Sermon for Lent 2 Narrative

John 12:1-8

Last week, we heard the incredible story of Jesus declaring that he is the resurrection and the life, and then demonstrating that by raising Lazarus from the dead. Before we get into today’s story, there is a plot development at the end of chapter 11 in the Gospel of John that we need to fill in. Because Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, John tells us, many of the people there believed in Jesus. But some went and told the Pharisees what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a council, and in that council expressed their fear that if they let Jesus keep going as he was, then he would gain a following and the Romans would come in and destroy the temple and the country of Judea. The high priest, Caiaphas, then declares that it will be better for one man to die than for the whole country to be destroyed. And from this moment on, the leadership begins to actively plot to have Jesus put to death. So Jesus withdraws from that area to a town called Ephraim, in the north, near the wilderness, and stays there. But as the Passover approaches, the people begin to go to Jerusalem, and they start to ask among themselves whether or not Jesus will come. They also know that there are orders out for anyone who sees Jesus to report him to the authorities, so that they can arrest him. John is building up the suspense of the story.

And now we come to today’s story, where Jesus returns to Bethany and eats with Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and many others. This is a very interesting story with layers of meaning that don’t always come through with our English translations. For one thing, this is a very intimate scene. A Jewish woman of good standing would not let her hair down in public. For another thing, washing another person’s feet is an act usually left to the slaves of a household; if you want to hear more about foot washing, please come to the Maundy Thursday service during Holy Week, where we will hear about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. For Mary to anoint Jesus’ feet with very fragrant and costly perfume in front of her sister, her brother, and many other guests there for dinner that evening would have caused outrage and offended sensibilities on many levels in that time and place.

But the main question in this story seems to be about how this perfume was used. The perfume that Mary had bought was indeed very expensive: three hundred denarii would have been about one full year’s wages for a laborer. In today’s dollars, think somewhere around $20,000 to $30,000. And so, I can kind of understand Judas’ very obnoxious, but ultimately self-serving, question: wouldn’t it have been better to sell the perfume and use this money to help the poor? Wouldn’t Jesus have been happier to have his feet anointed with something less expensive, and all of that money used to make other people’s lives on this earth better?

But let’s think back a moment. Jesus had just raised Mary’s brother, Lazarus, from the dead. And in that story, we know that Lazarus had been dead: dead for four days, so that, when Jesus commanded the people to open up the tomb, Martha protested that there would be a bad smell. There was no doubt that Lazarus was dead; there was no trick on anyone’s part. And Jesus did something that no human has ever been able to do: he restored life to a dead body, not in a horror movie/zombie type fashion, but full and abundant life. Lazarus was as he had been; it was as if he had never died. If someone restored your loved one back to life after he or she had been dead for four days, what would you give to that person? Wouldn’t you respond with all of the love and gratitude in your heart? Wouldn’t you devote your entire life to serving the person who saved your loved one from death? How much money would you spend for that person? Twenty thousand to thirty thousand dollars doesn’t seem like too much money now, does it?

However, we should not take Jesus’ comment about, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me,” to mean that we should stop working on behalf of the poor. The entire witness of the Scriptures says differently. Rather, it is simply this: Jesus knows that his time on this earth is short. He knows he is headed to Jerusalem to undergo a gruesome death on the cross. He knows that, when he is gone from this earth, his disciples will have all of the time in the world to help the poor. And so, in this moment, before he continues on to give his life for the world, he approves of Mary’s lavish and sensual act of devotion on his behalf. Mary is pouring out her life for him in love and in gratitude for him, just as Jesus will soon be pouring out his life, literally, on the cross for his love of humankind.

So, the question becomes, how do we devote our lives fully and completely to Jesus, to the one who has saved us from our sins? How do we give so completely of ourselves that our entire lives are marked by love of and service to Jesus? If we think that just coming to church on Sundays is going to do it, then we may need to rethink what we believe about Jesus. In his book, The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark traces, in a sociological manner, how Christianity went from a group of several disciples after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus to becoming the religion of the empire. And one of the arguments that he makes has stuck with me. He makes the case that, when an epidemic of illness hit, the Christians showed their love for one another and for the non-Christians around them by nursing those who were sick. In the process, the Christians themselves often became sick and died. For the Christians, this was simply what they did out of love and devotion to Jesus, and they were not afraid of dying in the process. For the non-Christians around them, this was something so new and different that they had to find out more about this faith for themselves. And thus, Christianity gained new converts.

