Sermon- the woman at the well

John 4:1-30

Jesus shouldn't have stopped to speak to this woman.  

She was a woman, and in their culture it was a terrible offense for a man and a woman to just strike up a conversation.  And beyond that, this woman was from a different racial and religious group.  For a whole host of reasons, Jesus should not have stopped and talked to this woman. 

And Jesus stops and talks to this woman.  

I think it's really so easy to paint Jesus as being very prim and proper.  Because we live in a world with icons of saints and glossy magazines of sinners - it's hard for us to see the real image of Jesus.  Jesus just broke all of the rules.   

John Paul II said, "This is an event without precedent: that a woman, and what is more a “sinful woman,” becomes a “disciple” of Christ."  "

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I was at a birthday party with a large group of people, many of whom I did not know.  I was sitting with good friends, but one of the girls at the table was a stranger.  All of us talked and laughed and had good birthday party fun - and then the girl I didn't know leaned over and asked, "So what do you do in Ukraine?"  When I explained that I worked with an interconfessional student ministry, she really wanted to finish the conversation.  She and most of her friends are rather progressive and unconventional and don't care so much for religion.  

And I'm reminded of this taboo conversation at the well between a mixed-race woman with a string of lovers and this wandering preacher who would eventually die to save the whole world.  How awkward was this conversation? 

For the woman is was wildly uncomfortable.  You can feel this in her words.  For Jesus it was a wonderful time.  Because Jesus didn't stop to talk to a woman.  Jesus didn't stop to talk to a despised racial minority.  Jesus didn't stop to a sinner famous for her sin.  Jesus stopped to talk to a person.  Jesus stopped to talk to a beloved child of God. 

Jesus asks her for a drink of water.  He doesn't have anything to dip into the well to get the water - so he is asking her to dip her bucket into the water and share with him.  This idea is revolutionary because the very act of drinking from an unclean woman's cup would make Jesus unclean for worship in the Jewish faith.  There's so much chatter in this encounter about this very idea.  Because our faith doesn't have this element of clean and unclean, we miss most of the hidden conversation.  But, this woman's people were desipised by the Jews and she would have know that in their eyes she was unclean.  

It's so amazing that our religion lacks this idea of clean and unclean that for two thousand years people have been trying to put it back in.  They fought to keep people from eating meat offered to idols because it wasn't clean - and Paul fought right back that the Christian faith doesn't hold to these ideas.

  

Because I'll be painfully honest - if ours was a religion of rules and regulations, it might be easier to face the tragedies we have faced.  If we could say "this happened because we sinned too much and we weren't good enough" then we could just behave better and make sure we don't have to face this again.  We could offer up some burnt sacrifice to an idol and atone for our sins - but Jesus calls us to the Way of Life.  Jesus calls us to a much better way, but a much harder way.  Jesus calls us to trust in his goodness.  To know that God has a plan and we do not.  To know that we do not understand.  To be good and loving not because we want an easier life but because we serve a God who is good and loving.  Rules and regulations would be so much easier right now - but God instead gives us grace.  We must accept that grace and all the challenges that come our way we must understand in the framework of that grace. 

I love the way that Jesus pushes the theological arguments aside.  Their religions were seperated by just a few things - but those things were pretty fundamental and they really blocked the people from one another.  Jesus just pushes these theological concerns out of the way and refocuses on what this woman really needs to connect with God. 

And Jesus offers this woman living water.  He offers that she will never be thirsty again.  We are rarely thirsty - for a woman in the desert, thirst is a constant.  When you walk a long distance to get water, you will be thirsty often.  But we feel our own thirst.  We thirst for good things - for justice and mercy.  We thirst for selfish things - for sex, money, and power.  We thirst for basic things - like being able to pray fully again and live into the faith that we still claim.  

Jesus shouldn't have stopped and talked to this woman.  There were so many reasons.  And in a religion of rules, regulations, and warnings - God certainly wouldn't have anything to do with us.  God couldn't interact with our sin and our selfishness.  But in a religion of Grace, Jesus will always stop to talk with us - with sinful little us.  Because God's thirst is that we drink of the living water - that when we connect with God through Jesus Christ, all of our thirst is quenched.   When we live in relationship with God our thirst for justice and mercy will be quenched by God's great call on our lives.  Our thirst for bad things will be filled by the goodness of God, and our basic thirst will be satisfied by daily interaction with God. 

