Anselm

Chester Cathedral

https://chestercathedral.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/chester_exterior.png

Dorothy Nicholl took me to Chester while I was visiting her at the home in Betley near Crewe where she and Dorothy's husband Donald had retired, after a career and service together that had taken them across the world, from England to Santa Cruz to Jerusalem and then home. 

Before we went to the pub, we went to Chester. There in the cathedral the Gothic stonework was impressive, but it was an overlay on the centuries-earlier Romanesque. During renovations a section of the earlier work was left exposed. I slapped my hand on the ancient stone, and said, "This is the cathedral that Anselm knew." Dorothy replied, "Donald would have said exactly the same thing." 

Donald was a historian and I was his student. Anselm had been a friend of the dean of the cathedral and had come to visit - from Canterbury. 

I first knew Anselm as Anselm of Bec, in an undergraduate philosophy course taught in a Stevenson College classroom. The textbook referred to him that way, as it described his 'ontological proof of the existence of God' - Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man). Written around 1094-1098 of our era. He had been in Bec, as monk and abbot. But they did not tell us the rest of the story: he became Archbishop of Canterbury. A stellar intellectual. 

In face a prominent English theologian recently remarked on the retirement of one of Anselm's successors (a friend of Donald and Dorothy as it turned out) that, "he's the most intellectually gifted man to become Archbishop of Canterbury since St Anselm.”

So that I came to know in time. What we know of a man changes some perception of him. It was only years after that first encounter in a college classroom that I came to know of Anselm in his religious garb, in a religious building.

At first he was a dusty-book author, who came up with what was at the time (his or mine?) an ingenious shortcut to demonstration of a reality beyond our conception. 

In fact that was something the point. God is that than which no greater can be conceived; and to be honest, we still don't get it. We really can't. Can we?

Can we be satisfied seeing through a glass darkly, knowing that someday, with Anselm, Donald and Dorothy and all the saints, we will see the reality face to face?


https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/anselm-curdeus.asp

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-press-and-journal-aberdeen-and-aberdeenshire/20120320/283897339955847

Almighty God, through your servant Anselm you helped your church to understand its faith in your eternal Being, perfect justice, and saving mercy: Provide your church in all ages with devout and learned scholars and teachers, that we may be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

https://episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/anselm-canterbury-archbishop-canterbury-and-theologian-1109

Revised Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1980. p. 240-241. https://extranet.generalconvention.org/staff/files/download/21034 

the water that connects us

This is a sermon in Lent, so the theme of the lessons, and especially the gospel, is Baptism. First of all. But there is something deeper than baptism, deeper than sacrament, even: what sacraments represent. 

As wise commentators have observed, behind the symbol is the reality. Behind water, Spirit. And in the story of the woman at the well, we see God’s grace at work and the providence we rely on.

Jacob needed water. People do. And so do their flocks, if they have them. Jacob received the gift of sustenance for his needs. What remained and continued was the symbol and the reality that co-intwine to show us God at work. 

People need water - and God provides it. And if we co-operate with God, as Jacob did, as Moses did, as the woman at the well did, we may find a deeper thirst supplied. Not just today, for ever.

The people of Israel were complaining in the desert. Did you bring us out here to die of thirst? God did not simply open the heavens. Take your staff, Moses; the staff with which you struck the Nile, and strike the rock at Horeb. I will be there before you. 

The staff with which he struck the rock is the staff that Moses used so many times as it, and he, became the instruments of God. Through creation, and through the actions of this faithful man, the people received what they need - for all their anxiety, all their worry.

When we confront a lack, a profound need, we as people of God know that we are not alone. In the midst of suffering, we are not alone. God is with us. We may not pass through the trial unhurt but we will pass through it together, with God and each other.

And that is where we find grace. The story, the bread, the wine, the water, the oil, and each other these we have with us always. And behind any symbol, any gift, any lack, even, are the Word that becomes flesh and dwells among us and the Spirit that sustains us - and we will be all right.

