WSG 14-06-2015
Jesus and the Samaritan woman -Jn 4:5-26
Story: Many years ago, when I was down on Romney Marsh, I conducted the wedding between Darren Curtis and Zuraida Omarjee on 4th March 2006 in St Mary the Virgin church.
The bride and groom had chosen, as their Bible reading, a passage from I John 4 which included the verses 16-19 which read like this:
...God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
And the couple asked the Best Man to read the lesson.
As is my custom, we arranged the wedding rehearsal the night before and we walked through the service.
When we came to the part in the service where the Best Man was to read the lesson, I suggested that he practise there and then.
He said he didn’t need to - as he was confident he knew his way around the Bible, but I insisted and so he read his lesson.
And when he came to what he thought was 1 John’s Chapter 4 verses 16-19 we highly amused for this is what he read:
16 Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
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.”
The Best Man had not paid sufficient attention to detail and so had muddled John’s Gospel up with the First Letter of St John.
Fortunately we caught his mistake in time and avoided any embarrassment on the wedding day.
In contrast Jesus was someone who paid a lot of attention to detail.
Story: Maddy and I were in a little Episcopalian Church two weeks ago on Long Island – St John’s in Oakdale – a very welcoming congregation, but it has not Vicar or Rector, though a local clergyman Fr Rick brings them communion once a month - out of the kindness of his heart as he has his own church a good number of miles away.
And the passage that Sunday was the story of Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night – and Jesus simply tossed him an intellectual hand grenade when he told Nicodemus: You must be born again.
This week, we read of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman – the woman at the well someone right at the other end of the social spectrum.
She was everything that Nicodemus was not.
As one Bible commentator put it:
“He was a Jew, she was a Samaritan
He was a man, she was a woman
He was learned, she was ignorant,
He was morally upright, she was of loose morals
He was wealthy and from the upper class, she was ignorant, probably an outcast
He recognised Jesus’ merits, she saw him only as a curious traveller.
Nicodemus was serious and dignified, she was flippant and possibly boisterous” (John: The Gospel of Belief - M.C.Tenney p.92)
Jesus treated people as individuals – and not as “one size fits all”.
And so we see Jesus presenting her with the Gospel in
a totally different way to Nicodemus.
Jesus brought the Gospel to Nicodemus by giving him an intellectual conundrum. “You must be born again” - and telling him to go away and think about it.
To the woman at the well, he brought the Gospel by telling her about her life through his prophetic power.
Jesus often defied convention, if it would give him an opportunity to share the Gospel or to teach his followers.
Conventional wisdom said that this meeting should never have taken place.
There were at least three good reasons that I can think of why no self-respecting Rabbi would have talked to this Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar:
1. She was a Samaritan
2. A single man did not strike up a conversation with a lone woman and
3. She had a pretty loose moral history. She had been married five times and now was living with a man who wasn’t her husband.
Yet Jesus defied convention.
Why? Because he saw a person who needed the Gospel.
Jesus touched her at her point of need.
His courteous questions awakened her spiritual need.
As you follow the story, you get the feeling that Jesus is like an angler fishing for trout.
First, Jesus casts his bait by asking her for a drink and then follows it up by saying:
“If you knew …..who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (Jn 4:10)
And before she realises it – she’s hooked into a religious conversation.
And then he reels her in slowly.
He invites her to drink from “a spring of water that will well up to eternal life.” (Jn 4:13) and she responds by asking Jesus to give her that water.
Suddenly he changes tack. He asks her to fetch her husband. And she replies by telling him that she has no husband. Jesus replies:
“You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is that you have had five husbands and the man you are now have is not your husband.”
And then she realises who Jesus is.
Look at her response - the first thing she does is to go and tell others in the village that she has met the Messiah.
You might say she was one of the first Christian missionaries.
But as I was sitting in my summer-house in the back garden on Friday I found myself mulling over the reading for today, it was these words of Jesus that jumped out at me.
Jesus said in John 4:24
24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Jn 4:24
And I realised that Jesus was careful in what he said.
He chose his words wisely.
And as I sat and thought about what Jesus had said- it seemed to me - as I tidied the summer house for its first use this year – that the summer house was a good analogy for my life.
The basic framework was sound, since I became a Christian by receiving Jesus into my life back in January 1972 – but the place – my life like all our lives - needs a regular cleansing to get rid of the muck that accumulates.
