Transformative Social Distancing: A Sermon for 3 Lent

Our Gospel lesson today is an interesting take on social distancing. Jesus and his disciples were making their way through the region of Samaria, when they reached the city of Sychar. Jesus was tired from their journey – likely physical and emotional exhaustion – so he chose to remain seated by the local well while his disciples went into town to fetch some food for lunch. That right there is an excellent example of self-care and social distancing. Jesus knew his needs, and he tended to them.

While he was at the well, he had this profound encounter with a Samaritan woman – which is his longest recorded conversation with a woman, as well as the longest set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought in the New Testament. The woman herself happens to be practicing her own version of self-care and social distancing. Our text tells us that it was noon, which is a very unlikely time for women to go to the well to draw water. That task was typically reserved for dawn or dusk. It is likely that, given what we know about her personal story, the daily social gathering at the well with the other local women was not a happy time for this woman. It is very likely that she felt shunned, judged, and ostracized by the other women in Sychar. So for her, she chose brave the heat of the midday sun to fetch her water alone and in peace.

The irony is that in both Jesus and the woman’s attempt to socially distance themselves and spend some peaceful time alone at the well, they ended up having one of the most profound social encounters in all of scripture. In the Orthodox Church, this woman is recognized as a saint and is given the name “Photina” – which means “enlightened one” or “light.”  St. Photina is the first person in John’s gospel to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and is considered to be equal among the apostles.

An interesting bookend to this holy encounter at the well is that Photina came to the well with her water jar in hand, but when she returned to the city to share the Good News of her encounter, and invited the folks to “come and see,” John makes a point to tell us that she left her water jar at the well. After her encounter with Jesus, her immediate task at hand, as well as her bigger picture vocational calling, both were dramatically changed. Now that she had encountered the Living Water becomes “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life,” she no longer needed her jar. And all of this happened when two people – Jesus and Photina – had made the conscious decision to practice self-care through social distancing.

And that fact brings us to our situation today. The current Covid-19 pandemic has brought us into a time and space that, as far as my lifetime is concerned, I can only compare to 9-11. But there are many differences to 9-11, namely, that we can’t blame this virus on a person, group, or nation. And we can’t respond by a rally cry of patriotic fervor and promise to eliminate the virus through military force and political sanctions. And this virus knows no allies – it is quickly becoming a worldwide crisis that ironically might unify our world for a common cause better than any military action or global summit has ever been able to do.

The other irony of the pandemic is that the immediate response and solution is calling for social distancing – dare I even say, isolation for some. As a nation, and as Christians, we are a people who are accustomed to coming together to solve problems. We believe that our strength is in communities – with the young, strong, healthy, and privileged members looking after and caring for those who are not. Simply put, we are better together. So what are we to do with the scientifically- and medically-backed call to social distancing? Can we be faithful Christians at a distance?

It seems rather providential that this pandemic has come upon us during the season of Lent – when the Church calls us to a period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. As it turns out, we are being forced to give up more than we had originally planned. In addition to giving up coffee, chocolate, alcohol, sweets, and the like, some of us are having to give up vacations that we had planned to go on for Spring Break. Work-related conferences and gatherings have been cancelled or switched to virtual gatherings. We are being advised to avoid church, gyms, yoga classes, and other places that, especially during Lent, we might have committed to attending more, not less. Schools, colleges, and universities are being closed and moved to a digital format. Who’d have thought that during Lent, we’d end up giving up church, the gym, and school?

Of course, if church ends up being cancelled over the next few weeks, that is not a call to temporarily quit practicing our Christian faith. We will just have to practice it differently. And we will have to care for the most vulnerable in our communities differently. In our gospel lesson today, as I mentioned before, Photina changed course in the midst of her day. She started out with a task at hand, with her water jar in her hand. But after her encounter with the Living Water of Jesus Christ, she left her jar at the well and set out to share the Good News. Her new calling involved new tools, so to speak. And such is the case for us. We are being invited - and in some cases, forced – to set our regular tools, tasks, and routines aside for the time being so that we can attend to the situation at hand. 

I spoke to my sister and her family yesterday. She and her husband live in Baltimore, and they have three teenaged children. They are the epitome of busy lifestyles with work, church, school, and extra-curricular activities. Charles’ upcoming work-related annual sales conference was canceled. In-person worship at their church has been cancelled. Their schools have been closed for two weeks, and that is not even during Spring Break like ours. Their kids’ sports events and concerts have been cancelled. And they are avid sports fans as well, and had plans to watch March Madness. As we were talking yesterday, they commented that the next few weeks were going to be eerily quiet and sedentary. But they also remarked that in a way, it is a welcome “pause” on their extremely busy lives. In times past, folks didn’t spend Spring Break going on Disney cruises, snow skiing out West, or trips to Europe. 

It’s interesting that it wasn’t the season of Lent that forced us to put our water jars down and re-focus our priorities. It took a worldwide pandemic. But God is always present in every situation. No, I don’t believe that God sent us the Coronavirus to teach us to slow down and re-focus our priorities. But now that we are in the midst of this pandemic, we have an opportunity to do just that. And while we practice healthy, wise social distancing, we might also consider how else we might use this time to re-focus our priorities. What are the jars that we need to set down so we can tend to the work that Christ is calling us to do? How might we, during this down time, invite others to “Come and See” the Good News of Jesus Christ? Given our limited personal social contact, we might re-connect with old friends and family members with whom we have been too busy to keep up with. We might write a letter to someone – especially someone in prison. This is an excellent time for us to be in solidarity with folks who are in forced isolation.

I don’t know if we will have worship here in person the next few weeks. The bishop will make a decision on that in the next few days. But whether we are here in person or not, we are still called to practice our faith. And this is an excellent time to pick up the practice of praying the Daily Office at home if you don’t already. That is a discipline that truly embodies “common prayer” – praying in community with people all over the world.

 In the meantime, be gentle with yourselves and take advantage of this opportunity to slow down and refocus our priorities. If you know of someone who is not here, and who you haven’t seen in a while, give them a call to check in. And let me know if there is anybody who needs a check-in from me. We’re going to be doing a lot of virtual pastoral care, and we’ll all need to be in this together. My first prayer is that this pandemic ends quickly. And my second prayer as that this pandemic will draw us all closer to God and one another in ways that we might have never imagined.