SERMONS

John 4:1-30

The Reverend Angela L. Ying
Bethany United Church of Christ

Last Friday Peter Storey, a retired Methodist Bishop of the Johannesburg/Soweto area in South Africa, who had served on the selection committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee established by Nelson Mandela and lead by Desmond Tutu shared with me that he has been to many churches around the world, many of which he did not think Jesus would come to.

So I went home and wondered—would Jesus come to church here? Would he come here at the corner of Beacon and Graham on the south end of town?

Would he stop here and ask for a drink of water and if he did would he be shown compassion or complacency?

Could he tell from one look on our face whether he was welcome or whether he needed to find another place to worship?

For though many churches attempt to keep a good façade on Sunday mornings where nice people with good intentions gather, the truth is—church is a dangerous place.

Church is a dangerous place for it is the only place recorded in Scripture where Jesus lost his temper.

Remember Jesus turning the tables and chasing the moneychangers out of the temple?

Exclusion and exploitation were what Jesus lost his temper about in the church.

It is as if Jesus has a radically different vision of church than America’s commercial headquarters on Madison Avenue.

Instead of the message, you do not have enough, you will never have enough, and you still need more, more, more. Jesus asks could we live simply, so that others can simply live. For where your treasure is—there is your heart also.

We notice this same difference in the Scripture reading for today.

The Pharisees and political and religious leaders take careful note for their church growth strategy that Jesus and his disciples are baptizing more than John the Baptist—pegging cousin against cousin, family against family, disciple against disciple.

The Pharisees and scribes have good intentions as this Jesus could be of benefit to them after all. But just when those in power think they have Jesus with them—that they can get Jesus’ disciples to compete against John the Baptist’s disciples for more people on their side, and thus engage in exclusion and exploitation—Jesus walks away.

He leaves and heads home to Galilee.

No time to engage in conversations pertaining to “I’m better than you are. We are better than they are.”

He travels towards Galilee and has to go through Samaria. He, as many others did, could have avoided this direct route. There were others ways to get to where he needed to go.

But the writer of the gospel whispers to us in the scriptures that for Jesus, it was necessary to go to Samaria.

Enemy, if not, terrorist territory.

In the Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph, there was a well, Jacob’s well and it was still there.

Worn out by the long journey, Jesus sits down by the well.

It was noon.

Which means it was hot; it was in bright daylight; it was the same hour at the well that Isaac met Rebekah, Jacob met Rachel and Moses met Zipporah years ago.

A woman came at that moment to draw water from the well.

We know not her name—only her national identity—that she was a Samaritan and she was a woman.

Jesus opens the conversation with the Samaritan woman with a question.

Would you give me a drink of water?

The Samaritan woman knows he is not of Samaria from his accent and is taken aback. And yet, she dares to continue the conversation by asking him a question.

How is it that you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?

The woman knew full well from the culture that as the Pharisees and political and religious leaders had made quite clear to all—you, as a Jewish man and I, as a Samaritan woman do not share things in common.

To prove that she understands her place, she opens up and shares the many ways that they differ.

She, as others, in being excluded, beaten down and disappointed for so long, reveals her own brokenness in that she has bought into the belief that she has nothing in common with the human being that now stands before her asking for a drink of water.

How does that happen?

How does the world teach us—no, fear each of us into who is in and who is not, who is friend and who is enemy. And how can we break out of our fears?

Let’s keep listening to the scripture.

Though the woman is aware that differences have been clearly set by the powers that be—she may not have bought into them completely.

If she had, she would not have given this Jesus the time of day. She would have ridden him off. Put him in his place with the powerlessness she felt within herself—one up for the people of Samaria.

But she didn’t. And she doesn’t—because the woman does not see herself as powerless.

Something in her humanity and her faith in people causes her to question why human beings from different walks of life cannot have something in common.

And just as she opens up, Jesus crosses national, ethnic, gender and class boundaries because he knows every human being made of God THIRSTS.

If you knew the gift and generosity of God and who I am—you would be asking me for a drink and I would give it to you—fresh living water.

