17th After Pentecost 2025

Let's become Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Together, all I mean to you all spirit.

All the stars.

And from you see your spirit.

Then we may perfectly love you.

And perfectly bad of your holy day.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve.

Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy for giving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merit and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.

Amen.

I now invite our kiddos, fifth grade and under to cut on to the back for some godly play.

You want to raise your hand, yep, to be at the back of the church?

Kiddos?

Yay!

How beautiful on the mountains.

Our feet are one who raised the news.

Proclaim peace.

Reading the news.

Proclaim anxiety says to Zion.

Your God raised daughter.

Daughter, the sound of your sentence, lifting your voice.

As one they sing for joy.

For from one eye to another, they see the return of the holy one of Sinai and Zion.

Rather, raise a song together in the ruins of Jerusalem.

For the Holy One of all has comforted God's angel, and God has redeemed Jerusalem.

Almighty God has bearing the holy arm before the eyes of all the angels.

And all the hands of the earth shall see the salvation of our God and the word of the Lord.

The song today is psalming.

The mighty God is my strength and my mind.

The merciful God has punished me severely.

Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter from.

This is the gate of the living God.

I thank you for you have answered me.

The stone of the builders rejected.

This is the mighty God's doing.

This is the day that the creator of all has made.

Yet no one said, What do you want, or why are you speaking with them?

The woman left her water jar and went back to the city, and she said to the people, Come and see a man who told me everything I've ever done.

Might he be the Messiah?

They left the city and were on their way to him.

Many Samaritan women and men from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony.

He told me everything I have ever done.

So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them, and Jesus did their two for them.

And many more believed because of his word.

They said to the woman, it is no longer because of your report we believe, for we ourselves have heard and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.

The gospel of the world.

Because if you didn't have the conversation we got last week, I mean the gospel just didn't make any sense this week.

So I'm not going to read the whole bit to you, but I just want to tell you, this is a this story we have this week has what uh French anthropologist Jean-Claude Levy Strauss calls seams.

There's these places in the story where this writ has been edited over time, it's been told and retold, and little bits have been stitched together, but the seams are pretty obvious in this story.

And I'm going to share just a few of these.

The first thing, though, and it's lovely to be able for us both to preach on the same story, because that's essentially what we're doing.

And hear how we read it differently.

So first thing to mention, anytime a man and a woman talk at a well in the Bible, you're supposed to hear wedding bells in the back of your head.

This is what happened with Abraham's servant when he went to look for a wife for Isaac and then Zekah.

Jacob did this when he met Rachel.

Moses did this when he met Zaporah.

So man or woman at a well means wedding bells.

And obviously this doesn't happen in this story.

But what does it do is sort of flirting gone wrong, if you don't mind me saying.

I don't mean that irreverently, but if you read Jesus and this woman, this is what we got to hear last week, they're almost just talking past each other.

And there comes this, this is like the most dangerous flirting you can ever do as a man.

Hey, lady, you don't seem to be getting what I'm saying.

Why don't you get your husband to bring him back?

Now, I don't know of any women in the room.

Have you ever been like trying to buy a car?

And the car dealer said, Why don't you get your husband to bring him back?

That's called the anti-flirt, right?

That's like the death of the conversation.

And Jesus pulls that move.

I mean, talk about the most awkward flirting there is, and Jesus does it in it last week.

Scene in the narrative.

Flirting on wrong.

They talk past each other.

Sean did this really lovely move last week where he said, you know, the difference between debate and dialogue is that the debate is when you hit at somebody with blows to convert them.

And dialogue is when we talk through something together.

And he even said, hey, debate is about me standing my holy ground.

I'm going to stand my ground.

And you're either going to get, well, converted to it, or I'm going to defend it at the cost of your life.

Whereas dialogue means I give up my holy ground for you to be my holy ground.

I give up what I'm standing on in order to recognize holiness in you.

That's part of the flirting gone wrong.

It happens.

The baby says, we worship on Mount Gerizim.

That's the place God lives.

You say it's Jerusalem, so we're at an impasse.

And Jesus makes a move where he says, the time is coming where there will be no holy ground because we'll all be in God's holy ground.

And that's the move.

And it's this interesting move that happens when flirting God's goes wrong.

I just want to say the interesting thing Jesus says is he keeps talking.

Usually, when things don't go well, I'm done talking.

And that means there can be no dialogue or chance for it because I stopped.

I stopped listening and I stopped talking.

And I wonder if this has ever happened to you.

If you were talking with somebody with whom you profoundly disagree, and some magic happened where because you kept talking, you found empathy for that person you've never had before.

It's happened a few times in my life against my will.

