AN UNLIKELY ENCOUNTER

In the movie, “Cast Away,” Tom Hanks plays the part of Chuck Noland, a hard-nosed FedEx engineer who is ruled by the clock. To time his delivery persons, he sends a clock through FedEx to see how long it would take to arrive at his workplace. Of course, the time it takes does not meet his standards. His goal is on-time delivery 100% of the time.

Then one day the FedEx plane on which he is traveling crashes into the ocean, killing his four colleagues. Noland’s life raft drifts to a remote island – so far off course that search crews do not even imagine looking for survivors there. Noland discovers that the island is uninhabited, and that he may not be found for a long time, so he finds creative ways to survive. During the next few days, a number of packages that were on board the plane drift ashore. One contains a pair of ice skates – so Noland uses the blades as knives. Another contains videotapes, which he initially put aside. A third contains a volleyball – manufactured by Wilson. When he cuts his hand trying to rub two sticks together to create fire, Noland grabs the ball and throws it down in frustration. Later, he notices that the dried blood on the ball looks like a face. This inspires him to see the ball in a new way, not simply as a volleyball, but as a potential companion. He draws eyes, a nose and a mouth on the ball and names it “Wilson.”

Over the next four years, Noland awakes each morning to see Wilson gazing at him; he keeps him close by at all times, and he talks to him about his fears, hopes and dreams. When Noland realizes that they may never be found, he, with Wilson’s support, decides to make a raft, and risk dying – or being rescued – at sea. One sunny day, he straps Wilson to the makeshift raft and assures him that he, Noland, will do all the paddling. All goes well until one morning, while Noland is sleeping, a wave pushes Wilson overboard. He awakes to find Wilson gone, and in desperation, jumps into the water to rescue him. But Wilson is too far away, so, howling with inconsolable grief, Noland keeps repeating “Wilson, I’m sorry! I’m sorry.” A far cry from the person we met at the beginning of the story, a most unlikely encounter led to a most unlikely alliance – one that leaves Noland a changed man.

Our gospel story this morning is about another most unlikely encounter. Jesus is sitting by a well in Samaria, tired after a long journey. When a woman from a nearby village comes to the well to draw water, Jesus asks her for some. She is stunned, for he, a Jew, is speaking to her, a Samaritan. He, a rabbi, is speaking to her, a woman. Such things are simply not done! She states the obvious, and Jesus uses the obvious to teach her the not-so-obvious. He offers her living water. But how can someone without a bucket offer living water – especially when the well is so deep? Again, Jesus meets the woman where she’s at, and again, he invites her to go deeper. The water he offers – the water she needs – is not water that will leave her thirsty again. With that new insight, the woman moves from seeing Jesus as an unconventional Judean stranger to someone who can meet her need.

But Jesus is much more than someone who can meet people’s needs. So he invites the woman to go deeper – to see him more clearly. For many people, this is where Jesus gets into meddling, he becomes too personal, and comes too close for comfort. This is where they move to keep him at arm’s length, to discourage him from poking around in their lives, to maintain a superficial “you just meet my needs” ‘relationship.’

But not this woman! This woman is ready and willing to embrace each new vision of him – like Jesus, she does not allow potential obstacles to stand in the way of their budding relationship. So when he tells her about details of her personal life, in her eyes he moves from stranger to provider to prophet. Naturally, then, she asks him the question that burns in her mind – one that surely a prophet can answer: Where’s the right place to worship? On Mt. Gerizim, as Samaritan Jews believe, or at the temple in Jerusalem, as Judean Jews believe?

Again, Jesus seizes the opportunity to go deeper. He essentially tells her that the time is coming – in fact, is already here – when people don’t have to be bound by where they worship – after all, when people get caught up in their place of worship, they can forget who they’re worshipping. True worshippers, he says, worship God - not the building, not the rituals, not the teachings with which they agree.

The woman takes the conversation to the next level. When the Messiah comes, she says to Jesus, he’ll fill in the blanks for us – he’ll teach us “all things.” Ah, Jesus replies, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

No longer is he simply an unconventional Judean stranger,
No longer is he simply someone who can meet her need,
No longer is he simply a prophet,
He is the long-awaited, eagerly-expected, much-misunderstood Messiah – the Messiah who, the text tells us, “had to” pass through Samaria – some say he “had to” because it’s the shortest route to get from Judea to Galilee, but others realize that he “had to” pass that way so he could offer himself to the Samaritans, those despised and rejected outsiders. And he does it through a despised and rejected woman.

Who are the despised and rejected ones in our world, our city, our church?
And how can Jesus come to us through them?

Like Noland’s wordless companion, Wilson, those who are voiceless often bear the brunt of society’s projections – decent folk place their fears, anger, anxieties onto those who cannot speak for themselves and then infantilize, dismiss or ostracize them. So it has been with the Samaritan woman over the years. As Carol Newson and Sharon Ringe note in their reflections on “John” in the Women’s Bible Commentary, those scholars who have dubbed the woman “a five-time loser” and “a tramp,” are reflecting their own prejudices against women, not the views of the text.” After all, “the text does not say that the woman has been divorced five times, but that she has had five husbands.” Newson and Ringe add that, “when one sets aside the prejudicial reading of (the text) . . . one sees that the conversation about the woman’s husband serves two purposes. First, it illustrates Jesus’ ability to see and know all things . . . an important theme in John. Second(ly), it is a moment of revelation for the woman, a moment when she is able to see Jesus with new eyes.”

How can you and I see Jesus with new eyes?
How might that change the way we see ourselves?
How might that change the way we relate to others?

Seeing herself with new eyes, the woman goes back to her village and witnesses to the people there about the man she just met. “Come and see,” she proclaims.

When was the last time you told someone to “come and see” – to “come and see” Jesus – the Jesus who is present and active in your life – the Jesus who is waiting for others to “come and see?”

So the villagers decide to experience Jesus for themselves. When they do, they no longer have to depend solely on the witness of the woman. They have seen for themselves.

Who would we like to come and see?
The folks who are moving into the city of Hartford?
The folks who already live and work here?
The folks who don’t have a home or a job – here or anywhere else –
many of whom our society would prefer to “cast away,”
many of whom are guests of our Church Street Eats program?

What if we invited them, the outsiders, to “come and see?” Come for the food after church, but come for the food in church – the food that Jesus offers – himself.
What gifts can we offer them?
What gifts might they offer us?
And how might those most unlikely encounters transform our lives for good?