1. Good Morning. Let’s Pray. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. It’s the third Sunday of the season of Lent and our Lord is gently taking our faces and asking us how much we really want to know Him? How real do we want our relationship with Him to be? How authentic a relationship do you and I really want with our God?
Let’s quickly review what was read to us in the Scripture readings this morning and then we’ll come back to that framing question. It’s the right sort of question to be asking at this time in this penitential season and you’ll see why very soon.
The OT reading as from Exodus chapter 17 verses 3 through 7. In this reading we heard the Israelites wining to Moses about their ill treatment by God. Remember now God had miraculously taken them out of Egypt and had provided for their every need to this point but they we thirsty and were venting their disdain with God.
The summary of this section is the last verse “The place was called Massah and Maribah (testing and strife), because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?”
The Israelites were feeling forsaken by their LORD and wanted Him to show Himself and He did. They were in fact asking God – “Are you still there?”
I can relate to that and I suspect that most of us have or will one day ask the same question, “Are you still there God?” “Have you forgotten about me?”
And God answered with the provision of flowing waters! Not just a still pool but a fast flowing stream of water out of a rock! Impossible! The very impossibility of it was profoundly encouraging to their souls for they were not only physically thirsty but spiritually dry!
In Psalm David reminds us to listen for God’s voice and when He speaks not to harden our hearts! When I read that I wondered why I would harden my heart if I heard God’s voice but almost immediately the answer came to me – “Of course I would harden my heart if I heard something I really didn’t want to hear!”
Do you think that one of the primary reasons so many people in our modern world don’t want anything to do with God? Why? Because He will tell them things they don’t what to hear! Things they need to separate themselves from and so on! That’s why I harden my heart! Don’t you!
But today God reminds us to now do this but to listen and respond – not with a hart heart but with an open mind and listening heart – to what end?
Ah! To what end? We’ll get to that when we get to our Gospel Reading.
In our Second Reading from the NT book of Romans St Paul told us that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. But then St. Paul gave measure to that love by again reminding his listeners that that love drove Jesus to die not for the good ones in our midst but for the bad ones. To die for a bad man or woman is something hard – very hard to grasp but that is the measure of godly love – the love of God is of this type and we – you and I - are being called to that sort of barely imaginable love.
It’s the sort of love that jumps over our petulant need for revenge or our expression of righteous anger. This love intimidates us – it reminds us of how far we are from its demanding measure.
It makes me squirm a bit – how about you?
Can you love like that? Routinely?
And now please turn with me to our Gospel reading from the John chapter 4 beginning at verse 5 and concluding at verse 42. Deacon Dave was merciful with you by reading the acceptable shorter version.
It’s the story of Jesus’ encounter of the Samaritan woman at the well.
There are key themes in this story what resonate with the previous readings. For example, our OT reading spoke about water – water that not only assuaged their thirst but reminded them that God was looking our for them and hadn’t forgotten about them.
Our Psalm 95 remembered the Israelite’s tempting of God at Miribah. They had hardened their hearts against God but God, in His infinite forebearing love, gave them what they wanted! More than they wanted! Indeed, what they really wanted – to know that they had not been forgotten. But even as He gave them what they wanted they were given an opportunity to repent of their hardened hearts.
In our Second Reading we hear the words, “And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
In this reading we’re being reminded that God’s New Testament provision of the Holy Spirit is identical to His provision of water to the Israelites those thousands of years ago. God supplies us with our deepest needs and desires and we are drawn closer to Him as He touches us at those deeper points.
You see God reaches into that deepest part of us beyond our obvious recognizable needs – in this case water – to our need for His living Presence – that is sustenance to our dray and weary souls!
Please open your Bibles to John chapter 4 beginning at verse 5 and let’s take a quick survey of this amazing scene from Jesus’ early ministry.
Let me give us some context for this scene.
