Sermon: 12 March 2023 Lent III St Lucia
Texts: Exodus 17.1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-42
Theme: Is the LORD among us or not?
Prayer:
O God of the wellspring, source of life and truth: Jesus asked for water from the hands of a woman in the land of the stranger; may he teach us to name our need, to love our neighbour and to worship you in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ, who shows us who we are. Amen.
In the year my Grandmother May Hubner was born, 1921, 94% of the population of Australia believed in God and around 44% of Australians were Church of England, later to become the Anglican Church of Australia in 1966. In 1986 for the first time the proportion of Anglicans (23.9%) dropped below Catholics (26.1%). Five years later in the year when I did my discernment 1991 the proportion of Anglicans has dropped a fraction to 23.8%. This was also the year when we had the largest number of Anglicans in Australia: 3,984,895 (out of a population of over 16 million). 15 years later in 2006, for the first time ever, Anglicans (18.7%) was surpassed by those reporting to have No religion (19.4%). From 2016 to 2021, Anglicans had the largest drop in number of all religious denominations – from 3.1 million to 2.5 million people. The number of Anglicans shrunk by 600,000 – we lost 20% and our percentage of the general population dropped from 13.3% to 9.8%. So, in the 100 years since my Grandmother May was born, (and before you wonder, she is unfortunately not with us anymore, having died a month shy of her 99th birthday in September 2020) we Anglicans have gone from being almost half the population of Australians to less than 1 in 10! Now this sermon is not the place to articulate the various reasons why the last century has seen first a steady and then recently an increasing rate of decline of the Anglican Church of Australia. I mention these sobering facts only to highlight that I relate very strongly with the complaint of the Israelites as mentioned in our Exodus passage this morning, “Is the Lord among us or not?” I have often thought that maybe I should hang a sign on my office door saying, here in lies the country of Massah and Meribah. There is no doubt that we are living in challenging times, yet the wonder and amazement of our faith is that we can turn to the Scriptures for insight into the very difficulties that we are presently experiencing.
Our Psalm today 95, commonly referred to as the Venite, the Latin word for ‘Come’ – the first word of the Psalm – is a slap in the face and wakeup call – come let us sing out to the Lord for all the wonderful aspects of our beautiful God – regardless of any difficulties we may be facing – they pale into insignificance before the majesty and beauty of God – it’s very much the argument of God before Job isn’t it!
St Paul is on the same theme in this passage from chapter 5 of the letter to the Romans. The first five verses of chapter 5 are a key to understanding everything St Paul is on about. He has spent the first four chapters getting us to understand that we are justified by faith – that there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation and that through Jesus we have peace with God. And what does St Paul want us to do with this insight and truth – he wants us to boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God – boast in our confidence of one day seeing more clearly and living more fully in the life of God. He wants us to boast in hope. Now hope is a very strong word for St Paul. It’s not like the modern version where we say, “I hope to win the lotto” – almost always knowing it will never happen. NOT SO for St Paul – why? Why this extreme confidence – this assurance – because for St Paul it is provable – and he goes on to show us, in verses that would pay us to memorise! We are to boast in our sufferings (really the word could be also translated ‘stresses’ – the ordinary stresses of everyday life) – for they bring endurance – as we encounter these and in Christ endure and overcome them – they become the evidence that the Spirit of God is real in our lives. St Paul understands that when things endure while put under stress – then they are proved true, and he completes the argument – they have character which brings this strong hope – for we then understand that God’s love has been poured into our hearts. So, in other words, let me rip down the Massah and Meribah sign from my office for the very fact that we are still here is proof indeed of God’s ongoing love for us, despite all evidence to the contrary. But I add a caveat – this is all fine and dandy in an abstract sense – but it does depend upon each of us having an encounter with the living Jesus, with our loving God and being empowered by God’s living water – the Holy Spirit. And in that vein our attention is drawn to the Gospel passage from St John, chapter four.
Let’s begin with what the story actually is. As theologian Barbara Brown Taylor points out, Jesus’s dialogue with the woman at the well is his longest recorded conversation in the New Testament. He talks to the Samaritan woman longer than he talks to his twelve disciples, or to his accusers, or even to his own family members. Moreover, she is the first person (and the first ethnic/religious outsider) to whom Jesus reveals his identity in John’s Gospel. And — this might be the most compelling fact of all — she is the first believer in any of the Gospels to straightaway become an evangelist and bring her entire city to a saving knowledge of Jesus.
In the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman Jesus truly sees her. He sees the whole of her. The past. The present. The future. Who she has been. What she yearns for. How she hurts. All that she might become. And he names it all. But he names it all without shaming, castigating, or condemning her. He sees and names the woman in a way that makes her feel not judged but loved. Not exposed but shielded. Not diminished but restored. He doesn’t shy away from the painful, ugly, broken stuff in her life. Instead, he allows the truth of who she is to come to the surface. “Let’s name what’s real,” he tells her. “Let’s say what IS. No more games. No more smokescreens. No more posturing. I see you for who you are, and I love you. Now see who I am. The Messiah. The one in whom you can find freedom, love, healing, and transformation. Spirit and Truth. Eternal life. Living Water. Drink of me, and live." During this Lenten season, Jesus invites us to see ourselves and each other through eyes of love, not judgment. Can we, like Jesus, become soft landing places for people who are all alone, carrying stories too heavy to bear? To see brokenness without shaming it is not easy. But it’s what we’re called to do. Salvation begins with clear, tender, and unconditional seeing.
When Jesus tells the Samaritan woman who he is, she leaves her water jar at the well, runs back to her city, and says, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” There’s so much to love about this moment. I love that in her excitement, the woman forgets all about her water jar. I love that her sudden need to share the good news overwhelms her desire to remain anonymous and invisible.
I love that her history — once the source of such pain and secrecy — becomes the evidence she uses to proclaim Jesus’s identity. I love that she says, “Come and see,” recognising that Jesus can’t be reduced to a second-hand platitude or formula. I love that she shares her experience of Jesus even though her faith is still young, still forming, still in process. (“He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”) Even her questions become a part of her evangelism. Even her curiosity becomes a tool that arouses the curiosity of others.
Most of all, I love that Jesus honours, blesses, and validates the woman’s proclamation. John writes that Jesus stays in the woman’s city for two days, so that everyone who hears her testimony can meet with him directly and see that the woman is a reliable witness. She, like John the Baptist, like the Apostles, like Mary Magdalene, like Paul, "prepares the way of the Lord" — and Jesus encourages her to do so. “Many Samaritans from that city,” the Gospel writer tells us, “Believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.”
Before we can stop our complaining and quiring the presence of God in our challenging times; before we truly grasp the import of St Paul and know the power of the Spirit enabling us to endure all the stresses of life; before we can even come and sing out to the Lord and shout in triumph to the rock of our salvation; before all of that – we need to have for ourselves experienced the reality of the living water, but not only that but to continue to seek out the truth. Ans so we ask ourselves, who is speaking the Good News into our lives? How are we receiving their testimony? In the most unlikely places, through the most unexpected voices, from the minds and bodies of the disempowered and the overlooked, the Word of God speaks, and the Living Water flows. During this Lenten season, may we have ears to hear it, hearts to drink it in, and humility to honour and bless its proclamation. The Lord be with you.