Podcast of "He Had to Go Through Samaria" (MP3)
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Lent is a journey, a time of preparation as we follow the movements of Jesus from the moment after he was baptized through his travels around Judea and Galilee to the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Lent ends with Jesus introducing the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, being betrayed by his disciple, dying on a tree, and rising from the tomb. Today the journey takes us through Samaria where along with the Lord we meet the woman at the well.
We start at verse five, “So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.” What a lovely sentence. It should remind us of Abraham and Sarah, and Joseph and his brothers.
This scene also harkens back to 1 Kings with the story of Elijah asking the widow of Sidon for a cup of water. Elijah and Jesus both interrupt the women’s daily chores seeking hospitality. It also takes us back to the betrothal stories of Abraham’s servant seeking a wife for Isaac in Genesis and Moses at the well of Midian finding a bride of his own in Exodus. In each of these stories water is used as a sign from the Lord, a sign of family and a sign of new family.
These vital images of the faith should play gloriously in our minds.
The problem with all of these glorious images is that they crowded my mind with too much wonder. So much that I had no idea where this morning’s sermon should go. I quickly realized that without a Sherpa there was no way I was going to get to the mountaintop, to the point of the story. Then realizing I’m your Sherpa; the awesome responsibility of preaching the Gospel became even more daunting today than it usually does.
The story of the woman at the well, the story of the living water, it’s a story Christians know very well. I know when reading it my eyes didn’t glaze over, but there was a familiarity I brought to the text, a familiarity that dulled my focus.
Yes, my mind drifted through the passage, and my drifting was reverent and glorious, but it was drifting all the same. This story is so well known that sometimes we Christians forget to really read it because we already know it.
One of the things you have probably noticed about my sermons is that I try to find a hook, a story or an illustration, that shines light on the reading. Sometimes the connection is very obvious, sometimes the connection is barely recognizable.
As I said, I had trouble finding this connection, and then a couple of days ago I read something that showed me what I needed, and I hope it helps you too.[i] It sent me to verse four, the verse before our reading this morning, the verse that starts the paragraph in our bibles. It says, “He had to go through Samaria.” That was it, “He had to go through Samaria.” Everything that follows happens because he had to go through Samaria.
It’s seemingly one of those lovely transition sentences that takes us from one bible story to the next. Except that it’s not a simple segue like “meanwhile back at the ranch.” There’s more to it than meets the eye.
This is when little questions entered my mind, things like why did he “have” to go through Samaria? I’ll get to that one in a couple of minutes.
Here’s an easier question, didn’t Jews avoid Samaria at all costs? Yes they did. The Jews avoided Samaria at all costs. Part of the irony of the story of the Good Samaritan is that in the day there was no such thing as a good Samaritan. To the Jews the Samaritans were the cousins from the wrong side of the tracks and as our reading says “Jews do not associate with Samaritans.”[ii]
Here’s another easy question, wasn’t there more than one way from Judea to Galilee, including one that avoided going through Samaria? This answer is yes to that one too. It’s because of this seedy Samaritan reputation there were several routes from Judea to Galilee avoiding Samaria all together. These roads took longer, but they were well worth it to the traveler that didn’t want to go to the wrong side of the tracks.
So when we read “he had to go through Samaria” we read it like a travelogue. When it was written nearly 2,000 years ago it was written to reflect a conscious choice and a scandalous one at that. This leads us back to the first question, why did he “have” to go through Samaria?
If he didn’t have to go through Samaria because there were other paths, and if Jews avoided Samaria why did he have to go through Samaria? The answer isn’t logistical, the answer isn’t tactical, the answer isn’t ancestral.
Why did he have to go through Samaria? He went to Samaria because that was where he was called to go. The answer is evangelical.
I have been asked by several folks for a report on the numbers of people in worship recently. Let me begin saying there is reason to rejoice. The average number of people in worship in October of last year was almost 31, this month the average is 42 people in worship. This is an increase of over 38 percent.
In 2009, we reported nine people participating in Christian Education. With four new Christian Education offerings in the past six months, we have filled twenty seats in these classes alone. Count the Women’s Circle that wasn’t counted in 2009 and this number is going way up.
According to Presbytery reports, over the past ten years, this congregation has celebrated ten infant baptisms and five adult baptisms, a full 20 percent of which we celebrated this year on Baptism of the Lord Sunday. Trust me when I say that people who look at numbers love increasing baptism and particularly increasing adult baptism numbers.
