"Mary Magalene, The Tower" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday April 5 – Easter Sunday
Scripture:  John 20:1-18


I want to talk a bit about Mary Magdalene, since she plays kind of a big role in today’s story.  We don’t know a lot about Mary Magdalene from the bible, but all four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – have her present at the cross, witnessing Jesus’s crucifixion, and then present again at the empty tomb.  The details of the story in each gospel are different, but Mary Magdalene’s presence is one of the things that they have in common.

The gospel of Luke and the gospel of Mark tell us that Jesus had healed Mary Magdalene from seven demons; and Luke includes her in a list of wealthy women who were financing Jesus’s ministry.  And whenever there is a list of female disciples, Mary Magdalene is always listed first, as if she held a position comparable to Peter’s role in lists of male disciples.

It is almost more interesting to look for what the bible doesn’t tell us about Mary Magdalene.  No matter what you might have heard, Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute.  That rumour goes back to Pope Gregory I in the year 591, more than 500 years after Mary was counted among Jesus’s disciples.

And we can probably thank author Dan Brown for popularizing the idea that Mary Magdalene was in a romantic relationship with Jesus – again, there is nothing in the bible that even hints at this.

Much as I love the musical Jesus Christ, Superstar, when I was watching it on Friday afternoon, I was noticing how it latches on to both of these rumours.  Judas sings:  “It seems to me a strange thing, mystifying / That a man like you can waste his time / On women of her kind / It's not that I object to her profession / But she doesn't fit in well with what you teach and say.”  And then Mary herself sings, “I don’t know how to love him.”

So… Mary wasn’t Jesus’s wife, she wasn’t a prostitute, she was present for Jesus’s death and resurrection, and she held some sort of leadership role among Jesus’s disciples.

Probably the most popular explanation of her name says that she came from the town of Magdala, on the shore of the sea of Galilee – Mary of Magdala.  The only problem with this theory is that the town of Magdala didn’t exist in the time of Jesus.  Some recent scholarship suggests that possibly her name is a title – that she was Mary the Magdalene, not Mary of Magdala.  (In fact, in Greek, the writer of the gospel of John includes the article – she is Mary the Magdalene.). And the word Migdal means tower.  She is Mary the Tower.

Which can then lead to all sorts of speculation as we now have Mary the Tower alongside Peter the Rock serving as leaders among the disciples.

Looking at today’s story, on the first day of the week, on the day after the sabbath, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb where, just two days previously, she had seen her teacher’s body laid.  We aren’t told why she has come – possibly to mourn at the grave of one who was so cruelly murdered by the state.

But when she gets there, the massive stone that had covered the opening of the grave has been moved, and the body is gone.  I can only imagine her grief now mingled with rage.  What has happened to the body of her beloved?  She runs to get two of the other disciples who come, look around, confirm that there is no body, then go back to their homes, still not understanding what has happened, home to hide once more behind closed doors.

But not Mary – no, Mary stays there at the grave.  Even though the body she came to mourn is no longer there, she stays at the place where he was last seen.  She doesn’t rush past her grief, but she doesn’t hide away either.

And when Jesus appears, at first she doesn’t recognize him, so deep in her grief as she was.  But even though Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus, he recognizes her.  He recognizes her, and he calls her by name. And when Mary hears her name on the lips of the one she has followed, the blinders of grief fall away, and she knows, even as she is already known.

What a journey she has been on, from disciple, to mourner, to the first one to witness the risen Christ.  She is living out the words of Psalm 30 – her mourning has been turned to dancing, and her sackcloth of grief has been replaced by a garment of joy!

But her story doesn’t end here.  Jesus tells her to go – to go and find the other disciples and tell them what she has seen.  She doesn’t linger in the peace and joy of the garden, but goes to share the good news with others.  She becomes the apostle to the apostles.

And that, maybe, is the message for all of us.  We have been on a journey this week, from last Sunday’s parade of palms, through the tenderness of Thursday, through the pain and grief of Friday, through the waiting of Saturday.  And now we have come to the moment of fulfillment.  Our grief falls away, and we sing our Hallelujahs!  Christ the Lord is risen today!  The purple that adorned our church for the past 6 weeks has been replaced by gold and white, and we have feasted on chocolate eggs and hot cross buns.

But we can’t linger here at the empty tomb.  Just as he sent Mary out from the garden, Jesus sends us out to share the joy of Easter with the world.  The message of Easter – this message of new life and new beginnings and fresh starts – this message of hope, that the worst times we go through are never the last times – this message of Easter is too important, too exciting to keep to ourselves!  In a world where the dominant message seems to be one of death and despair, we are called to be bearers of hope.

So let us sing our Hallelujahs here this morning, but then let us carry our Hallelujahs out into the world, so that the whole world can share our joy!  Amen.