When the message of the culture around us is that we need to have more and more stuff in order to be happy, how do we proclaim the counter-cultural message of Jesus: that we find our lives only when we lose them in service to others? And how do we do this in a way that others will be drawn to want to know more about this man, this Son of God, who gave himself away so that others might live? How do we witness to others that what we have is enough, and give ourselves away in costly devotion to Jesus?

If you’ve grown up in the Lutheran church, I hope that you’re getting uncomfortable right now. Lutherans teach that there’s nothing that we can do to earn God’s love, and that is the absolute truth. We have God’s love already and nothing we do is going to earn it, and nothing we do is going to earn us a place in heaven. We have it already. But, we also hear from the Holy Scriptures that faith without works is dead. If it were John talking about this, he would phrase it in terms of love: if we claim that we love Jesus because Jesus first loved us, then that love should be showing in our actions. As the old song has it, they’ll know we are Christians by our love. So, my question to you today is: How do you show that you love Jesus? Well, here are some suggestions for you to consider:

Giving back to God what God has first given to us. Mary showed her devotion to Jesus by anointing his feet with a very expensive perfume. If a stranger were to come upon your checkbook and open it before she gave it back to you, would she be able to tell that you love Jesus? Are you giving to the church? Are you giving to groups that help other people in ways that God has commanded us to? What about if a stranger were to come across your calendar and open it up before giving it back to you? Would he be able to tell that you love Jesus by the places you go and how you spend your time? Could you give more of your time, talents, and treasure to serve God than you are doing right now?

What about the time that you spend in prayer? Now this can be considerably more private, because it is about the relationship that you have with God. But even so, there are ways to pray for others in public that can be a good witness to others without being obnoxious about it. For example, if you are having a conversation with someone else, and they are relating some struggles they are having to you, you can ask them if they would like to pray about it. If they say no, that’s fine—let it go and pray for them on your own time. But if they say yes, take a moment and pray together. Yes, it might feel awkward at first, but God knows what’s in your hearts and will hear you.

With these suggestions and with other ideas that you may come up with, it’s also important to examine your motivations. What you do to show your love for Jesus is not so that you just look good to everyone else—it should be a genuine act of devotion to show your love and gratitude for what Jesus has done for you. Mary of Bethany certainly did not do what she did to make a spectacle of herself, even if that’s what others thought she was doing. But the life of a Christian was never meant to be one of comfort and ease. The life of a Christian is a commitment to walk the path that Jesus has set before us. Jesus’ path meant crucifixion, death, and resurrection. While the path that he has set before us may not mean literally dying for the faith in Jesus, it does mean a commitment to a life that will entail hardship for the faith that we have. But it also means great joy as well as great pain, for in giving our lives away for others, we can see the joy that Jesus gives to the world through us. So do not be afraid—give of yourselves abundantly and joyfully for Jesus’ sake and for the sake of the world. Amen.

 

 

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Sermon for Narrative Lectionary Week 24

John 11:1-44

This week, we move from the healing of the man born blind, to Jesus being the Good Shepherd that we heard on Ash Wednesday, and now to the raising of Lazarus from the dead. In the Gospel of John, Jesus reveals who he is, not only through the signs that he does, but through several statements where he starts the sentence with the words, “I AM”. Unfortunately, our readings on Sundays have not covered those statements until today, so I will give you a list of what Jesus has said up to this point. In chapter 6, he says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” In chapter 8, he says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” In chapter 10 he says, “I am the gate for the sheep. . . . Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” And finally, also in chapter 10, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” In these statements, we find that Jesus has come to bring us nourishment, light, and protection. And in today’s chapter, we hear what I think is the ultimate revelation of who Jesus is: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Jesus has come to bring life, and when he brings life, he brings it so abundantly that life can spring forth even out of death.