The Clerk of Session’s report to the denomination shows that we have as many members under the age of 45 as we do over the age of 65. This may not mean anything to you, but again to people who read the numbers it means a great deal. They love seeing numbers like these.
Our society also keeps score using dollars and cents too, so we should look at these numbers; and by my calculations the comparisons between offerings collected last October and this March is equally remarkable, offerings have increased by nearly 45 percent.
Now, I didn’t ask Neal to collect these figures, anyone with six months worth of bulletins could have assembled these numbers just like I did. My analysis doesn’t reflect whether these trends are normal either. For all I know, the attendance and offering trends I just cited happen every year. But I believe there is reason to celebrate. Especially since there are so many new faces in the congregation, this is a reason to shout for joy.
This means that there are people who are sharing the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ and inviting people to come and worship the Father in Spirit and truth, and this invitation has not fallen on deaf ears or still feet. People are sharing and people are coming. Like Jesus to the woman at the well the Good News is being shared, this is a reason to shout for joy.
But what should we be shouting? What is our joy? Our reading from Romans, the scripture I read at the beginning of worship today gives us an answer to that question.
We mustn’t celebrate that we are strong. We mustn’t celebrate that we are good. We mustn’t celebrate that God is on our side. If we boast we must boast about our access to the grace in which we stand. If we boast we must boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. If we boast we must boast in our sufferings; knowing suffering produces endurance that produces character that produces hope, and hope does not disappoint.
We can boast that while we were still weak, Christ died for all of us ungodly people. God demonstrates love for us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. We can boast that while we were still weak we have been justified by his blood and are saved from God’s wrath through Christ.
We can boast that we were enemies of Christ and while enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of the Son. And how much greater is our salvation that we are saved through his life and his death. This is how we have been reconciled to God, through the life and the work, through the death and blood of Jesus Christ.
Paul’s letter to the Romans teaches us that if we boast, we can only boast about who Jesus is and what he has done. The story at the well shows us how Jesus reaches out to those who have nothing to boast about, people who were society’s “others,” the “enemies.” At the well Jesus broke every rule in the book, but then again, whose rules are those?
Jesus dares all with ears to hear to reconsider what sustains us and its source. The Samaritans were so interested in finding the answers to these questions that they invited Jesus to stay with them so they could learn more about the word and the work and the life-giving water. This was not simple either, because Jesus chose to stay and eat and share God’s grace with the people his culture vilifies. Yet because Jesus went though Samaria, because Jesus chose to throw convention and the rules to the wind, many came to testify that he is the Savior of the world.
Jesus had to go through Samaria. Not because it was the easiest route, but because it was the most difficult. Jesus touches the untouchable yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Renewed by God through the Holy Spirit we receive the same assurance in this gift of living water, by which the great benefits of life through him in the waters of our baptism are set before our eyes to behold.[iii] This is something we can boast about.
This water, this work, this relationship is new and dangerous. Jesus showed that himself when he approached the Samaritan woman at the well. In each of these instances, social conventions went out the window and a new connection was forged. Based on those Old Testament well texts what Jesus was doing was not new to scripture. It was new to the mitzvah, the rules established by the Priests, the Pharisees, and the Scribes, but not to scripture. This new relationship was dangerous, but new relationships are always dangerous.
Lent is a journey. In this journey, Jesus went to places where few Jews dared to travel, he had to go through Samaria. He went there because it was the right place to go. He taught because it was the right thing to do. He went there to share his grace because this is his vocation.
Lent is a journey. It sends us to places we wouldn’t go without the grace and peace of Christ in our lives. Christ sends us places we wouldn’t go without faith and the hope that comes through faith.
Like I said earlier, the reason Jesus had to go through Samaria was evangelical. By the grace of God, through the faith our Lord shows in us, and by the hope our Lord gives us; we are called to follow these footsteps. We are called to visit our own little Samaria’s sharing the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The reason we are sent to do this, like Jesus was sent, is evangelical.
The Good News of the Gospel is that this congregation has been bringing in the harvest that was planted so long ago. The Good News of the Gospel is that we continue planting the seed of God’s Word so that the glorious harvest may continue. There are so many others who need to hear the word. Because people are still thirsty for the word like this Samaritan woman and her community, and we are to carry the living water to the world so that all may be quenched.
So yes, rejoice in growth of this part of the body of Christ, and boast in the one who makes all life possible. Drink from the font of living waters and share it with all around you.
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