an artist whose depictions of events from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament speak to me in a new and challenging way. Dr. He Qi is the first person from mainland China to have received his Ph. D. in religious art after the Cultural Revolution...")

("Once upon a time a new family moved into an elegant suburban parish, one which was very progressive. It had all kinds of committees, and ministries, and there were meetings all the time...")

When I was in high school I remember really hating another boy who played the role of bully. He went to work on my desperate insecurities, and I couldn't finesse him by being nice. Years later, I drew his name in a fund-raising campaign for the school...

The priest and columnist Tom Erich says that transformation is largely a person journey that is difficult to observe in others. The real test is 'Am I becoming a better parent, a more ethical employee or employer, a more loving spouse and friend?...

("I was in the kitchen making lunch for my husband and his brothers when I saw my six-year-old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He wasn't walking with the usual carefree abandon of a youth but with a serious purpose. He was obviously walking with a great effort, trying to be as still as possible....")

("Years ago there were television commercials hyping Memorex, a brand of recording tape. An ad showed a so-called 'live' event where a singer shattered a glass with her voice...")

("Hakuna Matata is arguably one of the most popular songs from the Lion King. The lyrics, like the philosophy of the song, are pretty simple: Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase! It means no worries for the rest of your days. It's our problem-free philosophy. Hakuna matata is a Swahili phrase that is literally translated as There are no worries here'...")

("There was a cartoon I saw sometime back which showed a little boy kneeling by his bed saying his bedtime prayers....")

("To this day, that nameless Samaritan woman, the first unexpected evangelist, is revered in many cultures. In southern Mexico, La Samaritana is remembered on the fourth Friday in Lent...")

("It was early on a weekday morning and even though spring was just around the corner, the night had been cold and the morning air still had a bite to it. As I was walking to the church, I encountered a homeless man who had slept the night on an old piece of cardboard...")

("Augustine had lived a life of sin prior to his conversion as a young man. The story is told that soon after his conversion he was accosted by a woman of the street whom he had known intimately prior to his conversion...")

("Paul Rader used to tell the story of a great wheat harvest in Australia that rotted in the fields during World War I. Because so many men had responded to the call of the colors, nobody was left to gather in the grain harvest...")

("When I think about Jesus satisfying man's thirst, my memory goes back to my days at the Lummi Indian Reservation. In our little congregation we had a choir which sang right from the heart. One of the songs was Take my Cup...")

("Some of you have probably read Lonesome Dove. It is basically a story about a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. At one point they have to cross a vast, arid plain;...")

("John de Beer once talked about how violence so often proceeds from a sense of shame, with perpetuators of violence lashing out at whatever or whoever they've projected their shame onto...")

("Jonathan Sacks is Great Britain's Chief Rabbi, and he has written an important book, The Dignity of Difference. Sacks writes, "I see a rising crescendo of ethnic tensions, civilizational clashes, and the use of religious justification for acts of terror, a clear and present danger to humanity...")

("Johann Wolfgang Goethe was the last of the so-called universal human beings. I mean by that, he was one of the last of our western civilization to have gained the mastery of every academic discipline...")

["It is worth our attention that the two occurrences of the word 'drinketh' in our text are actually in two different forms. The construction used in Greek implies a continual, habitual drinking in the first case, but a one time action in the second. Likewise, while the woman referred to a 'well' (v. 12) (literally 'a hole in the ground'), Christ referred to a 'flowing well' or 'spring', using a different word..."]

("Recently a Newspaper ran a little item which I would like to share with you. It was titled: 'In Times of Stress, Just Call on Rover'. It goes like this: 'When it comes to times of stress, the most reassuring companion isn't your sweetheart - it's your schnauzer. A study has found that people who were under stress showed the least amount of tension when accompanied by their dog...")

("In the movie Shrek, we are introduced to a bright green ogre. He lives in the swamp. He likes to live by himself in the swamp because no one likes him...")

("A newspaper ran a little item entitled In Times of Stress, Just Call on Rover. It goes like this: 'When it comes to times of stress, the most reassuring companion you can have is your dog...")

("Once upon a time a new family moved into an elegant suburban parish, one which was very progressive. It had all kinds of committees, and ministries, and there were meetings all the time...")

("Once upon a time there was this boy, a senior in college who had a total crush on a young woman who was a junior. She was totally gorgeous and very smart and also very nice...")

("Once upon a time there was an inquisitive little girl by the name of Amy. At least that’s the name her parents gave her when she was christened...")

("Once upon a time there was a man who was a prisoner of war. The camp in which he was held was a cruel, harsh place and the guards were brutal. Many men died...")

Let me end with a brief poem by Andrzej Jawien. This was the pen name of a certain Polish priest who, in 1978, became Pope John Paul II. It joined us together, the well; the well led me into you. No one between us but light deep in the well, the pupil of the eye set in an orbit of stones. Within your eyes, I, drawn by the well, am enclosed.

