By His actions

John 4:27-42

           When I was a small kid in the early 1960's my Dad had a minivan. He was waaaay ahead of his time. It was a Chevy Greenbriar (you can Google it) and it was fixed up with curtains, TV, bar, a table and a row of vintage DC3 airplane seats in the back complete with seat belts. That's the thing! He had seat belts in the back and he had them installed in the front as well. Like I said, waaaay ahead of his time.  I grew up with that kind of thinking. Forward thinking and we didn't give it much thought. Perhaps some thought my Dad was a bit strange with these "seat belts" but I never knew it.

           Some people are ahead of their time and they depend on no one else for justification, they just do what they see as right or correct. In the beginning, they are a minority and then the tide swings in their favor.

          Of all the things Jesus actually said there is perhaps less attention paid to things he actually did, those things that Jesus showed us by example. Note, Jesus never said anything about being gay. He didn't say one way or another. That might be because the term and notion of someone being "homosexual" was not invented until the 1800's.  Same sex relationships in Jesus' time were well known though as was male prostitution. They were not looked at in the same way by the Romans, the Greeks or the Jews.  But in the case of the Centurion and his "dear slave", Jesus has no problem curing the beloved servant of the Centurion. I have written about that before (9-17-2012). Jesus mentions the Centurions faith but fails to say anything one way or another about the relationship. Jesus' actions would seem to make it a moot point or at least a tacit approval.  Jesus was waaay ahead of his time.

       In today's passage, Jesus spends quite a bit of time with the Samaritan woman at the well.  What he said is well reported but the not so subtle message to me, as it should be to all of us, is that he was responding to a woman as an equal.  This is in light of the fact that she was a women, and a Samaritan - and they would be lower than the low.  Again, waaay ahead of his time.

       It is with great joy then that I embrace the Episcopal church and their stance on women and especially women in ministry. Perhaps a bit ahead of their time for many churches, it is just catching up with what Jesus showed us while he was alive. Many of the early faithful and leaders of the church were women.  Who was it that proclaimed that Jesus had risen to the Apostles?  Who are Mary and Martha and Mary Magdalene? The Episcopal church embraces all because Jesus did. It does so without revisionist history or repressing the role women played in the early church to maintain a male dominated 'clergy club'. Note how the Roman church took a disciple in Mary Magdalene and subverted her into a prostitute.

       Rosa Parks was a women ahead of her time. Perhaps it should be said, she was proclaiming what should already have been. Racial equality, and going back, slavery was looked at and justified by passages of the Bible.  We need to embrace not only the words of Jesus but what his love calls us to do. The Spirit is alive and the movement of the Spirit calls us to be waaay ahead of our time.   We should erase stereotypes whether about people of color, about the gay community or anyone that is marginalized and oppressed.  We should erase the use of misinformed and mistranslated scripture which holds people back in the name of God but fails to show the love he calls us to and lived as he walked the earth.

      In Jesus' name, do as he said and do as he did.  Amen

 

           

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’