As Common As A Samaritan Woman With Five Husbands
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
Sometimes the most amazing things in life are right in front of your face. The greatest wonders can occur in the most common, ordinary circumstances. The miraculous can be shrouded in the mundane to the point where we miss it. Those are the miracles that can take us by surprise. What appeared to be an ordinary conversation at an ordinary well was actually a supernatural encounter, the impact of which has been felt for generations. This may prompt us to wonder: Where is the extraordinary in our ordinary today? Scott Suskovic will write the main article, with Paul Bresnahan providing the response. Illustrations, a liturgy, and a children's sermon are also provided.
As Common as a Samaritan Woman with Five Husbands
Scott Suskovic
John 4:5-42
THE WORLD
Can you believe it? Of all the magnificent breeds of dogs in the world, of all the carefully bred puppies, of all the most skilled dog trainers, a beagle won the Westminster Dog Show. Really! A beagle. Snoopy, of all things!
Now, I have no doubt that there are many beagle lovers out there and they are on the verge of staging a riot. I bet that the beagle is a loyal breed, a gentle dog, great with children, and can play fetch, sit, roll over, and beg. However, is a beagle really in the same category as prize-winning, blue ribbon purebreds that win international dog shows?
A beagle is as common as grass.
A beagle is as common as vanilla ice cream.
A beagle is as common as a Samaritan woman with five husbands, neither of whom you would give a second glance, maybe not even a second chance. Yet, just as the beagle last week took the Westminster Dog Show by surprise, so did this encounter at the well with this very common and evidently well-loved Samaritan woman.
Where has God surprised you lately in the most ordinary, common way?
THE WORD
Forget that this is Jesus, Savior of the world, at the well. Forget that this is sacred scripture. Forget that it is a story that you have heard before. What do you see?
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A well. Besides being the obvious place for drawing water and a place of battleground in the desert, what else are wells famous for in the Old Testament? It is the place where boy meets girl. Rebecca is first found at the well. Jacob and Rachel first meet at the well. In the absence of singles bars and eharmony.com, wells are the place where you meet that certain someone.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 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.)
Here's the awkward part. This stranger is in town, hanging out at the well during the time of day when there are not many people present. He is discreet. He immediately crosses all social boundaries by speaking with a woman, asking her for a drink, and willing to share a common cup with her.
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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"
She plays along at first. He seems nice enough, even cute. What's the harm in a little conversation? After all, it is not as if anyone else in this small town will speak with her. With a reputation like her, coming out at noon at the worst heat of the day was just easier -- easier than having to put up with the looks of all those other perfect women fetching water for their perfect families in the perfect homes. At least this person isn't ignoring her like the rest.
Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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." 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."
Let me rephrase this last verse spoken by the Samaritan woman: "Buddy, I've heard about every pick up line in the book but this one has to take the cake." And then with a flick of her cigarette, she blows smoke at him and says, "Yeah, why don't you give me one of those magical buckets so I don't have to come to this stinkin' well in the blazing sun ever again."
As she is about to turn and leave this stranger to prey on a less naive victim, Jesus quickly changes the subject and begins to speak about her husband, or better yet, husbands. He now has her attention not just because he knows something intimate about her, but also because he is not after what she thought he was after. With that, her eyes are opened, her faith is quickened, and she races home to tell the townsfolk whom she had met.
Who would ever think the first preacher of the gospel would be someone as common as a beagle?
CRAFTING THE SERMON
I think this would be a wonderful text to explore the most unusual people in our lives who have surprised us by bringing to us a message we needed to hear from God. Who was that for you?
A street person who spoke with wisdom?
A child who said something off the cuff but stopped you in your tracks?
Perhaps it was a situation where you had less than charitable thoughts about a person (much like this Samaritan woman had about the stranger at the well) but discovered that you had completely misread the situation. Maybe you came to teach but were the one who had something to learn. Maybe you were asked to lead but needed a lesson on following. Maybe you were at a mission trip working among the poor and discovered that they ministered to you far more than you could ever minister to them.
The point is that our God is one of surprises. Just when you think you've got it all figured out and have put everyone in their proper box, God comes with a surprise to keep us humble, make us receptive, and transform our hearts in the least expected ways.
Here is the twist. God uses you in much the same way. From the grocery store to the restaurant to the casual conversation over coffee, you never know how God will use what you say or what you do to make his point to another person. Imagine! God using someone like you, someone just as common as a Samaritan woman with five husbands to be his ambassador of peace to a broken world.
Unlikely? Just ask that little beagle at the Westminster Dog Show!
ANOTHER VIEW
Yes We Can or No We Won't
Paul Bresnahan
Barack Obama's ringing expression of hope and optimism is invoked "chant-like" by his followers. "Yes, we can!" We all know of a dialectic in life where we invoke that kind of optimism, "Yes, we can!" But no sooner do the words leave our lips than the "cold water" crowd will say "No, we won't!"
