The Third Sunday in Lent Year AA Sermon based on John 4:5-42
In the name of Jesus; amen.
There are some things we know about this woman that Jesus encounters at the well in Sychar.
She came to the well at noon, not the most ideal time to draw water from a well. The sun was at its peak and it would have been hot out. Women typically drew their water in the mornings when it was still cool out and used that time for fellowship with one another. They talked then, exchanged information and stories with one another.
Maybe something had happened that morning that forced her to go to the well later in the day, but we find out that she has been married many times and that now she is living with a man who is not her husband. That would not exactly have been what one would call socially acceptable back then. It would have carried a huge stigma whether or not her 5 husbands had divorced her or died. And it would have been an even bigger stigma that she was living with a man who she wasn’t married to.
Chances are that this woman was at the well at noon to avoid everyone else. Chances are that this woman was not looked highly upon by the rest of the people in Sychar. Chances are this woman was dried up and beaten up by the life that she lived.
When she gets to the well she discovers that someone else is there and we know some things about the man she encounters. He is a Jew in a Samaritan city. Jews didn’t fraternize with Samaritans over religious differences. Samaritans and Jews were both descended from Jacob who God renames Israel, but Samaritans didn’t recognize the Temple in Jerusalem as being the place where God resided and so they lived separately from the Jews.
Jewish men did not talk to strange women in public, in fact many of them didn’t even talk to women they knew in public. There were even Jewish men who would close their eyes if they even saw a woman in public.
Everything we know about this woman and this man would lead us to believe that there would be no exchange of words between them at the well, but they do talk and have one of the longest conversations recorded in the New Testament. And it isn’t a conversation about the weather either; this man gets personal with this woman, tells her things that others didn’t know, tells her things she didn’t know herself.
And what’s more, when they are done she is so empowered by what he has done and said that she leaves her water jar and goes to tell the people she works so hard to avoid all about him.
A simple, but not so simple conversation and a whole city is transformed.
Last week I went to a training session for clergy lead by the Naugatuck Valley Project which is a community organizing organization. Their whole philosophy is based upon the idea of building relationships in one on one conversations. Two people meet with one another and get to know each other and what’s important to the other person. After enough people have met with one another they begin to organize themselves around an issue in an attempt to create change.
When Jesus met with this woman he was doing a one on one. He didn’t just talk, though what he said was incredibly important, but he listened too. They talked about a common need: the need to quench one’s thirst in physical and spiritual ways.
One conversation and a whole community was changed because the woman went and talked to others, told them about what she and Jesus had talked about and then they wanted to talk to him too.
One conversation and many came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
So I want us to have some conversations with one another. (Find someone you don't know all that well and discuss the topic for 3 minutes.)
Topic: What are you thirsty for in your life? Has God helped to quench that thirst?
Now go and talk to others… Amen.
There are some things we know about this woman that Jesus encounters at the well in Sychar.
She came to the well at noon, not the most ideal time to draw water from a well. The sun was at its peak and it would have been hot out. Women typically drew their water in the mornings when it was still cool out and used that time for fellowship with one another. They talked then, exchanged information and stories with one another.
Maybe something had happened that morning that forced her to go to the well later in the day, but we find out that she has been married many times and that now she is living with a man who is not her husband. That would not exactly have been what one would call socially acceptable back then. It would have carried a huge stigma whether or not her 5 husbands had divorced her or died. And it would have been an even bigger stigma that she was living with a man who she wasn’t married to.
Chances are that this woman was at the well at noon to avoid everyone else. Chances are that this woman was not looked highly upon by the rest of the people in Sychar. Chances are this woman was dried up and beaten up by the life that she lived.
When she gets to the well she discovers that someone else is there and we know some things about the man she encounters. He is a Jew in a Samaritan city. Jews didn’t fraternize with Samaritans over religious differences. Samaritans and Jews were both descended from Jacob who God renames Israel, but Samaritans didn’t recognize the Temple in Jerusalem as being the place where God resided and so they lived separately from the Jews.
Jewish men did not talk to strange women in public, in fact many of them didn’t even talk to women they knew in public. There were even Jewish men who would close their eyes if they even saw a woman in public.
Everything we know about this woman and this man would lead us to believe that there would be no exchange of words between them at the well, but they do talk and have one of the longest conversations recorded in the New Testament. And it isn’t a conversation about the weather either; this man gets personal with this woman, tells her things that others didn’t know, tells her things she didn’t know herself.
And what’s more, when they are done she is so empowered by what he has done and said that she leaves her water jar and goes to tell the people she works so hard to avoid all about him.
A simple, but not so simple conversation and a whole city is transformed.
Last week I went to a training session for clergy lead by the Naugatuck Valley Project which is a community organizing organization. Their whole philosophy is based upon the idea of building relationships in one on one conversations. Two people meet with one another and get to know each other and what’s important to the other person. After enough people have met with one another they begin to organize themselves around an issue in an attempt to create change.
When Jesus met with this woman he was doing a one on one. He didn’t just talk, though what he said was incredibly important, but he listened too. They talked about a common need: the need to quench one’s thirst in physical and spiritual ways.
One conversation and a whole community was changed because the woman went and talked to others, told them about what she and Jesus had talked about and then they wanted to talk to him too.
One conversation and many came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
So I want us to have some conversations with one another. (Find someone you don't know all that well and discuss the topic for 3 minutes.)
Topic: What are you thirsty for in your life? Has God helped to quench that thirst?
Now go and talk to others… Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment