Jim Gill February 24, 2008
“Unlikely Evangelists”
John 4:1-30
INTRODUCTION (lead into introduction singing 2nd verse of Jesus loves me.. “Jesus loves me when I’m good, when I do the things I should. Jesus loves me when I’m bad, though it makes him very sad.”
Last week we saw a rabbi, named Nicodemus, who was even a seminary professor, seeking out Jesus in the cover of darkness. This week we shift to Jesus seeking out a layperson, a not exactly Jewish layperson who was also a woman.... and he did so in the cover of high noon.
Nicodemus came seeking Jesus at night because he didn’t want to be seen. Jesus made it a point to stop at a well in the heat of high noon to meet a woman who came at noon because she didn’t want to be seen. No self respecting woman would come to the well to draw water at the hottest part of the day. She went at noon because she assumed no one else would be crazy or ashamed enough to be there at that time of day.
I think most folks are familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan. This is the story of the bad Samaritan…and the Good Shepherd who came to seek and to save the lost, who loves folks (sung) when they’re bad, though it makes him very sad. Hear the word of the Lord from the gospel of John, chapter 4.
Let’s pray. Dear Lord, there have been times when we have all been bad. We have done things we know to be wrong. We have not done the right thing even when we knew it needed to be done. Yet you forgive us and you love us and you take us from forgiven to forever. We thank you for this story of Jesus reaching out to someone that was considered too far gone. We thank you that you did not go to that far gone conclusion with her or with us. As we meditate on this encounter this morning, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.
***
There once was a man who wasn’t particularly well educated and his manner was somewhat rough and crude. When he became a Christian he took the Lord's requirements seriously. He kept pestering his pastor to put him to work. He didn’t quite fit on any of their ministry teams though. He was too gruff to be a greeter. He hadn’t read the Bible enough to be a Sunday School Teacher. But he kept pestering the pastor to find something for him to do. Finally, the minister handed him a list of ten names with this explanation: "These are all members of the church, but they seldom attend. Some of them are prominent people in the community. Contact them about being more faithful. Here is some church stationary to write letters. Get them back in church."
The man accepted the challenge with rugged determination and enthusiasm. About three weeks later a letter from a prominent physician whose name had been on the list arrived at the church office. Inside was a large check and a brief note: "Dear Pastor, Enclosed is my check to help make up for my missing church so much, but be assured that I will be present this Lord's Day and each Lord's Day following. I will not by choice miss services again.
After the signature the Doctor added a postscript.
P.S. Would you please tell your secretary that there is only one `T' in dirty and no `C' in Skunk."
He was an unlikely evangelist; unlikely, but in at least the case of one doctor, one that produced a change for the better.
Every day a Pharisee like Nicodemus would pray this prayer. “I thank God that I am not a woman, Gentile or Samaritan.” When Jesus determines to take a rest stop by Jacob’s well, he reaches out to someone that is 2 and a half out of 3… She is a woman and a Samaritan, who was at best, half Gentile.
In our journey through the Bible in 90 Days we have just come through the part where the children of Israel were entering the Promised Land and conquering the “ites” right and left. (You know the Hittites, the Amelekites, the Jebusites and the Stalagmites and the Stalagtites). Time and again the Lord warned his children not to intermarry with the Gentile pagans that they were conquering for fear that they would be tempted to worship other gods. Some Jews settled in Samaria and they did not obey the Lord’s command. They intermarried with the Gentiles there and in so doing not only mixed bloodlines, but they incorporated elements of their Gentile spouses into their worship life. As a result, the Jews considered Samaritans as racially inferior, social outcasts, untouchables, and as people who practiced a false religion.
Interestingly enough though, both Jews and Samaritans claimed to be true descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Samaritans traced their family trees back to the Jews in the Northern kingdom of Israel while the Jews descended from the southern kingdom of Judah. It was the North against the South. Sound familiar?
The Jews believed Jerusalem was the only true place of worship, while the Samaritans located the true place of worship at Mt. Gerazim conveniently located for them in Samaria. In 128 B.C., the Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple at Mt. Gerazim. As you may well assume, this did not go over well with the Samaritans.
The hostility between the two groups was so great that Jewish travelers usually chose not to travel through the area where the Samaritans lived. Any close physical contact with a Samaritan, drinking water from a common bucket, eating a meal together, would make a Jew ceremonially unclean. Doing such would make the Jewish person unable to participate in temple worship for a period of time. The relationship between the Jews and Samaritans was very similar to the relationship between Jews and Palestinians today.
Jesus and his disciples have been traveling for some distance and he is tired and thirsty. His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. He sits down by a well known as Jacob’s well. A Samaritan woman comes to the well to draw water. Jesus says to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
Now, not only were there strict rules about Jews and Samaritans talking with one another, there were also rules about men and women conversing in public.
The Samaritan woman is surprised, and somewhat rude. She says to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”
Rodney King’s lament comes to mind here. “Can’t we all just get along?” If there was some way to remove hatred from human relationships, we could solve so many of the world’s problems. We may not agree with one another, we may not approve of one another, but must we hate one another? The greatest problem in our world today is not poverty or global warming. The greatest problem is the animosity between differing groups of people: Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, Protestants and Catholics, Sunnis and Shias, Red States, Blue States, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, Eastern Conference, Western Conference, PC(USA), CPC, PCA, EPC, ARP, (sung to the tune of Old McDonald)…E I E I O!)
