Kum Ba Yah Exodus 17:1-7, John 4:5-42
In her memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Literature Professor Azar Nifisi
remembers something that happened to one of the women in her reading circle.1
Six college-aged women decide to travel to a neighboring town
to visit the fiancé of one of the women.
They go to his house and he and the six women are seated in the walled outdoor garden
all modestly and properly attired.
Their manners are impeccable.
Suddenly, over the wall jump armed men.
They are the morality squad of the Iranian Revolutionary Committee
who have heard of illegal activities occurring on the premises.
They have obtained a search warrant, but a thorough search of the house
turns up no alcoholic beverages, no undesirable tapes or CDs.
Frustrated at finding nothing incriminating, the men arrest the seven students
who, though properly veiled, are said to be guilty of exhibiting a “western attitude.”
Following a night where the seven experience one humiliation after another
the next morning they are all given twenty-five lashes
forced to sign confessions of guilt and released,
Someone’s crying, Lord.
The account of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at the town well
has a rich history of interpretation, much of it based on nothing more
than anachronistic assumptions and imagined innuendo.
Throughout the two thousand years since John recorded the story,
various morality squads have jumped the wall of this text
and accused the poor woman at the well of being and doing all kinds of things.
From scant evidence, even reputable commentators have made her nails brighter,
her mascara darker, and her skirt shorter with each successive decade.2
For example, she is at the well at noon.
Biblical historians tell us that reputable women went to the town well in the morning.
If she is at the well ALONE at NOON she must be unworthy to mix with reputable folk.
Is it possible somebody simply knocked over the water jar and she had to get more?
That’s not the worst thing, though.
The worst thing is that she has had five husbands and is now living with a sixth man.
She’s a regular Britney Spears! An Elizabeth Taylor, if you prefer!
She’s a man-eating ingénue with out-of-control appetites!
OR…maybe she’s had a terrible string of luck – 5 husbands, all of whom have died.
We project on her our own cultural assumptions about the power of seductive women
to manipulate and control men when, in truth, women in Jesus’ day
were NOT in a position to do much of anything except what they were told.
Someone’s crying, Lord, kum ba yah.
Someone’s singing, Lord.
Azar Nifisi begins her memoirs by describing two photographs
of the young women she hand selected to be a part of her clandestine reading circle
that devoured such corrupt western novels
as Lolita, The Great Gatsby, and Pride and Prejudice.
In one photograph, taken outside, the women are all veiled,
garbed in black dresses and white head scarves that cover every inch of skin
except their faces and hands, not even letting one strand of hair escape
that might tempt a God-fearing man to lust.
In the other photograph, one taken inside Azar’s living room,
the women have taken off their veils
to reveal unique hairstyles of different color and length.
Some wear dangling gold earrings, others, brightly colored blouses.
The reading group provides for these young women a retreat into normalcy,
the possibility of stepping back through the looking glass, if only one afternoon a week,
where they can celebrate their individuality
and speak openly of their frustrations and hopes and dreams,
laugh out loud, if they wish, and fear no reprisal.
Azar’s living room is a refuge.
It’s like coming in from the bitter cold to sit before a fire;
like taking off mud-caked hiking boots
and soaking their tired feet in a whirlpool bath;
It’s like unbuckling a thirty pound bronze breast-plate
and laying it aside because in Azar’s living room they are safe.
Someone’s singing, Lord.
One of the reasons we are prone to think the worst of the Samaritan woman at the well
is because she seems so at ease with Jesus,
so willing to engage with him in a spirited repartee.
This is the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and ANYONE in the gospels
and we pick up on the disciples’ jealous indignation that this woman would be so bold
as to chat on and on with their teacher, a strange man, in public.
“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” The woman asks.
Is that defiance we hear? A glint of fire in her eyes?
“Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.
Say, where you gonna get that ‘Living’ water?”
Whew! Now that’s borderline sassy!
Should we think poorly of her for this?
Or should we, instead, see in this interchange a sign not of impudence but of grace.
Here she is, a Samaritan woman in the presence of a Jewish man -
that’s two strikes against her already.
