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Sermon for Sunday, February 24, 2008

Third Sunday of Lent
“A Lenten Encounter — A Samaritan Woman
John 4:5-30

Jesus never lets us be comfortable. Just about the time we think we got it, Jesus puts us in another uncomfortable situation. Just when we think we have all this Christian life all figured out, he will throw us another curve that can cause us to rethink how we live our faith. Don’t you wish sometimes he would just leave you alone and let you rest in Zion?

Today’s gospel story is the story about Jesus and a woman who can make us really uncomfortable. The woman is pretty much an outsider in several ways.

She is a Samaritan. In her society her ethnic group was regarded by faithful Jews as renegades, heretics and outsiders. For any Jew, “Good Samaritan,” would cause them to laugh. There wasn’t any such thing.

She is also a woman. She is living in a world where men rule the world. She could take no part in the religious life of Israel. She is the very personification of an outsider.

It appears that she is also an outsider with her own community. The scriptures infer that she is a social outcast because she came to the well alone in the heat of the day rather than when the other women came to draw water in the cool of the day. Was it because she has been married five times and is now living with a man who is not her husband?

If you were here last Sunday you may remember that we talked about Nicodemus and the conversation that Jesus and Nicodemus had with each other. We talked about Nicodemus coming to talk with Jesus when it was dark and we learned that our Lord is also a Lord who works the night shift.

Nicodemus was a teacher of Israel. He was very much an insider. He was an official, an authority figure in his religious culture. So here, for two Sundays in a row, we’ve got two very different encounters with Jesus – one with an insider and one with an outsider.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus, seeks him out. Jesus initiates his conversation with this woman at the well. In the norm of their culture men and women did not have much contact. He strikes up a conversation with her at the well in the heat of the day. Just in case anyone ever asks you “what is the longest recorded conversation that Jesus ever had in the scriptures?” this is it.

I doubt she had come to the well with the intention of having a theological discussion about life. She came to get water. She didn’t come looking for a savior. She needed water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and living. Jesus came to her. And in coming to her, he engages her in a conversation that made a difference in her life. He talks with her about some of the deep truths of life, he tells her of the availability of ‘living water,’ he gets personal with her and seems to know about some of the secrets of her life.

The meeting with Nicodemus didn’t end up with neatly tied package of answers. Nicodemus had little to say to Jesus except, “how can this be?” We are left wondering how much he really understood about Jesus. We do learn more later, but this visit leaves us hanging.

The woman that Jesus began talking to is very different. She engages Jesus in a lively give and take talk. The encounter ends with her running to tell the people in town, “come see a man who told me everything I ever did!”

If you are an ‘insider’- if you have been in church on many Sundays for many years, you probably know the contrast of these two encounters from John’s gospel and how things stack up. It appears that Jesus usually had better luck with outsiders than he did the insiders. The insiders seek out Jesus and they try to figure him out on their terms. Sometimes their motives are ways to trick him, but not always.

Jesus goes to the outsiders. He seeks them out. He comes to them before they have a chance to come to Him. When one reads the gospels (which I hope you are doing as a part of the Easter journey) it may not be much of an overstatement to say that the gospels are prejudiced toward outsiders. Jesus got in all kinds of trouble for spending so much time with outsiders, the uninformed, the unfaithful, the uncommitted like this woman. “This man receives sinners” is one of the charges brought against him in other gospels. His reply was “the son of man came to seek and to save the lost.”

In any church that I know, that is still who gathers with Jesus. In any church there are mainly two different types of people in conversation with Jesus – the insiders and the outsiders. The insiders know a great deal about religion or at least we think we do. Sometimes we are so inside that we forget there are those who do not understand even the language we use in the church. We forget there are those who do not understand what it means to be “saved or to be a sinner” or even know how to find a scripture verse in the Bible. One of the reasons we put the page number for the pew bible is so you and I can find it when we may not know that Matthew is the first book of the New Testament.

Of course, what happens with a lot of us ‘insiders’ is that we do as I suggested at the beginning of this sermon, get real comfortable and can often be made uncomfortable by Jesus when he uncovers how little we do know about him. We forget that we have a Lord who accepts us just as we are in the hope of what we can be. With outsiders Jesus kept his arms opened wide. I wonder if he wants His church to be a church that has its arms opened wide to those who come through its’ doors?

I don’t know about you but when I read the gospels and take the words and actions of Jesus seriously, I am really uncomfortable with me.

Most outsiders will presume that they really don’t know much about religion. The insiders must make sure outsiders do not feel inadequate, second rate, marginalized by us. I am not sure we should have to work at that especially when we say we are “people of the book.” The gospels bend over backwards to show that Jesus seeks out, leans towards, reaches to the outsider. I wonder how our church would be measured if we were judged on how many ‘outsiders’ we gather on any given Sunday?

So this morning, whether you find yourself as an insider or an outsider, know this, Jesus has found you. He seeks us out, engages us and begins the conversation. He gives us what we need. To the insider, he gives us a challenge, he prods us, sometimes confuses us, always makes us uncomfortable and pushes us off balance enough that we are forced to look at how we do faith. He reminds us that we are on journey with him and we are not at the destination yet. To the outsiders he gives welcome, encouragement and embrace. His encounter with a Samaritan woman made a difference. One of the ways that Jesus uses to change us is to force us to face the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth about our lives. And in the midst of that truth is the realization that He loves us unconditionally. You see, Jesus has this thing for people and that thing is called love.

Where do you find yourself this morning? What would you call yourself, an insider or outsider? Regardless of how you identify yourself today, just know this, today’s gospel, the story of Jesus and a Samaritan woman, is reminder that wherever you are, Jesus has found you. Enjoy the conversation.

Prayer

— Robert Thompson
Pastor
First Baptist Church, Ashland

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