("Some years ago, writer Eugene Peterson found an analogy for modern spiritual quests in, of all things, a Winnie the Pooh story. In one of the many tales from the Hundred-Acre Woods, Christopher Robin and company decide to set out one day in search of the North Pole...")

In 1996, a young marine corporal named Joey Mora was standing on a platform of an aircraft carrier patrolling the Iranian Sea. Incredibly, he fell overboard. His absence was not known for 36 hours. A search and rescue mission began, but was given up after another 24 hours. No one could survive in the sea without even a lifejacket after 60 hours. His parents were notified that he was "missing and presumed dead." The rest of the story is one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" events. Script writers would pass it up as "not believable." Four Pakistani fishermen found Joey Mora about 72 hours after he had fallen from the aircraft carrier. He was treading water in his sleep, clinging to a makeshift floatation device made from his trousers -- a skill learned in most military survival training. He was delirious when they pulled him into their fishing boat. His tongue was dry and cracked and his throat parched. Just about two years later, as he spoke with Stone Philips of NBC Dateline, he recounted an unbelievable story of will to live and survival. Who would not give up? He said it was God who kept him struggling to survive. His discovery by the fishermen makes searching for a needle in a haystack a piece of cake. The most excruciating thing of all? Joey said that the one thought that took over his body and pounded in his brain was "Water!"...

In the movie Pretty Woman, a Beverly Hills prostitute named Vivian meets up with Edward Lewis a multi-millionaire who was lost and wrecking the transmission of his lawyer's very expensive car as he drove around looking for his hotel...

("In his book Reframing, Don Capps claims that identifying the real issue in pastoral counseling is half the battle. A man walks into your study. He keeps talking about his garden, but behind the chatter about a bumper crop of tomatoes is a person with serious worries. Many times, most times perhaps, the real issue is hidden...")

("George Burns died several years ago at the age of 100. I watched George Burns for much of my life and the one character he played that I will always remember is his portrayal of God in the O God movies...")

("In a sermon from 1956, Gordon Cosby, a co-founder of that church, speaks of the importance of a personal encounter with Jesus such as the Samaritan woman at the well experiences: 'I have discovered…that commitment and discipline are the absolute essentials for any spiritual power...")

("In 1888 a man was shocked to read the notice of his own death in the newspaper. It was an error. However he was even more shocked to read that the newspaper described him as someone who found new ways to kill people and became rich from doing so...")

("I've been reading a book by a man named Brennan Manning entitled The Ragamuffin Gospel. I've also heard Manning speak and he says something incredible and profound. The one thing Christians tend to overlook more than anything else is grace. God's grace is overwhelming and relentless...")

("I have told you before about the first time I entertained the idea of going to seminary. I contacted the University of Dubuque and spent most of a day on campus, talking with professors and students and sitting through an impossibly boring class...")

("In a penetrating essay on the 'put-down', Joseph Epstein says that judging others is 'malice formulated in tranquility' and the 'civilized person's equivalent of the perfectly aimed knockout punch'...")

(article about inordinate role of women in responsibility for securing household water supplies and the impact of this role in their lives)

Do you like riddles? A riddle is defined as a mystifying, misleading, or puzzling, question posed as a problem to be solved or guessed. The word also means something or someone difficult to understand. Riddles can be a source of entertainment. Many games have been devised using riddles. Children's shows on television have been devised using riddles like Blue's Clues. Yet, riddles can also have a serious side. In his book, The Hobbit, Tolkien includes riddles as part of a game with serious consequences. In the book, the main character, Bilbo Baggins is lost in a dark cave. There are many tunnels and he does not know which way will lead him back to daylight. He runs into a curious creature by the name of Gollum. Gollum is a very pathetic creature. Years ago he had found a magic ring. This ring had evil powers. It could make the wearer invisible. However, every time the person put on the ring, the ring gained control over the person's soul. They became addicted to the ring. They had to have it with them all the time, even if they were not wearing it. Gollum had worn the ring often. He was under the ring's control and he was evil. Bilbo stumbles into Gollum in the dark. They enter into a contest of riddles. If Bilbo wins, the Gollum leads him out of the dark into the light. If Gollum wins, Bilbo is invited to dinner where he is the main course. This game is serious...

("Whenever opportunity affords, evangelism is to be our first priority. It’s also, or ought to be, a joyful privilege. There’s nothing more worthwhile than seeking under God to be the human agent in saving men and women for all eternity. Evangelism is also a partnership...")

("The Boston Globe once reported the tragic account of the drowning of an eight year old in a small pond. They boy was with three friends and together they were looking for golf balls..." and other illustrations)

("In Nicholas Evans' popular novel The Horse Whisperer, Annie Graves travels across a continent with her daughter Grace and Grace's severely traumatized horse Pilgrim in a desperate attempt to convince a Montana rancher named Tom Booker to help them...")