 

 

“Easter – Christ Appears to Mary”
JESUS MAFA
Used with Permission

"Hungering for Courage" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday March 29, 2026 – Palm Sunday
Scripture:  Matthew 21:1-11

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

When I think of Palm Sunday – and I suspect that the same might be true for many of you – I think of waving branches, of parades up and down the aisle of the church, of pageantry, of “All glory, laud, and honour / to you, Redeemer, King; / to whom the lips of children / made sweet hosannas ring.”  I think of the event that is usually titled “Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem” – Jesus riding on a donkey, cushioned by crowds of people shouting and singing their songs of praise.  I think of this event as a celebration, of a spiritual high to kick off Holy Week.

But if you look closely at what is happening, you might notice that something more is going on just below the surface.

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

When you look at that verse, the word “turmoil” is translated differently in different bible translations.  The whole city was in turmoil.  The whole city was stirred up.  The whole city was shaken.  The whole city was thrown into an uproar.  All the city was moved.  All the city was trembling with excitement.

But if you were to look back to the original Greek, the word used here means literally shaken.  The Greek word here is the origin to our word seismic.  There is a metaphorical earthquake going on in Jerusalem.  The city has been shaken to the very core of it’s being. The city was shook.

Our bible study peeps know that I don’t usually consider The Message to the most accurate translation of the original, but in this case, I think that maybe The Message is the most literally accurate:  “As he made his entrance into Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken.  Unnerved, people were asking, What’s going on here?  Who is this?’”

So maybe, instead of imagining cute children waving their branches and singing songs of praise while Jesus rides in to the city as the triumphant king, we might do better to imagine something a little more ominous, a little more foreboding, a little more fearful.

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

Remember that Jerusalem, and all of the land of Judea, was a country under occupation.  The Emperor off in Rome was calling the shots, and his army was enforcing the sometimes-arbitrary rules.  It was a superficial peace enforced by the threat of violence – pay your taxes, and don’t put a toe out of line or you’ll end up on the cross like all those other rabble-rousers and insurrectionists.

We’re also at the time of the Passover – a time when faithful Jewish people from all around the known world would have journeyed to Jerusalem to celebrate their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and worship at the temple.  The population of the city has swollen to two or three times the usual number of people.  It’s crowded.  It’s noisy.

And don’t forget that the festival of Passover celebrates their deliverance from slavery.  Their deliverance from a cruel empire that had treated them as less than human, and who had governed through violence.  What better time and place to plot deliverance from the current system of oppression?

The messiah, the saviour that people longed for was one who could deliver them from Rome and from the oppression of Empire.  Was this the year that their deliverer would arrive?

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

At the time of the Passover, Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, would usually ride a war horse into Jerusalem in a show of military might and power, surrounded by legions of soldiers all armed with the most modern weapons, ready to keep the peace by violence if necessary.

Some people have speculated, have wondered if it is possible that Jesus was riding his donkey into Jerusalem at the same time as Pilate.  What a piece of theatre that would have been!  Here on one side of the city, the pomp and power of the Empire.  And here on the other side of the city, a lowly donkey, a rag-tag group of followers from the backwater of Galilee, and people waving branches cut from the nearby fields.  And the people shout out to Jesus, “Hosanna!”  “Save us, Son of David!”

The Power of Empire, or the Prince of Peace.  Where do you want to put your trust?  Which parade do you want to be in today?

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

I don’t know if you have been following the news this weekend, but yesterday, millions upon millions of people across the US, across Canada, and around the world to protest against the power of empire.  And as I watched the news unfold this week, I thought that the timing of these marches was particularly striking, falling on Palm Sunday Weekend.

On one side, you have the power of Empire – the power to fire missiles and drop bombs; the power to block the movement of food and fuel; the power to arbitrarily detain people who are simply trying to live; the power to choose who lives and who dies.

And on the other side, we have throngs of people gathering together, choosing the power of non-violent protest.  People carrying signs that read:  “Support Biblical Values:  welcome migrants, believe women, and feed the poor.”  People carrying signs that read:  “Unity in our Community.”  People carrying signs that read:  “No kings. No ice. No war.”  People carrying signs that read:  “Democracy is worth protecting.”

The Power of Empire or the Prince of Peace.  Which parade do you want to be in today?

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

It is fun to wave our branches and sing our favourite Palm Sunday hymns – my personal favourite is coming up momentarily.  It is fun to kick off Holy Week with a parade.  But if we scratch even just a little bit below the surface, there is a lot more going on than it may seem.  There are forces at work in the story that want to silence Jesus and his message of peace.  There are forces at work in the world today that want to silence Jesus and his message of peace.

Between now and next Sunday, Jesus is going to go through a lot; and we, as the church, have a choice.  Our mission, should we choose to accept, is to accompany Jesus to the end of his story, and then beyond the end of his story to what will come next.  We could jump over the messy middle bits.  We could jump straight from today’s parade to next Sunday’s empty tomb.  Or we can stay with him.  We can stay with him through the tenderness of Thursday’s meal.  We can stay with him through the pain and grief of Friday.  We can wait outside the tomb through the stillness of Saturday.  And then we can be there next Sunday when the stone is rolled away and resurrection joy replaces the pain.