It is a dynamic that goes clear back to the formative days of our faith. The Old Testament lesson today reminds us of this dimension of human nature. In the wilderness, we lived our lives on the edge day after, never really knowing for sure if the "manna" (literally, "what is it?") would be there. So we "tested" God there with our lack of faith and provoked Moses to wrath. While Moses led us through the wilderness, there were always those of us who really wanted to go back to Egypt where we had a nice variety of vegetables to go with fresh meat, and of course, there was a plentiful supply of water. Now we were in the desert, and there was scarce water. We lived on the edge of life and death. It was hard to have that kind of faith!
It still is. Every pastor knows of that reality in congregations. Often a new optimism will grow out an emerging and energetic leader of the church, only to be driven back by the old saw, "We tried that, and it doesn't work." While we want to move forward toward the future, we also reflexively want to stay in the more comfortable spaces of that which we know and what is familiar.
It is all too familiar, isn't it? Leading people into uncharted waters always increases the anxiety levels. The hunger and thirst we knew in the wilderness spelled the difference between life and death. However, if we now hunger and thirst for righteousness, where does that put us with respect to the heart of Jesus and our life in God?
Can we or won't we? This is not a political question, although I'll grant you that I used that for an opener here. The spiritual question is always whether we will. We can, if we will.
There are many people to be fed, homeless to be housed, outcasts to be invited into fellowship, and sick to be healed and visited in their distress. Jesus lived his life always saying to his disciples: "Yes, we can."
It is reasonable if we doubt ourselves and retreat back into fear from time to time. God knows that living our lives centered on the needs of those whose lives are in want is a risky business. Searching for justice, peace, and reconciliation is always going to be a dangerous enterprise.
It is a thirsty world. And a hungry one, too! We often meet men and women at the well at the noonday of our lives and they won't always understand what we are offering when we say that together we can! They may recoil as human nature often does. Not everyone will buy into the work of feeding the poor, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, visiting the sick and the prisoner, and so on.
That is very hard work. The answer is often, "No, we won't." But if we really want our hunger satisfied and our thirst quenched, we will find a way to do the will of God. Thus those ringing words call out across the landscape like a church bell, "Yes, we can!"
ILLUSTRATIONS
Sometimes we give up on the Lord being able to do anything to help us with our problems -- or to do his ministry through us. We think that our troubles are so persistent and so deep that there is nothing to be done about them. Oswald Chambers writes:
"The well is deep," -- and a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! Think of the depths of human nature, of human life, think of the depths of the "wells" in you. Have you been impoverishing the ministry of Jesus so that He cannot do anything?
Suppose that there is a well of fathomless trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says -- "Let not your heart be troubled"; and you shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the well is deep; You cannot draw up quietness and comfort out of it."
No, He will bring them down from above.
When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying -- "Of course He cannot do anything." The well of your incompleteness is deep, but make the effort and look away to Him.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Grand Rapids, Michigan: n.d., Discovery House), p. 58
* * *
Last week we talked about the Super Bowl, Super Tuesday, and the way, when we order a drink at a fast food place, the clerk asks, "May I super-size that for you?"
Today in our gospel, we find Jesus doing the same super-sizing. When he asks the woman at the well for a drink, she responds, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"
Jesus doesn't answer her at that level. He doesn't say, "Well, I like talking with people of all sorts." Instead he raises the discussion to the very highest level -- to the ultimate level, to our relationship with him.
He says, "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."
Jesus does this throughout his ministry -- he super-sizes our smaller concerns into what is really important.
* * *
Did you notice, in our gospel lesson, that when Jesus reaches the Samaritan city of Sychar, he doesn't gather a crowd around him and begin preaching, teaching and healing?
Instead, tired out by his journey, he sits down by the well to rest.
Did Jesus get tired as he lived his life here on earth? Yes! Did he need to stop speaking to the crowds and rest? Yes! Most emphatically, yes!
Sometimes we praise people we know who work all the time. We say, "They're tireless!" while they may be breaking down under the stress of trying to do too much.
Wayne E. Oates has written a small book called Your Right to Rest. I'm not going to urge you to read it because the title says it all: you have a right to rest when you need it. After all, what did the Lord God do, after creating all that is? God rested.
You and I have a right to rest.
* * *
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.
-- G.K. Chesterton
* * *
The North American Common Porcupine is a member of the rodent family that has around 30,000 quills attached to his body. Each quill can be driven into an enemy, and the enemy's body heat will cause the microscopic barb to expand and become more firmly embedded. The wounds can fester; the more dangerous one, affecting vital organs, can be fatal.
As a general rule, porcupines have two methods for handling relationships: withdrawal and attack. They either head for a tree or stick out their quills. They are generally solitary animals.
