WHITE UNTO HARVEST
2-5-12 New Liberty Christian Church, Veedersburg, IN with Rich McQuinn, Minister
TEXT; JOHN 4:5-35
INTRODUCTION;
We have just finished our Christmas celebrations and many folks are still paying on the presents that they bought for loved ones, In a number of weeks we will be celebrating once again Resurrection Sunday---Easter. Larger churches have already planned out their evangelistic approach for this season. Many a preacher has some ideas about what to do and a few lazy preachers haven’t a clue about how their church should approach Easter.
I wonder how the little churches across America plan for Easter is February. In 10 days I will turn 68. I never grow weary of evangelism or planning for Easter. After all Easter is an every Sunday event. Small congregations do not think like the larger ones do with respect to giant choirs, renting the High School gym, going door to door, holding prayer meetings, but they can! So I am asking you today, all of you, how are you planning for Easter this year. What is your goal, What are you going to be doing for the cause of Christ?
February is the month that we enlist loving relationships, cupid, flowers, movies, and love stories. Let me begin today with some love stories of the Bible and continue on through February as we march on to Easter.
I want to direct your thoughts to the barren fields we have around our church building this morning. We do not touch the land until late March or in April. We hope to get the seeds in the ground in May and then harvest the crop in October or so. We plant the seed, water it, and then harvest it. It all takes time.
Open your eyes today to this text and see for yourself that the harvest is NOW ready to be taken. Look around you to see what you can do for Him today to advance His Kingdom.
Please open your Bibles and let’s read this loving story about two strangers, who meet across a crowded room for a lesson in relationships and salvation. Let’s read this text but follow the Master Teacher as He shows us a method in winning the lost to Him!
Instead of giving you three main points today---Super Bowl Sunday, I want to share with you this sermon in story form. One main theme, just one point!
"A man should hold no conversation with a woman in public, not even with his own wife, still less with any other woman, lest men should gossip." So went a saying of rabbi’s current in Jesus' time. A woman, being ignorant, knew nothing of importance to say to a man and could understand nothing of importance a man might say to her – and wouldn't have any use for it if she did. So public conversation with a woman was at best a waste of time and at worst an invitation to temptation.
You can see that the disciples might be surprised to find Jesus talking to a strange woman. He is the Teacher, why is He breaking the rules Himself?
Of course, there are in the Bible a number of beautiful stories of men meeting women at wells. But everything about this meeting is backwards. The woman is a foreigner, not hometown girl. She is not young (I assume it took some time to go thru 5 husbands and a lover). Nor was she very helpful. Asked for a drink, she replied "Why are you, a Jew, asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" Because Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans – the Greek phrase here means literally, "used nothing in common with Samaritans", that is, “would not drink from the same cup.
For hundreds of years, Jews and Samaritans had hated each other. Samaritans were the descendents of Israelites who had intermarried with foreigners. (Their territories were right next to each other.) They were half-breeds religiously as well as genetically. Their Bible was much like the Jewish Bible, but there were notable differences. Their worship-center was Mt. Gerazim there in Samaria, while the temple in Jerusalem on Mt. Zion was the Jews’ holy place. Jews believed the Samaritans had betrayed their faith and their heritage.
For Jesus to ask her for a drink would be like a white man, several years ago, asking a southern black woman for a drink from the colored water fountain. So it was natural that the woman should be wary: "You are asking me for a drink? What’s up with that?"
"If you knew who you were talking to," Jesus replied, "you would ask me for living water." The phrase "living water" also means "flowing stream water." That's what the woman thought he meant.
So she says, “Sir, this well is deep – and you don’t have a bucket. Where are you going to get living water? Are you greater than Jacob?” According to legend, when Jacob took the stone cover off the well, water bubbled up miraculously and the well overflowed for 20 years.
“Can you do that?”
"I'm not talking about well-water,” Jesus replies. “Who¬ever drinks water from this well will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst. The water will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
"Sir," she says, "by all means give me some of this water – so I won't ever be thirsty, or have to haul water from this well again." Maybe she believed He had magic water. Or maybe she was mocking Him a little. But either way, she did not leave. Despite the huge differences between her and Jesus, and despite her lack of real understanding, there is something in her that remains open to him.
"Give me this special water."
"All right. But first go get your husband.”
"Um, I don't have a husband," she says, maybe looking away, feeling a little uncomfortable that the conversation has suddenly taken a personal turn.
"Ah, that's quite true, isn't it?” Jesus says. “You don't have a husband. You've had five, but you have none now -- and the man you are with isn't your husband."
Whooaaa! At this point, many people would simply get angry and go home. "I don't how you know this stuff, but you have no right to pry into my personal affairs. What I do is my own business, Buster." But this woman is not so threatened by Jesus' straight-forward summary of her love-life, that she breaks off the conversation. She remains open to what he has to offer.
She does change the subject, however – from herself to a religious issue. "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. But why are you talking to me? I don’t belong to your faith. I mean, our fathers worshipped on this mountain, while you and your people say that Jerusalem is the only right place to worship.”
And Jesus says, "The hour is coming – in fact, it is here – when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.... when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For God is spirit, not tied to one place, and what matters is not where you worship but whether you really know what God is like, and therefore can really worship God genuinely."
Do you honestly worship today? YOU! All of you. I don’t mean Now I lay me down to sleep, or God is great, God is good, etc, I am saying deep praying, singing from the inside out, praising God for what He has done for you and what He is going to be doing.
We are all equal when we worship right?
What a tremendous word – so sensible, so obvious almost, that just to hear it would be to accept it – if it were not also such a revolutionary word which, if accepted, might take us where no one has ever gone.
It's like "All people are created equal." Do you believe "all people are created equal?" some people asked in Abraham Lincoln’s day.
“You betcha! Our nation was founded on the principle that all people are created equal!” Right?
“OK, then, let’s free the slaves.”
“Say what??!!”
“Do you believe that all people are endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights?” “Well, sure ... but, hey, wait a minute, where are you going with this?
"The hour is coming, and now is, when neither here nor there, but in spirit and in truth ..." How beautiful – but also how earth-shaking. Jesus here envisions a future that will render long-standing hatreds out-of-date. No more separations and arguments over Mt. Gerazim or Mt. Zion. That's wonderful. But it is also breathtaking – and confusing, and maybe threatening.
What would it mean if suddenly the things we've held sacred and fought over and taught our children and sacrificed for and been willing to die for – what if most of those things suddenly were not important any more? How would we relate to former enemies, whom we have grown fond of hating? How would we relate to friends who still go around talking about the supreme holiness of Mt. Gerazim? If everything is rearranged, where will we end up?
No wonder the woman backs away a little bit from Jesus' here: "This stuff is beyond me, Sir – way above my pay grade. I mean, what you say sounds beautiful – so simple and pure and true. But when I think about acting on what you’ve just said – how revolutionary that would be – I just don’t know. But I do know this – and my people believe this: Someday God will send Messiah, and He will show us the truth and what we should do.”
"I am that one," Jesus says.
Amazed, and with those stunning words ringing in her ears, as the disciples return, the woman runs back to her people:, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
Notice, she did not go back and try to convert everybody – she’s not sure about Jesus herself. The Greek phrase that’s translated “Could this be the Christ?” (NIV) literally means, “This can’t be the Christ, can it?”
She is impressed that He knows her so well (how does he know all this stuff about her?) – and He is deep. Not a flake. He is also kind, not a religious jihadist. But what are the odds that the Messiah would show up at a well in Samaria – and would bother with someone like her. “He can’t be the Messiah – can he?”
Not a deep faith there, but an honest witness. And the people respond. They all go out to see for themselves. Then they invite Jesus to stay with them. They listen to Him for themselves, and learn from Him, and finally become convinced themselves that He is the Messiah, the Christ.
But back up a moment with me to that point where they first begin to rush out to see Him. Jesus, seeing them pouring out of their town coming toward Him, says to His disciples, “You know the saying: ‘four more months and then the harvest’. I tell you, lift up your eyes and see: the fields are ready for harvest now.”
