​Dear God, open our hearts and our ears that we might  hear your voice and walk in your ways. Amen 

Please be seated. 

When I was preparing this sermon the thing that grabbed  me the most (and still does) is the very first sentence. 

“Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on  ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.”  Jesus made the disciples. Made. As you know I was a  fire investigator in my prior life and the hardest thing I had  to do was prove intent. Jesus doesn’t make the  investigator of this text work very hard because it is right  there. Made. Jesus intended that the disciples get in the  boat and head out across the lake. There are times when  I am reading scripture that I have to wonder if Jesus was  not a big practical joker. I mean, I have a vision of Jesus  sending his troops out across the lake and saying to the  fella next to him, “Hold my cup of wine and watch this.”  There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus knows a storm is coming up and that he is going to walk out on the water  well before the disciples set foot in the boat. If you are a  boater you know you can tell when a storm is coming  quite some time before it gets to you because you need  to know what will likely happen when you are away from  shore. So I have a vision of Jesus chuckling to himself as  he heads off to the mountain to pray. And like most  practical jokes this one goes wrong because Peter wants  so much to be like the teacher. 

I think the question comes to mind, what was Jesus  setting out to accomplish walking across the water in the  storm. I don’t think it was to prove one more time that he was the Son of Man. I think at this point his disciples  were pretty convinced that they were in the presence of  God’s favored one. He has already performed several  miracles including curing a man’s withered hand and  feeding the 5,000. Some theologians think this was his  opportunity to prove mastery over nature. I think it might  be something different. Again I think he knew the storm  was coming and that he was going to walk across the  lake but I don’t know that he knew Peter would ask to  walk with him. We humans are an unpredictable lot ever  since we were granted free will at our creation. Of course  walking on water helps us, in our day and age, to accept  the divinity of Jesus and it does serve that purpose. For me, it serves another purpose and for that I want to focus  on Peter. 

I think a word or two about sailing is needed here. I have  a small, fourteen foot, sloop rigged sailboat that I sailed  for a number of years when my kids were pretty small. I  have also sailed on a lake at the beginning of a storm but  with enough sense to not sail in the storm. The wind  blows hard and unpredictably in a storm and the water,  even on a lake, forms into waves. It is important to keep  the boat going forward in these conditions so it enters  waves bow first.

 It is vital to keep the boat moving forward. Not doing so  means the boat drifts sideways into waves and capsizes.  All of that means rearranging the sails quickly and often,  and with twelve men in the boat everyone on the boat  needs to be alert for ropes and sails and equipment and  bodies flying around the craft. So you have to work  insanely hard to continue moving forward or take your  chances by dropping the sail. Neither is a happy choice I  can tell you from experience and that is why I latched  onto the words that “Jesus made” his disciples get in the  boat and crossover. 

So there they are, chaos in the boat and chaos in the  environment. Eyes wide in fear and adrenaline pumping  through their veins and a figure comes walking across the  water. If you are one of the people on that boat you have  got to believe your life is about to come to an end.  Whatever that figure is it can’t be good. And Jesus says  “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Yeah, Right!! And  Peter’s response is to say “Lord, if it is you, command me  to come to you on the water.” I am not sure if this is a  statement made in shear panic or if he really realized what  he was saying. It’s a reaction to the situation and not one  well thought out. As our former Presiding Bishop Michael  Curry says when he talks about this gospel; Jesus says “Ya’ll Come”. And Peter does. Peter doesn’t get too far  into his stroll when the realities of his situation finally  dawn on him and he really panics and starts to sink. Now  some might focus on Jesus chiding Peter for his lack of  faith but I think Jesus is just trying to get Peter to rescue  himself. When that fails Jesus offers a hand and Peter  gets his act back together. I don’t think Jesus picked  Peter up and carried him to the boat but I do think he held  his hand until they entered the boat.  

