Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs
31 July 2016 John 4, excerpts
“Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs” Both of today’s texts have something powerful to tell us about times when we feel we are living the wrong story. Now you may think you know the story of Goldilocks, but Mo Willems must have wondered one day, what if Goldilocks went to the wrong house? Then what? And what follows is a funny rendition of Goldilocks and the Three Bears but with a powerful moral at the end, a lesson important for every child and grown up there is. It’s simple and it’s obvious. If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave. I can’t tell you how many people I have met along the way who tell me about their lives, their addictions, their broken relationships, their failed careers, and they often describe feelings of being stuck, paralyzed, can’t see a way forward or a way out. But the truth is, we are never stuck if we are willing to take on a new perspective and change the plot of our story. There is such a profound truth in Willems’ moral—If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave. Which, let’s be clear, doesn’t always mean to actually leave—sometimes we can’t leave a relationship or a job or a circumstance— but what we can leave is our negative thinking. We can leave behind thoughts that damage, hurt, keep us stuck, and turn us into victims rather than heroes of our own stories. It’s an important question—are you the hero or the victim of your life story? Which is exactly where we find the woman at the well in John’s gospel. Here is a woman at the end of her rope. After 5 husbands and all that that meant in the ancient near east for her status in the community, she was a woman on the edge. In need of a new story. So it goes that this Samaritan woman chose to go to the well at the time of day when she knew no one else
would be there. Carrying her bucket she goes to the well located at the edge of town, during the hottest part of the day—hoping and praying no one would be there; she is rejected and worn, tired and hopeless, she makes her way to the well, hoping to be alone, to get away, to cry where no one could see or hear her. She lives on the fringes of her community. Having had 5 husbands, most likely due to death and being passed from one relative to the next, with each change in her circumstances she is whittled away, little by little. I can only imagine what she felt when she realized she was not alone at the well. She went there to be unseen, to be unnoticed, to not have to deal with the looks and judgments of others, but as it turns out this was not her day to remain unknown, to be anonymous. In this loving Jesus, she had no chance to stay hidden. The Jesus we encounter in the Bible is one who sees invisible people. This Jesus waits on that well and waits on her. This Jesus shatters her anonymity and exposes her vulnerability and invites her to leave the story that isn’t working for her and enter into a new story. Isn’t it incredible? I wonder what Jesus was thinking as he watched her approach the well. She must have been wearing her life on her sleeve, an open book to be read that told a story of sorrow and shame, fear and brokenness. She surely must have looked, in the deepest sense, about to die from thirst even while fetching her buckets of water. But Jesus breaks the ice, and in his sacred way becomes a bridge across every imaginable barrier—race, religion, gender, and status— and asks her, “Can you give me a drink?” He uses a simple need to invite her to open up and take the chance of an encounter that will in turn expose and fill every need she ever had. Underneath their conversation, if you listen closely, you can hear Jesus inviting her to something more, as if to say to this woman, “Are you willing? Are you enough of a risk taker to engage with me and therefore implies the question, Can you be more than you are now? Are your
ready to live a new story?” She tried at least once to deflect the conversation to social proprieties and the differences between Samaritans and Jews, but Jesus will have none of it. There is no influence that will defer the task of a God-given identity, which is exactly what he is holding out to her. In this conversation by a well, Jesus offers her more than she could ever expect or hope for. He grants her loving attention; he treats her with dignity despite what people say; he acknowledges her worth and grants her a purpose for living, meaning, and an assignment for her life. He quenches her thirst and helps her to leave behind the story of pain, struggle, oppression, and depression. While everything said that this was the wrong time of day for her business at the well, it turns out it was exactly the right time for God’s business. The moral of the story is: God can take an ordinary moment and do extraordinary things. The first lesson of the text, however, is this: get to the well. Just go. Open yourself up just enough. The miracle is, Jesus will meet you there. It sounds a lot easier than it is. We get comfortable in our story. We would rather walk over desolate terrain in the hot sun, allowing our problems to push us further and further from community and deeper into our own pain, shame, or grief. In the Samaritan woman’s story, John lets us know how strong a hold her past had on her, how much she had to overcome to consider what God was asking her to become. She had to overcome every message the world sent her that said she was unworthy, unlovable, unrespectable. Thoughts are very powerful—what we think informs how we behave. Thoughts can drag us down or inspire us, and she was full of the kind that loads you down. But she risks everything to speak with Jesus and to let him in, and Jesus offers her a new way of thinking, a new perspective…and she answers him, “Give me this water, give me this way of life…” Help me find a