By choosing to wave our branches and march in the Jesus parade today, choosing the Prince of Peace over the Power of Empire, can we commit to seeing this journey through?  Can we commit to keeping our faith strong, even when things seem hopeless, trusting that peace will eventually overturn empires, and love will defeat death?

Which parade are you marching in today?

 

 

“Palm Sunday”
by Brandon Barr on flickr
Used with Permission

"Hungering for Newness" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday March 22, 2026 – 5^th Sunday in Lent
Scripture:  Ezekiel 37:1-14

I have a core memory of this story from Ezekiel, from my time at the Atlantic School of Theology.  My former classmate, David, is a drummer, and he brought a selection of hand drums and other percussion instruments to the chapel, and as the story was read, he used them to create a soundscape.  As the dry, desiccated bones began to shift around, and be connected one to another, the hollow rattling of the drum made it sound as though we were there, watching it happening alongside Ezekiel.  It still gives me goosebumps to remember how it sounded.

Now Ezekiel was a prophet from a time of exile.  The Babylonian army had laid siege to the city of Jerusalem, and eventually both the city and the country of Judah fell.  Lives were lost.  Families were torn apart.  Houses were destroyed.  Even the temple, the home of God, was reduced to rubble.  And then all of the leaders – anyone who was anyone in ancient Judah – was carried off to exile in Babylon.  And this was the place and the time where Ezekiel was a prophet.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the people in exile felt like they were old dry bones, thrown away into the pit of a valley.  Everything that had given their lives any meaning was gone. They were grieving the loss of their homes.  They were grieving the loss of their family members and friends.  They were grieving the loss of their old, familiar routines.  They were grieving the loss of their God, for the very home of God had been destroyed and they had been carried away into a land where foreign gods were in charge.

When I think of this time of early exile, I think of Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon –
         there we sat down and there we wept
         when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
         we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
         “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the Lord’s song
         in a foreign land?

It is no wonder that the people felt as dried up as dust, their flesh wasted away, their bones come out of joint, no marrow left in them. They didn’t just feel dead and lifeless – they felt dead-dead, so that there wasn’t even a hint of life left, and definitely no future for them.

And into this time and place of death and despair, God tells the prophet Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones.  And with a hollow rattle, the bones begin to move.  More rattling and the bones begin to join together, joints forming where the humerus meets the ulna and where the femur meets the tibia.  More rattling, and then the rattling stops, as muscle and skin begin to form, flesh covering the bones that were.

And then God tells the prophet Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath.  And Ezekiel calls to the four corners of creation, and the wind, the breath, the spirit the ruach of God comes rushing in, filling the flesh-covered skeletons, and once again there is life.  The same breath of God that brought life to the first human made of dirt has brought the dry bones back to life.

And with this vision of new life, the people of God have been freed to dream of a future.  They are now free to imagine a future for themselves and for their children and for their grandchildren.  No longer are they marrow-less bones disposed of in a dry valley somewhere in exile – now they are vital, vibrant, joy-filled people filled with the breath of God.

It is such a powerful image of transformation.  I wonder what the people began to dream of, there in Babylon?  Did they dream of settling in to exile, of building homes and gardens, of weddings and new families?  For all of this took place in the generations spent in Babylon.  Or did they dream even bigger, dreaming of a time when their descendants would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the city and the temple?  Because even though the exile would last for three generations, a time would come when their descendants would return, and the rebuilding and restoration would happen.

Now what about for us?  How can we hear this vision of Ezekiel and take it in to our hearts?  In what places in your life to you relate to the dried-up old bones at the start of the story?

Are you carrying grief in your heart right now – grief over the loss of a loved one; grief over the loss of a relationship; grief over the loss of health; grief over the loss of independence.  In what places does it feel like your life is over, and there is no hope for the future?

But in to your personal valley of dried bones, the breath of God comes singing in.  God is a God of new beginnings and new life; and even when it feels like there can be no future for you, the breath of God only needs to turn the page, and a whole new chapter is waiting there for you to explore.

And what about the state of the world?  There is so much turmoil and disruption going on right now, from wars to inflation to homelessness to political instability on a global scale.  In some places, we seem to be moving backwards, losing progress that has been made on care for creation, on care for immigrants and refugees, on care for our trans and queer siblings.  Sometimes it feels as though we are slipping in to chaos, and will never be able to take a deep beath again.

But in to the valley of dried bones that is the world right now, the breath of God comes singing in.  For God is a God of new beginnings and new life; and even when it feels like there is no future for the world that doesn’t involve further destruction and despair, the breath of God can blow away the chaos and breathe new life and love and hope.

This winter, I’ve also been running up against despair for the future of our church – fear that we are entering our valley of the dried bones stage of our existence.  I’ve been running up against an inability to imagine a future for the church that is both lively and life-giving.