Some of you may have heard this next story so please  bear with me. When I first had a full on face to face  awakening to the devastation of addiction during an event in Worcester I foolishly asked God how he could allow  these people to suffer like this and why wasn’t he sending  help to them. And I heard God say “I am sending you.”  You might think, that does it now we know he is crazy.  Well maybe I am but I stand by the fact that I heard that  call to action. My major in college was history and  political science. Nothing to do with social services or  interacting with those on the margins. I was just as afraid  of those people as some of you are. I put on my big boy  pants and walked into Rev. Heather’s office and asked her  to help me lay out a course to answer the call I heard. I  got some training from folks in Worcester and Waltham  who were working with folks on the margins and got ready to do my thing at Second Helpings, our meal here  at Sts. James and Andrew on Monday evenings. Like  Peter I had taken a step out of the questionable security  of the boat and was entering the chaos of the reality of  being with real people. The first attempt found me  standing in the kitchen afraid to even talk to anyone. The  second attempt found me getting as far as the serving  line. I was doubting that I had the skills or the mind set or  even the courage to take the next step. But you know the  Spirit shows up at our time of need and gives us the  inspiration to answer that call. On the third evening I sat  down at a table full of folks except for one seat and after asking permission to sit, my work with Emmaus  Companions was off and running. 

I don’t think any of us enters into any kind of ministry  without some kind of misgiving that threatens to stop us  in our tracks. I also think God calls all of us at some point  in our lives. It may not be something big like starting a  ministry, it might be as simple as joining vestry or the  choir or Emmaus Companions. The idea dawns on us  and it sort of sounds doable then doubt sets in. The  challenge then is to ask for the strength and I believe it  will be given to you. With all the nonsense there is in the  world, in our country, in our state, there are a lot of things we can be called to try. You get a choice. You can sit in  front of the television and wring your hands or holler at  the news or get depressed and do nothing or you can  stand up and make one small corner of your surroundings  just a little better than it was before you stood up. You do  have the power. You can be an instrument of change.  That is why Jesus came into the world, to offer people a  vision of change that they can effect. He even told you  this is how you do it. The next time you have what you  think is a crazy idea about how to bring love into the  world ask yourself is it a call from God and don’t be  afraid, it is God and God will be there if you start to sink. Amen

by Steve Houghton, lay preacher

​Lord we ask you to open our minds and open our  hearts to recognize your message in what we hear  and share. Amen 
​
Good Morning. Please be seated 

If you were raising children or if you were a child in  the 1980’s you might remember a Jim Henson  muppet television show called Fraggle Rock. I will confess that it was one of my favorite television  shows and I could be found watching it in rapt  attention even if the kids were not in the room. 

One of the characters of Fraggle Rock was Marjorie  the Trash Heap. Marjorie was in fact a sentient  trash heap who had great wisdom. Whenever the  Fraggles found themselves in need of words of  wisdom they headed off to Marjorie in spite of the  danger from the Groggs who farmed the land where  she was located. A trash heap with great wisdom.  An interesting image to hold in mind. Not  everything is as it might appear. 

So what the heck does Marjorie have to do with the  woman at the well? One of the things I do when I  am reading scripture and I reach a place where  there is an important character without a name is to  give the character a name to allow me to  personalize the message God might be trying to  send me. Sometimes there are several unnamed  characters so naming them gives me an opportunity  to better identify the actions and attributes of the  people in the story. 

So I am going to name the woman at the well  Marjorie. I hope you will understand why I chose that name by the time I finish. Bear with me. 

One other side track I’d like to take as I begin is to  call your attention to astronomy. If you have done  any star gazing you will know that when looking for the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, or Subaru depending  on how you recognize the star cluster, you can best  see them with the naked eye by gazing to the side  of the location of the cluster. When you do that the  cluster becomes clear and the individual stars stand  out. It’s a neat trick and one I have found helpful on  many occasions for various reasons. 

