SERMON 3 rd Sunday in Lent March 27, 2011

Transcription

1 SERMON 3 rd Sunday in Lent March 27, 2011 Exodus 17:1-7 Psalm 95 Romans 5:1-11 John 4:5-42 Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus, who is the Christ. Amen. As most of you know, life can be pretty hard sometimes. It doesn t matter if you re at school, at work, or at home. Sometimes it s just plain tough to make it through the day. Then when evening comes and you would just like to take it easy, there s always more work to do. There s homework to do, dinner to prepare, kids to drive around, bills to pay, shopping to do, laundry to wash, house to clean. It never seems to end. But then there are other times in our lives where we are totally bored. We wonder how many more soap operas or game shows we can watch? How many more times we can play a certain video game? Or how much more we can surf the net without really finding anything interesting or meaningful? In these times we just wish that something would break the routine. We wish that something exciting could happen that would change our life. We just try and make it through each day until it s time for a vacation to break the monotony. We seem to think that a vacation is what we need. That will make everything better. Finally our week of vacation arrives. We have such great expectations. We expect that it will be so wonderful.

2 But then something always seems to go wrong. The car breaks down, the kids are fighting; someone gets sick; the lodging accommodations are not what we expected; the weather is less than ideal. Soon, it s all over, and it s back to the same ole routine. We don t feel rested and refreshed. Instead, we feel even more tired, and maybe even a bit depressed. We yearn for that one thing that could make a real difference in our lives once and for all. Perhaps that s how the woman in our Gospel reading today felt. It is the middle of the day. The sun is at its highest point searing the barren dry land below. There is a well, a very deep well. Some have measured the depth as much as 100 feet at times. It has been there for hundreds of years satisfying the thirsts of generations. Suddenly there appears a woman coming to draw water. We do not know her name and probably never will. She is simply called; the Samaritan woman. It is odd that she would come to the well in the heat of the day. You see, the natural time to come to the well was in the cool of the evening, when all of the women gathered about the well and heard and told the latest news. Some might call it gossip; others would say that it is a group of women coming together to share their joys and concerns. It is what made them a community. But this Samaritan woman was not part of that community. She was coming to the well when there would be no one around; or so she thought. Why was this? We can only speculate. We are told that she has had five husbands, and the one she is presently with is not her husband. Now, usually I try to bite my tongue when it comes to criticizing other pastors. However, this is one time I must speak out.

3 John Piper is the author of numerous books including several bestsellers. You would be able to find his books at any evangelical Christian bookstore. He is currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision at the main campus of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A few years ago Pastor Piper preached a sermon on this story of the Samaritan woman at the well. I would like to quote to you from his sermon: If people are spiritually asleep, you have to shock them, startle them, scandalize them, if you want them to hear what you say. Jesus was especially good at this. When he wants to teach us something about worship, he uses a whore. Piper goes on to say; Jesus is bone-weary from the journey, hot, sweaty, thirsty and he decides: Yes, even now, just now I will seek someone to worship God a harlot, a Samaritan adulteress. Now, if you look closely at our story today, there is nowhere nowhere where this woman is described in such terms. You see, the problem is that over the years, we have come to assume that this woman must be unsavory. I think that some of that is because it was all men who wrote the Bible. However, neither John as narrator nor Jesus as the central character refer to this woman in that way. As a matter of fact, Jesus at no point invites this woman to repent of her presumed sinfulness. Nor does he speak of sin at all! You see, this woman very easily could have been widowed or have been abandoned or divorced, which in the ancient world would have been basically the same thing. It didn t take much for a man to dismiss a wife. For this woman, five times would have been heartbreaking, but not impossible.

4 Further, she could now be living with someone that she was dependant on. Or she could be in what s called a Leviriate marriage, where a childless woman is married to her deceased husband s brother in order to produce an heir, yet is not always technically considered the brother s wife. There are any number of ways, in fact, that one might imagine this woman s story as tragic rather than scandalous. Yet for some reason we always seem to portray her as the sinner the one who is full of disgrace and shame. Yet immediately after Jesus describes her past, she says, I see that you are a prophet and asks him where one should worship. Did you hear that; she says I SEE that you are a prophet. Now the term to see in John s Gospel is often connected with belief. Therefore when the woman says, I see you are a prophet, she is actually making a confession of faith. And notice that Jesus never says to her that she is to repent, or like he had said to another, go and sin no more. Jesus never condemns her in any way. You see, this is not a story about morality. So many Christians always want to turn the stories of Jesus into lessons in morality. But rather, this is a story about identity. For just as she SEE S Jesus, Jesus SEE S her. And he offers her something that she cannot get on her own. He offers her living water. And that is just what she was in need of. Indeed that is what we are all in need of. In truth, we don t know why this woman came to the well by herself during the hottest time of the day. But for some reason, she was no longer considered part of the community. Therefore, she had formed the habit of slipping out to the well at a time when she was reasonably certain that no one else would be there. If you re a teenager, you probably know how this woman feels. Perhaps there is a group in school who is spreading rumors about you. Maybe they re true, and maybe they re not. Nevertheless, you have been singled out and are no longer accepted by the group.

5 You see them all gathered together in the hallway in front of your locker. You walk around for a while because you don t want to be humiliated. You wait until they leave, and then you slowly make your way to your locker. There are many things that make us feel like an outcast. A pregnancy out of wedlock, a divorce, substance abuse, the death of a loved one, a loss of a job, or a failing grade. We start to avoid public places where we might see someone we know. At a time when we need community the most, we retreat into isolation. We fear going into a restaurant or grocery store thinking that we might run into someone we know. We change our schedules and our daily routines to avoid the pain and embarrassment. We begin to feel as though no one really cares about us. It is a lonely feeling. The Samaritan woman in our story knew this feeling all too well. That is, until she encounters Jesus, who offered her not condemnation, but rather love and acceptance. The woman at the well received something that day. She received a new life. Whatever her past was didn t seem to matter. For she had been given living water. After this encounter with the Samaritan woman, there is one other time in Scripture that Jesus is thirsty. Can you remember? It is when Jesus is about to die. Jesus is on the cross. Among his last words were, I thirst. And it is this one who thirsts, that is the source of living water. And because we belong to Christ that fountain is there for you and me. Come to the fountain, our Lord says. Drink until you can drink no more. Drink from the cup of forgiveness, the cup of meaning, the cup of grace, the cup of hope, the cup of love, indeed the cup of life. And may your cup always runneth over. Amen.

6 May the peace that passes all understanding be with you now and for life everlasting. Amen.

7 Do any of you ever get thirsty? What do you do when you get thirsty? When you get a drink of water, where do you get it from? In our Bible study today, Jesus talked with a woman at a well. Can any of you tell me what a well is? It is a deep hole in the ground that you can get water out of. That s right, the woman went to the well to get some water for drinking and cooking. Jesus asked her if she would give him a drink. Jesus told her that the water in that well is okay to drink, but that after you drink it, you will still get thirsty again. Then he said that he would give her living water so that she will never be thirsty again. What do you think living water is? Jesus is talking about faith. When we trust in Jesus, we will always have what we need. We could say that living water can mean God s Word, or God s Spirit. Living water is what gives us faith. We all need living water to learn about God and to grow in faith. That s what we do when we come to church. We receive living water from God that will help us to know God better and better. That s how much God loves us. He gives us the real thing. He gives us living water which helps us to learn about God and to share God s love with other. Let us pray.