Porcupines don't always want to be alone. In late autumn, a young porcupine's thoughts turn to love. But love turns out to be a risky business when you're a porcupine. Females are open to dinner and a movie only once a year; the window of opportunity closes quickly. And a girl porcupine's "no" is the most widely respected turndown in all the animal kingdom...
This is the porcupine's dilemma: How do you get close without getting hurt?
This is our dilemma, too. Every one of us carries our own little arsenal. Our barbs have names like rejection, condemnation, resentment, arrogance, selfishness, envy, contempt. Some people hide them better than others, but get close enough and you will find out they're there. They burrow under the skin of our enemies; they can wound and fester and even kill. Yet we, too, want to get close.
-- John Ortberg, Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003)
* * *
Children's author Dr. Seuss once wrote a satirical book about the Cold War called The Butter Battle Book. Here's how it begins:
On the last day of summer,
ten hours before fall...
... my grandfather took me out to the Wall.
For a while he stood silent.
Then finally he said,
with a very sad shake
of his very old head,
"As you know... on this side of the Wall
we are Yooks.
On the far side of this Wall
live the Zooks."
Then my grandfather said,
"It's high time that you knew
of the terribly horrible thing that Zooks do.
In every Zook house and in every Zook town
every Zook eats his bread
with the butter side down!"
"But we Yooks, as you know,
when we breakfast or sup,
spread our bread," Grandpa said,
"With the butter side up.
That's the right, honest way!"
Grandpa gritted his teeth.
"So you can't trust a Zook who spreads bread underneath!
Every Zook must be watched."
-- Theodor Seuss Geisel ("Dr. Seuss"), The Butter Battle Book (Random House, 1984).
Although Dr. Seuss had the power blocs of the communist and the capitalist nations in mind, the unreasoning distrust between Yooks and Zooks sounds kind of like the ancient antipathy between Jews and Samaritans.
* * *
Have you ever been walking at night and met a neighbor, so you stopped and chatted a while? Or been at a park with your kids or grandkids and struck up a conversation with another adult? Perhaps you've recently visited a friend who was in the hospital. And we know the experience of going to the funeral of someone we loved dearly.
These are all rather everyday, run-of-the-mill encounters we have in life, aren't they? So common, so ordinary that most of us probably don't think to look around to see if God is there in these encounters.
But the gospel readings during this season of Lent tell about encounters that Jesus has with ordinary people in everyday circumstances. A Bible student comes to him one evening with some questions that have popped into his mind. On a hot day, with a parched throat, he asks a woman for a drink of water. He talks with a man blind from birth. He goes to the home of Mary and Martha, who are grieving over the death of their brother, Lazarus.
There, in these ordinary moments, in these chance meetings, in these everyday encounters, God is present in Jesus Christ:
-- challenging the wisdom of a learned man;
-- inviting a woman to a new life;
-- helping a man born blind to see;
-- helping the grief-stricken sisters to realize that God is more powerful than death; that God's love calls forth life from the grave.
Maybe one of the "disciplines" we should practice for the rest of this Lenten season is to pay more attention to our chance encounters, our everyday conversations.
So, next time you are in the store and chatting with a friend, look to see if Jesus is over in the next aisle, eavesdropping. When your child asks you for a snack upon returning home from school, be sure to listen carefully to see who is making the request. When a sibling calls at night in the middle of your favorite show, pay attention to their questions, not the commercials.
After all, it might just be God, seeking to engage you in the midst of your ordinary, everyday life, just as Nicodemus, Photini (the woman at the well), the man born blind, and Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were met by Jesus in all their ordinary lives.
-- "Occasional Sightings of the Gospel" 2/23/2005, www.occasionalsightings.blogspot.com
* * *
So, this woman at the well has an encounter with the living water, and goes back to her hometown and tells everyone about it. And we are told that many believed in Jesus because of this unnamed woman's witness.
If the legends about her are true, a lot more people than in just her hometown heard her testimony! One of the key figures in the Johannine community, she supposedly took the name Photini ("the enlightened one") when she was baptized. Like many other women in the gospels, she contributed to the spread of Christianity throughout the world.
According to the Orthodox tradition, Photini and here five sisters and two sons (all of whom were baptized with her), traveled on missionary journeys that eventually led them to Rome. Emperor Nero ordered her to be arrested, but before the soldiers could act, she appeared before him boldly declaring she had come to teach him "to believe in Christ." As might be expected, Photini and the others suffered torture and abuse at Nero's orders.
Thinking that other women could persuade her to deny God, Nero sent his daughter, Domnina, to speak to Photini and her sisters. However, Domnina and her 100 slave girls were converted and baptized as a result of the witness and words of Photini. Once again, Nero ordered unspeakable tortures. When all else failed, he had all of Photini's sisters and sons beheaded, leaving her to survive alone. She eventually died, having received a vision of God appearing before her, making the sign of the cross three times over her.