Okay, back to a more obvious treatment of this morning’s gospel. We most often hear of Marjorie being disparaged as being a sex worker or at the  very least a woman of loose morals. Five husbands  and the current one is not her husband. Dr. Lucy  Peppiat, theologian and pastor in England, has a  different view of who Marjorie was. In Marjorie’s  day, women could not get a divorce, only men could  ask for and be granted a divorce. So it is not  unreasonable to conclude that Marjorie could have  originally been married first to a less than honorable  man who decided that he could find better else  where in town and divorced her. If this happened  more than once the next man to marry Marjorie  would likely be lower on the social ladder. By the time she was heading into her fourth and fifth marriage she would be pretty well marked as too  old, barren or just not fit for marriage. Her sixth  benefactor likely didn’t marry her but just took her  on as a concubine with no rights and certainly no  standing. That would certainly be consistent with  Jesus’ assessment that she had been married five  times and was now living with a man who was not  her husband. 

Marjorie’s social standing was further marked by the  fact that she was coming to the well at mid-day, the  hottest part of the day, and a time when only she  was likely to be at the well. At this time of day she would not have to endure the stares and comments of the other women of town who went out for water  early, in the cool of the day. The half mile walk  between the village and the well carrying a jug of  water in the heat of the day was not a trek most  people would undertake willingly. 

I think it is fair to say that Marjorie was toughened  by the experiences of her life. Her early  conversation with Jesus shows this. Marjorie sees  Jesus at the well as she approaches but expects he  will not bother with her because she is only a  woman. Hoping he will just ignore her she reaches  the well. “Give me a drink of water” Jesus seemingly orders. At his words and his accent, Marjorie recognizes he is not from the area and is a  Jew. Now the chip on her shoulder grows a little  larger and she responds “How is it that you, a Jew,  ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” Pretty  defiant for a woman who has no husband. 

Jesus then lets Marjorie know that if she knew who  she was talking to he would give her living water. I  am sure Marjorie looked around the well and seeing  no other water source asks Jesus what the heck he  is talking about since he has nothing to draw water with, the well is very deep and is he claiming to be  greater than Jacob who discovered and passed down this well. Jesus replies that the water he has to offer will quench her thirst forever. I am sure that  Marjorie made a cynical face and said in essence,  well give me that water so I don’t have to come  back here. See all this time Marjorie is looking at  Jesus straight on and can’t see God’s light shining  faintly from him. 

Jesus now goes on with his ability to see her past  life. Marjorie is surprised but at that time, in that  region, there were many who claimed to be  prophets and would use tricks of pretending to  know people’s past in order to secure credibility.  She fires back a religious challenge that goes to the root of one of the sore spots between the Jewish tradition and the Samaritan tradition; that the  Jewish tradition believes a person must worship at  the temple in Jerusalem whereas the Samaritan  tradition believes the place to worship is in Samaria.  When Jesus responds with a foretelling of the role  of the Messiah, Marjorie begins to look at him  slightly to the side so that she begins to see God’s  light shining from him. You see at this point she  understands that not only is Jesus a Jew who would  normally look down on her as a Samaritan but he  understands that she is low in the eyes of even the  Samaritans and still he is willing to engage with her  on even footing. Now her wisdom begins to step forward and she asks if Jesus is in fact the Messiah  to which he replies that he is. 

The disciples arrive back at this point and engage  with Jesus but Marjorie drops her water jug and  heads back to town where she describes her  encounter with him. Now I think the text implies  that folks gave credence to her report because of  the prophecy of her life but I am not so sure. I think  that the townsfolk see Marjorie, who normally will  not engage with anyone, now is running through the  town engaging with everyone to tell them her  discovery. There has to be something to what she says to have caused such an incredible change in  her. She has confidence and is engaging with  people who could and in the past would criticize  and demean her. They rush out to the well to see for  themselves and invite Jesus to stay with them for  awhile. You see it is not the prophecy that  convinces folk but the change in Marjorie that  brings them to believe that it is possible that the  Messiah is waiting at Jacob’s well. 

I think it is the same with us. If we look dead on in  our encounters with God, with Jesus, with faith, we  can miss the light of God shining through the  encounter. But if we trust and look a little to side that light might become visible to us. 