How does this show up in John’s Gospel? In the person of Jesus, the ultimate self-revelation of the Father. “Throughout John’s Gospel, the key to salvation - and so the door to eternal life - is recognizing who Jesus is and responding with loving obedience.”

To put my theme simply, Jesus is real - and he can change your life.

It sure happened to the Samaritan woman. Slowly, and then all at once, she became rich in the grace of heaven. 

At first she just thought she met a guy at a well, at the unlikely hour of noon. Then she began to interrogate him, to come closer, and to find out who he really is. It took her a while, as it does most of us.

Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 

But more than that, greater than that, she could not tell, until she brought the whole town alive with the news: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” 

A brave disclosure: they know who she is, without prophetic help. But she says it, freely, and more: she has begun to wonder if he is not really in fact “greater than our ancestor Jacob” - the one who found the water in the well the first time. “Can this be he? The Restorer - the anointed one - that we have been waiting for all these years?” 

Other stranger voices will call out, “I know you son of God! When will you restore Israel?”

But the people gather here at the well, at the source, as it turns out, at the source of life itself: they gather in the presence of Jesus. 

And they learn he is more than that, more than a man at a well, more than a prophet, greater than their ancestor, greater than their preconceptions of the one anointed to restore their people only: “this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Now I want some of that water. I want some of that Spirit. I want some of that Presence.

And he is present. Jesus is real and he can change your life.

You may or may not have a bucket, or a well, or cupped hands, or in fact any visible water at all. What you have is the living Word of God. 

Behind symbol is reality. Yes there is a well, still, and water. Yes, there is bread - and there is wine. There is oil for anointing and there are prayers for healing. We are present together - or in a phone call, or even a text. But behind all these vehicles of grace, these visible tangible audible symbols, is a spiritual reality. Not a passive, recumbent essence, but an active power, of God.

The power is not in the staff but in the word of God, not in the symbol, however wonderful, but in the spiritual reality.

And when we remember that we are home.

Whether we are together or for a time separated, by distance or contagion, we are home, in the presence and power of God.

Here is something I learned from my college advisor, Donald Nicholl. After he served as a teacher in various universities including mine he went on to direct the Ecumenical Institute at Tantur by Jerusalem. His job was to host scholars from various traditions, and to see that they got along together. 

Building community, for Christians, means gathering for prayer, for word and sacrament. But what if you cannot take the sacrament together? The problem he faced, in his time, was that Catholics were supposed to take communion with Catholics, only, and not with Protestants. The Protestants had similar difficulties. It was not something to brush aside or “power through”.

So he thought, at first, well, I won’t take communion when others can’t. So he didn’t go up to the altar when Protestants celebrated. And he didn’t go up when Catholics celebrated. 

And then he realized, I’m not going up at all! And I’m the leader of this community. This won’t work. So he decided, and in those analog days tacked up a notice on the community bulletin board, announcing his decision - and our insight: 

When you take communion you take it not for yourself only: you take it for everyone, especially those who cannot go up to the altar rail with you, as part of a community, …

… and as we know, that community is worldwide, and robust, sustained through place and time,  carrying forward the work of the Spirit and rejoicing in the power of God.

• Exodus 17:1-7
• Romans 5:1-11
• John 4:5-42
• Psalm 95

Suzanne Guthrie. At the Edge of the Enclosure. http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/lent3a.html 

Donald Nicholl. The Testing of Hearts. London, 1989. 

The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel, Bishop of Olympia. A Pastoral Letter: “Co-operating” in the Wilderness. http://bishoprickel.com/ (Saturday 14 March 2020).

Scott Gambrill Sinclair, The Past from God's Perspective: A Commentary on John's Gospel, North Richland Hills, TX: BIBAL Press, 2004, page 69.

