| "Oh, she had a name, this phenomenal woman, but it has long been lost. Still, against all odds, her story is known and told, and through this memory of her she remains a woman phenomenally alive! She came to the well at high noon to get her day's supply of water from a shaft that tapped the cool, fresh, flowing water of an underground stream-what people called "living water." As she approached, she spotted a man resting there, a foreigner, a Jew. Now, Jews and her own people, Samaritans, hated each other. So she could only pray that this Jew would not bother her as she went about her work. After a while, he broke the tense silence, speaking pleasantly to her, asking her for a drink of water, even though Jews considered Samaritans impure and usually would touch nothing a Samaritan had touched. She expressed surprise at his request, and this led them into a lengthy dialogue about "the living water" that this man himself had to offer, a miraculous, metaphoric kind that could slake "thirst" forever. As the man talked, he seemed to the woman to be-yes, that was it-a prophet. For without having to be told, he knew so much about her-to be specific, that she had had five husbands and that the man with whom she was now living was not her husband. What's more, this Jewish prophet seemed to be proclaiming himself the Messiah for whom the Samaritans had longed, the one who'd then?and?there bring them the truth and the Spirit that make for eternal life, the one who would then?and?there offer them the "living water" that comes from heaven. Excitedly, the woman left her water jar at the well and raced to town to testify to what she had seen and heard and to invite others to come and see this Jew who might well be their Messiah. And the Gospel tells us that through this woman's testimony many other Samaritans also came to believe in Jesus as the Christ. So our Second Lesson tells the story of a woman who came alive, phenomenally alive, through the life-giving "waters" of truth and the Spirit offered to her by the prophet and Messiah Jesus. And it tells us that many others came alive, phenomenally alive, through the testimony of this one whose name has been lost. Well, unlike that ancient sister, the name of a certain modern-day phenomenal woman has not been lost and is in fact quite well known. Yet like that ancient sister, she has had too many husbands, and she certainly is no saint; but she has met Jesus, her Savior, and she offers her self-confident autobiographical stories and poems as testimony to that, including that famous poem of hers entitled "Phenomenal Woman," which ends like this: Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing, It ought to make you proud. I say, It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, The palm of my hand, The need for my care. 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. (The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou [New York: Random House, 1994], p. 131) Yes, through her stories and poems this African-American woman comes alive for us-wonderfully, phenomenally alive! And through her testimony to the Spirit and to the truth of which Jesus spoke, many other women (and men) have received a gift of "living water" and have also come alive to faith. Of whom do I speak? Why, of Maya Angelou of course-an author who whenever she writes has the Bible at her side, a gourmet who at her meals offers thanks to God, a woman of faith who at least one Sunday night every year leads a Sunday shout at her home church, Mt. Zion Baptist in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she reads poetry and stories and sings Gospel music with the Inspirational Choir. Maya Angelou, now 73 years old, had to overcome much in her early life to come to esteem herself both as a woman and as a child of God. She was raped at the age of seven by her mother's boyfriend, and then, filled with guilt when he was found lynched shortlythereafter, she remained mostly mute for the next five years, talking only with her older brother Bailey. During Maya's years of muteness, the poems of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and Rudyard Kipling were her principal sources of joy and nurture, and she committed to memory many of their words. It was a woman who recognized Maya's great love for poetry who was the one able to persuade Maya to begin talking again. This woman persuaded her that poetry is music for the voice and must be read aloud to be fully savored and appreciated. Maya at first began to vocalize the music of this poetry while hiding under her house. But next she began to recite it in front of others, and finally she began to converse again. God had called him to prophesy-to tell forth the word and will of God and to stand up for justice and lovingkindness. But Maya's difficulties were not over. At 16 she became pregnant and bore her only child, Guy. Shortly thereafter she flirted briefly with prostitution, until her brother brought her to her senses. Then she became a cook, a dancer, a singer, an actress; she emerged as a black activist; and finally she found her vocation as a writer-screenwriter, journalist, playwright, poet, and author of five autobiographical books describing her life up to age 38. Throughout the hardship of her life, Maya held fast to the words of an old Mahalia Jackson gospel song that she had memorized: "Lord don't move your mountain, Give me strength to climb it. You don't have to move that stumbling block, But lead me, Lord, around it. If my friends start to hurt me, As I know they may do, Let me fall down on my knees, And bring me closer to you." At last, at age 59, Maya was able to say in an interview with the Winston-Salem Journal (December 6, 1987): "My life ain't heaven, but it sure ain't hell.