Jesus reached out to the Samaritan woman. When she somewhat curtly turns aside his request for water, he turns a seemingly chance encounter into a chance to draw her out.
Jesus says to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
She responds to his offer: “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
And Jesus says to her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
I have no husband,” she replies.
Jesus says to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.”
“Sir,” the woman says, “I can see that you are a prophet.”
He was a prophet, all right, but he was different than any other prophet she would ever encounter. He was breaking all the cultural taboos. He was reaching out to a woman, a Samaritan woman, a Samaritan woman who had been married five times and who was now living with a man who was not her husband a repeat offender, a five time loser and well on her way to number six.
This is startling even to this day--not what it says about Jesus, but what it says about us. How did we as a faith community miss the Gospel so completely? How have we become so judgmental toward others? How have we allow ourselves to shut out those of whom we disapproved, when time and time again Jesus did exactly the opposite? What is wrong with us that we cannot love those for whom he died?
Anne Lamott, in her book Traveling Mercies, describes a time when a fellow church member told about adopting her son through an organization called ASK, Adopt Special Kids. Part of the adoption process included filling out a questionnaire checking yes or no to one’s willingness to adopt babies that had been born addicted, terminally ill, with physical “defects,” or mental disabilities. She and her husband had checked down the list. Lamott’s pastor said that God, too, is like an adoptive parent who says, “Sure, I’ll take the kids who are addicted, or terminal. I pick all the retarded kids and of course the sadists. The selfish one, the liars . . . I choose them. I choose the disobedient ones and the terrified ones, the self-indulged ones and the trouble-makers, the damaged ones and the unlovable ones. In love, I choose them all. I will be a parent to them all. I will end their separation and bring them home to me.” (1)
That’s the Gospel, friends. That’s the Good News. God’s grace is available to all. To the immoral and the amoral, to the Arab and the Jew, to the native and to the immigrant, to (singing) red, brown and yellow black and white they are precious in His sight…. Jesus loves the little children, and the growing teenagers and the hopeful young adults and the slowing middle-agers, the suddenly singles, the empty nesters, and, and the surging seniors of the world. What did we read last week? God so loved the WORLD that he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent NOT his son into the world to condemn the world but that through him the WORLD might be saved!
You see, not only are we blinded by our prejudices toward people like the Samaritan woman with her unseemly lifestyle, we are also blinded to the fact that we are as bad as a bad Samaritan. We all have fallen short of the grace of God, but God has checked the list that he is willing to adopt even us anyway.
We didn’t read it but I encourage you to later take a look at verses 31-42. Jesus’ disciples return and are surprised to find Jesus talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
When the disciples arrive the woman left her reason for coming in the first place. She left her water jar and went back to the town full of people she didn’t want to see her at high noon and says to them, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” And the Gospel of John tells us that the people came out of the town and made their way toward Jesus. Long before Peter recognizes Jesus for who he is this five time loser well on the way to six Samaritan woman becomes another unlikely evangelist.
John concludes this story of the Samaritan woman like this: Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” God so loved the WORLD that includes a seminary professor at night and a Samaritan woman at noon.
Jesus hasn’t stopped reaching out to Bad Samaritans. He hasn’t stopped making them into Good Samaritans. He is reaching out to dirtty skunks and to people who are reaching out to dirtty skunks who can’t spell dirtty scunk. He has reached us and is calling us to reach others. Jesus has started this church for the express purpose of sharing his love and making us into unlikely evangelists as well. If the woman at the well can do it anyone can.
One of the distinct emphases of our Reformed faith is the concept of the priesthood of all believers. We believe that that there is no need for a middle man in our relationship with God. Jesus is our middle man and because of his sacrifice we are all able to go to God directly through him and not some other human being. As a result there is no hierarchy between preachers and elders and church members. One of the essential tenets of the Presbyterian Church is the principle that at every presbytery meeting there are an equal number of ministers and elders voting. We are all equal in value in God’s eyes. We are to pray for each other and to care for each other and to lift up each other. However had you ever thought about your calling to be a priest to those who do not know Jesus yet? Have you thought about the bad Samaritans at high noon at the wells in your neighborhood? Pray that God will bring someone to your watering hole this week and that your asking them for a drink will lead to whole fields of folks coming out to meet Jesus and spend the rest of their lives with him. Pray that God will continue to increase our growing group of unlikely evangelists.
Let’s pray. Dear Jesus. Thank you for seeking us out. Thank you for making a special trip to see to it that you had a divine encounter with this precious woman. Thank you for making a special trip to encounter each one of us. May we take to heart your example. May we give up on judging a book by its cover or a person by their past. May we see others with evangel eyes, through the eyes of the gospel, the evangel, the good news that no one is too far gone to be beyond your love and mercy and grace.
Lord, free us from our prejudices and our tendency to judge others without knowing them. Make us thankful for every follower of yours that you have sought out and rescued. May the prayer of St. Francis become our prayer.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Hear now the prayers of those gathered in this place this day.
------------------------------------------------------
1. (New York: Anchor Books), pp. 254-255.