About seven years ago when we first started  Emmaus Companions, Charlie and I made the  acquaintance of black woman who was living quite  literally in the streets of Greenfield. We became  friends with Maria but at first she was reluctant to  engage with us. Most people passed her by and  muttered unkind comments in her direction. It was  easy to see her as other being both a woman of  color and usually dressed in clean but outlandish  clothing. She also did not think very much of  herself. When Charlie and I continued to greet her  and engage with her she finally let down her guard and we became friends looking forward to each meeting. They were warm and caring encounters  that said without words, you are important and I  care about you. Maria was like Marjorie in that she  had built up an armor to ward people off if they  came too close in order to protect herself. When  Charlie and I reached out to her no matter how little  she thought of herself Maria could accept that she  had value in the world. She let down that armor  when we showed that we loved her. I suspect that  Jesus gave Marjorie love in the same way as he was  offering her eternal water. Quite amazing what  changes we can effect when we care for others. 

I believe we have to use our sidelong vision when  we encounter one another. We have to seek God’s  light shining out of even the most prickly individuals  we meet. Lent is a good time to practice this and  get good at looking for God’s light everywhere and  in everybody. You just don’t know when one of  God’s messengers might cross your path and offer  a chance to spread good news, hope and love to  this crazy world. 
Amen 

By Steve Houghton, Lay Preacher

​Well good morning.  The readings this morning give us a lot of advise about our responsibility for our actions.  Jeremiah tells us there is change coming and good things are in store for Israel and part of that will no longer be children suffering for the sins of their parents but “all shall die for their own sins. . .”  

God is so persistent in holding relationship with us.  If you read the whole Hebrew scripture you will see that Israel continuously, and Israel is standing in for all of us, Israel continuously fails to hold up their end of the covenant.  Yet God, like the widow in the gospel, persistently says “Okay, how about we try it this way?”  God goes on to say “I’d like you to offer me due respect but I would also like you to take care of each other in real ways.”  That covenant was offered to the people when they were captives in Egypt and they broke it so many times in the desert.  Golden calf, grumbling about food, water, general conditions all during the time in the desert and each time God would consistently come back, sometimes with punishment but always with a new chance.  Once in the Promised Land it was the same thing, break the rules, do what you want and always God comes back with a way to mend the tear in the relationship; with a new covenant or a renewal of the old one. This time, though, God uses a new covenant that God writes on the hearts of God’s people and it will be within them, no one will have to teach it to them.  You know that voice in the back of your head that speaks up when you are doing something you shouldn’t, yeah that one.  That’s God’s voice speaking from your heart.

You know what stands out to me in the Letter to Timothy that we just heard?  “For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.”  Sort of has a ring of the current times in my ears.  We are walking away from the Covenant once again.  God with God’s persistence and adherence to the Covenant waits for the the voice in our hearts to call us back to the relationship even through our itching ears.  Again, I think, responsibility is settled on each of us individually for how we respond to returning to that covenant as God promises in Jeremiah.

In the gospel we join Jesus heading for the final time to Jerusalem.  We are halfway to the culmination of his ministry, “going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.” (Luke 17;11).  Jesus’ teaching in this part of Luke almost seems frenetic to me, jumping from one topic to another in rapid succession, as though Jesus is anticipating the final days and wants desperately to get all of his understanding to his followers.  Jesus does something sort of out of character for him in first telling us what he is teaching, “their need to pray always” and then giving us the parable of the unscrupulous judge and the persistent widow.  Listen up, Jesus seems to say, you need to pray always and here is how important it is. Using the widow and the judge he demonstrates the power of constant prayer.  She harangued the judge constantly to the point where she becomes a constant distraction to him and he rules in her favor.  

Those of you who have or have had children have a very clear understanding of what that looks like.  “Mommy can I have a . . .” “Daddy all the kids have a . . . I need one too.”  The chorus is repeated over and over and over and over again till we give in or something else more interesting happens.  The importance of the needed thing slips away.  Might that be part of what Jesus is trying to teach us here?