… I call it swell if I'm able to work, and get paid right, and have the luck to go to church on Sunday, enjoy myself, and be black on Saturday night." Maya's dearest friend, M. J. Hewitt, has recently said this about her: "Maya is a devout Christian, whose belief in the power of prayer is paramount. This is where almost everything that she does or thinks and believes emanates from-this Christian power, which she utilizes to the fullest.… She always says these words: 'Lord, if you want it said, put it in my mouth.'" (in Maya Angelou: The Poetry of Living [New York: Clarkson Potter, 1999], p. 102) Listen now to some of the words that the Lord has put in Maya's mouth, some of the testimony to God, to Christ, and to the Spirit that has come from the heart and pen of this truly "phenomenal woman." First, listen to a poem about God and her savior Christ that Maya has entitled "Just like Job" (1978): My Lord, my Lord, Long have I cried out to Thee In the heat of the sun, The cool of the moon, My screams searched the heavens for Thee. My God, When my blanket was nothing but dew, Rags and bones Were all I owned, I chanted Your name Just like Job. Father, Father, My life give I gladly to Thee. Deep rivers ahead High mountains above My soul wants only Your love But fears gather round like wolves in the dark. Have You forgotten my name? O Lord, come to Your child. O Lord, forget me not. You said to lean on Your arm And I'm leaning You said to trust in Your love And I'm trusting You said to call on Your name And I'm calling I'm stepping out on Your word. You said You'd be my protection, My only and glorious saviour, My beautiful Rose of Sharon, And I'm stepping out on Your word. Joy, joy Your word. Joy, joy The wonderful word of the Son of God. You said that You would take me to glory To sit down at the welcome table Rejoice with my mother in heaven And I'm stepping out on Your word. Into the alleys Into the byways Into the streets And the roads And the highways Past rumor mongers And midnight ramblers Past the liars and the cheaters and the gamblers On Your word On Your word. On the wonderful word of the Son of God. I'm stepping out on Your word. (The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou [New York: Random House, 1994], pp. 172-73) Maya elsewhere offers us a story that illumines this line that occurs four times in that poem: "I'm stepping out on Your word." In that story she juxtaposes a vision she had when she was about 5 years old with an experience she had when she was 24. Listen! (Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now [New York: Random House, 1993], pp. 73-76) "One of my earliest memories of Mamma, [that is,] of my grandmother, is a glimpse of a tall cinnamon-colored woman with a deep, soft voice, standing thousands of feet up in the air on nothing visible. That incredible vision was a result of what my imagination would do each time Mamma drew herself up to her full six feet, clasped her hands behind her back, looked up into a distant sky, and said, … 'I will step out on the word of God. I will step out on the word of God.' Immediately, I could see her flung into space, moons at her feet and stars at her head, comets swirling around her.… I grew up knowing that the word of God had power. "In my twenties in San Francisco I became a sophisticate and an acting agnostic.… One day the teacher, Frederick Wilkerson, asked me to read to him. I was twenty-four, very erudite, very worldly. He asked that I read … a section which ended with these words: 'God loves me.' I read the piece and closed the book, and the teacher said, 'Read it again.' … 'God loves me.' … He said, 'Again.' After about the seventh repetition I began to sense that there might be truth in the statement, that there was a possibility that God really did love me. Me, Maya Angelou. I suddenly began to cry at the grandness of it all. I knew that if God loved me, then I could do wonderful things, I could try great things.… "That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation." Such words are this phenomenal woman's testimony to God and to Christ, a testimony to truth that has led many women (and men) to faith. And listen to this further testimony by Maya-this time to God's Spirit (Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now [New York: Random House, 1993], pp. 33-35): I believe that God is Spirit.… My faith is tested many times every day, and more times than I'd like to confess, I'm unable to keep the banner of faith aloft. If a promise is not kept, or if a secret is betrayed, or if I experience long-lasting pain, I begin to doubt God and God's love. I fall so miserably into the chasm of disbelief that I cry out in despair. Then the Spirit lifts me up again, and once more I am secured in faith. I don't know how that happens, save when I cry out earnestly I am answered immediately and am returned to faithfulness. I am once again filled with Spirit and firmly planted on solid ground." Long ago Jesus said to a phenomenal woman of ancient Samaria whose name has been lost: "God is spirit, and those who worship [God] must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4;24) Today, it is in this same spirit and truth that a modern phenomenal woman named Maya Angelou offers God the worship of her words. Let us rejoice and be glad in that, for, just as was said of the ancient Samaritan, "Many … believed in [Christ] because of [this] woman's testimony." (John 4:39) Amen |
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