But into the valley of dried bones that some see the church lying in, the breath of God comes singing in.  The breath of God won’t blow us back to the church that was 10 years ago or 50 years ago, but will instead blow us into a future that we can dare to dream of – a future of rainbow-coloured beauty, a future of vibrancy and love, a future that is brought to life by the spirit-breath of God.

So Church – dearest, beloved Church – today, I hear a call to all of us from Ezekiel, calling us to prophesy to the Breath, prophesy to the Spirit, prophesy to the ruach.  Let’s all of us call on the life-giving Breath of God to flood into our lives, giving life to our dry bones.  Let’s all of us call on the life-giving Breath of God to flood into the world, giving life to all of the places of dry bones.  And let’s all of us call on the life-giving Breath of God to flood into our churches, restoring our imaginations so that we can dream the future in to being.

For if the Breath of God can bring life back to those hollow old bones, just think of what the Breath of God can do with all of us, who are already living!

 

 

“Life After Death”
by Willy Verhulst on flickr
Used with Permission

"Hungering for Clarity" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday March 15, 2026 – 4^th Sunday in Lent
Scripture Reading:  John 9:1-41


I’m wearing my contact lenses this morning, but without them or without my glasses, I am extremely nearsighted.  I’ve worn glasses since I was 5 years old, and I can’t remember a time when I’ve been able to see clearly without contact lenses or glasses.  Last winter, shortly after Christmas, I noticed that even with my glasses, things were starting to get blurry, especially in my left eye.  Trees were looking like shapes rather than being able to see the details of their branches.  Road signs were harder to read until I got up close to them.

And when I saw my eye doctor last March, she confirmed that yes, indeed, my vision had worsened from my previous appointment, and she calculated a new prescription for me.  I wasn’t getting new frames for my glasses, so a couple of weeks later, I went back and they took my glasses away from me for a bit while they put the new lenses in them.  For a little bit, I couldn’t see anything – I sat there in the waiting room, seeing the shapes of people and hearing their voices, but not knowing who it was. You could have sat down right next to me, but unless you told me who you were, I wouldn’t have known that it was you.

And then she brought my glasses back to me.  All of a sudden, I could see clearly.  I could see the other people in the waiting room.  I could read signs in the window of the stores across the street.  And once I got out of uptown, I could see the branches on the trees again.  The world had come back in to focus.

You may have had a similar experience, if you wear glasses, or if you’ve ever had cataract surgery.  You put the lenses in front of your eyes, or the surgeon replaces the cloudy lens in your eye with a clear one, and all of a sudden the world comes in to focus.  We see the world through the lenses that we look through.

I wonder about the man who was born blind in today’s bible story.  He had never seen anything in his life, and all of a sudden he does.  I know how exciting it is to get new lenses in my glasses and to be able to see the way that I have in the past – I can’t imagine how it must have felt to obtain a new sense that you had never experienced before.  I wonder how he felt in that moment?  Was he excited?  Disappointed? Overwhelmed? Grateful?  It is a relatively long story, but I wish that John had given us just a few more details!

I do want to take a little detour to say that this is a challenging story when you look at it from a disability theology perspective.  Jesus affirms that this man’s blindness was not a result of sin – either his own or his parents’ or his grandparents’ or any of his ancestors.  Which is good.  Blindness and other disabilities are not a punishment.  But Jesus also says something that I find more difficult to accept – that this man was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.  I struggle to accept a God who throws challenges in front of people just so that God might work a miracle or two.  This is a very sadistic image of God.  And what about people who are blind or who have other disabilities who have prayed for a miracle but haven’t received one?  Like I said, I have issues with what Jesus is saying here.

I reconcile Jesus’s words within myself by taking a broader interpretation – that God can reveal God’s power and glory through everyone, whether with a disability or able-bodied, whether queer or straight, cis- or trans-, whether male, female, or non-binary.  No state of our being can be a barrier to God working Their glory through us.

But that is a tangent.  Back to our main story at hand, and someone who has never seen before being given sight.

This is a very down-to-earth sort of miracle that Jesus does.  He literally spits in the dirt, makes a mudpack that he places on the man’s eyes, and tells him to go away and wash in a specific pool. And when the man washes the dirt off his eyes, he can see.  Back in Genesis, we see the first human formed of dirt, and brought to life by the breath of God – here we have more dirt and the spit of God enacting a miracle of rebirth and new life.

In Lent this year, our theme is Hungering for God, and this week we are Hungering for Clarity.  We are hungering to see the world clearly, and to see where God is working, and to see where we are going.

This week, I had the opportunity to participate in a facilitated conversation with my colleagues in this Region about church and ministry in these times that we are living through right now.  6 years ago today was our first Sunday after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic; and since then, it has felt like we, as a society, have had the rug pulled out from under our feet again and again and again, and it feels as though nothing will ever be familiar or stable again.