So, let’s take a look at this story in some more detail. Last year, I went to see Disney’s live action version of Beauty and the Beast. Towards the end of the story, the last petal falls from the rose. The beast seems to die, and all of the talking furniture becomes real furniture, instead of turning back into the servants like they would have if the curse had been lifted. And as this moment of the curse becoming permanent seemed to go on for a few beats too many, I sat on the edge of my seat, saying to myself, “Come on, Disney, you’re all about happy endings. Let’s get on with it already.” And, in the end, the curse is lifted, as we expect it to be. But the reason I thought about that moment when all hope seemed to be lost as I was preparing for today’s sermon is this: I wonder if this is the kind of thing that Mary and Martha felt as they watched their brother Lazarus become ill. As his illness worsened and Lazarus grew closer to death, I can see them hopefully, then desperately, watching the door to their house, expecting Jesus to come in at any moment and heal Lazarus. After all, Jesus had healed a lot of other people whom he barely knew. Why shouldn’t he come and heal Lazarus, whom he knew and loved? And then, as the spirit of life slowly leaves Lazarus, and Jesus doesn’t come, the last spark of hope is extinguished. Lazarus is dead, and even though Jesus can do many extraordinary things, the sisters clearly are not expecting Jesus to be able to raise the dead.

I think that we have all experienced these emotions at one time or another. We have been there with Martha, who looks at Jesus and says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” We have been at funerals where we have heard the preacher say that our loved one will rise again on the last day, and we know, in our minds, that this is correct theology, and our minds trust that theology, but it doesn’t really help when we are in the midst of our grief and we are crying out from the raw pain of acknowledging that the one whom we loved is dead, and we will never see that person again in our life. And, like Mary, we have all been in a place where we throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet, say to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” and then weep uncontrollably. This is the reason that today’s story still speaks to us: we look back at this 1^st century family, a family who believed Jesus could heal their brother if he would just come, and we know that their emotions are still our emotions so many centuries later. For all of our modern technological advancements, we have still not been able to conquer death. And the feelings that surround the death of someone we love are still the same down through all the years and in different areas of the world.

But Jesus is, indeed, the resurrection and the life, and he proves it by raising Lazarus from the dead. Not long ago one of my pastor colleagues said this, “Lazarus didn’t come back to tell us heaven is for real.  He was raised to show us Jesus was for real.” This story is not about someone coming back from the dead to tell us that there is a heaven and that it’s going to be glorious. No, this is a story to show us, once and for all, that Jesus is the Son of God, and that through believing, we may have life in his name. Jesus is for real, and Jesus gives us hope for life, even in the midst of death.

The problem becomes this: we are all still going to die. We heard that on Ash Wednesday when I and Pastors Chuck and Victoria marked everyone with the sign of the cross in ashes on their foreheads: For dust you are, and to dust you will return. Even those who believe in Jesus will one day die; we know that eventually, Lazarus did die again, along with his sisters Martha and Mary. So what does Jesus mean when he says those who believe in him will never die? It means that he, and he alone, has the power to defeat death, and those who trust in him have that promise of eternal life, not just after we die, but starting right now.

So, for us Christians, this puts our grief in perspective. We are confident that Jesus knows our sorrows and understands, for this is the other big part of this story: When Jesus sees Mary weeping, and all of those around her weeping, he first of all becomes angry, and second of all, he begins to weep. When our translation says that Jesus was greatly disturbed in spirit, the Greek literally says that he snorted in anger, kind of like the snorting of a great warhorse. Perhaps Jesus was angry at death; after all, death was not the original plan for creation. Or perhaps he was angry at himself for having to delay coming to this family whom he loved. After all, it’s all well and good to know, in theory, that you’re going to raise Lazarus from the dead and that it’s all for God’s glory. But when Jesus is confronted by the real pain and suffering that Martha and Mary are experiencing, he becomes angry at himself. And then, finally, he is overcome by the crying around him, and Jesus begins to weep. In movies that have portrayed Jesus’ life, when it comes to this point of the story, they show Jesus shedding one or two elegant tears, as if even that’s too much emotion for the holy Son of God to show. But that’s not what the Greek says. The Greek word used here for weeping means that Jesus had a big, ugly cry, with red eyes and running nose. And that’s how I want us all to picture Jesus when we are mourning someone we love: if we’re having a big ugly cry, then you can bet that Jesus is, too.