But it wouldn't have happened if I quit talking.

I hope you hear that.

So part of what Jesus models, I don't love everything Jesus says to the lady.

But he stays open to her, and that's where this transformation happens.

And look, you've heard me say this story before if you've been here long enough, but it's one of those little gems in my own treasure box, that is actually one of my stories.

I was seeing a therapist in San Diego about 15 years ago, and she told me that she was meeting with a client, and it was the ugliest woman she'd ever met, inside and out.

That's how she described it.

And she said, as usual, the woman stood up and was yelling at me like she did every week.

And eventually she got to the point where she quinned at me and said, You can't stand or listen to me for 45 minutes, and I have to be with myself all the time.

And the therapist said, That's when I found empathy for her for the first time.

Because she was right.

Sometimes staying engaged is where we find that holy ground.

Instead of saying, you're there and I'm here, we're done.

Right?

So there's something magical about this engagement.

But I want you to look at what happens when the engagement happens.

So Jesus maybe makes this opening, and now the woman does this interesting thing.

She leaves her bucket, which Sean mentioned last week, and then she runs and tells people, this is the word she uses, he told me everything I've ever done.

Well, the only thing he told her is you've been married five times, and the guy you're with now is not your husband.

Hardly everything she's ever done.

When you say, Hardly.

So I wonder if this is a scene where the conversation was longer or this is the TLDR version.

But I've got to say, there's this other scene here, too.

Most scholars read this story and they say, so why would this woman have been divorced five times?

And Sean mentioned this last read.

The best read is that she was infernal.

So she couldn't have kids, and the first husband paid the bride price, and it was probably big, and she didn't have kids, so he let her go.

And then the second one probably bought her at half price, right?

And she didn't have kids, so he let her go.

And then the fifth one probably got around like seasonal clear route.

I mean like really low, because what a risk, and it's still in work, and the new guy didn't even pay any bride price.

He just said, you can live in my house and I'll give you room and board, and we'll see what happens.

Right?

So this story is really not about, if you read it that way, and most scholars do, because that would make sense, right?

About how it is she had five husbands and is living with the second guy.

But then that's not anything she ever did, is it?

That's everything that was done to her.

That was not what she did.

That was what was done to her.

Now I don't know if this makes any sense.

So forgive me for embarking on just rampant speculation.

I'm just going to give you another alternative.

I mean, women have known for a long time how to avoid getting credit if they don't want to.

I hope I'm not speaking anything weird.

It can be very, very dangerous.

Maybe that's her story.

Maybe this woman decided I don't want to have your kid.

Maybe I don't want to.

She lived that way her whole life.

Everything she ever did.

You hear the difference?

What's done to her and what she chose to do?

We just don't know.

That's why I'm saying there's a scene in the narrative.

Maybe this woman actually had agency and exerted it, even if you don't like how she did it.

Maybe she chose her own story, but maybe her story was handed up to her.

Either way, what we know, if you've ever heard the story that this was a loose woman, that really seems unlikely.

Because when she tells her story to the townspeople, they listen and they respect her and they're converted.

So either they feel empathy for her because she's infertile, or they respect her because she's chosen her way in life.

But nobody thinks that this is a lady not to be respected.

They're conferred.

Just by hearing her.

That's a powerful word, isn't it?

Of course, what's really great about the story is that it invites us to consider what happens over time.

Initially, they hear her story and they're converted.

And then they say, we no longer believe because of you.

We believe because we've had a direct experience with God ourselves.

Talk about a seam in the narrative.

So I'm going to talk about two more seams, and maybe it goes somewhere for you, maybe it doesn't.

Seems like the goal of the church I grew up in, which wasn't this one, was for me to have the pastor's faith.

After all, he got it from the pastor before him.

And the pastor before him, and they were all men, just so you know, just to be really clear.

What was that faith?

That faith was that God loves you just as you are, unless you don't love God back, and then you'll go to hell forever.

And so I was supposed to have that faith and pass that on, even to strangers, by knocking on their doors so that they could accept this story that wasn't even mine.

Can you hear that?

It wasn't even my story.

My pastor told me it was.

I'm not sure it was even my pastor's story.

I think he was told that that was the story.

One of the reasons I am suspicious that church attendance is declining is because we're telling stories that aren't our own.

My pastor told me that if I just do this, I won't go to hell when I die.

Isn't that good news?

That's mixed news at best.

Because hell as an eternal consequence isn't really good news, is it?

I wonder if part of this story isn't, in fact, the seam and the hinge to invite us from a third-person faith to a first person faith.

And what would that look like?

