RonBlog

Sunday 27th March, 2011 Third Sunday in Lent

Sentence
‘The water that I give will become in you a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.’ John 4:14

Collect
O God, the fountain of life, to a humanity parched with thirst You offer the living water that springs from the Rock, our Saviour Jesus Christ; stir up within Your people the gift of Your Spirit, that we may profess our faith with freshness, and announce with joy the wonder of Your love. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Old Testament Lesson Exodus 17: 1 – 7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?" But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?"
So Moses cried out to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." The LORD said to Moses, "Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink." Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

Psalm 95

O come let us sing out to the Lord: let us shout in triumph to the Lord our Rock
Let us come before His face with thanksgiving: and cry out to Him joyfully in psalms
For the Lord is a great God: and a great king above all gods.
In His hands are the depths of the earth: and the peaks of the mountains are His also
The sea is His and He made it: His hands moulded the dry land
Come. Let us worship and fall down: and kneel before the Lord our Maker
For He is the Lord our God: we are His people and the sheep of His hands

Today if only you would hear His voice – ‘Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah: as on that day at Massah in the wilderness
When Your forebears tested Me: put me to the proof, though they had seen My works
Forty years long I loathed that generation and said: ‘It is a people who err in their hearts, for they have not known My ways
Of Whom I swore in My wrath: They shall not enter My rest

Epistle Romans 5: 1 – 11

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

GOSPEL John 4: 5 – 42

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."
The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."
Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" They left the city and were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour."
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world."

© New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved

NOTES ON THE READINGS

Old Testament
There is always more in the Biblical accounts than tends to meet the modern eye. It is always important to ‘read the fine print,’ so to speak. A couple of matters are worth exploring:
1. The need for water is underlined as more important than just the physical requirement for survival, though it is that as well of course
2. The constant complaint of the Israelites that they had left behind not so much the slavery as the rich foods.
3. And most to the point, note the place to which Moses was directed. It was Horeb, Mount Sinai the place where the Decalogue was given, and even the Law is associated with refreshment.
4. Ironically, the OT perception of water is also somewhat ambivalent. Jewish attitudes towards sea-water was different. The Red Sea and even the Mediterranean was often used as a symbol of evil! You never heard of many Jewish sailors, you may notice. Jonah, you say – and what was he doing?

Note also how Psalm 95 underlines the tension and ugliness of this incident – and the memory Israel retained long after of the bitterness of the dispute. Who would ever want to be a Moses?

Psalm
This Psalm was always set for Morning Prayer – a seldom used office these days, sadly enough. One the one hand there is great delight expressed in the worshipful psalm, and on the other, the bitterness recalled as Israel was always the reluctant recipient of salvation. ‘Salvation’ in early Biblical terms was always seen in terms of ‘room to move and grow,’ the opposite of the bitter slavery to which the Jews were under in Egypt. The Hebrews then were also ambivalent towards the Exodus- far safer to be back in Egypt, they reminisced, with food and water – even if the threat of extinction hang over them. What fools we mortals be!

Epistle
This passage shows up the NT equivalent, if you will, of the Exodus redemption. In fact, the Bible contains three examples of redemption: the Exodus, the Exile and the Cross. Each successive event took people further into the significance of what is salvation and where it takes one. And there is no hiding the likely hardships along the way. Discipleship, Old Testament or New, offers no bed of roses, or escape from reality. Notice the fascinating ‘steps and stairs’ of growth through hardship. In fact, there is no other way I know of to grow and mature than by working one’s way through all manner of difficulty. Easy living produces nothing but poor fruit!

GOSPEL
The Woman of Samaria.
I know of no short and easy way of unpacking this fascinating incident in the ministry of Jesus. Not only does it portray Jesus’ refreshing and true response to humans of whatever nature, but also His great capacity of working through all manner of encounters, leaving people a means of understanding both themselves and the faith far more realistically. Here is Gospel of word and action.

This lady of the night had gone to the well in the heat of the day, certain of encountering absolutely no one there. Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, so to speak. It would have been to her great shock and horror that, not only was she not alone, but there was a Jewish bloke there. She must have had a thick skin to keep moving to the well, as all she could expect would be mouthfuls of abuse or worse from such a man. The greatest surprise was that she did not. Jesus – as usual – ignored the usual Jew-Gentile hatreds.

Have you realised how disarming it would have been to have had Jesus actually put himself under an obligation to you, if you were in her shoes? It must have been breath-taking for her! No abuse; a request for help! Small wonder that this most interesting of conversations began. And – in quite usual Jewish manner, Jesus employed a subtle double entendre ¬ - not risqué but strong, about water. South Australians are aware of the value and importance of water, and anyone even slightly associated with the Outback is extremely aware. I know from experience: no water means not-so-slow death in high summer. Not a pretty sight.