This week, our nation mourned again as we witnessed another school shooting that resulted in 17 people being killed. And of course, now the political fallout begins. Is lack of mental health care to blame? Or is it because we need to tighten up gun restrictions? Well, my personal belief is that we need to both improve how we keep an eye on one another and improve access to mental health care, as well as tighten up gun laws. But I’m not going to go deeper into the debate than that right now. What I want to say is this: Jesus is snorting in anger when he sees that people are dying because of this situation. He is snorting in anger that so many people saw signs that this young man was disturbed but could not seem to do anything to get him the help he needed. He is snorting in anger because we seem to lack the willpower to do anything substantial to prevent this from happening again. It seems as though death is winning, even when those who believe in Jesus know that he came to bring us life.

But we also know this: Jesus is weeping with those who mourn. He is having a big ugly cry with all of those parents who have lost their children. He is with the family of Aaron Feis, the assistant football coach who was killed when he threw himself in front of students to protect them from the oncoming bullets. Whether he knew it or not, Coach Feis was imitating the Good Shepherd himself when he laid down his life for those children. Jesus is weeping with all of these people, and he is mourning with all of those across this country who mourn for the people in Parkland, Florida. And we can take comfort from that.

But you know what the even better news is? Jesus does not leave us in the grief and anger in which he finds us. He continues to give us hope: hope that in a culture of death, life will break through and death will one day be conquered. When we are focused on Jesus, we trust that yes, he does have the power to raise us from the dead, and yes, eternal life has already started for us.  When we are focused on Jesus, we are focused on living that abundant life that he brings us here on earth, and thoughts of death and of heaven flee into the background.  When we are freed from thoughts of death, we are freed to love and to serve one another, even to the point of giving up our life for one another, if it comes to that.  And God will come to us in the best way possible to speak to us and to show us what God would have us do, unbinding us from our fears, and setting us free to live life abundantly in Jesus.  The only question is, now that we are free from fear and from death, how is God loosing us to love and serve one another?  The possibilities are endless.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

Sermon for Ash Wednesday

John 10:1-18

 

Welcome to Good Shepherd Sunday—on Ash Wednesday. We here at St. John’s, and also at Salem, have been trying something new, and have been following the narrative lectionary. We entered into this on the Year 4 cycle, which focuses on the Gospel of John, and we have been going through the Gospel of John somewhat in order for the last several Sundays. I will admit that when I saw that the text the narrative lectionary had assigned for Ash Wednesday was the text about the Good Shepherd, my initial reaction was a bewildered, “Huh?” And I did seriously consider changing it back to the Revised Common Lectionary, with its text from Matthew which says to pray, give alms, and fast in secret, even though it would mean yet again struggling to reconcile that reading with the fact that we’re putting big ugly ash crosses on one another’s foreheads. But then I took a second look at the John reading and saw this verse: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” And I realized that this is, after all, what we’re supposed to be focusing on during Lent: Jesus laying down his life for us. Now I’m wondering why the Revised Common Lectionary assigns this text for the fourth Sunday of Easter.

Lent is a time when we focus on what Jesus did on the cross for us, and it is a time when we examine ourselves and find that yes, we are still sinful human beings and as such, that we miss the mark in many ways. And when we hear this portion of the Gospel of John, the image that we get in our heads most likely comes from paintings of Jesus as the kindly shepherd, perhaps with a lamb on his shoulders, and with kind-hearted, white, fuzzy sheep frolicking around him. In fact, if you look up at our stained-glass window over the balcony, that’s exactly the image that I’m describing. Well, I’m here to tell you that sheep are not like that at all. Richard Swanson, in his book, Provoking the Gospel of John, describes sheep like this: “. . . to anyone who has worked closely with sheep, it is not a compliment to say that we are the sheep of God’s pasture. Sheep will graze a pasture to the ground and will then eat the roots of the grass, making a desert, unless a shepherd moves them along. Sheep will bloat themselves to death on green alfalfa, lacking the sense to stop eating even when their stomachs start to swell. Sheep are rude, they smell bad, and they leave a sticky slick coating on everything they rub up against so that you come away wondering what the attraction of lanolin in hand lotion might be” (p. 269).

