Don’t Hate, Don’t Hunger
John 4:5-42
When I was in seminary, Gene Lowry, one of the preaching professors, wrote a book titled “The Homiletical Plot.” It was all about how to preach a narrative sermon. A narrative sermon is a sermon given through a story. This book taught what we called “Lowry's Loop.”
Dr. Lowry came up with this method by thinking about “Ponderosa,” the television show about the Cartwright family in the Old West. Every week, there would be a challenge facing the Cartwrights. Every week, the solution would get complicated. Every week, things would work out for good for the Cartwrights. People knew this was going to happen every week, and yet every week people tuned in to watch the latest episode.
Dr. Lowry wanted to know what the secret was to getting people to tune in every week, when they knew before it even started that it was all going to work out. He thought that by applying the same principles to sermons, which we know are going to tell us about challenges and how Jesus will win the day, more people might come back every week.
Dr. Lowry identified four steps in the Ponderosa story-telling, which looped around at the end back to the beginning. While I am sure that these steps had formal, theologically correct names in his book, we were taught that the four steps were called OOPS, UH-OH, YAY, and WHEE! “Something” is wrong in God's creation – OOPS, but as we look at it a little closer, this “something” is much worse than it seems – UH-OH. God intervenes for us through Jesus Christ – YAY, and we get to live in this new life as God has intended from the very beginning – WHEE!
Well, it turns out that Lowry’s Loop works for more than just explaining TV westerns and sermons. It can also help us understand real life.
On February 16th of this year, in a small county seat town in Georgia, the mayor started getting phone calls about a new banner over one of the old abandoned store fronts on Main Street. The town of Dahlonega is about an hour north of Atlanta. It is a former gold-mining community in Lumpkin County, and they were about to become the latest example of the challenges facing our country.
The new banner, held in place by 21 screws, read “Historic Ku Klux Klan Meeting Hall.” On one end of the building, a new Confederate flag had been raised; and on the other end, a new red flag with a white cross and the letters “KKK.” OOPS.
As the day began to unfold and people came downtown to do business, word spread quickly about the new banner. People called their friends, and groups started gathering in front of the building. A local leader of the Klan, who also a just released prisoner associated with the white-separatist group called the National Alliance, called in his supporters. The local Unitarian congregation began work to organize a parade to oppose both the banner and the Klan.
There was a day planned for people to shout their hatred at each other while the banner was removed by the city. Word spread about who was coming for the parade, either to watch or to protest. The Klan was coming. The neo-Nazis were coming. Black Lives Matter was coming. There were rumors that a so-called antifascist group from Atlanta was coming. The one-day parade turned into a week of unrest and tension, as more signs, more flags, more groups, more anger flowed into the streets. UH-OH!
If we can trust the media reports, then a disturbing and familiar picture emerges. It is disturbing because of what it says about us. It is familiar because it is as old as the stories in the Bible.
The tensions revealed that the Klan hated the blacks, the liberals hated the Klan, the Southern traditionalists hated being tied to the Klan, and most of the churches just hated being tied to a social issue they knew would be divisive. At the end of the day, a lot of people felt justified in their hate, but not much else was accomplished. But then the next story of division and challenge caught the nation's attention, and the focus moved away from Dahlonega. People could go back to the way things were. YAY?
It turns out the banner was authorized by an 84-year old woman who lived outside of town in her colonial mansion. She had been denied permission by the county to build a new hotel at that site, since the building was on the historic register. The banner was this woman's way of creating a lot of bad publicity for a community which relied heavily on tourism, as the home of the country’s first gold rush and the center of Georgia’s wine country.
Her hatred, grounded in being denied and defied, was the trigger for unleashing the tensions of the community, which they self-described as “a little pocket of loveliness.” Learning this, the town could just explain the tensions away by claiming that this woman was the only real problem in Dahlonega. And the Chamber of Commerce went WHEE.
We hear stories like this happening all around the country. We also are tempted to believe that the divisive problems we face are too hard to solve. And these problems are too hard to solve – as long as we approach them as political problems which require political answers.
This why it is important for me to remind us all again that we are not saved by politics, but by Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God does not “come on earth as it is in heaven” when we elect the right parties, or when we appoint the right judges, or when we enact the right laws. It comes when we love God and when we love our neighbors as Jesus Christ has loved us.
We think the problem is political because we are disoriented. OOPS! When we thing the problem is political, we are not oriented by God's will, but by our will. And, UH-OH, as long as we look at the world from the viewpoint of our will, we will experience division and hatred and conflict. As long as we look at the world from the viewpoint of our will, the problems will be too hard to solve as we hang on to all the reasons to justify the divisions.
Political solutions may be imposed for a time, but rebellion is the historical answer to those kinds of answers – and the problems continue. Political solutions cannot, and will not, ultimately get us to a godly “YAY!” or “WHEE!”
We remember in this season of Lent how to get oriented to God's will again. We give up, and we let go. In this example from Dahlonega and other communities, in order to find God's will on how to proceed, we need to give up hatred, and let go of prejudice. We need to give up thinking one side is totally righteous, and let go of the notion that the other side has nothing good to say. Until we have done this, whatever else we do – even if it is in the name of God – it is still only a political solution, and therefore condemned to fail.