She’s had five husbands and is living with a sixth man
so we can bet she’s had it up to HERE with feeling dependent on men.
Yet she seems very at ease in this conversation with Jesus;
very relaxed and unguarded.
Is it something in his posture, perhaps, his tone of voice
that signals to her that she can take off her veil in his presence?
She can shake out her hair, shed the drab layers and reveal her true colors –
not in a provocative way, but in an honest, free, self-disclosing way.
She can even consider with Jesus the divisive history of their peoples
and the possibility of a time when they, a Jewish man and a Samaritan woman,
might worship God together.
Someone’s singing Lord, kum ba yah.
Someone’s praying, Lord.
One reason for Azar Nafisi’s reading circle was to offer an antidote
to the mind numbing dreariness of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution.
One day Azar discusses with her circle
Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Invitation to a Beheading
and an archaic letter of the alphabet, the name of which Nabokov made up.
He calls it an “upsilamba.”
Azar invites her group to join the author in his imagination,
to let their minds play over this made up word
and create new meanings of their own.
One says it sounds to her like the impossible joy of a suspended leap.
Another says it sounds like a dance.
“C’mon baby! Do the upsilamba with me!”
Still another say it evokes the image of small silver fish
leaping in and out of a moonlit lake.
One says she pictures three girls jumping rope, shouting “upsilamba” with each leap.
Another says it is the magic code that opens the door to a cave filled with treasure.
Another says it is an African boy’s secret name.
Nafisi writes, “Upsilamba became part of our increasing repository
of coded words and expressions…that grew over time
until gradually we had created a secret language all our own.
The word became a symbol, a sign of that vague sense of joy….
It also became the code word
that opened for us the secret cave of remembrance.”
Someone’s praying, Lord.
The woman at the well knew what her people said about the importance of Jacob
and that one could only worship God on Mt. Gerazim, not Jerusalem.
She was surprised that Jesus knew so much about her
and that he didn’t try to debate her.
Instead, he declared that true worship of God is not geographically defined
but is instead defined by God’s own nature, which is spirit and truth.3
In other words, God transcends sex, race, tradition, place and liturgy.
If this traveler from Jerusalem is greater than Jacob, is a prophet
and yet more than a prophet, the woman has but one category left: Messiah.
In her mind, a God whose nature it is to embrace all people in all places is a Messiah.
Maybe the most remarkable thing about this story of the woman at the well
is that, in recording it, John resists the urge to dress it up.
He could have written that the women recognized Jesus as God’s anointed,
fell at his feet and worshipped him,
and then went back to the public square to give a sure and certain testimony
to his identity as the Messiah, the Savior.
But instead John reports that the woman leaves in a state of distraction,
forgetting the water she has come to retrieve.
All the way back we hear her recounting the conversation in her mind,
her brain arguing with her heart.
“Could he be? Nah…it’s not possible! But maybe…?”
Instead of a bold statement of faith,
instead of writing a book entitled “Five Easy Keys to the Kingdom,”
and turning it into an international best seller,
the woman walks back to town,goes into the beauty parlor,
takes a seat in a vacant chair, looks around, blinks once and says,
“I just met a man who told me everything I’ve done.
He couldn’t be the Messiah, could he?
Someone’s praying Lord, kum ba yah.
Nobody had an answer for the woman, not then.
I don’t expect she really thought she’d get an answer anyway.
It’s not the kind of question that really needs an answer – not a verbal one anyway.
It’s like the letter “upsilamba” -
it’s not something you can pin down like an insect on a specimen tray.
It’s more like a silver fish jumping into and out of a moonlit lake,
a crazy dance,
a cave filled with treasure,
the impossible joy of a suspended leap.
It’s the kind of thing you think about when you can do nothing but weep,
or suddenly feel like breaking into song,
or find your heart filled with prayer.
Come by here, Lord, come by here.
Oh Lord, kum ba yah.
__
1 Nafisi, Azar, Reading Lolita in Tehran, New York: Random House, 2003.
2 Craddock, Fred, “The Witness at the Well (John 4:5-42), Christian Century, March 7, 1990, p. 243
3 Ibid.
remembers something that happened to one of the women in her reading circle.1
Six college-aged women decide to travel to a neighboring town
to visit the fiancé of one of the women.
