Fe Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, be he alive or be he dead, I will grind his bones to make my bread.
I was having an off the wall conversation with a colleague this week in which I recalled this line from the fairytale Jack and the Beanstalk. As I recall, after Jack had climbed the beanstalk, he spied a giant castle in the distance. When he arrived he realized the castle was enormous but ventured inside. He was met by a very tall thin woman who warned him that her husband, a very cruel and bloodthirsty giant would soon be home and that he should flee. Yet Jack was starved after having been sent to bed the night before without supper by his mother (for selling their cow for magic beans). He begged of the lady to feed him and so taking pity she did. Just as Jack had finished a thundering sound could be heard growing ever closer to the castle. The wife hearing this, hid Jack away behind the giant wood stove. In walked the giant and demanded his dinner, but then he sniffed the air and made the exclamation I began this sermon with. I’ll grind his bones to be my bread. These words terrified me when my dad read them because he did it in character as the giant.
Well my colleague said she did not remember the story being that dark…she remembered the highlights but nothing scary. I think the original fairy tales were meant to instill a good dose of fear and common sense into children that the world was not always, or better yet, was often not a nice place. In modern times, to make things gentler we began to edit our traditional stories to make them less violent. Perhaps my coworker had fallen victim to one of these sanitized versions. We have seen this across the spectrum from heavily edited cartoons and tv shows through which we sought to protect our children from the grim reality of the world…well everywhere except video games and action movies.
The world however intrudes on our attempts to make life more harmonious. In our current time we have dealt with Pandemic, a new version of Hitler in the person of Putin, who, ironically, is killing innocents to “de-nazify” Ukraine, but whose President is Jewish. We are now also dealing with threats of war with China. Scary times indeed.
I find myself seeking wisdom of others who have dealt with uncertain and frightening times in our common history. C.S. Lewis was one such person. Lewis had seen war at its most brutal while fighting in the trenches of World War I. If you want an idea of how bad it was, please rent the movie 1917 when able. Within 24 years the world was at war again, this time against an AXIS of evil that sought to control the known world and murdered millions who were not like themselves. They relentlessly bombed the island fortress of Britain which withstood the barrage, but not without heavy cost. Whole cities were decimated and children were sent to live in the countryside.
This is the world in which C.S. Lewis became most prolific. He wrote of magic wardrobes, and probed complex theological ideas including dualism or good vs evil. Through this he began a series of radio broadcasts just as important to the British as any that Churchill or King George VI made. He chose to speak of how and why he became a Christian. He did not speak about becoming an Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, or any other denomination. C.S. Lewis instead sought to reach the universal church of Christ and those who had not yet committed themselves to Christ. His words were soothing during a time in which fear had taken hold and death and infirmity were very real. Now we see history repeating itself in Ukraine…unimaginable suffering.
In our reading from Romans 5:1-11 we hear Paul tell us we are justified by faith. If we have accepted that Jesus is the Christ and the Messiah, and that through his death we are free from eternal death then we must be sure to act with confidence through all types of suffering. Most if not all of us have times of suffering and as a church we bare the weight of that with love and fellowship. We come together in hope and confidence that love from the Godhead enters us and helps us to face those fears we must endure.
Let’s look to our Gospel today and the story of the Samaritan Woman at the well. We enter the story as Jesus stops for a drink at a well at what is high noon, so it is very hot. As the Samaritan woman approaches Jesus asks simply if she would draw water for him to have a drink. The shock this woman must have felt that a Jew was speaking to her, and a holy man to boot.
Samaritans and Jews, although sharing a common past, moved apart from each other’s culture after the Babylonian exile when the Jewish royals and their people were sent to live in Babylon. The Samaritans remained in the land and moved into the area that the Jewish population had been removed from. The Jewish return year later did not help matters and the Jewish hierarchy and people looked down on the Samaritans. The Samaritans continued their religious practices of worship away from the Temple in Jerusalem. By the way, recent DNA research shows that the 700 or so Samaritans who are still live today and only marry amongst themselves, are in fact…wait for it… of Jewish ancestry. (23 and Me Blog)
So here we have the Messiah reaching out to a non-Jew as far the culture of the time was concerned. Not just any gentile here, no, the worst of the worst, looked upon by the Jewish people as heretics because they worshipped at a different temple. We see this with Jesus, not only does Jesus reach out beyond the “chosen people” he exposes this woman to the truth of her sin.
So in our current world we try to minimize violence and scary things for our children despite how the world really is, but here Jesus reaches out to another child of God and says I know what you are and what you have done. Much like that Samaritan woman we too are revealed to be found lacking due to our sin. Who here does not sin? Please raise your hands. Who here is a sinner? Raise your hands. We are all sinners my friends, all of us. But wait, that is not where the story ends.
Look at our Collect of the Day, “Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul”.
We can minimize the hurt of the world and we can ignore the sin within us and around us, but it is still there. It stands as a wedge between us and our creator. In the Gospel, Jesus not only strips any pretense away from the woman at the well but also from each of us here. Then Jesus reveals himself to this woman as Messiah. He also reveals to her that she and her people, like the Jewish people, are children of God, the Father of all…all of us even today.
Jesus further reveals the fallacy of living for worldly things when he speaks of the water that would quench one’s thirst. However, if we drink from the water that Christ gives us, we then begin to live for something greater that never ends. Moses drew water from the rock for the Hebrew people in the desert. Jesus quenches us with the spring of ever living life. Our sin is an impediment of our own making. Jesus sees through this. He sees whose we are. We are all his people. He is not put off by our sin…he cuts through it to our hearts and he tells us we are loved unconditionally. Let us stop pulling away from God. Be at peace with yourself and others. Love all those who you encounter, and most importantly love yourself because the Godhead loves each and every one of us.
Fe Fi Fo Fum- what does that even mean? Apparently according to Charles Mackay, a 19th century Scottish Poet. The words are actually ancient Gaelic. He holds that a variation of the exclamation “Fa fe fi fo fum” can actually be translated as Fa meaning behold, Fe meaning food, Fi meaning good to eat, Fo meaning sufficient, and Fum meaning hunger. In other words, “Behold food, good to eat, sufficient for my hunger!”
So today, as we come before the altar to receive the body and blood of Christ remember that our sins are known, they are forgiven if you ask. Take eat and drink the body of Christ which is sufficient for our hungry souls. Leave this place, go out into the world, and find another in desperate need. Only by bringing others to drink can we help the world’s suffering and only then through the wellspring of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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