As I looked around the summerhouse I noticed the plants that are woven around the timbers of the summer house – and which are now integral to the summer house.
These are a good thing as they give the summer house character – and also act as wall
But as I looked around there were also brambles that had crept in over the winter that needed removing.
And as I thought about Jesus words, I realised if we are going to be useful to God, we have to allow the Holy Spirit to sweep through us regularly – to get rid of the spiritual cobwebs that we all accumulate.
Kathy calls it very nicely: “Soaking in the Spirit.”
And the Holy Spirit will often do this when we come to him in our quiet times and while we are reading our Bibles.
So what did Jesus mean when he said to us :
“His worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth”
It was the word Truth that jumped out at me.
Then I recalled that Pilate the Roman Governor asked Jesus “What is truth” at Jesus trial.
You may recall in Jn 18:37-38 when Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king, Jesus answered,
“You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate.
And as I thought more about the word Truth, I recalled an interesting passage in Jn 15, when Jesus said, uses the adjective true:
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command.
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
17 This is my command: Love each other.
Jesus calls us to obey his commands – and our motivation is to be love for God.
In other words, if we love God we will not do what he hates.
It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who once said
“Who you are speaks so loudly - I can't hear what you're saying.”
Story:
I came across this story the other day:
After his Sunday messages, the pastor of a church in London got on a trolley bus on the following Monday morning to go back to his study in town.
He paid his fare and the trolley bus driver gave him too much change. The pastor sat down and looked it over counting eight or none times.
And he started to think – that God has wonderfully provided. He was a bit low on cash that week and this would allow him to break even.
He wrestled with himself all the way down the trolley track that led to his office.
Finally as he came to his stop, he couldn’t live with himself and walked up to the trolley driver and said
”Here you gave me too much change. You have made a mistake.”
The driver replied “It was no mistake. You see I was in your church last night when you spoke on honesty and I thought I’d put you to the test.” (p305 Swindolls Ultimate book of illustrations and Quotes – Charles Swindoll)
Integrity is very closely bound up with truth.
I have read of a number of Christian men in ISIS held territory where the ISIS thugs have asked the men if they are Christian and the men have courageously said yes knowing that the ISIS thugs will slit their throats and kill them
They have the integrity to own the name of Jesus come what may
I often wonder if I was in their situation if I would admit to being a Christian knowing it would cost my life.
Archbishop Justin Welby has referred to these brave Christian men as martyrs.
Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman and she responded by instigating a revival in her village.
You might want to ask the question – why did the people of the village listen to her if she was a social outcast?
Was there something in her life that resonated truth?
The Samaritan woman might have seemed the most unlikely person to start a revival in the village, but God often uses the most unlikely people.
The Welsh Revival of 1904 was led by a simple miner, Evan Roberts, with very little formal education and Bible training.
Yet God used him to set Wales on fire.
Conventional wisdom would have said that Nicodemus the theologian would have been the better person to start a revival – but then God is not into conventional wisdom.
The Church was given a single Commission and that was to preach the Gospel.
If we want to see growth in our churches, I think we can do no better than follow Jesus' lead in preaching the Gospel to people – by reaching people at their point of need.
Jesus cared for one social outcast and reached the whole of the Samaritan village through this unnamed Samaritan woman.
The key to Jesus’ successful ministry was prayer.
We read in Mk 1:35 how “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed.”
And just before his Crucifixion, he prayed and the whole of John 17 is devoted to what is known as the High Priestly prayer
Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he spent a lot of time in prayer with the Father.
If we want to see great things happen in our church, then there is no shortcut.
If we want to see growth in our Church, it won’t just happen with activity. It will only happen with prayer
Someone once said: “If you would have taken the Holy Spirit out of the Church in the Book of Acts, 90% of all activity would have ceased and 10% would have continued.
Today it might be said of a great number of churches that “If you took the Holy Spirit out of the Churches today 10% of all activity would cease and 90% would continue.”
If we want to identify and meet people at their point of need, we will be able to do this effectively. And we can only do this if we spend time, like Jesus did with his heavenly Father.
For me, I find that quite a challenge.
For if we want to worship God we must worship him in the Holy Spirit and in truth.
Then our lives can reflect him.