I know that you all know what the world has been going through, but when you put things into perspective, in the past 6 years, we have experienced:  a global life-threatening pandemic; revelations of systemic racism as we have seen threats to Black and Indigenous lives; who remembers the “truckers protest” of 3 years ago?; increasing hostility from the global superpower that is just over an hour away from here; inflation and trade wars; unaffordable housing for so many people and increasing homelessness; wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and now Iran; and overall a general mis-trust of authority and isolationism that has pervaded society.

This is a very destabilizing time to be living through.  What we knew in the past is likely gone.  Even if things were to change overnight – the end to all wars and a new government south of the border – even if all that changed overnight, we can’t go back to the way that things were a decade ago.

One thing that the facilitator of our conversation this week pointed out to us was that in turbulent and uncertain times, when our stability has been ruptured, one of the first casualties is our imagination.  We lose our ability to imagine, to dream of something that is both new and good.  We become stuck in the present, and we can only see the bad, and we convince ourselves that things will only get worse.

I began by talking about changing the lenses in my glasses, or with cataract surgery, how the surgeon can replace the lens in your eye.  Since we look through these lenses to see the world, the lens that we are looking through shapes what we see – things are cloudy or things are clear depending on the lens you are looking through.

What if we could take this image to a metaphorical level?  What might it be like to look at the world through the lens of Jesus?  What if we could look at the chaos of the world through, not rose-tinted lenses, but Jesus-tinted lenses?  What might we see?

I suspect that we would still see the chaos, but we might also see the pain that is behind so much of the chaos, and that we might look at the pain of the chaos with deep and compassionate love.  I suspect that we might also tune in to all of the love and kindness and goodness that is present in the world.  We might be able to focus on the people and places where hungry people are being fed, where reconciliation is happening, where people stand outside in a snowstorm to give away free pie that comes with a message of God’s rainbow-coloured love.

If looking at the world through Jesus-tinted lenses lets us look at the world today with deep love, I also wonder if looking at the future through Jesus-tinted lenses might also restore our ability to imagine and to dream.  For God doesn’t desire suffering or pain or hatred or fear.  God desires a world of love and peace and joy.  When we look at the future through the lens of Jesus, we have to imagine a future that is moving in that direction – a future where neighbour loves neighbour, a future where everyone has enough food to eat and safe shelter, a future where war and violence are things of the past.

And then once we can imagine this future, well, what’s to stop us from taking small steps towards this future?

We hunger for clarity, and while looking at the world through the lens of Jesus won’t tell us what is going to happen tomorrow, it will give us clarity on the world today, and clarity on the what-might-bes of tomorrow.  And I don’t know about you, but this is how I want to see the world.

 

“A Sliver of Clarity”
by Dennis Wilkinson on flickr
Used with Permission

"Hungering for Relationship" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday March 8, 2026 – 3^rd Sunday in Lent
Scripture Reading:  John 4:5-42

I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the Woman at the Well that Jesus encounters in today’s bible story.  She is a much loved “character” from the story of Jesus’s life – I think I’ve mentioned before that I listen to a handful of preaching podcasts each week, and one of the hosts, Dr. Karoline Lewis from the Sermon Brainwave podcast, is a New Testament scholar with a focus on the Gospel of John.  It’s a running joke anytime she speaks on the podcast or elsewhere that she will defend the Gospel of John as the best gospel right to her last breath.  And in this week’s episode of the podcast, she told us that her favourite story in her favourite gospel was the story that we read this morning.

So what do we know about this woman?  She is unnamed for one thing – we never learn her name.

We also know that she is a Samaritan, and this is significant because the Samaritan people and the Jewish people didn’t get along.  They really didn’t get along.  The didn’t get along in the way that close neighbours who have a lot in common sometimes don’t get along with each other.  Both groups claimed descent from Abraham and Sarah, from Isaac and Rebekkah, from Jacob and his many wives.  Both groups worshiped the same God, the God of their ancestors.  But due to some schism in their distant path – possibly related to the schism of the kingdom that had been united under King David and King Solomon into two separate kingdoms, the two groups practiced their religion differently, and had different holy sites.  And a religious squabble became an, “I don’t like you because you’re not like me so I’m not going to talk to you” difference of opinions.

As the narrator tells us as an aside in this story, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.”

So we know that the woman at the well is a Samaritan.  An outsider, if you had a Jewish perspective.  Or maybe it was Jesus who was the outsider to her?  What else do we know about her?

We know that it was noon, and she was coming to the well alone.  This is unusual behaviour.  Hauling water is heavy work.  In Jesus’s time and place, there was no running water, and in many places in the world today, there is no running water.