I wonder if this woman finds salvation precisely because Jesus is able not only to hear and tell what she's done, but also to hear and tell what was done to her.

And aren't those different things?

What you've done and what was done to you?

Now, you know one lip beyond the other is not very good.

You ever heard somebody talk about what was done to them ad nauseum?

And you start to think, where's your agency in the story?

Like, I hear what was done to you, and what have you chosen to do with it?

Has anybody ever had that thought when listening to somebody?

I hear it and it's tough, but Jesus, that was 70 years ago.

Maybe I'm, okay, there's a few hands.

On the other hand, have you ever heard somebody talk about all the things they've done?

When you're very aware that there was a group of people behind them empowering them to do all those things, they take soul credit for.

And have you ever thought, boy, you are claiming things you didn't do.

This is not an endorsement, but I sure do remember Barack Obama.

Maybe it was like 2010, saying something like, we like to think we're self-made people, but uh, even if your business succeeds, you didn't build those roads.

You rely on those roads that were built by other people.

So, like, we live in community.

And I just wonder about this story, because, you know, really, it seems like being able to think about what we did and what was done to us, and not only to break those apart, but to integrate them together so that there is compassion and empathy is the definition of being seen.

Weird spiritual moment for me.

Once upon a time I did something wrong.

It's hard to imagine, I know.

I did something wrong, and I went in prayer to confession, right?

Which, you know, prayer is so full of weight.

You know, I just had so many scripts about what prayer is and what prayer isn't.

But oddly enough, I had this imaginative moment in confessing to God what I did wrong, that God actually said to me, I understand why you did that.

I understand why you did that thing that you know was wrong.

I felt seen by God.

Have you ever had a moment where you did something wrong, but because of what was done to you, it was the best choice you had in front of you?

Or maybe I should ask this, if you ever had a good friend who did something you knew was wrong, but you knew why they did it, and you could understand how they got there.

What a difference that is between being seen and being judged.

I wonder if this woman heard from Jesus what she did and what was done to her, and he put her together into a whole bead, and she found herself seen for the first time in her life.

I don't know that the salvation God is going to give us is fixing our problems.

Because it hasn't happened yet, friends, it hasn't happened yet.

But I do know I have these micro moments in my life where people choose to exercise empathy, usually because they have a high pain threshold and they can just stick with me talking so long that there's an entry that opens up in them and they can see.

I see that you did that, and I can see what was done to you and how that came to be.

And I have empathy for you.

I consider those moments to be sophistic.

Because, of course, when somebody can do that, it means not only do I have the right to take up physical space in the world, it means I belong in the world.

It means I belong.

So, in the words of being with, I almost hear Jesus and this woman talking about their richness and their poverty at the same time.

Here is my wealth, and here is my poverty.

And there they are, present.

And being present in richness and in poverty.

Well, that's part of our marital battles.

That's what it maybe means well to be ourselves and to be saved.

I wonder about that.

We get to hear this script in Isaiah, and I just want to make sure you hear, like, ancient Israelites did not have a foot fetish.

There's nothing beautiful about feet on a mountain.

No.

The thing that makes feet on a mountain beautiful is when they bear what kind of news?

Salvation! I mean, look, I drink caffeine once a week, and here's the physiological effect, it makes me sweat.

There is nothing beautiful about my armpit sweatsing.

Nothing.

Unless I give you a check that was the publisher's clearing out sweepstakes.

Then you'd say, how beautiful is the sweaty armpit that gives the publisher's clearing house?

Right?

I hope you get it.

It's an anti, it's saying there's something hideous and ugly, and that can be involved in deep beauty if we choose to show up and see each other.

We choose to show up.

And of course, all of this business is not a story that we tell that Jesus did long ago.

No, the story is that God would do this for us, but God would do this in us and through us.

Which might mean the good news that God has for the nations and for your neighbor that doesn't believe in God or doesn't believe in the God you do, might be that we show up, see them.

The good news for them might be that they might find a link to God through your story, but then they get their own story with God that can be radically different from yours.

That's why Annie Doyle says we're in the church, we're not in this for uniformity, we're in it for unity.

Because if your story with God is the same as mine, you copied it.

Period.

You plagiarized it.

If my story of God is the same as yours, I stole it from you and I don't have the rights to it.

No, what's righteous is that God is big enough to have a one-on-one encounter with each one of us, and that that story is salvation, and it happens in harmony, not in singularity.

And that takes time and it takes openness and it takes consideration, which is exactly why today is the day we're going to hand down dark pledge cards.

Now, how am I doing this?

Well, it turns out taking that time is all about stewardship.

It's all about stewardship.

And it is, frankly, the stewardship of sharing both our wealth and our poverty with one another.