They go to his house and he and the six women are seated in the walled outdoor garden
all modestly and properly attired.
Their manners are impeccable.
Suddenly, over the wall jump armed men.
They are the morality squad of the Iranian Revolutionary Committee
who have heard of illegal activities occurring on the premises.
They have obtained a search warrant, but a thorough search of the house
turns up no alcoholic beverages, no undesirable tapes or CDs.
Frustrated at finding nothing incriminating, the men arrest the seven students
who, though properly veiled, are said to be guilty of exhibiting a “western attitude.”
Following a night where the seven experience one humiliation after another
the next morning they are all given twenty-five lashes
forced to sign confessions of guilt and released,
Someone’s crying, Lord.
The account of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at the town well
has a rich history of interpretation, much of it based on nothing more
than anachronistic assumptions and imagined innuendo.
Throughout the two thousand years since John recorded the story,
various morality squads have jumped the wall of this text
and accused the poor woman at the well of being and doing all kinds of things.
From scant evidence, even reputable commentators have made her nails brighter,
her mascara darker, and her skirt shorter with each successive decade.2
For example, she is at the well at noon.
Biblical historians tell us that reputable women went to the town well in the morning.
If she is at the well ALONE at NOON she must be unworthy to mix with reputable folk.
Is it possible somebody simply knocked over the water jar and she had to get more?
That’s not the worst thing, though.
The worst thing is that she has had five husbands and is now living with a sixth man.
She’s a regular Britney Spears! An Elizabeth Taylor, if you prefer!
She’s a man-eating ingénue with out-of-control appetites!
OR…maybe she’s had a terrible string of luck – 5 husbands, all of whom have died.
We project on her our own cultural assumptions about the power of seductive women
to manipulate and control men when, in truth, women in Jesus’ day
were NOT in a position to do much of anything except what they were told.
Someone’s crying, Lord, kum ba yah.
Someone’s singing, Lord.
Azar Nifisi begins her memoirs by describing two photographs
of the young women she hand selected to be a part of her clandestine reading circle
that devoured such corrupt western novels
as Lolita, The Great Gatsby, and Pride and Prejudice.
In one photograph, taken outside, the women are all veiled,
garbed in black dresses and white head scarves that cover every inch of skin
except their faces and hands, not even letting one strand of hair escape
that might tempt a God-fearing man to lust.
In the other photograph, one taken inside Azar’s living room,
the women have taken off their veils
to reveal unique hairstyles of different color and length.
Some wear dangling gold earrings, others, brightly colored blouses.
The reading group provides for these young women a retreat into normalcy,
the possibility of stepping back through the looking glass, if only one afternoon a week,
where they can celebrate their individuality
and speak openly of their frustrations and hopes and dreams,
laugh out loud, if they wish, and fear no reprisal.
Azar’s living room is a refuge.
It’s like coming in from the bitter cold to sit before a fire;
like taking off mud-caked hiking boots
and soaking their tired feet in a whirlpool bath;
It’s like unbuckling a thirty pound bronze breast-plate
and laying it aside because in Azar’s living room they are safe.
Someone’s singing, Lord.
One of the reasons we are prone to think the worst of the Samaritan woman at the well
is because she seems so at ease with Jesus,
so willing to engage with him in a spirited repartee.
This is the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and ANYONE in the gospels
and we pick up on the disciples’ jealous indignation that this woman would be so bold
as to chat on and on with their teacher, a strange man, in public.
“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” The woman asks.
Is that defiance we hear? A glint of fire in her eyes?
“Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.
Say, where you gonna get that ‘Living’ water?”
Whew! Now that’s borderline sassy!
Should we think poorly of her for this?
Or should we, instead, see in this interchange a sign not of impudence but of grace.
Here she is, a Samaritan woman in the presence of a Jewish man -
that’s two strikes against her already.
She’s had five husbands and is living with a sixth man
so we can bet she’s had it up to HERE with feeling dependent on men.
Yet she seems very at ease in this conversation with Jesus;
very relaxed and unguarded.