When I lived in Tanzania, in East Africa, I lived on the hospital compound, and I could usually turn on the tap in my house and water would come out. (Though water outages were common enough that I usually kept a couple of jugs of water stashed just in case.)  But for many Tanzanians, this isn’t the reality.  They would fetch jugs and buckets of water from either a community tap, or a local spring, or a river, and haul it home to use for drinking, for cooking, and for washing.  In Tanzania, like in many places, hauling water is the work of women and children.  I would regularly see women helping each other lift 25-litre (6-gallon) pails of water onto each other’s heads, each one with a piece of banana leaf floating on top to keep the water from sloshing over the side, then trekking a kilometer or more back home.

It is heavy work.  It is hot work.  It is work that is done together, as it is impossible to lift a bucket that heavy on to your own head.  And it is not work that is usually done in the heat of the day.

It is very unusual for the Samaritan woman in today’s story to be at the well alone, and in the middle of the day.  Why wasn’t she there in the cool of the early morning or the evening with the other women from her village?  It’s almost as if she has been shunned by her neighbours, not welcomed in the places and groups where she would normally expect to be.

What else do we know about her?  We know that she has been married five times, and is currently with a partner to whom she is not married.

I don’t know how you have heard this story interpreted in your past, but I know that I have come across an interpretation in both sermons and in songs that names this woman as promiscuous, and that her neighbours are condemning her, shunning her for her promiscuity.  But there is absolutely nothing in the story that makes this claim.  And knowing what I know about how marriages worked in the first century in the Ancient Near East, I also know that she likely had very little agency in her marital state.

So why might she have had so many husbands?  Option 1 is that she had been widowed 5 times over.  And the effect that this would have had on her mental and emotional health is heartbreaking.  If there had been genuine love and affection in her marriages, five times she has dealt with the grief of widowhood.  And even if the marriage was more of a business transaction as was the practice of her time and place, five times she has lost the security of marriage and has been thrust into the vulnerability of widowhood.

And there are social implications of this too.  Even in today’s world, if a person were widowed five times over, the rumours fly that she or he is bad luck, or possibly guilty of murdering spouses.

If she hasn’t been widowed, the other option is that she has been divorced five times; and the most likely reason that a woman has been divorced multiple times is that she is infertile.  Marriage was about family security, and a woman who couldn’t offer that to her husband would be set aside in the hopes that a different wife might be able to do so.

And again, the emotional and social toll that this would have taken on her are immense.

Whether she has been widowed five times over, or divorced five times over, or some combination of the two, this woman seems to have been considered to be a bad luck token in her community; and as a result, she is hauling water alone at midday, without the companionship or help of the other women in her village.

And in comes Jesus.  And Jesus sees he for who she truly is.  Jesus doesn’t push her away, as if her presence might jinx him.  Jesus offers her the living water of faith and the Holy Spirit that he gives.

And I love seeing the dialogue that ensues.  She, a woman, an outsider to Jesus’s world, a woman who has been cast out from her expected social place in her village, this unnamed Samaritan woman engages in dialogue with Jesus, seeking deeper meaning and seeking to know God better.  I know that this Lent, we’re talking about hungering for God, but given that we are at a well this week, and Jesus is offering her living water, we might better say that this woman is thirsting for God.

Last week, if you were worshipping with us, we read the story about Nicodemus coming to Jesus with his questions, and it is fascinating to compare the two stories.  Nicodemus is named, unlike this week’s woman, likely because he is a man.  Nicodemus comes to Jesus hidden by the shadows of the night, while the woman this week comes to him by full daylight where anyone could see.  Nicodemus, after asking a couple of questions, just sort of fades away back into the night; whereas this Samaritan woman engages in a full dialogue with Jesus, then goes back to her village to share what she has learned with others.

Which, perhaps, makes her the very first evangelist, sharing the Good News with other people.

And, to me, it is in her return to her village that we see the crux of this story.  Because this woman who has been outcast, not part of society, grieving and working alone – because of her encounter with Jesus, she is empowered to start knocking on doors and reclaiming her place in society.  Maybe, in fact, claiming a more important place in society than she ever had before as the bearer of good news to her village.

Jesus saw her fully; and because she was fully seen, because of her encounter with the Living Water, she was able to reclaim her place in the community that had been denied to her for too long.  Because of her relationship with Jesus, she was able to rebuild relationships with her neighbours.

We are not created to be alone.  The ideal of humanity is not a hermit living in a cave on the side of a mountain with no human contact.  Yes, even for those of us who are introverts who crave alone time!  We are created for community.  We need each other, and we can only be fully human through relationship with each other.

We are created in the image of God, and the God in whose image we are created is community – the community of the Trinity, the three-in-one and the one-in-three.  God is community within Godself, and we are created in the image of community.

In a world that feels so fractured and isolating these days – sometimes because we are choosing our silos, and sometimes because people are pushed out – we hunger for relationship and for community.  We hunger for belonging, and for purpose that can be found in finding our place in the interconnected and interdependent web that we are a part of.  Like the woman at the well, we hunger to be seen, and we hunger to be accepted.  And through our relationships – our relationship with God and our relationships with each other – we can find wholeness.  Thanks be to God.