In sermons from the Greek Orthodox tradition in the 4th-14th centuries, Photini is compared to the male apostles and disciples, often surpassing them. She is referred to as both an evangelist and an apostle. The nameless woman who meet Christ at Jacob's well spent her remain days inviting others to drink from the living waters.
For countless generations, Orthodox Christians have prayed to St. Photini, whose day is February 26th:
Illuminated by the Holy Spirit, All-Glorious One,
from Christ the Savior you drank the water of salvation.
With open hand you give it to those who thirst.
Great-Martyr Photini, Equal-to-the-Apostles,
pray to Christ for the salvation of our souls.
-- "Occasional Sightings of the Gospel" 2/21/2005
* * *
An old story, told in different parts of the country, tells of a hiker, who was parched and dry, but could find no water. Stumbling upon an abandoned house, he discovered a pump and went to work, pumping and pumping and pumping with all his strength. But no water appeared.
Glancing around for another source of water, he spied a small jug with a cork in the top and a penciled note. The note said to pour the water into the pump, to prime it. Thinking it was a waste of time, but terribly thirsty, he followed the directions, and obtained the thirst-quenching liquid he needed.
Before continuing on his way, he refilled the jug with water, so the next thirsty person could get the nourishment they needed. He added to the note, "Believe me, this really works. You have to give it all away before you can get anything back."
-- Anonymous
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Call to Worship
Leader: We come, our souls thirsting for God,
our spirits longing for love.
People: We come to the One who supplies every need;
we come to the One who gives us living water.
Leader: We come, with prayers in our hearts,
and with words too painful to speak.
People: We come to the One who listens to our hearts,
who carries our suffering through eternity.
Leader: We come, with our brokenness and loss,
with our hope to be made whole.
People: We come to the One who knows all our secrets,
who brings peace to all of us -- and to each of us.
Prayer of the Day
You gathered up the earth,
shaping the mountains to awe us;
you filled the empty bowls
with living water,
so dolphins and little children
could swim in your grace.
You are our God,
and we worship you in joy.
We wander the deserts of our lives,
convinced that the wells of the world
will only fill our buckets
with lost hopes and dusty promises,
but you surprise us
with your questions and your answers,
letting us drink our fill
from the waters of life.
You are our Savior,
and we worship you in truth.
You saturate our arid souls
with your peace;
you fill disappointments
with your hope;
you take our broken hearts
and make us one with God.
You are our Comforter,
and we worship you in spirit.
We worship you in spirit and in truth,
God in Community, Holy in One,
even as we pray as we have been taught,
Our Father...
Call to Reconciliation
At a well drawing water, at a desk shuffling
papers, at a stove cooking a meal -- where we
are, God meets us. To listen to our stories,
to heal our brokenness, to forgive our sins,
and to give us new life. Let us bring our
prayers to the One who comes to us.
Unison Prayer of Confession
Everlasting God, you know us better than
we know ourselves. You hear the bitter words
we speak to one another; you see the hurts we
cause to those we claim to love; you bear the
pain we inflict on everyone around us.
Fountain of Grace, in Jesus Christ you do not
turn your back on sinners, but meet us where we
are. Parched by the heat of our desires, you cool
us with living water. Burdened by our failures, you
shoulder them with us. Thirsting for hope in our
lives, you send us our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
(silence is kept)
Assurance of Pardon
Leader: Not when we had gotten it all right, but when
we had gone wrong; not when we knew all
the rules, but when we had broken God's heart:
that's when Christ died for us, so we might live.
People: What good news! What great joy! What
wonderful hope! In Christ, we are forgiven.
Glory, God, glory! Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Teamwork
Object: three or four buckets
John 4:5-42
For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. (vv. 37-38)
Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you have ever been on a team? (let them answer) There are many different kinds of teams and I want to share one with you this morning. In many places, there are no fire engines and firemen or even a fire hydrant. Instead, when there is a fire, a team of neighbors help put it out. Maybe there is a pond or a large tower where they keep water just in case something like this happens. When people hear about the fire, they run and pick up their buckets and race as fast as they can to the place where the fire is.
I brought along some buckets today to show you how we would be part of the team in case we were near a fire. (line up the children and practice with them on how to pass the bucket and the last person in line practices throwing the water on the fire) Remember, we don't want to spill any of the water before it gets to the last person. We need to pass the bucket as fast as we can without spilling it. (practice it a few times) You are great. If I ever have a fire, I hope you are working the buckets at my place. It takes practice and teamwork.
Jesus talked about teamwork to the disciples. He told them that each of them had a job to do and if they did their jobs well, then other disciples could also do their part, and when it was all done they would have done a good job.
This isn't easy. Sometimes we want to do it all. Some people think they can run with the bucket faster than the bucket can be passed. That only happens one person at a time, and running will spill the water in the bucket.
