Lent 2002
John 4:5-42
The Woman at the Well
Hang In There
There is a pastor named Tom who makes the time each month to go down to the homeless shelter in his city to work in their soup kitchen.
After the homeless people have been fed, he then invites each of them to join him in a service of Holy Communion and many of them will come with him to the little chapel in the shelter and join in the Lord?s Supper. They have shared soup together in the soup kitchen and then they come to share the bread and the cup together at the altar in the chapel.
One day, Tom had an unforgettable experience during the communion service. As he was moving down the altar, he came to a man kneeling there who looked like he had been out on the streets for quite some time. The man looked up at Tom and whispered: Skip me. What? Pardon me? Tom said. In a louder whisper, the man said again, Skip me. Why? Tom asked. Because, the man said, I?m not worthy. Tom said: Neither am I. Then Tom added: I?ll tell you what. I?m going to serve communion to these other people. Then I?m going to come back and serve communion to you and then I would like you to serve it to me. The man blinked and said to Tom: Father, is that legal? Yes, it?s legal; it?s beautiful and that?s what we are going to do! Tom answered.
Tom went on down the altar and served all the other people kneeling there and then he came back to the reluctant man and said: What?s your name? And the man said, Josh. Tom placed the elements of the Lord?s Supper before him and said: ?Josh, this is the Body of Christ given for you and this is the Blood of Christ shed for you. Eat this and drink this in the remembrance that Christ came for you and Christ died for you. Amen.?
Josh blinked back the tears in his eyes and he received Holy Communion. Then, Tom knelt and handed Josh the trays of bread and wine and said: Now, you serve me. Josh nervously took the trays and again he said: ?Father, are you sure this is legal? Yes, it?s legal. Just do it.?
Josh?s eyes were darting from side to side as he looked over his shoulders as if he expected (at any moment) the police, the FBI, the CIA or the Pope to come rushing in to arrest him. Finally, he held the trays toward Tom and as Tom received the Sacrament Josh muttered: ?Body Blood for you, Hang in There!? Tom said later: ?Of all the communion rituals I have ever heard, I don?t recall the words Hang in There? in any of them but at that moment for me, Holy Communion had never been more Holy.?
And Josh walked out of the homeless shelter that day with an extra spring in his step, and it was reported that he went everywhere saying: You won?t believe what happened to me today. In fact, the story became so widespread that from that day Josh became known on the streets as The Rev.
For Josh, that day was the beginning of a new life in Christ Jesus. He experienced a personal encounter with Jesus Christ at the communion rail and immediately went out into the world to share that experience with others.
Josh?s story is the woman at the well?s story too. Here this Samaritan woman goes to the well in the middle of the day to draw water and there is met by a tired Jesus sitting there seemingly waiting for her. ?Give me a drink,? he says. ?Excuse me?? says the woman. ?Aren?t you a Jew asking me, a Samaritan, to give you a drink of water?? ?If you knew the gift of God and who it is saying to you give me a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.? ?But sir, you don?t have a bucket and that well is pretty deep. Where do you get that living water?? Jesus replies, ?No, no you don?t understand everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again but those who drink my water will never again be thirsty.? He then proceeds to tell her that he knows of her life and is still offering these things to her. This woman of five husbands and who is now with a man who is not her husband. Not only is she a Samaritan woman speaking with a Jewish man but she is a woman seen as unclean even in her own community of the unclean. She responds in faith, ?I know that Messiah is coming?. ?I am He? Jesus responds. And you can almost hear Josh?s voice adding the words, ?Hang in there?. The woman then runs to her town and tells everyone what has just happened. Jesus stayed with the Samaritans for two days and many more believed because of his word. And those Samaritans came to faith not because of the woman?s testimony but for what they had heard themselves. And they confessed in Jesus Christ as Savior of the World.
Jesus? work is a new thing in creation as the author of John repeatedly tells us throughout this Gospel. Whether it is the new wine at Cana, the renovated temple of God or a rebirth in water and in Spirit John can not emphasize enough that Jesus Christ?s work and word is utterly foreign to us and is not dependent on any one person or office to do its work of saving the world. All to often we get caught up in the rules or the laws or the perceived way to do things in church and we forget that Jesus Christ saving work often happens despite all these things. When Tom asked Josh to serve him communion the man was utterly afraid not of the promises that the body and blood of Christ Jesus offered to him but that what he was about to wasn?t legal. Tom did the right thing in insisting he serve him because Tom knew that the promise of Jesus Christ wasn?t about him, the pastor, but was about Josh, a man who considered himself unworthy of redemption. And we have to know that those words Josh added, ?Hang in there? are the same word his heard by his heart and his faith when he received those promises in the body and blood of Jesus.
Jesus? saving work is not dependent not on our words but on His. Jesus comes to each of you face-to-face wherever the words ?For you? are present. But this Gospel is about one more thing and that is mission. The disciples, ever ignorant of what was happening right in front of them, were worried that Jesus hadn?t eaten yet. Jesus responded, ?My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Look around and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.? When we encourage others in their faith in Jesus Christ we often use our own lives as examples of how Jesus? saving work continues in the world. But we must always remember that Jesus? work is not solely dependent on our testimony in word and deed but comes down to that point where we meet Jesus Christ face to face in the Word of God and in the sacraments of the Lord?s Supper and Baptism. We can speculate all we want on how we have experienced Jesus Christ at other times in our lives but we know that God has promised us that He is present wherever his word is preached and wherever the water wine and bread are used in conjunction with the words, ?For you?. Freed of the burdens of our sins we are then sent out into the world to proclaim the wonders of what God has done for us and for all people. So you who are hungry and thirsty and who look to other things to satiate those pangs I proclaim to you today that it is the water and Word of Christ Jesus that has been given for you. You are the reason for Jesus? life, death and resurrection, you are the woman at the well, you are Joshua at the communion rail you are the redeemed child of God and you have tasted the spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
Amen.