new story. Though she didn’t know what it was all about, she reached for it anyway. It took trust and it took faith, and she had just enough of both to move into a deeper understanding of what God was calling her to be. At the well, in the middle of the day, hot and dying of thirst in ways even she could not understand or articulate, this Samaritan woman had a defining moment. At the end of the story, she is clearly a new woman. In v. 28 it says, “Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city.” She went back, back to the place she had once desperately avoided, back to the judging stares and hurtful words. But it was different now, wasn’t it? Make no mistake, things hadn’t changed, the people hadn’t changed, the circumstances hadn’t changed…but she had. She had changed. She dropped her jar, willing to let go of what was no longer sufficient or relevant. She didn’t abandon her life or her community, but she left the story that had negatively defined her–That old story was about the woman she had been, but not the one she was becoming. So Jesus sends her right back into her life, only now she has a purpose. She is now woman with a new story to tell, no longer invisible, and with the simplest of sermons, she tells her story and says to the people, “Come and see a man…” And the story goes that she inspired faith in others. Her testimony profoundly touches others and this unnamed Samaritan woman was no longer on the fringes of history, she was now an intricate part of the salvation story by the very grace of God. Friends, I hope you will tuck this kernel of wisdom somewhere deep inside for the day you need it or the day you need to offer it to someone else. Life will not always turn out the way you want or the way it should, but our faith offers us hope in the possibility that always exists for a new life in Christ. Christ extends the invitation like a fresh cup of water to a parched soul. So
listen. If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave. God is waiting to teach you a new one.
“Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs” Both of today’s texts have something powerful to tell us about times when we feel we are living the wrong story. Now you may think you know the story of Goldilocks, but Mo Willems must have wondered one day, what if Goldilocks went to the wrong house? Then what? And what follows is a funny rendition of Goldilocks and the Three Bears but with a powerful moral at the end, a lesson important for every child and grown up there is. It’s simple and it’s obvious. If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave. I can’t tell you how many people I have met along the way who tell me about their lives, their addictions, their broken relationships, their failed careers, and they often describe feelings of being stuck, paralyzed, can’t see a way forward or a way out. But the truth is, we are never stuck if we are willing to take on a new perspective and change the plot of our story. There is such a profound truth in Willems’ moral—If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave. Which, let’s be clear, doesn’t always mean to actually leave—sometimes we can’t leave a relationship or a job or a circumstance— but what we can leave is our negative thinking. We can leave behind thoughts that damage, hurt, keep us stuck, and turn us into victims rather than heroes of our own stories. It’s an important question—are you the hero or the victim of your life story? Which is exactly where we find the woman at the well in John’s gospel. Here is a woman at the end of her rope. After 5 husbands and all that that meant in the ancient near east for her status in the community, she was a woman on the edge. In need of a new story. So it goes that this Samaritan woman chose to go to the well at the time of day when she knew no one else
