Oh,
who are the people in your neighbourhood?
In
your neighbourhood?
In
your neighbourhood?
Say,
who are the people in your neighbourhood?
The
people that you meet each day.
Well,
there is Sue who lives on Duncan who makes the best chocolate chip cookies; and
Murphy who lives up the street and walks his owner, Dave; and Little Boy the
cat with extra digits on his paws who is the resident mouser; there is the son
who takes a walk around the block every day with his aging father; and Gary who
lives at St. Vincent’s and wheels himself to sit under the maple tree in the
front yard on Windsor to watch the passersby;
And
there is the middle-aged-collared-woman who runs back and forth from house to
the church, working in the garden, making public art, visiting on the front
porch, entertaining conversation groups, and leading a walking group around the
neighbourhood… that’s me of course.
Well,
these are the
people that you meet
When
you’re walking down the street
They’re
the people that you meet each day.
For
decades this song was used to introduce the people who lived and worked on
SESAME STREET. “Sesame Street” being a children’s show with puppets and people.
In
a few minutes we will return to the neighbourhood that is home to this church
community. First let us venture into the neighbourhood presented to us in
today’s gospel.
The
neighbourhood we visit is in the Samaritan city of Sychar. It is an old
neighbourhood where generation after generation have gathered and lived. For
those living here the water source is convenient and at least once a day every
household comes to draw what they need. Legend has it that back in the day, the
land where the neighbourhood sits, was given by Father Jacob to his favourite
son Joseph. The highlight of the neighbourhood – the central feature- is a well
(Jacob’s Well); the well is perpetually full of refreshing water as it is fed
by a natural spring. This neighbourhood doesn’t have it’s own food shops, or at
least on this day there is no market; the disciples have gone off to the next
neighbourhood, further into the city of Sychar to buy food.
Jesus,
weary from travelling, decides to sit at the well and take in the sights,
sounds, and smells of this foreign-to-him neighbourhood.
It
is important for us to note that Jesus is a visitor in this neighbourhood; and
likely an unwelcome one, not being a Samaritan. Jesus chooses a very public and
open-aired space to rest. A well is a place where travellers (even those who
are considered not-us), by the rules of desert hospitality, can stop for water.
One
of the neighbourhood women ventures out about her business and finds Jesus at
the well.
The
woman takes the risk and the time to speak with this visitor who is on her
home-turf.
There
is a whole discourse about water – living water- quenching thirst.
After
quite the discussion the woman runs to her neighbours to tell them about this
visitor to their neighbourhood – and as neighbourhoods go, this one has a vast
network of news spreading agency. People are curious and come to meet the
visitor, to hear and see for themselves. So interesting is the visitor, that someone
either takes Jesus home with them or finds a local room in an inn. The
conversation and storytelling continued. Jesus stays in the neighbourhood for
two days.
“Who
are the people in your neighbourhood?” Specifically, who are we – we as the
Lutheran Church of the Resurrection. Are we – or could we be- the well of the
neighbourhood? A well perpetually full of life giving, thirst quenching,
refreshing spring water. A neighbourhood hub as people in the vicinity visit
once a day to fill their thirst-quenching needs. An open-air public space where
visitors feel welcome to rest. A community filled with curiosity to meet the
visitor and neighbour; to bathe in conversation and story telling, to welcome
and find room for people to be housed and stay a day or two or more.
You
can tell that being a neighbourhood well is not just physical water for bodily
thirst, but water in the form of connection and community through conversation,
story telling, welcome, and hospitality. Providing a safe place where people
living their faith have the God-given ability to water the world, quenching
loneliness, fear, hopelessness, mindlessness, boredom, anxiety, and the list goes
on. Are we a well with that kind of thirst-quenching water?
I
am currently reading a book called: The Bees of Rainbow Falls: Finding
Faith, Imagination, and Delight in Your Neighbourhood, by Preston Pouteaux.
The book invites the reader -pastors and church communities- to discover their neighbourhood.
The author begins with bees suggesting learning from them and taking delight in
the small. Again and again, readers are directed to go into their neighbourhood
to see beauty, create beauty, be beauty. Beauty is gift. Beauty is healing.
Beauty is lifegiving water.
The
book talks about people in the neighbourhood and asks, if you were no longer in
the neighbourhood would you be missed. Would this church community be missed?
The author gives an example of a woman in a neighbourhood who was known as the
lady who wore green – that is the only colour she wore- the neighbours took
great delight in her combinations of green layers, and a certain creative flair;
and when she was gone – her daily travel through the neighbourhood, her PRESENCE,
was missed.
The
story of the neighbourhood in Sychar would have been very different without one
of the women in the neighbourhood going out and meeting Jesus at the well. Without
the neighbourly action Jesus would have remained physically thirsty from his
journey and the woma
n, and her neighbours would have been less emotionally and
spiritually full.
Thinking
about being a well of lifegiving water, or a neighbour who takes risk and time
to talk with a neighbourhood visitor and inviting neighbours to come and see… is
this not only what church community could be, but what is to be?
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