 

 

Image:  “Fetching Water, Maradi, Niger”

Photo Credit:  Water Alternatives Photos on flickr

Used with Permission

 

"Hungering for Mystery" (sermon)

Two River Pastoral Charge
Sunday March 1, 2026 – 2^nd Sunday in Lent
Scripture Reading:  John 3:1-17

Let me begin with a story.  Last summer, at VBS – Vacation Bible School – our theme was water.  We had activities and experiments all involving water.  We had a lifeguard for the afternoon and spent a couple of hours down at the wharf.  And we read some stories from the bible involving water.  We read the story about how Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea so that the people could cross safely to the other side.  We read the story about how Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and then the story about how Jesus and Peter were able to walk on water.  And we read the story of Jesus’s baptism.

When we read the story of Jesus’s baptism, we also talked about what is baptism.  Some of the VBS participants had seen a baptism, but others hadn’t, so then we took a life-sized baby doll – about the size and weight of a 6-month old baby – thank you, Elizabeth, for letting us use your baby doll – and we did a baptism right there in the sanctuary at Long Reach, talking about what we were doing each step of the way, and why.

At the end, when the kids were heading back out to the River Room, a couple of the older girls stayed behind and came up to me and said, “We still don’t get it.  How does the water do anything?  We don’t understand.”

And I was honest with them.  I told them that I don’t really understand it either.  How can a splash of water change a person’s life?  How can marking someone’s forehead with the sign of the cross clothe them in Christ?  How can this strange ritual that we do convey to us the love of the Creator of the Universe?

Like my questioners, I don’t truly understand how baptism works, but I trust that it does.  I trust that through the words and the water, God tells us, “I love you,” and that the Holy Spirit begins the process of transforming our lives.

In the end, though, baptism remains somewhat of a mystery.  In fact – you folks know that I’m a bit of a word nerd, and our word sacraments comes to us from Latin – sacramentum.  If we were to look for the Greek equivalent word, we would discover the word mysterion.  Our word “sacrament” is very closely related to our word “mystery.”

Let me take a bit of a detour here, because I also love reading mystery novels.  I love following the plot as it unfolds; I love trying to connect the clues before the fictional detective does; and I love the contract that mystery authors have with their readers that the good will prevail, and there won’t be any unresolved plot lines.

But the mystery that we are talking about when it comes to the sacraments is very different than the mystery that we are talking about when it comes to detective books and shows.  The mystery of God isn’t a puzzle to be solved.  There usually aren’t nice tidy endings.  The mystery of God is more mysterious than puzzling.  It is a mystery to be pondered rather than a mystery to be solved.

Thinking back to my questioners last summer, it felt a little bit like a Nicodemus moment.  Nicodemus was a religious leader from the denomination of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees had a very logical approach to their faith, where everyone could have access to God through following the laws of the Torah.   But there was something about Jesus that seemed to intrigue Nicodemus, that drew him to come to Jesus by night.  We don’t get to see his motivations, but I wonder if something had disrupted his faith, that had him questioning what he thought that he knew.

But Jesus’s answers only led to further confusion.  Jesus talks about being born anew, born from above.  Nicodemus tries to picture someone crawling back into their mother’s womb to be born again.  “I don’t understand.  I don’t get it.”  Jesus talks about the Spirit-Wind, how she blows where she chooses, and how we must be born of the spirit.  Nicodemus asks how can this be.  “I don’t understand.  I don’t get it.”

And this is the last that we hear from Nicodemus in this chapter.  Jesus keeps on talking, but Nicodemus… he just sort of fades away, back out into the night.  He came to Jesus seeking clarity, but leaves with even more questions than he came with.

But I wonder if this is how it is with God.  That the more that we think we understand God, the further we are from God.  That God is Holy Mystery, to be contemplated, to be pondered, rather than understood.

As we hunger for God, we also hunger for mystery, we hunger for something that is beyond our ability to comprehend.  We hunger for a love that is so deep, so broad, so un-understandable, so all-encompassing that, like Nicodemus, we are shaken loose from all that we thought that we knew.

And in our hunger… in that mystery… God is there.

 

“Look Up for Faith, Hope, and Love”
Edie Mae Herrel
Used with Permission

"Hungering for Wholeness" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday February 22 – 1^st Sunday in Lent
Scripture Reading:  Matthew 4:1-11

What do you long for?  What does the deepest part of you yearn for?  What is it that your spirit craves?  I know that our theme in this season of Lent is “Hungering for God” but I want you to set aside what you learned in Sunday School where “Jesus” is the answer to every question that is asked.  What does your spirit hunger for?