As the conversation progressed it is noteworthy to consider how things operated. She would raise an issue, Jesus would respond and she would retreat. That, until He asked about her husband. That of course raised the question of her progressive polygamy, so to speak. She was the red light district of Sychar, and yet it was not that that raised Jesus’ interest. She was caught up in the widening vision of things, and that was the trigger for all the growth to come.

The interval following the return of the disciples from the local ‘McDonald’s’ was full of surprises for the Twelve. What in the name of fortune brought about Jesus’ involvement with the scarlet woman? And what did He mean about bread that they knew not of. The real surprise for everyone except Jesus and the woman was that the whole situation in that town was revolutionised. In spite of her low and questionable occupation, -- which almost certainly would have involved many of the local men, let’s face it – all concerned had the opportunity to leave behind a tawdry past and move towards a far more forgiving and saved future. Salvation here shows up as the old ‘room to move’ scenario, but room to move past a forbidding past.


NOTES FOR A SERMON

Water. In this driest State of the driest nation in the world, one does not need much imagination to value water very highly. I recall many years ago, talking to one of the Station owners in the Far North west of this State—now APY lands—where the hygrometer never reached up as far as zero. It was in 2—4 inch rainfall country (when you got any at all) and the evaporation rate was 8 feet—96 inches a year. (2.5 mtrs for the young!)
You, of course are so used to turning on a tap—but even as a kid, when with grandparents, it was a case of having a bath on Saturday night whether you needed it or not, being first in line of about five or six or seven people. After the bath night, the water was used in the house garden, mostly on veges. Water!

So that rune of readings for today should rack up enormous interest, for anyone with any sense who knows that without food you can last six weeks with a bit of luck. Without water, a couple of days, if you are lucky.. Once again there is the true story of the busload of school kids coming down the Oodna Track many years ago. Bus broke down 5 miles from William Creek pub, so one of the teachers walked on to the pub—and never got there. And it was not even high summer. (Pages as per Advertiser a week or so ago.)

So put all that in the back of your mind as we recap those readings. Don’t go too crook at the Israelites in the desert—nor even that woman of Samaria going to the well. Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Mad dogs, Englishmen, and ‘red light women’ - the town pro.

She knew the value of water, and her need to go to the well when no one else was around. So it must have been a huge shock to find a Man at the well that noon. Jewish man at that, so she would have been ready to cop a huge rude mouthful—Jews and Samaritans were as close as Jews and Palestinians today.

I ask you to reads through the Gospel for today when you get home. And spend some time imagining the development of the conversation between Jesus and that woman Notice how Jesus began with that essential element for life. His request for a drink put Himself clearly as a fellow-human before anything else, and stunningly, under an obligation to that flossy, — and that would have surprised the insides out of her. Totally unexpected. So the conversation revolved around water.
Stop and see how gentle but how firm He was in allowing her to dictate the direction of the conversation, and how skilled He was in redirecting her however unwillingly into exploring her own personal needs.
It was not water that lady craved; it was love. Affection. Being needed and having a purpose. And our Lord was well aware of that, from the evidence right there in front of Him….

As the tale develops, you are not told the gory details of how that woman responded to Jesus, nor what it was she took from His unpacking of her and her needs. But it revolutionised first that lady, and then as you read, it affected the whole town of Sychar.
It was not so much a matter of Jesus telling her all about herself, but that He quite happily accepted all the good bits and bad about her, and released her from her rather ugly past. Read between the lines and see how stunningly and swiftly the process ran, largely because everyone affected faced reality, resolved the issues and moved on from there. All those blokes who came out to see Jesus would have been paying customers, one can assume, of the lady in red.

It is something that I keep pointing you to, as over the past few sermons, we have looked at the Eucharist and its confession and absolution for instance.

Stephen Fry, in a recent edition of QI on ABC TV, railed against religion—expletive deleted he was very rude. He claimed the only outcome was division. But look at what was happening there in that town of Sychar, Samaritan and all. What had, surely, been a hotbed of antagonisms, turned into a place of openness, trust, peace and acceptance. Judaism and Christianity both are designed to offer such difference. We miss the point entirely when we turn faith into religion. What this Faith is designed to do is to reunite people. Reconnect people, not divide, antagonize, alienate.

There is a future and a hope. So get on with it!!!!!!!!!!!
Sit up and take notice. ……...