would be there. Carrying her bucket she goes to the well located at the edge of town, during the hottest part of the day—hoping and praying no one would be there; she is rejected and worn, tired and hopeless, she makes her way to the well, hoping to be alone, to get away, to cry where no one could see or hear her. She lives on the fringes of her community. Having had 5 husbands, most likely due to death and being passed from one relative to the next, with each change in her circumstances she is whittled away, little by little. I can only imagine what she felt when she realized she was not alone at the well. She went there to be unseen, to be unnoticed, to not have to deal with the looks and judgments of others, but as it turns out this was not her day to remain unknown, to be anonymous. In this loving Jesus, she had no chance to stay hidden. The Jesus we encounter in the Bible is one who sees invisible people. This Jesus waits on that well and waits on her. This Jesus shatters her anonymity and exposes her vulnerability and invites her to leave the story that isn’t working for her and enter into a new story. Isn’t it incredible? I wonder what Jesus was thinking as he watched her approach the well. She must have been wearing her life on her sleeve, an open book to be read that told a story of sorrow and shame, fear and brokenness. She surely must have looked, in the deepest sense, about to die from thirst even while fetching her buckets of water. But Jesus breaks the ice, and in his sacred way becomes a bridge across every imaginable barrier—race, religion, gender, and status— and asks her, “Can you give me a drink?” He uses a simple need to invite her to open up and take the chance of an encounter that will in turn expose and fill every need she ever had. Underneath their conversation, if you listen closely, you can hear Jesus inviting her to something more, as if to say to this woman, “Are you willing? Are you enough of a risk taker to engage with me and therefore implies the question, Can you be more than you are now? Are your
ready to live a new story?” She tried at least once to deflect the conversation to social proprieties and the differences between Samaritans and Jews, but Jesus will have none of it. There is no influence that will defer the task of a God-given identity, which is exactly what he is holding out to her. In this conversation by a well, Jesus offers her more than she could ever expect or hope for. He grants her loving attention; he treats her with dignity despite what people say; he acknowledges her worth and grants her a purpose for living, meaning, and an assignment for her life. He quenches her thirst and helps her to leave behind the story of pain, struggle, oppression, and depression. While everything said that this was the wrong time of day for her business at the well, it turns out it was exactly the right time for God’s business. The moral of the story is: God can take an ordinary moment and do extraordinary things. The first lesson of the text, however, is this: get to the well. Just go. Open yourself up just enough. The miracle is, Jesus will meet you there. It sounds a lot easier than it is. We get comfortable in our story. We would rather walk over desolate terrain in the hot sun, allowing our problems to push us further and further from community and deeper into our own pain, shame, or grief. In the Samaritan woman’s story, John lets us know how strong a hold her past had on her, how much she had to overcome to consider what God was asking her to become. She had to overcome every message the world sent her that said she was unworthy, unlovable, unrespectable. Thoughts are very powerful—what we think informs how we behave. Thoughts can drag us down or inspire us, and she was full of the kind that loads you down. But she risks everything to speak with Jesus and to let him in, and Jesus offers her a new way of thinking, a new perspective…and she answers him, “Give me this water, give me this way of life…” Help me find a
new story. Though she didn’t know what it was all about, she reached for it anyway. It took trust and it took faith, and she had just enough of both to move into a deeper understanding of what God was calling her to be. At the well, in the middle of the day, hot and dying of thirst in ways even she could not understand or articulate, this Samaritan woman had a defining moment. At the end of the story, she is clearly a new woman. In v. 28 it says, “Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city.” She went back, back to the place she had once desperately avoided, back to the judging stares and hurtful words. But it was different now, wasn’t it? Make no mistake, things hadn’t changed, the people hadn’t changed, the circumstances hadn’t changed…but she had. She had changed. She dropped her jar, willing to let go of what was no longer sufficient or relevant. She didn’t abandon her life or her community, but she left the story that had negatively defined her–That old story was about the woman she had been, but not the one she was becoming. So Jesus sends her right back into her life, only now she has a purpose. She is now woman with a new story to tell, no longer invisible, and with the simplest of sermons, she tells her story and says to the people, “Come and see a man…” And the story goes that she inspired faith in others. Her testimony profoundly touches others and this unnamed Samaritan woman was no longer on the fringes of history, she was now an intricate part of the salvation story by the very grace of God. Friends, I hope you will tuck this kernel of wisdom somewhere deep inside for the day you need it or the day you need to offer it to someone else. Life will not always turn out the way you want or the way it should, but our faith offers us hope in the possibility that always exists for a new life in Christ. Christ extends the invitation like a fresh cup of water to a parched soul. So
listen. If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave. God is waiting to teach you a new one.