In our bible story this morning, the one that ______ just read for us, we could answer this question in a very literal way.  Before the devil shows up, Jesus has been fasting in the desert for 40 days.  He has been out there in a barren rocky landscape with no water, no food, exposed to the heat of day and the frigid desert temperatures when the sun goes down.  And then the tempter shows up and says to him, “Why don’t you just turn all of those stone that are around you into bread?  You don’t need to suffer out here.  Turn the stones into bread and satisfy your hunger.”  And Jesus probably was pretty hungry at this point in time.  And pretty thirsty.  And pretty sunburnt. In addition to bread, his body was probably also craving shelter.  He was likely also craving the sight of even a single tree, or a spring bubbling up from the dry land.

Now this is probably a pretty extreme example, because, from a 21^st Century understanding of physiology, he needed all of these things.  Well, maybe not the sight of a tree, but the food and water part of the equation his body needed and was likely craving at that point in time.

Sometimes our bodies crave things that they need.  We feel hunger and thirst because we need food and water to survive.  I don’t think that’s the point of this story.  But sometimes our bodies crave things that they don’t need.  Sometimes I feel as though I need a cup of tea right now… but do I truly need it?  If I am thirsty, surely a glass of water will suffice?

We can take it one step further.  If you have ever experienced an addiction, or have ever talked to an addict, a person with an addiction doesn’t seek out the thing that they are addicted to, whether that be alcohol or a specific drug or food, they don’t seek out the thing because the thing makes them feel good.  Instead, an addict seeks it out because their body craves it. When you have an addiction, you don’t feel whole without the thing that you are addicted to.

And I wonder if that’s maybe the key to unlocking this story about Jesus.  The tempter is tempting him with things that might make him feel whole.  “Oh, you’re feeling hungry?  Here, these rocks will become bread, you can eat and feel full, feel complete.”

I find the second and third temptations of Jesus to be even more interesting than the first one, because I read them as being all about power.  Why would you throw yourself off the highest building anyone has ever seen, let alone imagined, and call in God’s angels to catch you as you fall?  Maybe so that people could see you jump, could see your supernatural rescue, could see your closeness to God.  If you were to pull a stunt like this, people would hail your goodness and your bravery, and there is power in the adulation of a crowd.

I tried to think of a contemporary example of this.  One that came to mind is to look at the number of people who attempt to climb Mount Everest every year.  In 2025, 850 reached the top of Mount Everest, which is especially remarkable when you consider that prior to 1953 nobody had reached the summit.  For some of these 850 people, this is the culmination of a lifetime of training and preparation, and the last of the “Seven Summits” that they want to climb.  But for others, it is done in a quest for social media fame. They climb with their own camera crew, and model expensive… and sponsored… clothing as they climb.  And it doesn’t come without risk – on average, 7 people per year die trying to ascend, and the narrow trail to the summit is paved by 200 bodies of climbers who died in the attempt but it is too dangerous to bring the bodies down.

For the social media mountaineers, would you do it if nobody would ever know that you made the climb, or are you doing it for the likes and follows?  There is power in spectacle.

And then there is the offer that the devil makes to Jesus of literal power.  You can rule over all of the kingdoms of the world, and have access to all of the splendours of the world.

This one is much easier to find a contemporary example of.  I’m not going to say that all politicians are in politics for the power, but you don’t have to look too hard to find politicians who are in it only for the power.  And then there is the power that comes with fame, the power that comes with wealth, the power that comes with a platform.  And then those with political, financial, or social power choose who to share that power with – look at the young men being given $50,000 signing bonuses and firearms and a license to harass, detain, abuse, and even kill with no accountability right now.  And those with political, financial, or social power choose who they have power over, to which all that I say is release the files.

Power gets us in to so many problems in the world.

So we have three temptations that Jesus faced in the desert wilderness.  But how do these connect with the question I started with – what does your soul hunger for?  What does your spirit long for?  What does your being crave?

It is sometimes said that we each carry a God-shaped hole within us, and if we don’t fill it with God, we will seek other things that can make us whole.  Substances.  Praise and acclaim.  Power.

My favourite variation on this saying comes from St. Augustine, who wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

There is nothing wrong with the hole.  There is nothing wrong with the restlessness.  But the choice is ours for how we fill the hole or how we satisfy the restlessness.  The list of how we, as humans, try to make ourselves whole is endless.  I can only know myself, and while power and spectacle aren’t tempting to me, I have to resist the temptation to make myself whole through busyness.

But as we long for wholeness, as we long for rest… well, maybe that Sunday School answer is the right one here.  Maybe Jesus is the answer.

I actually wonder if Jesus found the strength to resist the temptations because the God-shaped hole within him was already filled by God.  I believe that Jesus was both fully human and fully God, and so he didn’t need to seek wholeness through power or spectacle.  He was already whole.

But the good news is that we too can be whole.  The Holy Spirit is working in you.  And my prayer is that you might find wholeness by allowing God to fill the God-shaped hole in you; and that you might find rest and deep peace by resting in God.  Amen, and amen.

 

 

 

“A Choice”
Lauren Wright Pittman
Used with Permission