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Lenten devotions 2008

FEB. 22 - TWO SIDES TO THE STORY
By Doug Schirch, associate professor of chemistry

SCRIPTURE: John 4:5-42 (NRSV)
Scroll down for complete Scripture.

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DEVOTIONAL:
This story in John 4 could inspire two sermons about what Jesus brings into the open. One notes that Samaritans and Jews were bitter enemies, and most Jews would have been scandalized seeing Jesus talk with a despised Samaritan. Then Jesus flaunted religious expectations even further by drinking from a Samaritan vessel. Every decent person also knew that a man should not speak in public with unrelated women, and discussing theology with them was considered wrong in any location.

Another sermon could highlight how Jesus brought the woman to recognize him first as a prophet, then as the Messiah and eventually as someone she wanted to tell everyone in town about. What began as a chance encounter eventually spread to attract everyone in town to come out for two days of preaching.

Are we equally comfortable with both dimensions of this story? A modern-day U.S. Christian who crosses national and gender boundaries might go speak with the country's Muslim enemies in Syria, or at home advocate equal rights and roles for women in the church.

Now think of a Christian who, in casual conversation with a stranger on a plane, mentions a personal testimony about Jesus, or later goes door-to-door inviting everyone to a two-day revival meeting.

Is the person you imagine flying to Syria the same you imagine recruiting for the revival, or do our stereotypes imagine individuals at opposite ends of the spectrum of U.S. Christians? For me it is the latter, and I picture each Christian being very suspicious of the motives of the other.

Thinking of what followed after Jesus met a woman at a well 2,000 years ago, I have to ask myself: Was that really contradictory, or does one part of the story need the other to really make sense, to show what Jesus was bringing into the open for the world to see?

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SCRIPTURE: John 4:5-42 (NRSV)
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink'. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 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.) Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink", you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.' 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 his flocks drank from it?' Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.'

Jesus said to her, 'Go, call your husband, and come back.' The woman answered him, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right in saying, "I have no husband"; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!' The woman said to him, 'Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.' Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.' The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah is coming' (who is called Christ). 'When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.' Jesus said to her, 'I am he, the one who is speaking to you.'

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, 'What do you want?' or, 'Why are you speaking with her?' Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 'Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?' They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi, eat something.' But he said to them, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.' So the disciples said to one another, 'Surely no one has brought him something to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest"? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.'

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me everything I have ever done.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. 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 Saviour of the world.'
Posted at 10:25 #