Mr. Data on the Starship Enterprise emits a little giggle. This is inappropriate and unexpected from an artificial life form. Jean Luc Picard, the captain, orders him to begin a “self-diagnostic”. This is a part of Data’s programming which will find and correct anything which does not fit correctly into the expectations for him. Data finds the errant chip of information and the problem is solved. Data had been endowed by his creator with the ability to perform such a function. You probably see where I am going with this. Our Lenten procession is also a self-diagnosis.

("Compassion, as you know, comes from Latin words that literally mean to suffer with. Thus, compassion is somewhat different from pity, which connotes an attitude of someone in a superior position expressed toward someone in an inferior position. The Japanese word equivalent to pity is disliked by most Japanese Christians because of this connotation...")

("Professor Anna May Soule had taken Frances Perkins and the other students in her American History course to a nearby factory to survey there the working conditions - the abominable, but typical, working conditions...")

("You know that Noah brought the animals onto the Ark twos by two, right? Well it's a little known fact that of all the animals on the Ark, Noah actually brought three camels. First, there was the one whose back would be broken by the last straw...")

("Some years ago a group of nine Mexicans who were on a long journey decided to take a short-cut over an old forsaken trail known as 'the Devil's Highway'. The trail cuts straight across a parched desert in northern Mexico..." and other illustrations)

("Recently my wife and I had the opportunity to be aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean. One of the things that impressed me was the fact that the crew of the ship were from 52 different countries...")

"Robert Frost wrote a poem entitled The Road Not Taken. It is brief – four stanzas, twenty lines – but in that space, he reminds us of an important truth. He writes of walking a road through a wood that suddenly branches out to become two..."

("When Lawrence of Arabia was in Paris after WWI with some of his Arab friends, he showed them the sights of the city, but do you know what impressed them the most? it was the faucet in the hotel bathtub...")

The Rev. Henry Maxwell of the First Church had just finishing his sermon when the entire congregation was startled by the sound of a man's voice. It came from the rear of the church. The man came forward, stood on the cancel steps and said, "I've been wondering since I came in here, if it would be just the thing to say a word at the close of the service. I'm not drunk, and I'm not crazy and I am perfectly harmless, but if I die, as there is every likelihood I shall in a few days, I want the satisfaction of thinking that I said my say in a place like this, and before this sort of crowd." No one tried to stop him, not even Rev. Maxwell, as he leaned over the pulpit looking at the man. He continued: "I lost my job 10 months ago as a printer. The new machines made my job obsolete, I don't know how to do anything else; I've tramped all over the country trying to find something. There are good many others like me. I'm not complaining, am I? As I listened to the sermon from the back pew, I heard your pastor say: 'that it is necessary for the disciples of Jesus to follow His steps, and he said the steps are 'obedience, faith, love and imitation.' But I did not hear him tell you just what he meant, that to mean, especially, the last step. What do you Christians mean by following the steps of Jesus? I've tramped through this city for 3 days trying to find a job; and in all that time, I've not had a word of sympathy or comfort except from your minister here, who said he was sorry for me and hoped I would find a job somewhere. I suppose it is because you get imposed on by the professional tramp that you have lost your interest in any other sort. I'm not blaming anybody, am I? Just stating facts. Of course, I understand you can't all go out of your way to hunt up jobs for other people like me. I'm not asking you to; but what I feel puzzled about is what is meant by following Jesus. What do you mean when you sing,"I'll go with Him, with Him,all the way." Do you mean that you are suffering and denying yourselves and trying to save lost,and suffering humanity just as I understood Jesus did?" He continued saying; "But what would Jesus do? Is that what do you mean by following His steps?" At that moment, the man passed out. He was taken to the parsonage, the service end. In a couple of days the man died. Pastor Maxwell, the following Sunday, had a most unusual sermon where he asked members of First Church to stay after if they wanted to and pledge for a year to ask the question, "What would Jesus Do?" before they did or planned any action in their lives. This is a very interesting little book and I don't have the time to tell you the whole story, but the main point is easy enough. As you and I live our lives, shouldn't we be asking that question:"What would Jesus Do?" How would Jesus want me to act, think or feel about events, people, places or things?...

A young man borrowed the family car without permission, knowing he could have it home and safely in the garage before his father found out. He hadn't reckoned on getting rear-ended at the second intersection he came to. No way to conceal the damage, he parked the car and closed the garage door, then spent an evening agonizing over how to deal with his father when he arrived home. When his dad walked in, the young man flashed a look of terror. He told his father everything, complete with profuse apology. His father walked with the son to the garage and looked long and hard and silently at the damage. Then he said, "Insurance will cover it. It wouldn't have covered the broken trust between you and me, however. Fortunately, your apology took care of that." "Can you ever forgive me, Dad?" "I have already. You have learned your lesson. Forget about it." A week later the son, still guilt-driven, came to his father and said, "Dad, in case they raise our insurance rates because of the accident, I'm willing to earn the money to pay the difference in the premiums." His father didn't even look up from his newspaper as he said, simply, "What accident?" Says the Lord, "I will remember their sin no more."

(scroll down for this entry)