We want to share Jesus with everyone. We would like to do the job all by ourselves, but it doesn't work as well as when we work like a team. Some of us are good teachers, some of us are good helpers, some of us are good storytellers, and some of us are good inviters. It takes all of us to bring people to Jesus. Being a Christian is like being in the bucket line. Each one of us does a good job and then the whole job gets done. Be a part of God's team and work with your Christian friends, and together we will bring people to learn and love Jesus. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, February 24, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
As Common as a Samaritan Woman with Five Husbands
Scott Suskovic
John 4:5-42
THE WORLD
Can you believe it? Of all the magnificent breeds of dogs in the world, of all the carefully bred puppies, of all the most skilled dog trainers, a beagle won the Westminster Dog Show. Really! A beagle. Snoopy, of all things!
Now, I have no doubt that there are many beagle lovers out there and they are on the verge of staging a riot. I bet that the beagle is a loyal breed, a gentle dog, great with children, and can play fetch, sit, roll over, and beg. However, is a beagle really in the same category as prize-winning, blue ribbon purebreds that win international dog shows?
A beagle is as common as grass.
A beagle is as common as vanilla ice cream.
A beagle is as common as a Samaritan woman with five husbands, neither of whom you would give a second glance, maybe not even a second chance. Yet, just as the beagle last week took the Westminster Dog Show by surprise, so did this encounter at the well with this very common and evidently well-loved Samaritan woman.
Where has God surprised you lately in the most ordinary, common way?
THE WORD
Forget that this is Jesus, Savior of the world, at the well. Forget that this is sacred scripture. Forget that it is a story that you have heard before. What do you see?
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A well. Besides being the obvious place for drawing water and a place of battleground in the desert, what else are wells famous for in the Old Testament? It is the place where boy meets girl. Rebecca is first found at the well. Jacob and Rachel first meet at the well. In the absence of singles bars and eharmony.com, wells are the place where you meet that certain someone.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 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.)
Here's the awkward part. This stranger is in town, hanging out at the well during the time of day when there are not many people present. He is discreet. He immediately crosses all social boundaries by speaking with a woman, asking her for a drink, and willing to share a common cup with her.
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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"
She plays along at first. He seems nice enough, even cute. What's the harm in a little conversation? After all, it is not as if anyone else in this small town will speak with her. With a reputation like her, coming out at noon at the worst heat of the day was just easier -- easier than having to put up with the looks of all those other perfect women fetching water for their perfect families in the perfect homes. At least this person isn't ignoring her like the rest.
Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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." 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."
Let me rephrase this last verse spoken by the Samaritan woman: "Buddy, I've heard about every pick up line in the book but this one has to take the cake." And then with a flick of her cigarette, she blows smoke at him and says, "Yeah, why don't you give me one of those magical buckets so I don't have to come to this stinkin' well in the blazing sun ever again."
As she is about to turn and leave this stranger to prey on a less naive victim, Jesus quickly changes the subject and begins to speak about her husband, or better yet, husbands. He now has her attention not just because he knows something intimate about her, but also because he is not after what she thought he was after. With that, her eyes are opened, her faith is quickened, and she races home to tell the townsfolk whom she had met.
Who would ever think the first preacher of the gospel would be someone as common as a beagle?
CRAFTING THE SERMON
I think this would be a wonderful text to explore the most unusual people in our lives who have surprised us by bringing to us a message we needed to hear from God. Who was that for you?
A street person who spoke with wisdom?
A child who said something off the cuff but stopped you in your tracks?
Perhaps it was a situation where you had less than charitable thoughts about a person (much like this Samaritan woman had about the stranger at the well) but discovered that you had completely misread the situation. Maybe you came to teach but were the one who had something to learn. Maybe you were asked to lead but needed a lesson on following. Maybe you were at a mission trip working among the poor and discovered that they ministered to you far more than you could ever minister to them.
The point is that our God is one of surprises. Just when you think you've got it all figured out and have put everyone in their proper box, God comes with a surprise to keep us humble, make us receptive, and transform our hearts in the least expected ways.
Here is the twist. God uses you in much the same way. From the grocery store to the restaurant to the casual conversation over coffee, you never know how God will use what you say or what you do to make his point to another person. Imagine! God using someone like you, someone just as common as a Samaritan woman with five husbands to be his ambassador of peace to a broken world.
Unlikely? Just ask that little beagle at the Westminster Dog Show!
ANOTHER VIEW
Yes We Can or No We Won't
Paul Bresnahan
Barack Obama's ringing expression of hope and optimism is invoked "chant-like" by his followers. "Yes, we can!" We all know of a dialectic in life where we invoke that kind of optimism, "Yes, we can!" But no sooner do the words leave our lips than the "cold water" crowd will say "No, we won't!"
