John 4:5-42
Intro
Let me begin by saying that this reading from John is a long one. However, in order to understand what is being talked about, we need to hear it all.
To begin with, Jesus is spending time in a city that the Jews would consider to be filled with religious half-breeds. The Samaritan religion is an offshoot of Judaism (they both follow the Torah, the Book of the Law). However, because various political and racial differences (the original Samaritan priests were not considered pure enough by the priests in Jerusalem and intermarriage between Samaritans and non-Samaritans was permitted), the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other. If you grew up in the appropriate part of this country, it was kind of like the Hatfields and the McCoys. Those families were related, but because of a few events (that no one remembers anymore) caused them to be bitterly divided.
Added to this level of separation is the fact that the woman that Jesus is speaking with is someone who is an exile within that exiled Samaritan community. The scripture will reveal the specifics, but as soon as we hear that she is out getting water in the noontime heat (water was gotten in the cool of the morning and the evening), we know that she was an outsider. And yet, it is to this outcast of a group of outcasts that Jesus teaches an extremely valuable lesson: the message of God is for all peoples and to be carried out into the world by all of those people. The scripture reads this way.
John 4:5-42
5
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.7
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 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." 15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."16
Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."27
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.31
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33 So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" 34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."39
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.""The (Unexpected) Prophetic Voice"
The Board of Elders had its meeting this past Thursday night and the main agenda item was sitting down with Amy Matthews. As we now know this sit down was in order that the Elders might determine if the Sacrament of Baptism would be extended to Amy. Now when parents bring their infant children for baptism, the questions of reaffirmation are extended to the parents and in the midst of that reaffirmation the parents promise to raise their child in the faith.
However, when an older child or an adult, someone who is able to speak for themselves, requests to be baptized, they are asked to sit before the Board of Elders and speak to what they believe in regards to God, Jesus, the church and their faith.
Amy came through the door, with her parents flanking her, extremely nervous. I hadn’t provided her with any of the questions that I was going to ask but she knew that I was going to be asking her something. When the meeting started I promptly pulled out my pen and let her know that of the 40 questions she was going to be receiving she could miss no more than 4. Her eyes got really wide and I gave her that extra half-second before I hopped back in and said, "I’m just kidding. You’ll be fine." Amy exhaled and after we went around the table to introduce ourselves I began to ask her questions about what happens in baptism, about who Jesus is, and what the church means to her.
Now when you ask these questions, much like a children’s message, you don’t know what answers you’re going to get. You just don’t know. Well, over the next 20 plus minutes Amy spoke to her faith in ways that everyone around the table was saying, "Wow. Thank you so much for coming tonight. What you have said and how you have said it is inspirational."
And the elders who made those comments weren’t saying those things because they were trying to make Amy feel good: they were saying it because it was absolutely true. The prophetic voice of God is speaking and speaking to us today. It’s just that sometimes (most times?) we aren’t able to recognize it because the vessel through which the message is coming is so unexpected. This past Thursday night, the Elders, pastor, and education associate of our church were able to hear a prophetic voice that reminded us who God can be in our lives and how, even though we may miss the mark, even though we may sin, when we go to God and ask for forgiveness, we are able to receive forgiveness because of the sacrifice that Jesus made for each one of us on the cross. It’s just that the prophetic voice came from an unexpected source: a 10-year old girl. Amy, thank you for being that source.
When you hear the passage for this morning we have a deserved tendency to focus on Jesus talking about the living water that satisfies so that we will not thirst any longer. However, when you start to hear what this unnamed woman was able to do after her meeting with Jesus, we begin to understand that she, through her limited knowledge of Jesus (she had met him just once), was able to bring others to believe because of her testimony. She becomes a prophetic voice and you can tell by the reaction of the disciples that not only were they shocked by the fact that Jesus was speaking to this woman, this Samaritan sinner, but imagine their surprise when her story became the impetus for others to believe. Their is nothing in her story that leads us to believe that this speaking the message of God was something that she had ever done.
And yet, when she meets Jesus, she becomes that voice. The presence of Jesus, the presence of God, in our lives transforms us into people who are able to share the message of the risen Christ.
Now I know that some of you are thinking, "not me. I can barely to talk to the people who I have to talk with. There’s no way I can share the message of God." Yes you can. And here’s why I think that: the woman at the well went back into the city and didn’t say, "let me tell you about the savior of all humankind."
Instead what she said was, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" She’s not sure who Jesus is and yet by her willingness to tell her story, others came to believe. You have a story to tell, and even though you might not understand all the theological ins and outs of the Bible (welcome to the party on that one) God is still able to work through the telling of Your story to reach others so that they to might come to believe. I could feel that reassurance working within me as I heard Amy talking the other night. And it wasn’t that she had all the answers, but she was willing to tell a little bit about her story and who she knew Jesus and the church to be, and that story was inspiring.
Your story is spider webbed with the presence of God and as you tell your story, God’s mercy will be able to be experienced by those who are listening. It happened with Amy. It happened with the woman at the well. It can and will happen with you. You can be a prophetic voice. There may be no one more surprised than you at this assertion, but through your story, the presence of God will be felt so that others might be encouraged, uplifted, and maybe even empowered to seek at the presence of God in their lives. Share your story and become an unexpected prophetic voice.
After Sermon Prayer
God, You have spoken to each one of us here today, albeit in different ways but you have absolutely spoken. Through this connection our lives have been changed. We wouldn’t be here if this were not the case. Help us to take this understanding and allow it to empower us so that we might be able to tell our story and thereby share Your presence with the world around us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.