Pray always.  That has often been a stumbling block for me and many that I know.  How do you carry on in life and still pray always?  There are other things you need to think about to get through the day never mind your work life.  Is this even a rational thought?

As one of the members of our Preaching Guild said during one of our meetings, the repetition of prayer of petition leads to clarification of the real need and can send us in another more productive direction.

One of the things that helped me to get my arms around the idea is a book of the writings of Brother Lawerence, a French, Carmelite monk who lived from 1614 to 1691.  The book is called Living In The Presence of God and in it Brother Lawrence explains how he prays always in his daily life.  It is living life aware of God’s presence.

We sometimes come to the conclusion that prayer is always a petition for something we think we need.  Prayer is much bigger than that.  The Catechism in our Book of Common Prayer, you know that part near the back of the Book of Common Prayer that most of us, like me, unless we are dragged to it by a class or presentation or having to write a sermon, has a bit to say about Prayer.  “Prayer” it says “is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.”  It goes on to say “The principal kinds of prayer are adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, oblation, intercession, and petition.”(BCP p.856)  Prayer can be thankfulness for what we have in our lives.  It can be dedication of our work to God.  That is the focus of Brother Lawrence.  What I am doing right now, what ever that may be, is being done to the best of my ability for God.  This kind of approach to the day’s activities makes everything a prayer.  It can also lead to thankfulness for so many things that are part of the day and our lives that we wouldn’t normally think about or give thanks for.

Charlie and I spent many summer vacations on the beach in Wells, Maine.  Charlie loves the ocean and needs to get there as often as possible.  As we were trying to make reservations one year we found that the rates for cottages had gone beyond what we could afford that year and I prayed, Petition, that we could find the money to still head to the ocean.  As time went on it became clear that my prayers were not going to be answered the way I hoped they would be.  In the meantime, Charlie had found a cabin on Moosehead Lake for a very reasonable amount of money and suggested we go there.  I was disappointed that she would not have her time at the ocean but we had such a great time at Moosehead that we went there for several years in a row.  Struggling with the situation in prayer had brought us to a better outcome.  My petition was answered in a wonderful and totally unexpected way.

Another reason for praying constantly is that it keeps God foremost in our daily lives.  That I think is the crux of what I learned from Brother Lawerence.  If when I seek an outcome other than the one in front of me and consider it prayerfully, I have a better perspective on what would be the more love centered, Jesus centered, way to respond.  When I am doing anything, cutting the lawn, going grocery shopping, making deliveries or even washing dishes as Brother Lawerence describes and I do it to the best of my ability, with love, and with God in mind, my thoughts and actions are prayer and I am praying throughout the day.  I am less apt to respond angrily to things that happen through the day.  I am less apt to respond angrily to the actions of people I do or should love.

When I am trying to engage the day in prayer I am less likely to over react when I get cut off in traffic.  Don’t get me wrong, I still get mad but I get a reminder that this isn’t the end of the world and I should be able to put it behind me.  Or when I was younger and one of the kids did something I reacted to angrily, I was better equipped to calm myself down before addressing the issue if I was praying constantly.  To be honest I have not mastered praying always and there are days that I completely miss the mark.  On the days when I do keep God in mind things work out better.

When I was growing up my Mom and my grandmother would often say that God was watching me constantly and I should behave knowing that.  Sound familiar?  In a more adult approach it is that we ought to keep the values and principles we honor here on a Sunday morning all the days of the week.  I think it keeps us better equipped to deal with the political and social divides we encounter daily.  We will with God’s help?  Maybe praying constantly is the answer to our current cultural quagmire.

So in the coming week try praying constantly.  No one is keeping score and you will be the only one who knows if and when and how often you succeed.  Well God is watching all the time so . . .   Seriously, verify what I am saying this morning and see if makes your days run smoother.  And don’t be afraid to let me know if it made a difference or if, after trying it, you decide I’m just off my rocker.

Amen