Visible and Persistent
Gate Pa – Year A 3rd Sunday in Lent - 2023
Readings:
Psalm Psalm: 95
First Reading: Exodus 17:1-7
Second Reading: Romans 5:1-11
Gospel: John 4:5-42
What I want to say:
Continuing our theme of looking at people who lived the Beatitudes with persistence – using the story of this woman who is made visible though her persistence with Jesus to then look at Georgina Beyer – a woman of great persistence
What I want to happen:
· Who in this parish would you hold us as someone who lives their faith persistently or helps you live with persistence.
· How has this parish helped you live with persistence over the last 3 years
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
Well, well, well, what a great story that gospel reading isCourage
Persistence
Able to have her mind blown
Unlike Nicodemus
Last week we heard about Jesus in Jerusalem
Puzzled
Interested
Confused
scurrying about in the dark to visit Jesus
- Man
- Jew
- Pharisee
Visible
And yet blind to what Jesus is on about
Now Jesus has decided he must go back to Galilee
- Not the normal safe way
- But the direct way through Samaria
In the pod cast I listen to one of the people is African American
She talked about growing up in Chicago in the 1960’s
When her family went home to Mississippi
There were ways they could not safely take not matter the urgency
It was too dangerous
There is no need for Jesus to be taking this road
It is not safe
But we are told he must!
Why must her?
Maybe to show and teach what he meant by “God so loved the world”
Here he is out in the world
2. The Well
- At noon
- sitting at a well while his disciples go looking for food
The well is such an evocative image
This is Jacob’s well
Jacob who met Rachel at the well
Whose grandfather, Abraham’s servant was sent to find a wife for Abraham’s second son Isaac.
And meets Rebekah at the well
And she becomes Isaac’s wife
And Moses too meets his wife, Zipporah at the well.
Jesus is by a well
A woman of Samaria comes out for water in the noon sun
No name
At the wrong time
Invisible
And Jesus breaks so many rules
- And speaks to her
And she
- Breaks so many rules
- takes him on.
She should have ignored him
Or she might have silently given him water
But no
she takes him on.
And in the robust conversation
He sees her
And names her pain
5 husbands
- Dead?
- Divorcing her?
And now with a man who keeps her alive
Maybe for sex
Her place is precarious and hard
She is invisible
And Jesus sees her
in doing so she glimpses who Jesus is
And in that moment of being seen
Of being known
She experiences living water
Life giving water
Unlike anything she has experienced before
Grace upon grace
Being known
and immersed
In divine love.
In the midday sun
He utters the words only Moses had heard
“I Am”
She is the first
She is blinded by light
Could he be our long-awaited Samaritan messiah?
And she becomes the first missionary.
And what I notice is that
how quickly we seek to make her invisible again
describing her as
- Loose woman
- Moving from man to man
- Needing Jesus forgiveness
- A forgiveness never offered.
Unlike Jesus who simply sees her for who she is.
3.
Georgina
Beyer
.jpg/330px-Georgina_Beyer_MNZM_(cropped).jpg)
And read around the story of an invisible woman who was seen
And the important place she holds in John’s gospel
I thought of other people who have played similar roles in our society today.
Georgina Beyer was one of those people
- Transgender woman
- Drag queen
- Prostitute
- Māori
Born in Wellington
Named George
moved to Australia as a young adult.
in 1979 experienced a traumatic sexual assault in Sydney;
- she felt unable to seek help from the police,
Returned to NZ
Worked as actor
In 1984, Beyer underwent gender-affirming surgery.[13][14]
became a part of the Wellington gay nightclub scene,
- initially as a singer and drag queen performer,
- and later as a sex worker
moving to Carterton, in the Wairarapa, she worked as a radio host.
In 1995 she was elected mayor of Carterton, making her the world's first openly transgender mayor.
In 1999 she became the world's first openly transgender member of parliament.
As a member of the Labour Party Beyer supported progressive policies including
- prostitution law reform,
- civil unions,
- anti-discrimination laws
- the promotion of Māori rights.
She resigned in 2007, in part because of the Seabed and Foreshore Act
She was courageous
She was persistent
Her courage and persistence helped change this country to be
I would humbly suggest
A better place
Where people do not have to be invisible
4. AGM
With her example
And example of woman from Samaria
I wonder
• Who in this parish would you hold as someone who lives their faith persistently or helps you live with persistence.
• How has this parish helped you live with persistence over the last 3 years
Comments