Sounding too good to be true, the woman responds:
You don’t even have a bucket to draw with—and this well is deep.

Still curiously engaged, the woman asks, “so how are you going to get this living water?”

Jesus opens to her and shares that anyone who drinks the water I give—will never thirst—the water I give will be a spring within—gushing fountains of endless life.

And here is the miracle—she asks for the living water from him!

Having been set apart, left out, kept in her place – the woman can still ask for this water. She can still confess of her need, can still believe in someone bigger than herself.

And as a young child who has not yet lost the courage to ask, the woman cries out, “Give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty—won’t ever have to come back to this well again.

She asks the one who people have told her is the enemy for not just a drink of water, but for the living water that will change her life. That will break national, ethnic, gender and class boundaries for her people.

This is incredible.

In the most fallible of places, Jesus meets the woman and offers her living water—life itself.

In this Samaritan village, Jesus meets the woman not at Town Hall, the Courthouse or the Federal Building. He meets her, as his ancestors before him, at the well.

And who’s well is it?

Jacob’s well.

Jacob, the trickster, who for a bowl of porridge—gets his brother Esau to give him the birthright.

Jacob who with his mother’s help tricks his father, Isaac into blessing Jacob, himself instead of blessing his rightful elder brother.

Jacob who as a father favored one son over the others and couldn’t figure out on his own why his eleven other sons would be jealous when he had a coat of many colors made for this beloved Joseph.

Jacob, who wrestled in the night with angels until he gets a blessing leaving him limping.

It is at this fallible place, at Jacob’s well, that the woman meets Jesus.

What does that say about where Jesus meets us?

Are we aware of this fallible place we gather where Jesus meets us? Fallible and not perfect. Fallible.

As Jesus prepares to give the woman living water, he asks again asks something of her.

“Go, call your husband, and come back.”

One moment there is chance for living water, a way to live life and the next—it is as if the deep well has dried up and we have lost our chance.

The woman stops. She looks down at her feet. And then she does something surprising.

She confesses. I have no husband.

Jesus realizing that she has dared to be truthful about her life kindly says, “You are right in saying you have no husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Now let’s stop here.

Jesus meets a woman at a fallible place as in Jacob’s well.

He has one of the longest conversations of give and take recorded in the gospels, with this woman.

And then offers the Samaritan woman living water after she confesses and is truthful with him about her life—reminding us that we all fall short and are in need of grace.

I may be mistaken, but perhaps to be faithful, we need to be aware of the fallible place Jesus meets us each week.

Perhaps, it is in authentic conversations of give and take that what Jesus had faith in and what we seek to find faith in is found as we build relationship across self-made barriers.

And could it be that in opening God’s house of worship to enable people in the church to be more truthful about their life and ours, we come to see Jesus? Meet Jesus?

And then in the scripture, the woman leaves her water jar, just as Jesus’ disciples had left their fishing nets to follow him.

The woman goes to her people and says “Come and see!”
Not using force or manipulation, but an invitation to come and see and meet the one she has met:

Aware of the fallible place Jesus meets us.
Willing to engage in authentic conversations in seeking what we have in common.
Enabling people to be more truthful about their life and mine.

The woman having met Jesus in her life, leaves with a question that is shared and leads to other people seeing, meeting and confessing Jesus Christ.

“He cannot be the Messiah—can he?”

In other words, the woman does not ask the question in isolation—she gives witness and takes it to her community of faith to pray and discern with the community: “Is he the one?”

The Samaritan woman did not know for sure after receiving the living water from Jesus.

She leaves with a question – and people confess Christ in hearing her question.

Could this be a model for being faithful church?

Aware of the fallible place Jesus meets us.

Willing to engage in authentic conversation of give and take.

Enabling people in the church to be more truthful about their life and ours.

And to leave church with a question that is shared and that leads other people to meet and confess Christ.

So, I conclude with where I began.

Would Jesus come to church here?

If the truth be told, it is a question worth asking in life, would you say?