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Second Sunday in LentMarch 8 , 2009
"The Woman of
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"The Woman of
A dramatization of
the scripture based on a poem/meditation by Charlene Fairchild.
Michael and Anni Powell – narrators
Eric Severson – Jesus
Sierra Hammill-Keane – Woman at the Well
Yun Joo Crossler Laird – first woman reader
Yun Mee Crossler Laird – second woman reader
(1)
There she goes ...
the
Woman of
I can see her in my mind's eye.
She is wearing a loose dress,
the color of burlap,
cinched with a twisted cord of rope.
It reaches down to a few inches above her sandaled feet.
She is wearing a headpiece of the same color.
It falls in folds halfway down her back.
On her right shoulder
she is balancing a water jug,
rather large in my eyes.
Surely it's heavy when it's full.
(2)
There she goes ...
the
Woman of
walking to the well.
She travels down the well-worn path from town
as it twists and turns,
intimately acquainted, in her solitariness,
with every curve,
every boulder and every lonely blade of grass.
Tunelessly she hums into the stillness
of the noontime air.
Scuffing her feet,
she raises little wisps of dust.
The perspiration beads on her upper lip
and runs in rivulets down her body.
It is hot and sticky this time of the day
but it's the only time she feels safe
to go for the water she needs.
Safe from the taunts and innuendos,
the glares and the hisses,
the damning laughter of the other women.
The heat of the cloudless sky is more merciful than they.
(1)
Walking along - alone - lost in her thoughts
she is startled to hear voices coming towards her
just around the bend.
She casts down her eyes and moves over ...
to avoid the men she sees approaching.
Glancing up briefly
she catches one hostile glare.
Glares are nothing new to her
but this is different.
These men are Jews - not Samaritans - not her neighbors.
They abruptly move further away from her
as if she had the plague....
Samaritans and Jews do not associate.
(2)
As she gets further along she no longer hears them.
Instead, the clicking and buzzing of countless insects grows louder.
She relaxes and begins to sing a snatch of song,
something she heard at a campfire one night.
(CHOIR SINGS SOFTLY, # 2025 TFWS)
"As the deer pants for the water
so my soul longs
after you.
You alone are my heart's desire,
and I long to
worship you.”
(2)
Despite her dreary hard life - she still hopes,
still clings to the stories
she heard as a child about Yahweh.
(Jesus enters from the
congregation and
goes
to sit by the well.
(1)
At last the well is in sight.
But, what is this?
A man - alone - sits by the well.
A Jew. Another Jew.
She feels tense, wary
all her senses are heightened.
Danger screams through every second that passes.
She is alone...
a woman alone with a strange man.
He is just sitting there
looking dusty and worn and tired
but strangely peaceful and calm
and - despite the dust - radiant.
(The Woman of
back
of the church. She has been
walking slowly
forward since Jesus
arrived
at the front. As the narrator reads, she
sits, opposite Jesus)
(2) She sits; and quietly hums (as the piano plays very softly:
"As the deer pants for the water . . ."
He smiles.
He speaks. Breaks the silence and,
in an instant,
tears down the walls that distance . . .
that distance Jews and Samaritans . . .
that distance Women and Men.
He speaks.
Jesus: "May
I have a drink."
It is so astonishing that
she blurts back the question,
Woman: "How is it, that YOU, a
JEW - a MAN,
ask a drink of ME, a
WOMAN of
This man wastes no time debating
but challenges her:
Jesus: "If you knew the gift of God, and who it
is
that is saying to
you, 'Give me a drink,'
you would have asked
him,
and he would have
given you living water."
The woman is so startled, so overwhelmed,
so on fire with excitement, she babbles:
Woman: "You have no bucket!"
"The
well is deep."
"Where do you get this water?"
"Are you better than our ancestor
Jacob?"
"Do you know what you're saying?"
To herself, she says,
Woman: "I must be dreaming. It must be the heat.
I
feel so dizzy."
(1)
This man goes on, in the midst of her confusion,
Jesus: "Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again
but those who drink of the water I will give them
will never again thirst.
My water will become in them a spring
of water, gushing up to eternal life."
Woman: "Sir,
give me this water so I'll never be thirsty
and I'll never have to come back here to draw water again."
(1)
She doesn't know what she is saying.
She is standing on strange ground.
Everything is upside down and different today in this place.
Then, the man surprises her completely.
He knows everything about her, the whole sorry tale,
and tells her,
(Jesus says gently and with compassion, but firmly)
Jesus: "You've had quite a life, my friend.
You've
had five husbands already,
and the man you're
living with now is not your husband."
. . . everything! Back and forth this preposterous conversation goes.
(2)
Finally she tells him,
Woman: "I know that Messiah is coming
and when he comes
he will tell us all things."
Jesus: "I am he! The one who is speaking to you."
(2)
The words of the song from the campfire come back to her:
(softly, the JN/Choir sings)
"As the deer pants for the water, so
my soul longs after you,
you alone are my
heart's desire, and I long to worship you."
(Jesus
returns to his seat in the
congregation as the Woman at the Well
sits. She reaches out her arms towards
him, saying with passion)
Woman: "Can this be the Christ?"
(The Woman at the
Well then moves into a
prayer-like
posture which she maintains
until
the narrators reach out.
(Two
additional readers enter) The 2
narrators, joined by the 2 additional
readers, reach out to her, saying:)
(1)
Sister of
I reach out to you
across the years,
To ask you about what happened that day.
Can you tell me?
Did he touch your heart?
Did he really reach in and renew you? (Pause.)
(2)
What happened to you after he left
and the days and months went by?
What happened when you heard
he'd
gone up to
to hang on a Cross and die?
(3) first woman reader
Or,
were you there?
With
the other women,
at the foot of the cross?
With
his mother,
in an agonizing wait,
when darkness fell on the land?
(4) second female reader
O, Sister of mine,
without a name,
You
are not anonymous!
Your
story's been told.
We're
telling it new.
You
are not anonymous!
(1)
Sister of
I reach out to you across the years.
(All reach out. Jesus stands
and reaches towards
the Woman who
reaches out to him.
The narrators and the
other readers reach
towards the woman.
They hold the position.)
(1)
If you were here
I'd give you all my love.
But you are not here - so - the gift I'll give
in your memory is to love those who are here with me today.
Goodbye, Sister, Goodbye
(hold the tableau for a moment.)
PRAYER
(2)
Gracious God - like a deer that longs for running streams, so our souls
yearn for the love that comes from you - the love that wells up in us like
streams of living water and brings life to us and to those around us. Help
us to open our lives to you - to put down our roots in your word - and to
turn our hands both upward and outward that we may receive and give your
blessing... Lord hear our prayer...
(3) first woman reader
God of holy love, You
have poured out living water in the gift of Your son
Jesus. Keep us close to Him, and loyal to
His leading, so that we may never
thirst for
righteousness, but live the eternal life he came to give us...
Lord, hear our prayer....
(4) second woman reader
Almighty God, as Jesus welcomed an outcast
woman and spoke with her without
judgement -
drawing her closer to you, so help us to accept and deal with
the outcasts in
our world today. Grant, O God, that we may be a people who
in speaking truth
do not condemn those of whom and to whom we speak. Help us
to bring one
another and all who thirst to the living water you desire to
give them....
Lord, hear our prayer...
(1)
Within this house of prayer, loving God, where we are refreshed by your
living water, we turn our prayers towards the hunger and thirst of the
wider world. Father - hear our prayers for those who suffer want and
deprivation of body or of soul... Lord, hear our prayer....
(Samaritan woman moves off stage as singing begins)
Congregation sings #641 "Fill My Cup, Lord"