WHO WOULD HAVE EVER IMAGINED? TEXT: John 4:5-42 PENTECOST 17 *** YEAR A NOT LECTIONARY READING FOR THE DAY Page 1 of 6 The syndicated comic strip "Dilbert," is written in an office just slightly bigger than a cubicle, where Scott Adams transforms tales of idiotic bosses and meaningless work teams into Dilbert, the chinless comic-strip hero to millions of cubicle-confined workers. Since Adams published his Internet address, he has been deluged with questions from readers who wonder how he knows the exact level of ineptitude with which their company operates. It's because he has been there. Adams endured 17 years of cubicle employment last as an applications engineer with Pacific Bell, a job he left after six years of "Dilbert" syndication. "I don't think I'll ever forget what it feels like to sit in a cubicle," says the cartoonist, "and realize you've been there for eight hours... and everything you did today will become unimportant in the next reorganization." Scott Adams expresses a feeling we're all familiar with. We want what we do to last. Our work and even our life doesn't seem important if it is only temporary. The sure hope we have in God is that all we do for him has eternal significance. (Larson) That s what this Samaritan woman at the well with Jesus discovered and much, much more. She is at the center of this classic, rather familiar Gospel lesson from John which forms our Gospel reading this morning. This unnamed woman comes to draw water and is confronted by the honesty and penetrating hope and eternal life offered by this man at the well! The original readers of the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman must also have felt themselves on familiar ground. The scene and characters would have wakened resonances to another well-side story, a romance, lodged deep inside their memory: In the Old Testament story of Genesis the sojourner Jacob comes to a well at "high day" where he beholds his kinswoman Rachel and, Genesis adds wryly, her father's sheep. (Lischer, 1999)
Page 2 of 6 He knows all about her and her needs, this woman from way on the other side of the tracks. Jesus is a Jew. She is a Samaritan. He is a man. She is a woman. And in that day the two would never meet. Who would have ever imagined???? In John's version, of course, the story takes a very different turn. From the first sharply spoken word, the conversation assumes the character of a confrontation that is charged with a significance surpassing romance and the making of babies. This is an encounter in which we must listen especially closely and note the often inserted irony. Irony requires one of the parties in the conversation must be clueless as to the discrepancy. It is like a conversation between George Burns and Gracie Allen or Oedipus and the blind seer. It is occurring on two separate frequencies. (Lischer, 1999) Yet, Jesus, who will become this unimaginable woman s Jesus is truthful, honest with her..probably a way of living she had never experienced..a woman leaving the worship service said to the minister, "I enjoyed the sermon." "Don't thank me. Thank the Lord," said the minister. "It wasn't that good," the lady replied. (Sarralut) Also in the midst of their unimagined conversation is the revelation of Jesus as Messiah.. The woman goes and tells many of what has taken place and brings many persons to faith in Christ.to journey with her Jesus and to drink from the well of real life, real hope.which never runs dry. Clifton Fadiman, in The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, tells a story about Vladimir Nabokov, the Russian-born novelist who achieved popular success with his novels Lolita (1955), Pale Fire (1962), and Ada (1969). One summer in the 1940s, Nabokov and his family stayed with James Laughlin at Alta, Utah, where Nabokov took the opportunity to enlarge his collection of butterflies and moths. Fadiman relates:
Page 3 of 6 Nabokov's fiction has never been praised for its compassion; he was single-minded if nothing else. One evening at dusk he returned from his day's excursion saying that during hot pursuit near Bear Gulch he had heard someone groaning most piteously down by the stream. "Did you stop?" Laughlin asked him. "No, I had to get the butterfly." The next day the corpse of an aged prospector was discovered in what has been renamed, in the author s honor, Dead Man's Gulch. While people around us are dying, how often we chase butterflies! (Larson) From such an unexpected woman as this comes such amazing results such effective ministry to spread the word about her loving Messiah. This woman it would appear became as singely focused upon dying people.dying in spirit, in heart, in soul.as did Jesus Himself.Who would have ever imagined a Samaritan woman to spread the Gospel, the Good News about a Jew who became Christ, our Christ????? This is NOT how we MIGHT have imagined this ironic, confusing story of Jesus to end.again, we have been thrown off the trail of the biblical word!!!! Like our Samaritan sister, we too have struggled to believe and have made some missteps in the process. Like her, we are comfortable with the words of religion, but we sometimes fail to connect them to the living Lord. We speak easily of salvation but quantify it, if not in buckets of water, then with blessings you can carry to the bank.
Page 4 of 6 We have elevated listening to ourselves to an art form but we do not listen to the one who can tell us everything we ever did. We make the family a substitute for salvation, as if we had never heard of God's family, the church. And then we come to the church and we expect the pastor, the people and the programs to achieve some level of perfection which is never achievable in THIS EARTHLY LIFE or we think somehow if we can micromanage our lives, then it will all be well. We love life itself and expect our technology, our machines, our apps to make it extremely fulfilling!!! 1 Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come; buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. Isaiah 55:1-3 (NRSV) (The New Revised Standard Version, 1989) These powerful Old Testament words from Isaiah call us to remember and remember and remember again that Jesus is the well, the source from which we draw the water that shall never, ever run dry and brings us true and abiding peace and contentment. We can learn something about effective ministry, about faithful work for Jesus.about ways to truly use the eternal water of Jesus grace. from another unimaginable person..a famous trumpet player for the Chicago symphony. Adolph (Bud) Herseth is regarded as "the premier orchestral trumpeter of his time, and perhaps of all time," wrote Jim Doherty in 1994. At that time Herseth had played first trumpet for the world-class Chicago Symphony for nearly fifty years.
Page 5 of 6 "Fellow musicians hail him as 'a legend,' 'a phenomenon' and the 'prototype,'" says the writer. "Critics knock themselves out singing his praise. He is a hero to brass students at music schools. Wherever the Chicago goes on tour, young players mob him." The author continues: Early in his career, a car accident cost him a half-dozen front teeth and split his lower lip so badly thirteen stitches were needed to close it. A mere mortal might have feared the end of his playing days. Bud had his mouth rebuilt and six weeks later resumed his seat. His lip was numb and his mouthpiece felt funny, yet somehow he produced the same gorgeous sound. He can't explain it. That pretty much sums up Bud's whole approach. He refuses to make a big deal about "technique." Playing has less to do with the mouth than the ear, he says. "You have to start with a very precise sense of how something should sound. Then, instinctively, you modify your lip and your breathing and the pressure of the horn to obtain that sound." Techniques and rules are not the key to playing the trumpet, nor are they the key to serving Christ. First and foremost, you've got to hear it. You've got to know what the "music" of ministry..of truly serving Christ and others sounds like. Techniques are secondary. For when we serve Christ, then we show our love for Jesus most intently. (Larson) 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." John 4:13-14 (NRSV) (The New Revised Standard Version, 1989) Who would have ever imagined?????? Larson, C. B. (n.d.). 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Writers and Teachers. Lischer, R. (1999, February 24). Strangers in the Night (Psalm 95, Exodus 17:1-7, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42). The Christian Century. Sarralut, J. (n.d.). 1001 Quotes, Illustrations and Humorous Stories: For Preachers, Teachers and Writers. The New Revised Standard Version. (1989). National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States.
Page 6 of 6 DELIVERED BY THE REVEREND DAVID C. SURRETT AT FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, ISLE OF PALMS, SC ON OCTOBER 9, 2011