"Four more months, and then the harvest!" was a saying of the time reminding people not to expect immediate results when they plant the seed. Some things – like harvests – take time. "A watched pot never boils." “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” You mustn’t try to hurry along what cannot be hurried. You must learn to wait patiently. “It’s four more months till the harvest.”
But as the Samaritans rushed out to Him, Jesus said, "That proverb doesn't hold here. These people are ready for the truth now.”
Who would have believed it? It was amazing that a Samaritan woman would listen to a Jewish prophet –especially when He began touching on sensitive personal matters. It was even more amazing that she would go tell everybody about Him.
But what was really mind-blowing is that all the other Samaritans in the village would take her word to heart and go check Jesus out for themselves – and end up with a deeper faith and understanding than most people who had much more in common with Jesus. Think about that a little.
Who would have believed that they would be so ready to respond? Someday, yes. We could imagine them responding at some time in the future. But there are lots of differences between them and us, and we need to go at this slowly. In fact, we probably need to wait a good long while before we even think about talking to the Samaritans. It will take years, probably, before they are ready. No sense trying to rush it. You know the saying: “its four long months until the harvest.”
But Jesus said, “Stop repeating that proverb and go gas up the combine.” It's OK to repeat proverbs and remind each other of the facts of life; but we need to stop and look out the window once in awhile, to see if those facts are still true.
The time for waiting is past. The hour for action is here.”
Throughout this 4th chapter of John’s gospel Jesus is saying, over and over, “The time for waiting is past.”
In the first place, Jesus doesn’t set up shop in Jerusalem with a sign that says, “Meet the Messiah – Everyone Welcome” and then wait for people to come. If He had, He’d still be there, covered with cobwebs, waiting. No He took action – He went out – even to Samaria. And He starts the conversation with the woman – does not wait for her to speak. He doesn’t wait. He is pro-active.
When she shows a willingness to listen, He tells her, “The time is coming – in fact, it has begun – when the main thing about worship will no longer be whether it’s on our mountain or your mountain but whether it is in spirit and in truth. Religious rivalries will end when the deep truth of God is known.”
“Wow – that’s heavy stuff,” she replies. “I don’t know what to think. But I do believe that someday, someday the Messiah will come.”
And Jesus says, “You’re looking at HIM right now.”
Someday, many believed (perhaps including the disciples); the whole world – even the Samaritans – will be open to receiving the deep, healing, transforming, life-giving truth of God. That wouldn’t happen for a very long time, of course – people like the Samaritans were so far from God that it couldn’t be expected to happen any time soon. But it would happen someday.
But Jesus said, “Open your eyes. It’s happening now. These people to whom you are not ready to speak are ready to hear.”
Throughout this passage, Jesus is trying to get people to quit saying “Someday.” And through this scripture, the spirit of God calls us to follow Christ in not waiting but looking for and responding to the opportunities before us now.
And it couldn’t really be that “someday” has arrived – could it? And that there are many people who are more ready to respond to God’s next move than God’s people are ready to make that move?
And it couldn’t be, could it? – that God wants us to stop talking about how it will be a long time before people are ready surprised at the number of people who could care less about the traditions of all the differ the right spirit, we can agree on the basics of Christian faith. The rest we can work out on the way.”
“We fervently believe that’s how things should be – and that someday things will be that way. Someday people will let go of the things that don’t matter, and God will unite them in spirit, and God’s people will really start working together. Someday that will happen, God willing.”
Gospel. It isn’t the outsiders who are not ready. It’s the insiders. And, truth be told, I’m not sure that you are really ready.”
It couldn’t be -- could it?
Throughout the 4th chapter of John, Jesus is trying to get people to quit saying, “Someday.” And through this scripture, the Spirit of God calls us to follow Christ in not waiting passively, but moving out to discover and respond to opportunities before us now.
Now Easter is coming soon, very soon. What plans do you have to witness and bring the lost world to Jesus NOW?
AMEN AND AMEN