It is a dynamic that goes clear back to the formative days of our faith. The Old Testament lesson today reminds us of this dimension of human nature. In the wilderness, we lived our lives on the edge day after, never really knowing for sure if the "manna" (literally, "what is it?") would be there. So we "tested" God there with our lack of faith and provoked Moses to wrath. While Moses led us through the wilderness, there were always those of us who really wanted to go back to Egypt where we had a nice variety of vegetables to go with fresh meat, and of course, there was a plentiful supply of water. Now we were in the desert, and there was scarce water. We lived on the edge of life and death. It was hard to have that kind of faith!
It still is. Every pastor knows of that reality in congregations. Often a new optimism will grow out an emerging and energetic leader of the church, only to be driven back by the old saw, "We tried that, and it doesn't work." While we want to move forward toward the future, we also reflexively want to stay in the more comfortable spaces of that which we know and what is familiar.
It is all too familiar, isn't it? Leading people into uncharted waters always increases the anxiety levels. The hunger and thirst we knew in the wilderness spelled the difference between life and death. However, if we now hunger and thirst for righteousness, where does that put us with respect to the heart of Jesus and our life in God?
Can we or won't we? This is not a political question, although I'll grant you that I used that for an opener here. The spiritual question is always whether we will. We can, if we will.
There are many people to be fed, homeless to be housed, outcasts to be invited into fellowship, and sick to be healed and visited in their distress. Jesus lived his life always saying to his disciples: "Yes, we can."
It is reasonable if we doubt ourselves and retreat back into fear from time to time. God knows that living our lives centered on the needs of those whose lives are in want is a risky business. Searching for justice, peace, and reconciliation is always going to be a dangerous enterprise.
It is a thirsty world. And a hungry one, too! We often meet men and women at the well at the noonday of our lives and they won't always understand what we are offering when we say that together we can! They may recoil as human nature often does. Not everyone will buy into the work of feeding the poor, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, visiting the sick and the prisoner, and so on.
That is very hard work. The answer is often, "No, we won't." But if we really want our hunger satisfied and our thirst quenched, we will find a way to do the will of God. Thus those ringing words call out across the landscape like a church bell, "Yes, we can!"
ILLUSTRATIONS
Sometimes we give up on the Lord being able to do anything to help us with our problems -- or to do his ministry through us. We think that our troubles are so persistent and so deep that there is nothing to be done about them. Oswald Chambers writes:
"The well is deep," -- and a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! Think of the depths of human nature, of human life, think of the depths of the "wells" in you. Have you been impoverishing the ministry of Jesus so that He cannot do anything?
Suppose that there is a well of fathomless trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says -- "Let not your heart be troubled"; and you shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the well is deep; You cannot draw up quietness and comfort out of it."
No, He will bring them down from above.
When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying -- "Of course He cannot do anything." The well of your incompleteness is deep, but make the effort and look away to Him.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Grand Rapids, Michigan: n.d., Discovery House), p. 58
* * *
Last week we talked about the Super Bowl, Super Tuesday, and the way, when we order a drink at a fast food place, the clerk asks, "May I super-size that for you?"
Today in our gospel, we find Jesus doing the same super-sizing. When he asks the woman at the well for a drink, she responds, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"
Jesus doesn't answer her at that level. He doesn't say, "Well, I like talking with people of all sorts." Instead he raises the discussion to the very highest level -- to the ultimate level, to our relationship with him.
He says, "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."
Jesus does this throughout his ministry -- he super-sizes our smaller concerns into what is really important.
* * *
Did you notice, in our gospel lesson, that when Jesus reaches the Samaritan city of Sychar, he doesn't gather a crowd around him and begin preaching, teaching and healing?
Instead, tired out by his journey, he sits down by the well to rest.
Did Jesus get tired as he lived his life here on earth? Yes! Did he need to stop speaking to the crowds and rest? Yes! Most emphatically, yes!
Sometimes we praise people we know who work all the time. We say, "They're tireless!" while they may be breaking down under the stress of trying to do too much.
Wayne E. Oates has written a small book called Your Right to Rest. I'm not going to urge you to read it because the title says it all: you have a right to rest when you need it. After all, what did the Lord God do, after creating all that is? God rested.
You and I have a right to rest.
* * *
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.
-- G.K. Chesterton
* * *
The North American Common Porcupine is a member of the rodent family that has around 30,000 quills attached to his body. Each quill can be driven into an enemy, and the enemy's body heat will cause the microscopic barb to expand and become more firmly embedded. The wounds can fester; the more dangerous one, affecting vital organs, can be fatal.
As a general rule, porcupines have two methods for handling relationships: withdrawal and attack. They either head for a tree or stick out their quills. They are generally solitary animals.
Porcupines don't always want to be alone. In late autumn, a young porcupine's thoughts turn to love. But love turns out to be a risky business when you're a porcupine. Females are open to dinner and a movie only once a year; the window of opportunity closes quickly. And a girl porcupine's "no" is the most widely respected turndown in all the animal kingdom...
This is the porcupine's dilemma: How do you get close without getting hurt?