What does it mean for us to be sheep? Well, we like to think of ourselves as those cute and fluffy animals who are so sweet that we see in our pictures of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. And most of the time, we delude ourselves into thinking this is so. But Lent is a time to come clean and acknowledge that we are more like those creatures that Swanson describes so poetically for us: greedy, smelly, and not too bright. It is a time for us to acknowledge that there is something deeply wrong in each of us, and we each have the potential to violate God’s law in the worst of ways. As an example of that self-examination: I have been working my way through the wildly popular cable TV series, “Game of Thrones”. And part of me is appalled at myself that I am still watching this show, because it is probably the most graphically and gratuitously violent thing I have ever seen. I tell myself that I still watch it because the story is compelling and because I want to see who is going to finally end up sitting on the Iron Throne. But what if I’m deluding myself? What if, on some level, I am enjoying the violent side of it as well? What if, deep down, I’m not as good of a person as I imagine myself to be?

Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” What does it say about Jesus that he wants to be our shepherd? I have a friend whose father raised sheep, and she told me a story about how one day he came in to the house, fully exasperated with whatever the sheep had done that day, and said, “The only thing dumber than sheep is the man who raises them.” Is Jesus dumber than we are? Well, I don’t think so. But I do think that he has compassion on us. The Gospels tell us in several places that Jesus has compassion on the crowds because “they were like sheep without a shepherd”. And that compassion that Jesus has and that love for us means that Jesus knows us completely: the good, the bad, and the ugly, and he loves us in spite of all that. His love for us is so immense that he is willing to suffer violence at the hands of his sheep and to give his life so that these sheep—us—might live.

This year for Lent, I invite you to contemplate Jesus as the good shepherd, willing to give his life for us dirty, smelly, violent sheep. Many of us will be taking on extra disciplines during these 40 days, such as fasting from something, praying or studying more, and giving money or time to good causes. And that is all good—as long as you remember the reason that you are doing it. If you’re just doing it to have an answer to someone when they ask you, “What did you give up for Lent?” then that’s not a good reason to engage in this discipline. But, if you are doing it to remind you of what Jesus has done for us, how he laid down his life for us, and to grow in your love for him, then do take on that extra discipline this Lent. Jesus is the good shepherd who loves us so much that he lays down his life for us. What awesome love that is, and what a good thing to hold in front of us as we enter the season of Lent. Amen.

 

Sermon for Narrative Lectionary Week 23

John 9:1-41

This week, we have gone from the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well to the story of Jesus healing the man born blind. There are several chapters of the Gospel of John in between that we have suddenly skipped over, so I’d like to fill you in on what Jesus has been doing in the meantime. After Jesus and his disciples leave Samaria, they go back to Cana in Galilee, where Jesus heals the son of a royal official who lies ill in the town of Capernaum. From there, they return to Jerusalem, where Jesus heals a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, and the Jewish officials start plotting to kill Jesus because he was violating the prohibition against work on the Sabbath. Then Jesus teaches the people about who he is in relation to the Father: that he can do nothing on his own, but does what his Father commands him to do. Next, we find Jesus back in Galilee, where he feeds the five thousand and walks on water, after which he teaches the crowds more about who he is and says that he is the bread of life. Because of his teachings, and especially because he says that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will have eternal life, many in the crowd stop following him, but the twelve still stick with him. Next, Jesus goes back to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths, goes up into the Temple, and teaches the crowds. Officers are sent to arrest Jesus, but they start listening to him and they don’t arrest him. We then have a short interruption with the story of the woman caught in adultery, where Jesus tells those who want to condemn her, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” We then find Jesus continuing his teaching in the Temple, including one of his I am statements: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” As we enter into today’s story of the healing of the man born blind, keep that “I am” statement in mind, because I think this healing story is, in part, an extended object lesson on what it means for Jesus to be the light of the world.

But first, some things about this story that need to be said. Jesus and the disciples encounter a man who was born blind. And the first thing the disciples ask Jesus is, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” And Jesus tells the disciples that no one did anything wrong. We like to think that we are past that kind of thinking today—that God is somehow punishing people by making them sick. But we have our own version of this theology today that’s running around in some Christian circles. You might have heard some people say that, when a person becomes ill or when a person dies from an illness, it was because that person did not have enough faith or did not pray hard enough. If you’ve said it in the past, I want you to never, ever say it again. If you hear someone say that, I want you to tell that person to stop talking right now. God does not punish people for sins by making them sick. And God does not refuse to heal a person because the person “doesn’t have enough faith”. Even when we have faith in God, sometimes bad things happen. We are mortal and we will all die eventually. We cannot ask why, because we don’t know the mind of God. But death and disease don’t happen because of a person’s lack of faith.

