Listening to the Mahler 4 and 5 in the same week one is
struck by the contrast. Like day and night. The 4th ends on notes of
near silence reminiscent of the still, small voice Elijah hears, after Judith
Blegen sings of heavenly music: “The angelic voices refresh our spirits, and
joy wakens in all.” Then comes the opening funeral march of the 5th
alternating with second theme, “Suddenly faster. Passionate. Savage.” All
followed by the second movement headed, “Stormily and with utmost
vehemence!” It is two different sonic
worlds! Which apparently was Mahler’s goal: “To write a symphony is to
construct a world with all the means at our disposal.” Whole worlds complete
with light and shade, joy and sorrow, despair and hope, rough edges and all.
The Fourth Gospel is like this. Chapter 3 has Nicodemus, a
leader of the Jewish people, coming to Jesus in the dark of night to ask
questions, to probe him, but not wanting to risk his reputation. Nicodemus has
questions. He cannot be seen with Jesus. Jesus seems to be offering riddles and
plays on words: “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) To which Nic is left asking,
“How can these things be?” He is not seen again until he joins Joseph of
Arimathea to give Jesus a decent burial. He appears to have come in darkness
and left in darkness with Jesus concluding that “light has come into the world,
and people loved darkness rather than light….”
In chapter 4 it is “about noon.” The sun is high in the sky.
Jesus has been traveling through Samaria near Jacob’s well. Jesus is tired and
sitting by the well when a Samaritan woman comes to draw water. As we learn later, there is a reason she does
not come in the cool of the early morning when all the other women in town come
to draw water. She has had five husbands, and the man she is with now is not
her husband. Were she to come in the cool of the day with the others she would
be open to taunts, the subject of gossip, and most likely shunned, so she comes
mid-day, alone, by herself. Jesus speaks
to her of Spirit as well. That he speaks to her at all is daring since it was
considered taboo for a man to speak to any woman publicly that was not his
wife. But he engages her in theological discourse, and she, unlike the somewhat
timid and perplexed Nicodemus, pushes back, challenges Jesus’ claims. It is
like the ancient days when patriarchs like Abraham and Moses would debate God,
challenge God, and persuade God to make other choices.
What is striking about this story is in the beginning. Jesus
is tired. The woman comes to draw water. Jesus addresses her, “Give me a
drink.” She is shocked, but able to reply, “How is it that you a Jew, as a
drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For not only was it unusual for a man to
speak to a woman in public, but it was even more surprising for a Jew to speak
to a Samaritan. There was a long history of bad feelings among Jews and
Samaritans in part having to do with the correct place to worship: Jerusalem or
Samaria. Things have not changed much in that regard.
So here is the scene. Perhaps the most broken, lonely, and
repeatedly abandoned woman in all of scripture, this Samaritan woman, who is
not even given a name in the story, is addressed in the light of mid-day for a
drink of water. Jesus now, like Nicodemus in chapter 3, is the one risking his
reputation, but as we know that was the way he rolled. But she does not know
this. All she knows is that here is a stranger, an enemy of her people no less,
addressing her out of his weakness. He is tired. He is thirsty. For the first
time in as long as she can remember, here is someone who needs her to do him a
favor.
That is, by asking for a drink of water, Jesus has given her
value – there is something she can do for him.
Most men would have ignored her. Or, walked away. Or, said
something derogatory. But this is Jesus,
and he sees that she is someone who, broken though she is, is beloved in the
eyes of God. After a probing conversation about Spirit and water and
worshipping God neither in Samaria nor Jerusalem but in Spirit and truth, she
says, “I know that God’s anointed is coming….when he comes he will proclaim all
things to us.” Jesus says, “I am he.”
The Mahler 4 ends on the quietest most silent of notes. The
fourth movement of the 5th is a long, meditative moment in time with
just harp and strings. I imagine when Jesus says “I am he,” time stands still.
The Samaritan Woman, The Word, the Logos, the Word that is with God and is God,
silently looking at one another. How she
must have felt! She is talking to the one her people, all people, had been
waiting for, and he asks her to do him a
favor because he is tired, he is thirsty, and it is all out in the open at
Jacob’s well in the light of day for all to see!
“Just then the disciples came. They were astonished that he
was talking with a woman….” Leave it to the disciples to look at the wrong end
of a miracle every time! The woman flees back to her city, newly empowered,
given new freedom, new identity. She
becomes the first evangelist! She says to the people who had shunned her,
gossiped about her and looked down upon her, “Come 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 to see for themselves.
There is so much in this story, in these two stories, one at
night, one in broad daylight. There is an entire world contained in these two
stories. John the evangelist uses every story telling technique at his disposal
to open our eyes and ears and minds and hearts. How often have we crept about
in the darkness afraid to let others know what we are thinking? How often do we
see someone, woman or man, like this lonely, broken Samaritan Woman and pass
them by? Let alone stop to affirm that yes, you are a person like me. I am a
person like you. For that is what Jesus is doing. He lets his vulnerability
reach out to hers. He may as well be saying, “Do not listen to all the others.
Let them have their petty squabbles. It is not about all your husbands. It is
not about Jacob’s well. It is not about what mountain, place or temple in which
to worship the Almighty. It is about this moment here and now. Let’s share a
drink together and initiate a new way of being in this world.”
She is then empowered to proclaim to others what she has
seen and heard. Others go out to see for themselves. A movement begins in the
most unlikely manner, in the most unlikely place, among the most unlikely two
people.
There is a mystery in the Fourth Gospel not unlike the more
mysterious passages in Mahler’s music. Near the end of the gospel there is made mention of “the disciple whom
Jesus loved,” or the Beloved Disciple. Go look at Amazon and you will see
dozens of books claiming to settle the mystery of who the Beloved Disciple is.
There is one book, however, by James P. Carse called, The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple, which does not seek to make a
case or cite evidence. Carse simply imagines
this woman, the Samaritan Woman, is “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” I am good
with that. We all should be. This fourth chapter of John may in fact be the
Gospel, the Good News, in miniature. If this is the only gospel story you knew,
it would be enough to know the entire universe about Jesus. It is an entire
world in one easy to remember story. We should all be the Samaritan Woman,
because in the end, we all are.
“The angelic voices refresh our spirits, and joy wakens in
all.” Amen.
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