This is our dilemma, too. Every one of us carries our own little arsenal. Our barbs have names like rejection, condemnation, resentment, arrogance, selfishness, envy, contempt. Some people hide them better than others, but get close enough and you will find out they're there. They burrow under the skin of our enemies; they can wound and fester and even kill. Yet we, too, want to get close.
-- John Ortberg, Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003)
* * *
Children's author Dr. Seuss once wrote a satirical book about the Cold War called The Butter Battle Book. Here's how it begins:
On the last day of summer,
ten hours before fall...
... my grandfather took me out to the Wall.
For a while he stood silent.
Then finally he said,
with a very sad shake
of his very old head,
"As you know... on this side of the Wall
we are Yooks.
On the far side of this Wall
live the Zooks."
Then my grandfather said,
"It's high time that you knew
of the terribly horrible thing that Zooks do.
In every Zook house and in every Zook town
every Zook eats his bread
with the butter side down!"
"But we Yooks, as you know,
when we breakfast or sup,
spread our bread," Grandpa said,
"With the butter side up.
That's the right, honest way!"
Grandpa gritted his teeth.
"So you can't trust a Zook who spreads bread underneath!
Every Zook must be watched."
-- Theodor Seuss Geisel ("Dr. Seuss"), The Butter Battle Book (Random House, 1984).
Although Dr. Seuss had the power blocs of the communist and the capitalist nations in mind, the unreasoning distrust between Yooks and Zooks sounds kind of like the ancient antipathy between Jews and Samaritans.
* * *
Have you ever been walking at night and met a neighbor, so you stopped and chatted a while? Or been at a park with your kids or grandkids and struck up a conversation with another adult? Perhaps you've recently visited a friend who was in the hospital. And we know the experience of going to the funeral of someone we loved dearly.
These are all rather everyday, run-of-the-mill encounters we have in life, aren't they? So common, so ordinary that most of us probably don't think to look around to see if God is there in these encounters.
But the gospel readings during this season of Lent tell about encounters that Jesus has with ordinary people in everyday circumstances. A Bible student comes to him one evening with some questions that have popped into his mind. On a hot day, with a parched throat, he asks a woman for a drink of water. He talks with a man blind from birth. He goes to the home of Mary and Martha, who are grieving over the death of their brother, Lazarus.
There, in these ordinary moments, in these chance meetings, in these everyday encounters, God is present in Jesus Christ:
-- challenging the wisdom of a learned man;
-- inviting a woman to a new life;
-- helping a man born blind to see;
-- helping the grief-stricken sisters to realize that God is more powerful than death; that God's love calls forth life from the grave.
Maybe one of the "disciplines" we should practice for the rest of this Lenten season is to pay more attention to our chance encounters, our everyday conversations.
So, next time you are in the store and chatting with a friend, look to see if Jesus is over in the next aisle, eavesdropping. When your child asks you for a snack upon returning home from school, be sure to listen carefully to see who is making the request. When a sibling calls at night in the middle of your favorite show, pay attention to their questions, not the commercials.
After all, it might just be God, seeking to engage you in the midst of your ordinary, everyday life, just as Nicodemus, Photini (the woman at the well), the man born blind, and Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were met by Jesus in all their ordinary lives.
-- "Occasional Sightings of the Gospel" 2/23/2005, www.occasionalsightings.blogspot.com
* * *
So, this woman at the well has an encounter with the living water, and goes back to her hometown and tells everyone about it. And we are told that many believed in Jesus because of this unnamed woman's witness.
If the legends about her are true, a lot more people than in just her hometown heard her testimony! One of the key figures in the Johannine community, she supposedly took the name Photini ("the enlightened one") when she was baptized. Like many other women in the gospels, she contributed to the spread of Christianity throughout the world.
According to the Orthodox tradition, Photini and here five sisters and two sons (all of whom were baptized with her), traveled on missionary journeys that eventually led them to Rome. Emperor Nero ordered her to be arrested, but before the soldiers could act, she appeared before him boldly declaring she had come to teach him "to believe in Christ." As might be expected, Photini and the others suffered torture and abuse at Nero's orders.
Thinking that other women could persuade her to deny God, Nero sent his daughter, Domnina, to speak to Photini and her sisters. However, Domnina and her 100 slave girls were converted and baptized as a result of the witness and words of Photini. Once again, Nero ordered unspeakable tortures. When all else failed, he had all of Photini's sisters and sons beheaded, leaving her to survive alone. She eventually died, having received a vision of God appearing before her, making the sign of the cross three times over her.
In sermons from the Greek Orthodox tradition in the 4th-14th centuries, Photini is compared to the male apostles and disciples, often surpassing them. She is referred to as both an evangelist and an apostle. The nameless woman who meet Christ at Jacob's well spent her remain days inviting others to drink from the living waters.
For countless generations, Orthodox Christians have prayed to St. Photini, whose day is February 26th:
Illuminated by the Holy Spirit, All-Glorious One,
from Christ the Savior you drank the water of salvation.