The next thing that needs to be said about this story is that the argument among the Jews in this story is not necessarily a bad thing. I met a Jewish person once who told me that “where there are two Jewish people gathered together, you will find three opinions.” In the Jewish faith, argument and discussion about God’s law are a part of being faithful to God. It’s like a marriage relationship: You are confident that your spouse loves you. But, you have rules in the house that help you get along with one another in daily life. You don’t follow the rules in order to make your spouse love you; you follow the rules in order to show love and respect for your spouse. And sometimes, the rules need to be reinterpreted or renegotiated in light of new circumstances in your life. So it is with God: the Jewish people know that God loves them, and they want to show God love and respect by being as faithful to the law as possible. The third commandment says to remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy by doing no work on that day. The main argument in this chapter of John results from the fact that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day. Healing was considered to be work, so the Pharisees believe that Jesus has violated the Sabbath, and thus is a breaker of that law given by God. But, this healing resulted in a good thing: the man who was blind can now see. So, the question becomes this: would God allow a good thing to come out of someone breaking God’s law by healing on the Sabbath? This is why the Pharisees are having such an extended discussion about what has happened to this man.

We might answer this question with, “Yes, of course God would allow good to happen even if God’s law is technically violated.” That is also the verdict of John, who tells how Jesus takes in this man whom he has healed when the man testifies that Jesus has done a good thing and the Pharisees end up kicking him out of the synagogue. But that does leave us with an ethical question to ponder, “Do the ends always justify the means?” As an example, when the atomic bombs were dropped in Japan in 1945, they did bring World War II to an end much more swiftly than would otherwise have happened. But, in the process, they killed many people and caused many others to suffer illnesses resulting from the radiation. And, dropping those bombs started a nuclear arms race that we are still dealing with today. Did the end goal of bringing World War II to an end justify the means of dropping the atomic bomb?

Well, that’s a question for us to ponder another time. And I think the original question, that of Jesus violating the Sabbath in order to heal the man born blind, is not necessarily the point that John is trying to make here. In verse 5 of today’s chapter, Jesus says, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” This is what he is demonstrating by healing the man who was born blind: he is bringing light into this man’s world, where the man had previously known only darkness. So then, what does it mean for Jesus to heal our spiritual blindness? When we sing the words in the hymn, “Amazing Grace”, “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see,” what does that mean?

I’m sure many of you have your own personal stories about how Jesus has enabled you to see things you haven’t seen before, and to deepen your faith in him. I encourage you to tell those stories to your friends and to people you meet who are interested in why you believe what you do. Those personal stories make all the difference in bringing people to faith in Jesus. But today I would like to suggest something that is on a larger scale. Our society today is polarized and, despite some recognition of that and some work to make more connections between people, our society is in danger of becoming even more fragmented. Each of us, and I’m including myself in this as well, go into our own “tribes” and think we are right in our viewpoint and everyone else is wrong. A glance at the letters to the editor section in the newspaper will tell you this. And I know that it’s difficult for me to read an opinion piece in the newspaper that has the opposite point of view from my own. I tend to get a few lines into it and then either throw the paper down or move on to something else.

If Jesus were to return today—not in glory, as we hope and expect him to do—but as he came the first time, as a member of our society who teaches us about God, he would not be Republican and he would not be Democrat. He would be neither completely socially conservative nor would he be completely socially liberal. He would not take political sides, but he would be on the side of abundant life. As the light of the world, Jesus would shine his light on those dark corners of our society that do not give life but rather suppress it. For those who claim that they clearly see how things should be, he would name them as blind. And for those who admit that they are blind, Jesus would enable them to see.