Now, here at St.

Thomas, we do this every year.

And I'm just going to tell you why we do it.

And I'm going to tell you why we do it from my perspective as a recovering evangelical.

See, when I was a kid, every Sunday, we knew that people wanted to make public decisions that were important.

And they wanted to do it in community so there'd be accountability, and we wanted to do it before God because that was holy.

And the way we did that was by having a table that we called an altar, but we would never have communion on it.

And at the end, people could come up during the 98 stanzas of just as I am, and they could make an important decision to God to either accept the preacher's faith as their own, or to say, I have left the preacher's faith and I've backslidden from that story, and I want to rededicate my life.

Now, this was really, really valuable at youth camp when you keep kids up for four nights and they have low sleep.

You can really emotionally manipulate them.

So this is what we did because it was so important to make a public profession before God.

I know I'm fucking catty, but there is something beautiful about it.

We want to say this decision matters.

Which I think is why we read that other scripture from one Peter.

We don't always know how it's going to matter.

Sometimes it plays out in the future.

Like, I don't think Kitty Carmen knew we were building this sanctuary when she said, let's start this church.

And I don't think Kitty Carmen knew that we were going to be an open and inclusive parish when she signed on to start the church.

I don't think she knew that.

And I know she's grateful today for all of them.

Because we did things she didn't know were possible.

Who wouldn't love that?

So, what do we do in the Episcopal Church?

We don't invite you to have my faith.

No, we invite you to make a public profession that we believe in the ministry that we're doing here at St.

Thomas enough that we're going to put our time into it.

And that's what a pledge is.

A pledge says, I believe in this, and I want to be a part of it.

And I want to be a part of it for people who don't even come here.

As Augustine said, the church is the only organization in which membership exists for people who are not members.

What's the privilege of pledging knowing that you're giving a gift to God?

That you may never get back.

You don't get to vote extra.

You don't get a speed dial to my cell phone and only has one speed.

No, why do we do this?

We do this because we choose to share our poverty and our riches with God and one another.

And we do this through pledging because it's an opportunity to say this matters to me.

Now I'm going to tell you why I pledge.

I pledge because I believe in you.

And I do pledge.

Sure, my pledge ultimately helps pay my own salary.

Okay, fine.

But it is a gift that I choose, and I don't have to.

I choose to give to this organization that fed 578 people yesterday morning in two hours.

Because they needed it.

I'm not sure all of them needed it.

Some of them have, as we've said, nicer cars than I have, but they might also live in the car.

I don't know.

Because I don't know their story.

But I know that God's story says, you're welcome, here you are.

I have to live into that tension every time I do it, because I'm still immature, but I do.

And ultimately I come out of the side of, without knowing your story, here's the grace I'm able to give.

I love you for that.

I love you for saying that the city of Nassau Bay Senior Center should be able to come here and have games like Canasta and Bridge and Chair Yoga because people need community.

People need community more than ever.

I don't know if you know that.

We're the most connected through social media while being the most disembodied people ever in existence.

You know this.

You know this.

You know that when a child makes noise in the service, the sermon should not distract you from that beautiful sound.

And you know that.

I love you for that.

This is what pledges are to me.

Pledges are a way for me to say, this faith matters.

This community matters, and I'm going to commit my resources of time.

Maybe I'm going to commit my resources of managing the HVAC system for the next year so that we don't have to hire somebody to do that.

Maybe I'm going to commit to stuff the blessings on a bag so people don't have to think twice when they grab a bag on the way out to give to somebody who they perceive to be homeless with one of those parkour signs.

So they can feel good about giving something to somebody instead of worrying maybe I shouldn't be giving them cash.

These are reasons that I pledge.

But to be honest, pledging's not even reasonable.

It's an offering.

It's an offering.

Sean mentioned this thing about the bucket last week.

And this is the interesting bit about the story that doesn't make it one way.

Remember, this whole thing begins when Jesus tells the woman, give me something to drink.

And he doesn't say, please.

Don't love that, right?

Because I'm a southerner.

I think you're supposed to say, please.

Anyway, give me something to drink.

And maybe you've heard this old adage.

Give a man a drink, satisfy his thirst for about 10 minutes.

Teach a man to drink, and he'll institutionalize women drawing water for the rest of patriarchal society.

Have you heard this one before?

Of course, what I love about what happens in this story is she leaves him the bucket, so he gets to draw his own water or not.

Why do we pledge God left us the bucket?

What will we fill it with?

And increasingly I hope we will fill it with love.

With showing up for one another, even when it's hard and hanging in long enough just in case there's the holy accident that empathy actually breaks through this time.