With open hand you give it to those who thirst.
Great-Martyr Photini, Equal-to-the-Apostles,
pray to Christ for the salvation of our souls.
-- "Occasional Sightings of the Gospel" 2/21/2005
* * *
An old story, told in different parts of the country, tells of a hiker, who was parched and dry, but could find no water. Stumbling upon an abandoned house, he discovered a pump and went to work, pumping and pumping and pumping with all his strength. But no water appeared.
Glancing around for another source of water, he spied a small jug with a cork in the top and a penciled note. The note said to pour the water into the pump, to prime it. Thinking it was a waste of time, but terribly thirsty, he followed the directions, and obtained the thirst-quenching liquid he needed.
Before continuing on his way, he refilled the jug with water, so the next thirsty person could get the nourishment they needed. He added to the note, "Believe me, this really works. You have to give it all away before you can get anything back."
-- Anonymous
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Call to Worship
Leader: We come, our souls thirsting for God,
our spirits longing for love.
People: We come to the One who supplies every need;
we come to the One who gives us living water.
Leader: We come, with prayers in our hearts,
and with words too painful to speak.
People: We come to the One who listens to our hearts,
who carries our suffering through eternity.
Leader: We come, with our brokenness and loss,
with our hope to be made whole.
People: We come to the One who knows all our secrets,
who brings peace to all of us -- and to each of us.
Prayer of the Day
You gathered up the earth,
shaping the mountains to awe us;
you filled the empty bowls
with living water,
so dolphins and little children
could swim in your grace.
You are our God,
and we worship you in joy.
We wander the deserts of our lives,
convinced that the wells of the world
will only fill our buckets
with lost hopes and dusty promises,
but you surprise us
with your questions and your answers,
letting us drink our fill
from the waters of life.
You are our Savior,
and we worship you in truth.
You saturate our arid souls
with your peace;
you fill disappointments
with your hope;
you take our broken hearts
and make us one with God.
You are our Comforter,
and we worship you in spirit.
We worship you in spirit and in truth,
God in Community, Holy in One,
even as we pray as we have been taught,
Our Father...
Call to Reconciliation
At a well drawing water, at a desk shuffling
papers, at a stove cooking a meal -- where we
are, God meets us. To listen to our stories,
to heal our brokenness, to forgive our sins,
and to give us new life. Let us bring our
prayers to the One who comes to us.
Unison Prayer of Confession
Everlasting God, you know us better than
we know ourselves. You hear the bitter words
we speak to one another; you see the hurts we
cause to those we claim to love; you bear the
pain we inflict on everyone around us.
Fountain of Grace, in Jesus Christ you do not
turn your back on sinners, but meet us where we
are. Parched by the heat of our desires, you cool
us with living water. Burdened by our failures, you
shoulder them with us. Thirsting for hope in our
lives, you send us our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
(silence is kept)
Assurance of Pardon
Leader: Not when we had gotten it all right, but when
we had gone wrong; not when we knew all
the rules, but when we had broken God's heart:
that's when Christ died for us, so we might live.
People: What good news! What great joy! What
wonderful hope! In Christ, we are forgiven.
Glory, God, glory! Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Teamwork
Object: three or four buckets
John 4:5-42
For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. (vv. 37-38)
Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you have ever been on a team? (let them answer) There are many different kinds of teams and I want to share one with you this morning. In many places, there are no fire engines and firemen or even a fire hydrant. Instead, when there is a fire, a team of neighbors help put it out. Maybe there is a pond or a large tower where they keep water just in case something like this happens. When people hear about the fire, they run and pick up their buckets and race as fast as they can to the place where the fire is.
I brought along some buckets today to show you how we would be part of the team in case we were near a fire. (line up the children and practice with them on how to pass the bucket and the last person in line practices throwing the water on the fire) Remember, we don't want to spill any of the water before it gets to the last person. We need to pass the bucket as fast as we can without spilling it. (practice it a few times) You are great. If I ever have a fire, I hope you are working the buckets at my place. It takes practice and teamwork.
Jesus talked about teamwork to the disciples. He told them that each of them had a job to do and if they did their jobs well, then other disciples could also do their part, and when it was all done they would have done a good job.
This isn't easy. Sometimes we want to do it all. Some people think they can run with the bucket faster than the bucket can be passed. That only happens one person at a time, and running will spill the water in the bucket.
We want to share Jesus with everyone. We would like to do the job all by ourselves, but it doesn't work as well as when we work like a team. Some of us are good teachers, some of us are good helpers, some of us are good storytellers, and some of us are good inviters. It takes all of us to bring people to Jesus. Being a Christian is like being in the bucket line. Each one of us does a good job and then the whole job gets done. Be a part of God's team and work with your Christian friends, and together we will bring people to learn and love Jesus. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, February 24, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