Where are we blind and where do we see?  To use a more immediate example: we know that homelessness is an important issue, and some of us give to causes that support people who are homeless. But for those of us who volunteered when St. John hosted Family Promise in January, our eyes were opened to see real life examples of what homelessness looks like, and we wanted to help out even more. I think Jesus was there and helped remove our blindness that week. And if you weren’t able to volunteer last month, St. John’s is hosting Family Promise again in April and I would encourage you to sign up for that. When Jesus removes our blindness, he enables us to have compassion on others and to walk with them through life more easily.

And in the end, that’s what Jesus being the light of the world is about. When Jesus heard that the Pharisees had thrown the man whom he had healed out of the synagogue because he had testified to Jesus’ power, Jesus found the man and invited him into a new community—the group of people who had faith in him and who believed that Jesus was the Son of God. When Jesus removes our blindness, we may have a rough time as we try to communicate what we have seen with those who still do not see. We may be ostracized and we may no longer fit in with our polarized tribes who think one way and are unwilling to see where they may be blinded. Our call, though, is to follow Jesus and to ask that our eyes may be opened in areas where we are blind, and then to testify to others about the one who has opened our eyes. And we have no reason to be afraid, for Jesus is with us through it all. Amen.

Sermon for Narrative Lectionary Week 22

John 4:1-42

This week, we move from Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus at night to Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well at high noon. But, before we leave Nicodemus behind, I’d like to say a couple more things about him that I did not say last week. While Nicodemus came to speak with Jesus and to try to find out who, exactly, Jesus was, it is not clear by the end of the encounter whether Nicodemus learned anything or came to believe in Jesus. The encounter ends very unsatisfactorily; we hear what Jesus taught Nicodemus, but we don’t hear any response from Nicodemus or what he did next. At the end of chapter 7, Nicodemus reappears briefly as the authorities are arguing over whether Jesus should be believed in or not, and he says, “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” So we know that Nicodemus, while maybe not quite believing in Jesus or understanding what he learned from Jesus that night, was at the least a just man who wanted to give Jesus more of a hearing in order to understand him better. Then, the last time we see Nicodemus, it is after Jesus is crucified, when he and Joseph of Arimathea take Jesus’ body and bury it. Nicodemus brings a hundred pounds of spices to anoint Jesus’ body, so we can gather that, whatever else Nicodemus believed about Jesus, he did not believe that Jesus was going to rise from the dead.

Today, we hear the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well, and the contrast between this encounter and the encounter with Nicodemus could not be more pronounced. Whereas Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, the Samaritan woman meets Jesus at the well in broad daylight. Whereas the encounter with Nicodemus does not have a clear outcome, the meeting with the Samaritan woman has a clear and joyful result. So, let’s take a look at this story in some more detail.

Let’s first take a look at the setting of this story: a well. Why is this important? For those of you who went to Sunday school growing up, what stories do you remember that involved a meeting at a well? Here are some examples: Abraham sends his servant back to the old country to find a wife for Isaac, and the servant meets Rebekah at the well. Rebekah gives water to him and his camels, and the servant proposes marriage to her on behalf of Isaac, and she accepts. Later in the story of Genesis, Rebekah’s son Jacob returns to the old country, fleeing for his life from his brother, Esau, and stops at a well, where he meets Rachel and falls in love with her. Generations later Moses, fleeing for his life from Egypt, winds up at a well in Midian, where he defends Zipporah and her sisters from bandits threatening them, and later in the story, marries Zipporah. In Jewish culture at this time, when a man meets a woman at a well, it’s the beginning of a love story. And a love story is likely what John’s congregation was expecting to hear when Jesus comes to a well and meets a Samaritan woman there.

But, this is not an ordinary love story. Like the story of Abraham’s servant and Rebekah, Jesus begins the conversation by asking the woman for a drink of water. Instead of giving him a drink, she stands there, looks him up and down, and says, “You are a Jewish man and I am a Samaritan woman. And you’re asking me for a drink?” In a side note, John tells us that “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.” There is a long history of why the Jews and the Samaritans did not get along. If you can remember back when we were talking about the prophets before Christmas, I mentioned in one sermon that the Assyrian Empire had come in and conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. They scattered the ten tribes of Israel who had been living in the north and brought in other displaced peoples to settle there. And so, the Jewish people in the south, the ones who had returned from exile in Babylon in 639 BC, encountered these Samaritans when they returned. The Samaritans believed that they were the true people of Israel and worshiped the right way, while the returning exiles believed that they were the ones who were the heirs to the land and to God’s promises; who believed that they worshiped the correct way at the restored Temple in Jerusalem, and who looked down their noses at the Samaritans. For Jesus to speak with a Samaritan woman had less to do with male and female and more to do with Jewish and Samaritan. And when John says that Jews and Samaritans do not share things in common, one of the things that he means by that is that Jews and Samaritans do not intermarry. So, if this is a love story, it’s not going to go how John’s congregation is thinking it’s going to go.

