Sermon preached by The Rev'd Susan Kraus

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

The Third Sunday of Lent – February 24, 2008 - 8:00 a.m.

Beginning in Lent and going through Easter season until Pentecost, we hear some important passages from the gospel of John on Sunday mornings. Last week we heard the story of Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to Jesus by night and asked how he could be born again. Today we heard a rather complicated story about an encounter between Jesus and an unnamed woman at a well in Samaria.

According to the story told in John’s gospel, after Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus in Jerusalem, he and his disciples had gone into the surrounding countryside of Judea. They were baptizing people. John the Baptist was also baptizing people. The Pharisees heard about all this activity and were questioning who was making more disciples, John or Jesus. When he found out that the Pharisees were “curious,” Jesus must have expected trouble, and he decided to leave Judea and go to Galilee. The most direct route between Judea and Jerusalem in the south and Galilee in the north was through Samaria. This region was inhabited by people partly descended from the northern tribes of ancient Israel. The Samaritans had intermarried with non-Jewish people, though. Like the Jews, they worshipped Yahweh and had the Torah or their scripture, but there were disputes between the Jews and the Samaritans about worship practices and about where the center for worship should be – Mount Gerizim in Samaria or Jerusalem.

What is important for us to keep in mind when we hear this story is how startling it is that Jesus was talking to a Samaritan and a woman. Jews looked down on Samaritans. They weren’t pure Jews. Ancient Jewish literature expressed divine displeasure with Samaritans and also warned against Jewish contact with Samaritans. Jesus, a good Jew, should have avoided contact with any Samaritan. Not only that, he was not supposed to even greet a woman. Again, ancient Jewish literature warned men against talking much to women, even their wives! So, no wonder that both the Samaritan woman and Jesus’ disciples were surprised at Jesus’ long and profound encounter with the woman at the well.

As soon as their conversation begins, it is clear that Jesus and the woman are speaking on different levels. He is speaking about living water – “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” – and she’s talking about buckets and how deep the well is. He is talking about salvation, and she seems to be thinking about how she might avoid some hard physical work. They don’t “connect” on the subject of water. So Jesus changes his approach, like a good teacher who sees that her students aren’t “getting it.”

Jesus says, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman replies that she has no husband. Then Jesus really gets her attention, by telling her what he could not have known by “normal” means: she has had five husbands and the man she is now living with is not her husband. Amazed, she calls Jesus a prophet. In the gospel of John stories of “miraculous” events always transform people and show them that Jesus is the Messiah. Even though Jesus tells the woman in plain words that he is the Messiah, what convinces her is the fact that he has “told her everything she has ever done.”

That makes her run off and tell others about Jesus. She becomes a missionary to her own people. Then the Samaritans who believed in Jesus because of what she had told them spend time with Jesus themselves. The gospel says: “And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.’”

There is a lot to think about in this story!

For me, this is one of several stories in the New Testament which show that Jesus’ mercy and the salvation he offers human beings is not bound by human ideas of who is “in” and who is “out.” Jesus has come to heal and save everyone. There is no place in God’s vision of humanity for prejudice or hatred or contempt on the basis of someone’s race, religion, or gender. It isn’t that Jesus never says anything harsh or judgmental about people. Think of some of the things he says to the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders of his day. He calls them corpses, the most unclean things in the world!

No, but what this story shows is that what matters to Jesus is something different from what matters to “the world.” Jesus cares about what is in a person, and he seems to have a knack for knowing what is in a person. In John’s gospel there are at least seven instances where Jesus knows what is in a person – from Nathanael under the fig tree to Judas Iscariot, his betrayer. In fact, just before the story of Nicodemus, the gospel writer says about Jesus: “… he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone” (John 2:24-25).

It can be comfortable to “forget” that God knows us that well! But God does know us, through and through, past and present. This may be scary sometimes, but I have come to take comfort in it, too. When I pray, I can be honest with God about everything. I don’t have to use “nice” words or just the “right” words, and there’s no point in pretending that I don’t have faults or that I haven’t made mistakes or that I’m someone I’m not. God already knows what I’ve done and why. God knows who I am. And God loves me and has promised to forgive me. In fact, it’s when I’m honest with God about myself that I can truly ask for God’s forgiveness. It’s when I’m honest with God about myself that I’m open to the love and grace God wants to give me, the love and grace to change and be more like the person God means for me to be. Maybe most important of all, when I’m honest about myself, I can sometimes catch a glimpse of our loving, forgiving Savior, Jesus Christ, the one who wants to give me and you and the Samaritan woman the living water of salvation.

One more thought about this gospel story. Jesus does something in his encounter with the Samaritan woman which grabs her attention and gives her the message in no uncertain terms that he is the Messiah. Then she shares that good news with other people, who come and see and believe in Jesus for themselves. All of us here today have had encounters with Jesus. Our lives have been shaped in so many ways by God. We each have stories to tell, good news to share. Can we let the Samaritan woman be an example for us? Can we go out from St. Paul’s on the Green and share the story of God’s work in our lives with someone who needs to hear that good news? Can we invite others to come and see and believe in Jesus for themselves, here in this place where Jesus offers us the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation? I pray that we can all be like the Samaritan woman and share the good news of Christ with someone who needs to know Christ. Amen.