For Saint Matthew's Episcopal Church, Tucson, Arizona.  https://stmatthew.azdiocese.org/

https://www.facebook.com/saintmatthewtucson/videos/193997745378421/

the woman at the well

When Sarah and I were living in Tucson I got interested in the idea of digging a well. We had city water; it was okay; we had to pay for it; everybody did. But I wondered - what if we had our own well? We could have all the water we wanted - drawn from the common aquifer, to tell the truth - without having to pay the city for delivering it. So I called a well driller - and he told me to forget about it. He knew where we lived - and knew it would be hundreds of feet through rock, busted up rock but still difficult to penetrate. He would have had to use special equipment, which he didn't even have. Just forget about it - it's not worth it.

The Samaritan woman did not have this problem. Centuries and centuries ago the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph had a well on it - somebody had dug down, maybe 130 feet or so, to the aquifer, the place in the earth where the water always (or almost always) flowed. The water that trickled down from the mountain, feeding underground streams or seeps, would give you what you needed - if you dug down to it.

And then they had put up a little wall around it, probably, just like in the movies - or the cartoons. The well was there, ready to use, for all the people of the city of Sychar. And out from that city walked a woman of the town, at the sixth hour of the day.

All she had to do was bring a bucket, and a rope, and let the bucket down, and draw up the water she needed for the day.

It was noon, strangely enough, and she was probably expecting to be alone when she got there to the well. But there was a man there, a stranger, and he asked her to give him a drink.

What are you doing? She said. You, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan (and a woman too), for a drink?

Don't you know we have nothing to do with each other? Don't you know that you Jews consider a drinking vessel that Samaritans have touched to be unclean?

If you knew the one who was speaking to you, he replied, you would be asking him for water.

What? Do you have some source I do not know about? Some source someplace I cannot see?

For he was promising living water - the kind you get from a river or a spring - flowing water, running water, living water, not the still water you would draw from a well.

It is so different it is like the difference between a cistern and a rain shower.

You want this living water. So did she. And so she asked.

And he gave her a strange answer.

You will thirst again, however often you draw water from this well. But if you drink the cup I am offering you, you will never be thirsty again.

It will rise up in you like a fountain, a spring, flowing forth from your own heart, forever.

Give me this water! I don't want to come back here again. I never want to be thirsty again.

Reality check: Go call your husband and come back.

I have no husband, she says.

True enough - you have had five (no reason given) and the one you are with now is not your husband.

Sir I perceive that you are a prophet.

(Compliment followed by obfuscation - change the subject quick!)

We worship on this mountain (where the water for the well comes from, by the way) but you worship in Jerusalem (on the mountain of David, the height called Zion).

The place where people must worship - he sweeps it aside. Soon and even now comes the hour when you will worship neither here nor there - it won't matter.

The true worship takes place in the heart - you will worship in spirit and in truth.

For God is spirit;

and the thin places - the holy places where the membrane between this world and the next is permeable, the threshold places where you can step across from mundane reality to the realm of spirit,

those places will be everywhere, in every heart.

They always have been, you know.

Do you think it mattered where God placed the burning bush? Do you think it mattered which rock Moses struck? There in the desert were thousands and thousands of rocks.

And God stood on every one of them, if you could see.

It was faith and obedience, trust and hope, which made Moses strike the rock.

And it was God who gave the water, the living water, that quenched the thirst (and quelled the anger) of the children of Israel, of Jacob, the children of that same man who gave you, Samaritan woman, the well you are drawing from today.

It was God who gave the water - to Jacob's children, the children of Israel, then and now.

Jacob himself encountered the living God on the bank of the river Jordan - and with the man, the strange man, he wrestled until daylight.

Now this woman wants to tussle with words, with the living God. But Jesus will have none of it.

And she listens to him - and - I know the Messiah is coming, she says. And he will tell us everything. He will proclaim everything. His word will be a living word.

He responds, "I am he" - but the Greek says more than this, in fewer words.

He says, ego eimi - "I am."

I AM says Jesus - I AM as the Lord said to Moses at the burning bush, so Jesus now says to this woman: I AM the one who is sent to proclaim all things.

At that moment the disciples came and broke up the party. She slipped away, back to the city.

Go and call your husband and come back, he had said. And she had replied, I have no husband.