Jesus then has a long theological discussion with this unnamed Samaritan woman. This is remarkable, but maybe not for the reasons that you might think. There was no reason that Jesus couldn’t be talking with women, which some interpreters say. We have other stories where Jesus speaks with women and no one remarks on it; Mary and Martha, for example. This conversation is remarkable because the Samaritan woman gets what Jesus is about probably before the Jewish men in the story do. This Samaritan woman knows her theology and she knows how she and her people worship. She holds her own in this theological discussion. And the moment that she gets who Jesus is, she runs and tells everyone in her village.

And, one more note about this. Many interpreters of this passage like to say that this woman was “immoral,” or at least “loose,” because she had five husbands and she’s living with someone now to whom she is not married. Things were different in 1^st century Palestine than they are now. Women then had no control over who they married; their families were the ones who arranged the matches and married them off. Furthermore, men could divorce women but women could not divorce men. We don’t know what this woman’s story was. Perhaps her husbands died or perhaps they divorced her. We also don’t know why the man she was living with did not marry her, but she likely had little, if any, control over that either. And if she were loose or immoral, the people in her village would not have listened to her. But that’s not the case: they listened to this woman, then they came to hear Jesus for themselves, and they believed. This is evidently a woman with some status in her community, as well as being educated enough to have that theological discussion with Jesus.

So, I think this is a love story, as John intended his congregation to think it was, but it’s a very different kind of love story. This love story does not end with a wedding. It starts with Jesus crossing boundaries—a Jewish man crossing into a Samaritan village—to find his beloved, the descendants of the so-called lost tribes of Israel, and remind them of what they still had in common with the Jewish people who were descended from the exiles who returned from Babylon. They met at Jacob’s well—a reminder that both groups of people had their ancestor, Jacob, in common. They both had hopes for the Messiah. And Jesus comes to tell the Samaritan people that he is come and it is time for all of God’s people to worship God in spirit and in truth. This is a love story of Jesus searching out all parts of his beloved people from corners of the earth where most people would not dream of going.

And today, we are still part of that love story. Jesus has not only crossed the boundaries from Jewish to Samaritan, but also from Jewish to Gentile, which we are. He has searched us out and told us how much he loves us. He gives us that living water, too, so that all who thirst for that love will have their thirst quenched when they find rest and love in him. It doesn’t matter who you are or what’s happened to you in life, Jesus loves you no matter what and wants you to be a part of his beloved community. And not only does he want us, he wants us to bring others into this community so that they, too, might have their thirst for him quenched.

Isn’t that exciting? To be loved no matter what? To know that you are part of a beloved community whom God loves so much that he sent Jesus to die for us and to rise again, thus giving us the promise of the resurrection and eternal life? So why aren’t we behaving like the Samaritan woman, who ran back to her community and said, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” What are we afraid of? Jesus tells his disciples just a little bit later that the fields are ripe for harvesting. We have fields all around us in Oberlin and Steelton that are ripe for the harvest. We should be so excited that Jesus loves us that it’s all we can do to contain ourselves. We should be out there telling people about Jesus and about the community of people that Jesus has called together, from all walks of life, to be his beloved.

This week, look for opportunities in your daily conversations to talk about Jesus. Talk about your faith to others. Tell people why you come to church each week. Tell people about what Jesus has done for you. Tell people to come and see someone who knows you completely and intimately; someone who knows all of the good you’ve done and all of the bad you’ve done, and yet who still loves you. When you’re in love with someone, you want the whole world to know it, right? That’s the kind of attitude we should have when we tell others about Jesus—we are in love and we want everyone to know. That’s what the Samaritan woman did after meeting Jesus at the well on that long ago day. It is a love story, and that story continues on with us. Amen.