Remember Jesus was a Jew but here he was talking alone with a Samaritan woman. You should know that Samaritans descended from one of the tribes of Israel. They held faithful to Mt. Gerazim as the first place for the worship of God even when the prophet Elijah declared a new place for worship. In the 7th and 8th Centuries BCE, the Assyrians descended on the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel. The Samaritans in the north assimilated with the Assyrians, whilst the Jews were taken into exile in Babylon. When the Jews returned from exile, the Samaritans offered to assist in the reconstruction of the Temple. This infuriated the Jews and led to centuries of distrust and animosity.
So this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well was wrong from 2 fundamental perspectives – she was a lone woman – unshaparoned and she was from that despicable traitorous Samaritan tribe!
But Jesus ignored cultural taboos and reached out to this precious soul.
Focus now with me on verses 11 through 30 for it’s here that we witness their encounter at the well:
John 4:11 Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
John 4:13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 4:15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” John 4:16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” John 4:17 I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” John 4:19 Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” John 4:21 Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”John 4:25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” John 4:26 Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” John 4:27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” John 4:28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Now many commentators suggest that the woman didn’t really get Jesus’ argument but I’m convinced that she did. And I’ll explain why soon.
Some of the same commentators suggest that her sin wasn’t promiscuity but rather the Samaritan’s mistake of wedding themselves to the 5 books of the Torah and ignoring the writings of the prophets and other later writings. It’s possible but I think a little to oblique.
I’m convinced that this woman got it right precisely because this man saw right into her life. He knew her and despite her obvious sins was offering her His love – the water that just keeps on flowing even though we don’t deserve it!
Remember the wining Israelites? God through Moses gave them flowing streams of water out of hard rock!
The question I want to ask us now I believe will open something up for us this morning.
The question is this, “Did she harden her heart at Jesus’ revelations about her life of promiscuity?”
The answer is “No!” No she didn’t and because of this she received the water of life and Biblical history tells us that this region of Samaria became and Christian stronghold precisely because of this magnificent disciple come missionary to her own town!
Remember verses 28 through 30:
John 4:28 Then, leaving her water jar, – ah she forgot about her physical need - the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
And further on we read:
John 4:42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
Jesus chose a promiscuous woman to bless the very town who were shunning and disdaining her. Such is the love of God.
But I want us to go back to that encounter and I want to suggest something to us that may help us to have a “good Lent” instead of just a 40 day period to get through to finally get to Easter.
Look at what happened in that encounter between Jesus and the woman.
He told her about in verse 14:
14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Now that’s a pretty good deal don’t you think?
But what will it take for her to receive this water? Ah, to face herself and her sins?
You see, intimacy with God is impossible when our sins block the way. Oh, we can have a distant formal relationship with Him as most Christians have but He’s a wonderfully jealous lover and He wants all of us! Not just that part of us that we’re willing to give to Him. He loves us and He wants an infinitely intimate relationship with us and that means all of us – nothing held back.
In this Lenten season Jesus is once again meeting us at the well or place of our need and our loneliness and inviting us to draw ever closer to Him but first He wants to show us those things that are getting in the way.
Will some of us look away and say “Not today! I’m not ready to face those things or that thing that I have to surrender to You.”
Will some of us “harden our hearts” and turn away with a curse?”
Please close your eyes and take a moment to imagine yourself standing at the place of your need with Jesus.
He’s there offering you a more authentic and intimate relationship with Him. What is He revealing to you? What is He gently inviting you to surrender?
Look at yourself – are you going to draw ever closer to Him or are you deciding to stay right where you are – thank you very much!
'May there be some beautiful surprise
waiting for you inside death -
something you never knew or felt which with one simple touch
absolves you of all loneliness and loss
as you quicken within the embrace
for which your soul was eternally made.
May your heart be speechless
at the sight of the truth
of all your belief had hoped -
your heart breathless
in the light and lightness
where each and every thing
Is at last its true self
within that serene belonging
that dwells beside us
on the other side
of what we see.'
Let’s pray . . .
