Sermons

Calling Out the Broken Things

This month marks 50 years of women at Yale changing the world.  In March 1976, the women’s rowing team at Yale decided they were done waiting quietly. They trained hard along the Housatonic (HEW-STAH-TONIC) River, just like the men’s team. But there was one big difference. The men had locker rooms and hot showers. The women did not. After practice, they stood outside, cold, wet, and exhausted, sometimes for half an hour before getting on the buses. Some even got pneumonia.

So nineteen of them walked into the athletic director’s office. They stood together with the words “Title IX” written on their skin. Title IX promised equal opportunities in education and sports. But these athletes knew that a law means little if no one makes sure it is followed. Their protest got national attention. Because they spoke up, something simple but important happened: a women’s locker room was finally built at the boathouse.

Sometimes change begins when someone stands their ground and says, ” This is not right.”

And sometimes it begins when someone refuses to remain silent.  We all could come up with something that we can stand up for over things in our hearts that we know are wrong. This gospel reminds us that we must call out the broken things of this world. 

That same resolve leads us to think about another moment of courage: a well in Samaria.

Our Gospel today from John tells the story of Jesus meeting a woman at a well around noon. Now, if you have heard this story before, you might remember that people often assume this woman is somehow morally suspect because she comes alone in the middle of the day.

But the Gospel never actually says that.

What John tells us instead is something much more interesting.

He tells us that this conversation should not be happening at all.

Jesus is a Jewish teacher.  She is a Samaritan woman. In the gospel, she is unnamed but known by many names: Photini in Greek, Shweta in Sanskrit, Svetlana in Russian, Fiona in Celtic languages, and Claire in English.  Many names from many traditions all meaning bright, light, “shining”, “luminescent”, “pure”, “blessed”, or “holy”.

In that world, these two identities mattered. Jews and Samaritans had a shared history, but centuries of conflict had turned their relationship into open hostility. They disagreed about where God should be worshiped. Samaritans believed the holy place was Mount Gerizim, while Jews insisted it was the Temple in Jerusalem.

Think about the bitter divisions that have split Christian communities over the years: the suspicion, the contempt, and the feeling that the other side had betrayed the truth.

That was the atmosphere between Jews and Samaritans.

There was another boundary too: gender. At that time, religious teachers were not expected to discuss theology with women in public. 

Yet here is Jesus, sitting beside a well, asking  Claire for a drink of water.

And she immediately pushes back.

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

I mean, you have got to love that moment.  

Because Clarie is not timid, nor quiet, nor deferential.

She sees the boundary that has been crossed, and she names it out loud.

And Jesus invites her into a deeper conversation.

“If you knew the gift of God,” he says, “you would have asked, and been given living water.”

Like in many conversations in John’s Gospel, there is a misunderstanding. The woman thinks Jesus is talking about real water and points out the obvious problem.

“Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.”

People often misunderstand Jesus in John’s Gospel. I always suspect the way it is written, Nicodemus thinks being born again means going back into his mother’s womb. Crowds think Jesus is talking about real bread when he speaks about the bread of life. (too many clauses, perhaps word order, me thinks) 

But these misunderstandings are not mistakes. They are invitations.

They invite us to move beyond literal thinking and toward something deeper.

Jesus is talking about a different kind of nourishment, something that feeds the soul.

But what stands out in this story is not just the idea of living water. It is the conversation itself.

Because in the middle of this encounter, the woman asks Jesus a theological question that had divided their peoples for centuries.

“Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,” she says, “but you say that the place where people must worship is Jerusalem.”

In other words: Which one of us is right?

Where is God really found?

And Jesus responds in a way that must have sounded astonishing to both sides.

“The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”

In that moment, Jesus steps beyond the ancient argument entirely.

He does not choose her mountain.

He does not defend his own.

Instead, he declares that the hour is coming when God will not be confined to either one.

The barriers are coming down.

What is sacred will no longer be limited by buildings, borders, or old rivalries.

God will be encountered in spirit and truth.

And the first person in John’s Gospel to hear that revelation is not a priest.

Not a disciple. Not a scholar.

But it is Claire standing at a well.

She becomes one of the first evangelists in John’s Gospel. She runs back to her community and tells them about the man who spoke to her. Because of her testimony, many Samaritans came to believe.  Claire brings light, not certitude; she does not tell them to believe her, but points and, in a very Johannian way, invites people to check out this teacher.   

The woman who began the story as an outsider spreads the word. She is the one who brings people together.

This is how the Gospel works. Barriers fall. Voices long ignored are heard. And communities are transformed.

Returning to those rowers at Yale, we see a similar challenge to injustice.  We see it with their ancestors, the US women’s hockey team. They walked into that office not simply to complain about locker rooms.

They were naming a deeper truth: systems that treat some people as less worthy need to be challenged.

Their protest did not destroy the institution.

It made it better.

Hilary Knight of the US Hockey team calls a question too, and said this when asked about the president’s comments, “The joke was distasteful and unfortunate, and I think you know, that the way women are represented is problematic, and this is a great teaching point and a chance to really shine light on how women should be championed for their amazing Feats.  Now I have to sit,  or anybody has to sit in front of you and explain someone else’s Behavior.  And it’s not my responsibility.”

Their protest made way for fairness, dignity, and opportunity. Generations of women after them benefited from what they began.

That is what prophetic courage often looks like. Not destruction.  Wars destroy, as we see right now on our various screens.

Instead, it is about telling the truth in a way that brings reconciliation and justice.

And the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus himself stands in that same prophetic tradition.

The hour when God’s presence overflows the walls we build to contain it.

And perhaps the most hopeful part of this story is that Jesus does not accomplish this transformation alone.

He invites conversation. He listens. He allows someone from the margins to become a witness.

That is how the kin-dom of God begins to take shape, not through power but by meeting each other honestly.

A Jewish teacher and a Samaritan woman sitting beside a well, speaking honestly across generations of mistrust. Living water flowing where no one expected it.

And that same invitation stands before us now.

Where are the wells in our lives where we might risk conversation?

Where are the old arguments and inherited divisions that need to give way to something deeper?

Where might God already be speaking through voices we have not yet learned to hear?

Because the promise of the Gospel is that the hour Jesus spoke about is not only coming. He says it has already arrived.

The living water is already flowing.

What are you called to do to build up community? Where are you in this story?  

Because the barriers that once shaped our world are breaking. The invitation is here. Step into the living water. Create, stand up, be present, and if you must, call the question.

May it always be so. 

AMEN