So now she does go - and calls the whole city to come back with her and meet this extraordinary man, this stranger who had asked her for a drink, this prophet who had told her everything she had done. Could this be the Messiah?

Could it be true? Maybe he does have water to give us so that we may never thirst again.

He is the living one, the fount of all blessing - and from the rock and from the well and from the cistern and from the river flow forth the waters of God, the waters of forgiveness, the waters of salvation.

She will never again be thirsty.

She will never again be able to hide - "what you say is true - you have no husband" - but she never wants to. Never again.

For she has found the fount of living water, flowing up from within herself, as she, in the encounter with the stranger, gave him who was thirsty water to drink.

"When I was thirsty, you gave me drink."

When did we see Jesus thirsty and give him a drink? When was he the stranger, waiting at the well in the middle of the day, tired and hungry and dry in the throat? When we saw the least of these - the least of God's children - and treated them with the mercy and hospitality of the living Christ: as if they were he and we were his people, following him, proclaiming his kingdom, come in our actions, proclaimed and made to be.

May we let the water flow

Flow in us

Living water

Refresh our souls

that we ourselves

may refresh others

with the living truth

of your love.

Amen.

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Give us water to drink

"Give us water to drink" say the Israelites.

The woman at the well meets Jesus, and they talk, and he tells her every thing she has ever done.

Revealing her, he reveals himself.

Revealing himself, she discovers who she really is - her identity, her true self.

Her self, in relation to God.

(Some ideas from Herb O'Driscoll, based on his "The Word Today" comments on the readings for today.)

What was she expecting? when she went to the well - a bucket of water, a means to draw it up, a well - that her ancestors knew - a gift of an ancient God; yet here he is before her, the one she awaits, the one she expected, after all those years even centuries, the redeemer - the restorer - the one to deliver - not only Israel, for she was Samaritan - the whole world...

She went not to call her husband and come back but to tell the whole town.

This man told me everything he knew about me - and that was everything I have ever done.

But he told her more than that - more than the facts. He said, I will give you living water, water that will gush up like a spring, water that will not simply quench her thirst, fill her need for a day.

This is not the oasis; this is the source.

Israel was having trouble trusting Moses - or God. Moses, who had drawn them up out of Egypt as he, Moses, had been drawn up out of the Nile. Moses, who had struck the Nile with his staff that God might show him the wonder of his majesty. Moses, who struck a rock in the desert that God mgiht show the majesty of his wonders.

Even the barren places flow with streams of water when God commands it. Even the most quarrelsome people, who put God to the test - he sweeps aside their doubts and their lack of faith - he has a wonder to show them - and a wonder to work in them.

Not only does he, having Moses strike the rock, draw forth water from barren stone: he craws forth from barren hearts the miracle of faith, of grace, of love - the mystery of faith that is incarnate in Jesus, that springs up new life within us. That Christ who died, who is risen, who will come again: that Christ lives in our hearts forever.

That God who was a distant memory, a story about an ancestor, the one who strove by the Jordan river with the angel and by giving a well to a son - a beloved son, en route to exile in Egypt; that God, the one who is expected to deliver us, some day, so we are taught (good lesson learned, she remembers it when it counts): that God is present.

That God is present to her, the woman at the well, in the mercy and grace - and the insight - of the Savior, the one who is before here now speaking. God is here and now with us - speaking healing words of truth and of wisdom, of mercy and forgiveness; offering life even through the font that is himself, his own compassionate heart.

In her heart springs up wonder, the wonder of faith, and she goes to tell the world. Like the man born blind she cannot keep it to herself - the wonderful news of the coming of the Savior.

"Living water" - and then the disciples came... As she leaves her jar and goes back to town, they approach him and offer him food (supply run complete). He says to them something strange - it sounds simple - and impossible: I have food to eat ye know not of.

What does he have? Nobody has brought him food - him the source of all being, all life, has served and thereby been fed. In obedience to his father's will Jesus finds true sustenance. Not in bread alone but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God he finds life.

Life, true life, comes to us, as it came to her, the Samaritan woman, in relationship to the living God revealed in Jesus.

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