We can also apply Lowry's Loop to help us understand the stories in the Bible. This is especially helpful in a long passage like we have today.
Jesus and his disciples are on their way to Galilee. They can take the long way around, as observant Jews would do to avoid the unclean Samaritans. But Jesus takes them on the most direct route, right through the middle of Samaria.
People get hungry when they travel, particularly when you are traveling on foot. And like the candy bar commercial says, “You’re not you when you are hungry.” We tend to get short with people when we are physically hungry, and that can lead to misunderstandings and anger. We tend to get sinful when we are spiritually hungry, and that doesn’t lead us into the kingdom of God.
Jesus knew, as all good Bible scholars would, that Jacob's well is up ahead of them. Jesus also knew that, because this is the most direct route through the region, there would be other travelers on the road. Jesus knew that there will be businesses to cater to all of the various travelers on the road.
Because Jesus is hungry, he asks the disciples to go and get food. Surprisingly, all of them go to get the food. This happens, I suspect, because as much as they love Jesus, they hate the Samaritans just as much. OOPS!
The back story for this hatred begins in 2 Kings 17 where, after the northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered and exiled, the Assyrians relocated other tribes into the area. The Samaritans were the Jews who were not exiled, who intermarried with the new tribes, and who changed their focus from the far-away Jerusalem to the local Shechem for where they would worship God.
When the Israelites returned from exile, they hung on to all the reasons to justify the divisions and differences between them and the Samaritans. These distinctions justified the Israelites hatred of the Samaritans. This hatred led to several incidents of military violence and terrorist activities over the centuries, as each community grew in resentment toward the other.
Jesus, however, does not hate the Samaritans. He has no issue staying in Samaria, no issue with talking with a Samaritan woman, no issue drinking from a Samaritan woman’s cup. He is the Good Shepherd, after all, come to find the lost sheep.
And at this well, on this day, Jesus has found not just a lost sheep, but a lead sheep. This woman believes Jesus is the messiah, the one who will save the people. She shares this good news with the people of her village, and they come to believe in Jesus, as well.
While the woman is at her village, the disciples return with the bread, only to discover that Jesus isn’t hungry anymore. And the thought running through their heads is UH-OH! Jesus has been contaminated by eating Samaritan food. Jesus would be unclean. And if Jesus is unclean, they may have to leave Jesus. UH-OH, indeed!
Before they can straighten out how they feel about all this, the Samaritan woman returns with members of her village. She doesn’t just show up to prove she talked with Jesus, however. She came back to invite all of them to stay with them for a few days in their village – and Jesus accepts.
I like to imagine that Jesus looked at his disciples after he accepted the invitation. They had trusted Jesus to do what was right for them before, even when they couldn’t always see how it was right. And, I suspect, that in this moment they really can’t see how a bunch of Jews can spend a couple of days with a bunch of Samaritans, and have anything other than conflict and hatred being the result. Still, they trusted Jesus, so I like to think the disciples may have responded with a very weak “Yay?”
We need to know that Jesus didn’t accept the invitation because he was looking for a political answer to a very worldly problem. Jesus knew that the issue between the Jews and the Samaritans has always been a spiritual problem. The problem is not their history or their politics, but their relationship with God and their neighbors.
Spending time with Jesus can only help both sides with their relationship with God. This is the “YAY!” they need. Spending time together, with Jesus as their focus, can only help both sides with their relationships with each other. This is the “WHEE!” that comes in the kingdom of God.
We affirm our spiritual orientation to solving the world's problems in the second vow we make at our baptism. Either we, or those who assumed responsibility for our spiritual growth until we could accept it for ourselves, are asked: Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as Lord, in union with the church Christ opens to people of all ages, nations, and races? Will you commit yourself, according to the grace given in you, to be a faithful member of Christ’s holy church and serve as Christ’s representative in the world?
Notably lacking in that series of questions is any mention of putting our ultimate trust in a government, or a political party, and serving those entities with a loyalty above our commitment to act behalf of Christ. And depending on what your definition of “all” is, there doesn't seem to be any room for excluding or hating someone on the basis of their age, nationality, or ethnicity.
OOPS and UH-OH are always going to be about our sin before God and our neighbors. We will find ourselves in OOPS and UH-OH whenever we hate someone else, and we hate whenever we our spiritual hunger is not satisfied. YAY and WHEE are always and only going to be found in the grace of Jesus Christ, as we love God and love our neighbors as Christ has loved us, and as we are enabled by the Holy Spirit.
If you are tired of feeling hopeless, then reclaim the hope we have in Jesus Christ. If you are torn up about the divisions and challenges in our country, then reclaim the unity we have in Jesus Christ. If you don't want our story to be one of anger and hatred, then reclaim the story we have in Jesus Christ!
We have a story to tell, a story of redemption and reconciliation. We have a story to tell, a story of the victory over sin and death. We have a story to tell when things go OOPS, and when things turn to UH-OH – a story that will end with YAY and WHEE every time, week after week, year after year, for all eternity.
As disciples, our witness is the story of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. It’s time we start telling that story to the world, instead of telling the stories of the world.
UMH 156 “I Love to Tell the Story”