Sermon Lent 3, March 12, 2023, RCL, Year A, St. Thomas, Oakmont, JDMurph
A number of years ago, I went to a clergy training event where the speaker told us of a very unusual experience he had had. He himself had been at a church event in a different city and got back to his hotel about 10pm. Not ready to go to sleep, he decided to go into the hotel bar, which was pretty empty except for the bartender, and a man and a woman on the other side of the bar. Since he had been there for work, he was wearing his collar and the man, noticing this, soon slipped away and left the bar. The woman, however, eventually picked up her drink and made her way around the bar to where this priest was sitting. She sat down and started a conversation and, somewhat to his surprise, he eventually figured out that she was what my father used to call, “a lady of the evening”. Apparently, his entry into the bar had scared away her earlier potential client. So he started asking her questions about her life, and was kind of surprised by some of the answers. She had a daughter, who did not know what she did for a living, although it was because of her need to support this daughter that she was doing what she was doing. And she explained to him how her profession tended to work. The priest ended up talking with her for some time until she realized he was not going to be a client and, since other potential clients entered the bar, she drifted away. He said that that conversation gave him a look into a way of life he had not seen before.
It is not too far-fetched to say that Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well would have been perceived by others to be as scandalous as the story I just related to you. After all, Jesus often seemed to talk with scandalous people. For one thing, no self-respecting rabbi ever engaged in conversation with a strange woman, especially alone and especially not with a Samaritan. Samaritans and Jews were often violent against one another because, as far as Jews were concerned, Samaritans were half-breed wannabees. And the Samaritans kept away from Jews, keeping their own traditions and centered their worship on Mt. Gerazim, instead of Mt. Moriah, where the Temple was. Yet this particular woman was notorious even amongst the Samaritans. She was at the well in the middle of the day because the other women, who always came in a group early in the morning and at evening, would have nothing to do with her. It’s not hard to figure out why. Even today, a woman who had had five husbands and was living with a sixth man to whom she was not married might raise an eyebrow. And yet even knowing all that does not stop Jesus from talking with her.
For those who say there is no humor in the bible, they should read this story. The woman tries to bait Jesus by claiming Jacob as her ancestor (who gave them the well)—after all, Jesus was a Jew. The living water, however, gets her attention; after all, hauling water (especially in the heat of the day) was heavy work, even if it was a woman’s job. When she asks for it, like he does with other people, Jesus puts his finger right on the spot where her life is most sorely in need of this living water—her relationships. And, of course, that is too painful; so she quickly changes the subject to a theological question, which suggests that maybe Jesus is a different denomination from her—always a good distraction. But Jesus nails her again, “Spirit, not which mountain, is what matters, and God is looking for Spirit-people right now.” “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.” So the woman tries one more time to deflect Jesus, “Oh, very interesting but, of course, one day the Messiah will come to explain all that complicated stuff.” But Jesus still does not let her off the hook, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” “I AM”, the name of God. At this point, it’s time for action: she flees, leaving behind her water jar, to get others to help her figure out who this astonishing rabbi is who has spoken to her in such an unexpected and unsettling way.
The Jews may not have accepted the Samaritans as God’s people but Jesus seems to have done so. His ministry among the Samaritans (including using them in his parables) is a sign and a foretaste of the full extension of God’s grace to ALL people that St. Paul celebrates in his letter to the Romans today. Jesus said it, “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.” Listen to what Paul says about who God wants, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” Even Samaritan and Gentile sinners. Jesus’ death on the cross ENDS all distinctions: it demonstrates firsthand God’s love and creates a NEW people, a Spirit-filled people who worship God aided by his own Holy Spirit. And these Samaritans, who normally wouldn’t listen to anything a Jewish rabbi would say (because after all, they are a different denomination), end up saying to the woman at the well, “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.”
You know, there is a lot that this story tells us. For one thing, God reaches out to ANYBODY, not just the people on the inside. He even chases after scandalous people. Next, it seems that he puts his finger on the broken places in our lives and presses—because how can we come to healing unless we face our brokenness? Just like he did with the woman at the well. Let me tell you something that is true even if we don’t want to hear it: Jesus is not going to let us sweep our brokenness under the carpet—he loves us too much for that. Then, we see from this story that he speaks hope, healing, assurance and restoration, calling us to come home. “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.”” And finally, he conquers the forces that want to keep us away from him, defeating their authority over us utterly—including even death itself. “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And he brings us into life and joy that nothing can quench. “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” After all, these Samaritans, after listening to Jesus for a couple days, were actually joyful. “We know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” Jesus is savior not just of the Jews but the WORLD. He is savior to half-breed Jewish wannabees. He is savior to a woman whose whole life was defined by rejection—five husbands, a man who won’t even marry her and women who won’t even let her walk with them to get water from the well. He is savior even to sinners, dying for us even while we are still in the very midst of our sin.
But you know, for broken and rejected people, it takes so long to be able to trust love like that. Look at the woman at the well; she tries to change the subject every single time Jesus got close to the issues that were painful in her life. Look at the Jews, whose attention-span for God’s provision must have been about five minutes. After all that he had done to free them from slavery, from Pharaoh’s army, from serpents, from enemies on every side, in today’s reading, they imagine that he will let them all die of thirst. “Is the Lord among us or not?” David, in his psalm, ends with “So I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter into my rest.” And they didn’t. Caleb and Joshua were the only ones of that generation to enter the Promised Land. But it wasn’t because of God’s love that this was so. Every morning the Lord kept raining down the manna, the bread of angels for them. Every year of their time in the wilderness, the Lord provided them water and food and protection from enemies. It was because, despite all that God did for them every single day, they could not bring themselves to trust him—and so they could not experience the rest of knowing the peace of God. They had seen the Red Sea split in half and yet they still wondered, “Is the Lord among us or not?” Like the Samaritan woman at the well, who did everything she could think of to deflect Jesus’ healing probes into her life, the people of Israel in the wilderness deflected God’s love and faithfulness by doubting him at every turn. After four hundred years of slavery for them, and after perhaps decades of rejection from the ones who were supposed to love her for the woman, perhaps neither trusted that they deserved the kind of love that God offered, the living water that Jesus held out. Paul says it, “Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person”, so why would we imagine that the son of the living God would die for broken people like us.
And yet Jesus does exactly that. Perhaps, in all our self-examination and repentance, it is important for us to hear the message that Jesus loves us even when we ARE broken goods, even when others reject us. Paul says, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” We do not have to wait until we get our act together; Jesus loves us even when we are a total even scandalous hot mess. And he saves and heals us. The question is whether we trust in his love. Amen+
