Sermon by The Rev Chris Yaw, 3/12/2023
Now that was a short Gospel reading...
But, take heart!
It’s shorter than the one you’ll hear next week, and the week after, and the week after -
Welcome to Lent everybody - that’s just how we roll...
Unlike your New Year’s Resolutions, 3 weeks into this Holy Season, I hope you’ve been able to sustain your Lenten Disciplines - which are a bit easier because of the Lenten Loophole - you all know it: Sundays Don’t Count - which is why we have chocolate donuts available at coffee hour…
But before we get there, just in time for Women’s History Month, we have an iconic woman with an amazing history of her own to deal with…
Yes, that Samaritan Woman at the Well!
Did you see your bulletin covers?
Well, that’sa picture of the well!
Your Holyland Pilgrims were there about a year ago -
Jacob’s Well is located in the historic region of Shechem, where the Jewish patriarch Jacob settled -
There’s no explicit mention of a well in the Hebrew Scriptures, in Genesis, which is why Jews don’t recognize it -
But it is mentioned in the Gospel of John, which is why Christians pay attention to it!
Like every special Holyland attraction we find in the Christian scriptures - it’s not hard to locate when you get to Israel.
While the Michigan Historical Society might put a plaque up to mark these kinds of places - Holyland Christians put up entire churches - big churches - Yep, a bit more expensive, but they’re really hard to miss...
This one’s a Greek Orthodox Church - where we supported their mission by purchasing tschotzkes - if you look at the table in the Narthex, I brought a few show-and-tell items to church this morning - a little golden tapestry depicting this event - and a couple of black, woven bracelets that double as prayer beads - like the one I wear every day on my wrist - all from Jacob's Well!
If you look closely at the picture on your bulletin covers you can also see a funnel next to the well - it’s for filling little water bottles to bring home - which we did!
Worried about the safety of drinking such water when we got home, my wife, a nurse, suggested we purify it.
I suggested adding whiskey - though this is probably not the kind of Spirit Jesus was referring to in the text…
--------
Alas, as our story begins, Jesus was tired out from his journey - he's in the land of the “Samaritans," a despised, half-breed, off-shoot of Judaism, which most Jews avoided like ham sandwiches and corn dogs -
And he's come at the hottest time of the day - 12noon - and he sits down by that very well, looking for a bit of refreshment, at the Dairy Queen of his day…
This is where he will bring up the central point of this passage - and my sermon - which is Living Water, otherwise referred to as External Life -
And the reason this is so important is because these are things every one of us already possess, but like the guy with the winning lottery ticket in his pocket who goes off to a dead-end job he hates every morning because he never checks his pockets, we often live ordinary lives even though we are well in possession of extraordinary ones.
The liberating message of Jesus that sent this Samaritan woman running back home, so consumed with wonder, excitement, and joy that she forgot her water bucket, is our message today.
ReDiscover what you already have:
God sees you.
God knows you.
God has plans for you.
----------
In 1978 The Commodores won a Grammy nomination for the song 'You're, once, twice, three things, a lady...'
I know for some of you that brings back painful memories of slow dancing with the wrong people, halitosis, and tight, satin pants...
But stay with me, in the context of our Gospel, those lyrics might be,
'There's one, two, the strikes against this lady...' - as we consider Jesus having the longest conversation recorded in the Bible with a person, who was: a woman, a 5-time divorcee, and a Samaritan.
And this woman was not on her way to church, off to a Bible study, or on a mission to visit a sick friend in the hospital…
No, Jesus has chosen this woman, headed to get water *not in the morning with the rest of the crowd, but avoiding social contact out of shame and embarrassment - a woman heading out at the hottest time of the day, on a daily chore, this is who and where Jesus sees her.
It is in the throes of the ordinary, the everyday, and the mundane that God sees you and me.
A priest has a vision of Jesus, at night, as the priest sits in his easy chair, looking out the window, for 3 nights in a row, he sees a shadowy figure he believes is Jesus Christ!
So he goes to his superior, and explains these events, asking for advice.
'What should I do when Jesus appears at my window?' He asks.
With no hesitation whatsoever, his superior looks at him and says,
'Look busy!'
One of the most common things you and I forget is the external presence, the abiding presence, of God with us.
And God sees us when we’re busy and when we’re not!
That's why many of us wear the necklaces, the bracelets, the rings, even the tattoos - O Lord, help us remember, that you see us!
As saints, as sinners,
As losers, as winners,
Our lives are that precious to God
No one is excluded,
Everyone is included.
How are you reminding yourself of God's abiding presence - that God is always with you?
That God sees you?
And, as we see next, that God knows you?
--------
Arriving at the scene of a raging house fire, first-responders determined that a small boy playing with a lighter was probably the cause, but the fire had burned so fast that making it to the boy's room for a rescue would likely be impossible.
That's when one brave firefighter leapt into action - she quickly donned her gear and rushed into the burning house, up the stairs, and into the bedroom where she knew right where to look: under the bed or in the closet, where she found the boy unconscious but later, OK, thanks to that fast-acting firefighter who knew instinctively where all of us go when we are embarrassed and ashamed… we hide...
Ever avoid a store where you once chewed out a clerk?
A once-close co-worker whose confidence you betrayed?
A neighbor from whom you borrowed a tool that you never returned?
Shame, embarrassment, and that awkwardness that comes when we are discovered at our worst.
Ya, some people may not be able to stand us.
But God can.
No, too many times we can’t take it back - can’t fix it, can’t re-do it - and so we hide.
But we can’t, thank God, hide from God.
On display for the Woman at the Well was all of her dirty laundry - 5 husbands, not to mention her current partner - and Jesus does not berate or belittle her - rather he chooses to announce to her, and thus, to the world, who he is: The long-awaited Messiah: “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
This should put to rest, for all of us, the self-doubt, self-effacing, imposter-syndrome thoughts that tell us we’re not good enough, not worthy enough - BUT that God values us for who we are.
God loves us.
God knows us.
And now on to our third point:
God has a purpose for us.
--------------------
Have any of you been keeping up with that one-armed, Division I college basketball player, Emmanual Dominquez?
No, that is not a joke -
Dominquez lost his arm when he was a kid - when a pile of cinder blocks fell on him while playing in his poor Dominican Republic neighborhood.
He’s come to the U-S to play for a team in Louisiana - and his clips have gone viral - go home and Google him, or if I've lost you in this sermon, go ahead and pull out your smartphone...
And you will find that the story of his grit and determination has inspired millions:
"I want people to see me as a great player, talented like many others. Not because of my disability," he told ESPN.
I find in his story inspiration for our story, because many of us, especially me, keep from doing things, keep from entertaining possibilities, keep from fueling an imagination, that takes seriously our potential, God's potential for what God wants to do in us, and through us.
When Jesus announced his identity and his message to this three-strikes woman and uses her to go out and share this message of living water and eternal life, which she did successfully to her friends and to her entire town, he was not only reminding you and me of the work that needs to be done, but reminding us that we have an integral role in making that happen.
Yes, we have living water, which is the assurance that God sees us, God knows us, and God has a plan for us.
In the quiet pause that follows this sermon, let us take a few moments and think about what that means.
Amen.