Is it something in his posture, perhaps, his tone of voice
that signals to her that she can take off her veil in his presence?
She can shake out her hair, shed the drab layers and reveal her true colors –
not in a provocative way, but in an honest, free, self-disclosing way.
She can even consider with Jesus the divisive history of their peoples
and the possibility of a time when they, a Jewish man and a Samaritan woman,
might worship God together.
Someone’s singing Lord, kum ba yah.
Someone’s praying, Lord.
One reason for Azar Nafisi’s reading circle was to offer an antidote
to the mind numbing dreariness of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution.
One day Azar discusses with her circle
Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Invitation to a Beheading
and an archaic letter of the alphabet, the name of which Nabokov made up.
He calls it an “upsilamba.”
Azar invites her group to join the author in his imagination,
to let their minds play over this made up word
and create new meanings of their own.
One says it sounds to her like the impossible joy of a suspended leap.
Another says it sounds like a dance.
“C’mon baby! Do the upsilamba with me!”
Still another say it evokes the image of small silver fish
leaping in and out of a moonlit lake.
One says she pictures three girls jumping rope, shouting “upsilamba” with each leap.
Another says it is the magic code that opens the door to a cave filled with treasure.
Another says it is an African boy’s secret name.
Nafisi writes, “Upsilamba became part of our increasing repository
of coded words and expressions…that grew over time
until gradually we had created a secret language all our own.
The word became a symbol, a sign of that vague sense of joy….
It also became the code word
that opened for us the secret cave of remembrance.”
Someone’s praying, Lord.
The woman at the well knew what her people said about the importance of Jacob
and that one could only worship God on Mt. Gerazim, not Jerusalem.
She was surprised that Jesus knew so much about her
and that he didn’t try to debate her.
Instead, he declared that true worship of God is not geographically defined
but is instead defined by God’s own nature, which is spirit and truth.3
In other words, God transcends sex, race, tradition, place and liturgy.
If this traveler from Jerusalem is greater than Jacob, is a prophet
and yet more than a prophet, the woman has but one category left: Messiah.
In her mind, a God whose nature it is to embrace all people in all places is a Messiah.
Maybe the most remarkable thing about this story of the woman at the well
is that, in recording it, John resists the urge to dress it up.
He could have written that the women recognized Jesus as God’s anointed,
fell at his feet and worshipped him,
and then went back to the public square to give a sure and certain testimony
to his identity as the Messiah, the Savior.
But instead John reports that the woman leaves in a state of distraction,
forgetting the water she has come to retrieve.
All the way back we hear her recounting the conversation in her mind,
her brain arguing with her heart.
“Could he be? Nah…it’s not possible! But maybe…?”
Instead of a bold statement of faith,
instead of writing a book entitled “Five Easy Keys to the Kingdom,”
and turning it into an international best seller,
the woman walks back to town,goes into the beauty parlor,
takes a seat in a vacant chair, looks around, blinks once and says,
“I just met a man who told me everything I’ve done.
He couldn’t be the Messiah, could he?
Someone’s praying Lord, kum ba yah.
Nobody had an answer for the woman, not then.
I don’t expect she really thought she’d get an answer anyway.
It’s not the kind of question that really needs an answer – not a verbal one anyway.
It’s like the letter “upsilamba” -
it’s not something you can pin down like an insect on a specimen tray.
It’s more like a silver fish jumping into and out of a moonlit lake,
a crazy dance,
a cave filled with treasure,
the impossible joy of a suspended leap.
It’s the kind of thing you think about when you can do nothing but weep,
or suddenly feel like breaking into song,
or find your heart filled with prayer.
Come by here, Lord, come by here.
Oh Lord, kum ba yah.
__
1 Nafisi, Azar, Reading Lolita in Tehran, New York: Random House, 2003.
2 Craddock, Fred, “The Witness at the Well (John 4:5-42), Christian Century, March 7, 1990, p. 243
3 Ibid.
posted by David Cameron | 7:20 PM
1 Comments:
A little bumpy early on, but the insights at the finish strike me as solid. I'm not sure you would have arrived there without the creative approach you took.
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