Teresa's Sermon

(This sermon was written by Teresa Burns, our church's Commissioned Ruling Elder for Christian Education and Outreach. It would have been preached on March 15, but services ended up being cancelled because of the pandemic. Thank you, Teresa.)

Exodus 17:1-17 & John 4:5-42

These texts bring back special memories for me. These scriptures along with the creation story and the story of Moses and the Hebrews crossing of the red sea, are but a few that I have taught when we have gone to Guatemala and to Haiti on water system installations. I was lead for the spiritual and hygiene training aspect of the trips. These trips, specifically the ones to Haiti, wrecked me — mentally, emotionally and spiritually. You know the saying, “I can’t unsee that” — I spent years (and maybe still am) wrestling with the reality of my 1st world life in contrast to the 3rd world lives that I had been so readily welcomed into.

John 4:5-42 was the text I used in my first ever sermon - standing in front of our church family in Balan, Haiti, with an interpreter translating my hastily prepared thoughts. I was truly unprepared at the revelation the Holy Spirit poured out on me through that experience.

Three years later and another installation trip to Haiti with Marv Barnett and Larry Dunnavant to Mariannie, a town on top of what we would consider a mountain and I find myself looking at the town’s well, listening to the guys as they realize that the pump they used and the pump we would install couldn’t work together — the logistics of making sure the townspeople had access to the well along with the ability to get the raw water to the system was intense. And once again, I am teaching the creation story and the woman at the well to the adults who would be teaching their community about the importance of this clean water, reasons and procedures for hand washing and safe hygiene practices and the relation to the living water that Jesus offers. The timing of this story for me is profound - don’t you find it interesting — the similar discussions that we are promoting right here and now with trying to slow the spread of this virus - the reassurance that Jesus sees us and our uncertainty and fears and is hanging in there with us…

So back to Mariannie, after the class - Frazou, my interpreter, and the group sang a song about Jesus waiting by the well for you. Their voices, the interpretation, it was an extremely powerful ending that day!

I am not sure what you hear in this story OR what you have heard in the past but I want to share what I have come to realize is NOT in this story. Debi Thomas writes in her blog, Journey with Jesus, “that nowhere in the narrative is the Samaritan woman described as promiscuous. Nowhere does Jesus call her a sinner (sexual or otherwise), or tell her (as he tells so many others) to “go and sin no more”. This story is not a story about morality.”

Remember — women were voiceless; considered property. Leverite law was more than likely her story and that particular law was explained as this: when a man died without children, a brother was required to marry the widow. The reasoning being that if they conceived a son, the brother’s family line would continue. This woman was probably childless and could have been passed from brother to brother to brother … So what then is this story about?

For me, this story is about seeing and being seen. This story is about breaking down the barriers that prevent US from seeing Jesus — seeing him in the other.

I didn’t know this but when Jesus and his disciples left Judea for Galilee, this route through Samaria was the quickest and most direct but also the most dangerous for Jews. You know the disciples must have questioned Jesus’ reasons for going this way. John goes into great detail giving the time - noon and that Jesus was hot and tired and thirsty — sitting by the well waiting while the disciples went to find food. You know from the conversation between Jesus and the woman that Jews and Samaritans were enemies. — “A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 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.) What I learned from the website, saltproject.org, was that Samaritans were the descendants of intermarriage between Jews left behind during the Babylonian exile and Gentiles the conquering Assyrians settled in Israel. So Samaritans shared a common heritage with Jews, but were quite different as she points out.

So Jesus, yet again, has broken some major Jewish and probably Samaritan rules by asking her for a drink and she knows it. Do you wonder if she thought before she answered him — I hope and pray nobody sees me talking to this Jewish man! I don’t need anymore grief — things are hard enough for me. But Jesus, in his humanness, draws her into conversation with his need - his thirst — and then her curiosity on how he could give living water got the better of her. Notice how she shifts from “us versus them” to “our” — ‘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 flocks drank from it?”’

She is a woman of faith — and Jesus, recognizing her desire to understand, goes further into helping her see him — to understand who he really is.

I wonder did Jesus decide that in order for this conversation to continue he had better remember the social constraints - him talking to her alone? Is that why the request for her to go and get her husband? Was he giving her the opportunity to step away - to dismiss the conversation and return to her normal routine? But she is still all in - curious and yet honest — “I have no husband” she says and then Jesus told her that he knows her story — really sees her and stays engaged in the conversation anyway … Debi writes, “He sees the whole of her. The past. The present. The future. Who she has been. What she yearns for. How she hurts. And he names it all. I see you for who you are, and I love you.”

A prophet she declares and another question. Some commentators have suggested the question was a diversion tactic - her past front and center so let’s change the subject. But if we track with her being a woman of faith, living her best life in the middle of the storms and challenges, then this question makes sense. “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” I have had questions from people concerning baptism — you sprinkle but we submerge. Doesn’t the Bible say immerse in a body of water? Who is right and who is wrong she is asking.

While Jesus says ‘salvation comes from the Jews’ I think he is also saying that both groups are wrong - but both groups are right. When your heart is full of the Holy Spirit - worship happens anywhere and anytime and that is what I am bringing - what God wants is people who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

She knows the Messiah, the Christ, is coming — Jesus knew she was ready to wrestle with his truth — I am he, the one who is speaking to you. Jesus has reassured her that he sees her and now he stands waiting — will she see him for who he really is? Does she see him as the Messiah?

Do we see him as the Messiah — our Savior?

I am going to circle around again — this woman, a woman with a hard story; a woman on the outside of her community and definitely on the outside of Jesus’ community and Jesus chooses to reveal himself to her. Sit with that for a minute.

I watch our kids on Wednesday nights and realize how desperately they want to be seen and welcomed and validated as important in life. I have started volunteering at Bridgeforth in Shelly’s math class once a week and when these kids see me in their space — the waves, the hugs, the shouts of ‘hey Ms. Teresa’… they see me and are so quick to invite me - an old, outsider into their lives and introduce me to their friends.

This woman left her water jar — I can’t remember where I read this but the point was that she was so overwhelmed and excited at being seen and offered relationship that she left her jar — left all that she had — all that she thought she was. She left her fears and self-isolation and went back to town telling any and all that would listen - He told me all about myself - he offered relationship to me — could he be the Messiah? Come, come and see, she invites, come and see for yourself!

The first woman evangelist and a Gentile to boot! Because of her voice, her excitement, her wonder — her community came out to see. And Jesus, taking it even further, in order to restore her to wholeness within her community, stayed with them for 2 more days and many more believed.

Jesus broke the rules — every rule that denied people from inclusion, from wholeness. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth, he says. We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit — so where are we breaking the rules; initiating conversations with those deemed different, outsiders, unlovable, invisible?

‘The water I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ There is a hole in the ground close to our pond. Often there is little sign of water coming from that hole but on days after it rains, there is a steady flow — bubbles from deep underground, water that ‘gushes’ up and continues to fill our pond. There will be dry and dusty days in our lives but Jesus sees us and is waiting by the well — ready to renew and refill our souls. We are called, like the woman at the well, to be conduits of this gift of living water to any and all we encounter.

I want to end with a brief piece of the song that the community in Mariannie sang for me — the barriers that they broke in order to welcome me, to include me, to refill my soul… (play piece) Thanks be to God for the gift of grace and mercy through Jesus Christ, our Messiah and Savior. Amen