John
4:1-42
On the first Sunday of each
month, we usually have a faith story. This is a chance, typically, for you to
hear from someone other than me (hooray for you) and for me to have a little
rest (hooray for me). Today, I’d like to give you a little faith story of my
own. Since I’m up here most often, you often hear little snippets of my
experiences or of my family. I try not to do that too often and rely on other
things to flesh out my explanations of the gospel and where I believe God is in
the world.
And
it’s very rare that I tell you something big that you don’t already know about.
That’s not because I’m keeping secrets, but because I don’t really share that
much. I don’t want to get in the way of God’s story, so I try to keep my story
and myself out of the way.
Around
this time last year, I was still afresh with the glow of V’s birth. I
had a beautiful little girl and a healthy toddler little boy. I was exhausted,
but happy. I knew I would come back to work in a few weeks and it would take a
while to get used to a new routine, but things would work out. I’d figure it
out. I always did.
Occasionally,
I would have panic attacks. I’d wake up and watch the baby sleep, afraid she’d
stop breathing. I’d run down and check on D. I’d put my hand on Rob’s
chest. I stare at the ceiling for hours. I told myself this was normal and it
would pass. I would feel better. It was all just new. A lot of new, but it
would become old soon enough.
I
would try to pray. If I was praying for someone else, I could do it. I could
feel it- the words came, the power, the expectation. But for myself- there was
nothing. Pages of my journal stayed blank. The computer screen was empty. I
needed a new ribbon for my typewriter and I didn’t see any point in buying one.
I
came back to work. I wrote sermons and blog posts. I prayed for people. I counseled
and made phone calls. I visited and wrote cards. I participated in two outside
writing projects. But I could not pray for myself. And then it became March and
April. Easter was early last year. Resurrection celebration came and it went. I
sang the songs, but I did not dance in the parade. It went on.
I
was afraid. Very afraid. Everything felt too hard. Harder than it had ever
been. I was afraid of messing up, afraid of mistakes in raising my children, of
being a wife, of leading you. I felt paralyzed by how I could screw up anything
and everything… It was all there. How easily I could fail… how easily I could
fail people who I loved… how easily I could let them down.
When
those thoughts began to multiply, they came with a horrible, terrible. Not a
chorus or a picture or a whisper or a shout or a monster or a phrase… a
horrible, terrible. That’s what it was. The horrible, terrible communicated
that if I was so close to screwing up… maybe it was better not to be than to
risk it. I tried to squish the horrible, terrible like a bug, but it didn’t
work.
It’s
hard to tell someone, anyone, that you’re having that thought. That you don’t have
a plan, but that you think things might be better for someone, for anyone, if
you weren’t there. Every day I would lay in bed in the morning. I would look at
the ceiling and I would decide who I was living for that day. It might have
been my kids or one of you or a sibling or a colleague or my parents or… or…
or… one reason to be was all I needed. Day by day, until I finally was able to
get in and see a counselor, I thought of one reason to be. One reason that was
greater than my fear of screwing up.
When
I finally began to see the counselor, when I went in week after week, I
clutched a pendant of Mary, the mother of Jesus in my hand. I still couldn’t
pray for myself. I referred to this as the fact that God and I weren’t on
speaking terms. I was afraid, hurt, scared, and frustrated with God. I wasn’t
praying to Mary- she and I weren’t talking either, but I thought that if anyone
knew how I felt- it was surely her.
Among
the things I sorted out in talking with someone was how much of my own identity
was based in what I could do for
other people. In general, I believed (and I still wrestle with this) that a
person loves me, likes me, finds me useful because of what I can do for him or
her, not for who I am. Which is what makes a fear of failure paralyzing… if I
can’t do it right or well or
whatever, how will I be loved?
And,
so, here I stand- the world’s most ironic Lutheran. I’d built so
much on the expectation that you (and others) will like me if I do it (whatever
it is) well. Our relationship with others is a reflection of our relationship
with God. I’ve had to spend nearly a year figuring out that maybe, just maybe,
I’d thought God would reject me if I screwed up as well.
How
can I have thought that? How can I have thought that? How can I have
thought that? I would never let any
of you entertain that thought for more than a second. But there it was. I
couldn’t do anything right. If I was failing my kids, surely my husband, the
congregation, my friends, and God all followed.
There
is a tendency to read the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well as
a BIG story. Jesus talks to a woman (ominous music) who is also a Samaritan
(more ominous music). The fact that she’s had more than one husband is
amplified. The fact that she’s at the well at noon is played up and used to
make hay. All of the wrong things get exacerbated and the point gets missed.
The
woman comes to the well in the light of day in contrast to Nicodemus who came
in the cover of night. That’s all that is. Maybe she came back to the well
because she spilled her jug of water. Maybe she’s trudging along, thinking, “I
can’t do anything right. My husbands keep dying. No one will marry me or keep
me in the their house. And I spilled the water on washing day. Why do I go on?
And I can’t even get water by myself without the third degree from some Jew!”
It’s
a story that’s remarkable in its ordinariness. There’s no scandal beyond the
fact that God encountered this woman in her every day life. That in order to be
on speaking terms with God, she had to speak to the person right in front of
her. To be in relationship with God, she had to trust in the words of Jesus.
Not get them totally right, not be able to explain them perfectly, but tell
them to hear neighbors, turn them over in her heart, and dare to live as if
they were true.
Ultimately,
that’s how I get out of bed every day. Knowing I’ll probably screw up. Hoping
that I will still be loved. Turning the words of Jesus- “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water
gushing up to eternal life”- over in my heart and daring to live, trusting
they’re true.
Amen.
