Giving Up Superiority

GIVING UP SUPERIORITY

When I was a little girl living in Alfred Station with my four siblings, we were poor. I didn’t know it then, but I remember my dad saying one day that he didn’t even have enough money to stop at the diner for a cup of coffee before work. There was this one little boy in my class named Kenny who was an only child of an Alfred University college professor and he had everything. It wasn’t so bad that he HAD everything, but it became challenging when he proceeded to tell me what everything cost. One spring day I ran into Kenny and his grandmother at the playground. Kenny had a new bike which he immediately informed me cost $50. I didn’t even know how to respond since his grandmother was present and my usual responses were inappropriate, but to my surprise Kenny’s grandmother scolded him right then and there. I don’t know who was more surprised, Kenny or me! That was one of my first lessons in life about how we should never feel that we are better than someone else for any reason or use our labels or status symbols to belittle someone else. That was my first real life lesson in giving up superiority and it is something that has stuck with me for life!

So, on this third Sunday in Lent, we continue our series on what God is challenging us to give up not just for 40 days, but forever. First, we talked about giving up control and last week we talked about giving up expectations. This week we are challenged to give up superiority- the kind of superiority where we judge someone as being inferior or that we feel that we are better than someone else. Today’s scripture lesson is the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well in the middle of the day. Automatically, the woman has several strikes against her. She is a woman in ancient Palestine, she is a Samaritan, and she has a questionable past. Jews and Samaritans did not get along for a variety of cultural and religious reasons. The Jews considered the Samaritans to be unclean and unworthy people.

Actually, the fact that Jesus, a Jewish man and teacher, was speaking not just to a woman, but a Samaritan woman broke just about every social norm that you could imagine at the time. The woman’s life and status could have easily hurt Jesus’ reputation as a holy man. Jesus could have used his superiority to ignore or demean her. Jesus could have listened to his disciples and the religious leaders who used their status symbols to judge and ridicule, but instead he laid aside his superiority and spoke words of grace and love to her. In this, he knew that she was humble enough to hear him and respond, unlike the disciples and religious people who were too self-important and busy to hear. Instead of speaking to her as someone inferior to him, Jesus spoke to her as a child of God, elevating her to superior status in his eyes.

In this story of the woman at the well, we are reminded that God doesn’t care about any of the artificial lines we draw to make ourselves feel superior to others. If we let go of our status symbols and judgmental attitudes, we too can hear Jesus’ call more clearly and respond more faithfully.

And we are all in need of this reminder to let go of our status symbols and judgmental attitudes. We live in a world that thrives on the attitude that we are better than someone else. Just look around at the advertisements and the media that tempt us to look better, live richer, and be more successful. Just look around at our world in the places where war and violence occur because one group of people believes that they are better than someone else. Just this week we saw an example of extreme superiority as folks went out and essentially bought up all essential products, toilet paper being the strangest item, as the fear of COVID-19 increased. Folks bought car loads of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, hand soap, and other items leaving nothing for others. In some cases, they purchased the items to resell at a huge profit as items became unavailable on store shelves.  In most cases folks purchased more stuff than they could use in a year! As I see these events unfolding, I can only wonder at the level of superiority it takes to assume that because you have the means and the opportunity to buy up an exorbitant number of items needed by everyone, that it is okay. How about the family on a fixed income or the family with transportation issues that can only get to a store once a week and everything is already gone? We need to think about others at a time like this and put ourselves in their place. We need to think about all people and not look at them as inferior or undeserving.

So, what are we to take away from all of this? How about finding our mission? Just as the woman at the well received the living water and ran to tell her friends. How about we receive the living water and respond to it by passing it around and producing some good results? Our mission as the people of God produces a result always. When the woman at the well reached town, she told everyone about meeting Jesus. John writes that "Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony."

Then when they came out to meet Jesus, they asked him to stay there with them for a while. Jesus stayed in the town for two days. Those third class people in that second class town gave Jesus first class treatment. Jesus accepted their hospitality. He treated them like first class citizens of the kingdom of God. And John says, "Many more believed because of his Word." Then the people told the woman they no longer believed in him because of what she said, but now they believed in him because they heard his words. What this woman did bore much fruit in the kingdom of God.

What we do in the next few weeks and months can bear fruit in the kingdom as well. When you and I think of the living water and start passing that cup around, some amazing things begin to happen. No longer do other people just take our word that this is good water. They begin to discover on their own for themselves that this is the water of life - living water that wells up into eternal life. How about checking on a neighbor to see if they have the essentials they need to weather the pandemic? How about helping a child who is out of school and struggling to get enough to eat? There are so many ways we can help others right now if we but lose our sense of superiority and look around us.

That is why the church is here and that is why the Lord God has called us to be persons who serve him. Who knows what might happen if you were to offer living water to someone who is dying of thirst? When we are able to let go of superiority or judgmental attitudes, that is when real ministry, discipleship, and healing can occur. Jesus laid aside his crown for the woman at the well and lifted her out of inferior status to superior status of beloved child of God. He lays aside his crown for each of us as well, and challenges us to tear down those things that divide, and those high places where we tend to stand and look down upon someone else. When we set aside our judgments and simply see people as people, amazing things can happen. When self-important feelings are set aside, powerful relationships can form.

 The good news is that Jesus invites us to a place of grace and forgiveness in order to help us break down these walls that hinder us from seeing value in the other. He lays aside his status symbols and superiority to come face to face with the woman at the well and names her not as inferior, but as a child of God. He gives up his superiority for each one of us as an example of how we are to live and treat others in this world that thrives on being superior. So, as this time of uncertainty and fear increase all around us, I invite you to ask yourself to give up superiority and to leave this place ready to respond to the call of Jesus more faithfully. What is holding you back from doing so? Let us lift it up to the Lord this morning and leave this place with a resolve to be more caring and compassionate than when we walked in this morning. You just might find that your stress level will drop as well. When we help others, sometimes we forget about our own cares. Amen.