A PARISH IN THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF SPRINGFIELD

sermon
This sermon was given at Trinity, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, March 27, 2011, the Third Sunday in Lent.
Fr. William N. Malottke was Vicar at Trinity 1959-1962.

Perhaps one of you can help me with a word.

Recently I have been involved in two groups. One is in McLeansboro, one in Harrisburg. We are reading aloud from the works of Shakespeare. Our leader is Ryan Nelson, who presented Shakespeare as part of the English classes he taught at Rend Lake College. I taught Shakespeare at Illinois College. Now in another class I taught about the English language, I often made the claim that our language was superior to others because our extensive borrowing from other tongues enabled us to use the variety in making very subtle distinctions in meaning. Need and environment can help shape our vocabulary. Hence, Eskimos have many, many words for our word, "snow".

Now all this came to mind the other day as we were reading "As You Like It". The Elizabethans delighted in plays on words and puns. They delighted in such displays of wit as are in the scenes between Beatrice and Benedick where they are mocking each other, and with Dogberry and Verges wherein the author mocks the rustics.

Now we come to my initial question. When in wit or humor we can call such exchanges "banter" or "badinage" what is the proper term when such deal with matters of the utmost seriousness? In a past sermon with you I spoke about Abraham's "haggling" with God. Today's Gospel's exchange between our Lord and the Samaritan woman has an element of two people talking on different levels. And as I thought on this, I began to remember the meeting with Nicodemus -- a classic case. And, there is also a similar scene at the raising of Lazarus with this brief dialogue between our Lord and Martha. He says, "Thy brother shall rise again." She says, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said unto her, "I am the resurrection, and the life: He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live."

Now if we look ahead in today's Gospel, it becomes clear that this encounter with the Samaritan woman was such as to bring forth in her a saving declaration of faith, both to others as well as to herself. But where were the activating miracles? There were no doves descending, no blind men seeing human beings as "trees walking", no lepers cleansed, no cripples running and leaping.

What our Lord did do was, to use the terminology of evangelicals, "convict" her of her sins. He "told me all that ever I did." He caused her to open her eyes to the reality of her life. Elizabeth Taylor had 7 marriages. The Samaritan woman had 5, plus a current "live-in". Surely, some time ago, she had rationalized her condition and her conduct. Now was the time and the opportunity to make a change. The only miracle manifested here was that He, a Jew, would take time talk to a Samaritan and to a woman at that. He even spoke to her about a serious subject -- eternal life and salvation. And she bore witness to the townspeople.

Don't you wish that your life would make such a difference to someone -- that someone, at your invitation, might come here and then say -- not because of what Fr. Tucker or Fr. malottke said, but for "what we have heard for ourselves, and we (now) know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world."

Let us in closing paraphrase our Collect of the day:

O God, by now we ought to know that we have no power of our own to help ourselves. We pray then that thou wouldst keep us, as thou didst thy pilgrim children, defended from all adversities that may overtake the body and strengthened against all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt our souls. THROUGH CHRIST WHO SPEAKS FOR US AND TO US. AMEN.

+ + +