John Paul II continues, "Indeed, once taught, she proclaims Christ to the inhabitants of Samaria, so that they too receive him with faith. This is an unprecedented event, if one remembers the usual way women were treated by those who were teachers in Israel; whereas in Jesus of Nazareth’s way of acting such an event becomes normal".

This woman goes and tells the others.  She starts from her own place of brokeness.  she explains that Jesus knew about her scandalous sins and she explains that Jesus loved anyway.  It's a radical testimony of grace.  She shares with the entire town.  She invites them to drink of the living water.  She invites them to join with Jesus and share in the grace she has discovered.  

Amen.

And the people come to Jesus.  

From our point of weakness and thirst, we may begin to share our own story of our encounter with the Messiah.  We may share with others the living water that streams up from within us.  

This last weekend I went with Valodya and Ira Prokip to the village of Nova Skvaryava. Our mission was to dig potatoes. In the morning, it rained and rained – and I was certain that I wasn’t going to have to pick any potatoes. But, by the middle of the afternoon, the skies cleared up and we began heading out into the field to pick potatoes.

I needed to get out of the city, and I learned so much on my trip to the village.

As we rode the bus to Nova Skvaryava, I was so impressed by the road. Now, I hear Ukrainians complaining all the time about how bad the roads are in Ukraine – but I rarely feel that way. In my home state, we have some of the worst roads in the country. 70 years ago or so our governor had a brother with a big construction company. The governor paid his brother to build roads and he paid him by the mile. So – if there was a way to build a road straight and direct or a way to build it with many curves and corners at a much greater distance and a much higher price – the governor’s brother always chose the way that made him the most money.

And so our roads are long, windy, and terrible to drive. Now our state is poor and we cannot afford to keep all of these roads in good condition. Today we have to let some of them just sit without any repair. Many roads haven't been repaired since they were first built when my grandparents were kids.

So, I don't usually spend a lot of time thinking about the roads here - but I was really impressed with the road. It was paved, straight, and not bumpy at all. And all of a sudden, we went from a well paved and enjoyable road, to a dirt road which had never been paved. For 100 meters we bumped and meandered along. And after 100 meters, we drove back onto a perfectly straight paved road.

Valodya leaned over and said, "We keep this part of the road to remind us how bad things have been in the past."

These last couple of months have been pretty terrible. We have faced hardships and challenges, and pain and sorrow in ways that we have never faced before. For many of us - our roads have been smooth, straight, and well paved. Most of us don't remember the hard recession of our childhoods. Some have never experienced the death of a close friend or family member.

We don't have to look far into our history to see a time when tragedy was normal. In our countries, our grandparents' generations saw so much death and suffering. From wars to famine, their roads were bumpy and painful for decades. We don't have too look far to see countries and places where this is still the norm.

The shadows prove the sunshine. Without the darkness of shadows, we wouldn't know that the light is real. Our pain and suffering during this time of great tragedy reminds us of God's great love and the mercy he has shown us. Think of the tragedy our grandparents' suffered. Think of how much harder this would be to go through without our faith. Think of the pain if Illya and Maks weren't such wonderful people of faith.

As we return to the paved path we are used to - as life goes back to normal - we will be reminded of this path. Our exams won't seem so awful, the flu will pass, and we will move forward with the knowledge that every day is a gift.

I love the idea of planting potatoes. You take something that is perfectly good and you put it in the ground. A potato that could be used for food, is buried under the earth, and months later the roots lead to more and more new potatoes. And Jesus points to this same idea.

John 12: 24-26

In this life, we are desperate to hold onto something. We feel that if we can get good grades, or a good job, or entrance into a special program that our lives will have meaning. But God calls us to let go of our lives. If we hold onto to our lives we cannot also hold onto God. If we let go of our lives, they will multiply over and over again throughout the world.

Sometimes all we feel is the death, and we don't feel or know what the rebirth will look like. We feel our pain, and we can't believe the good joy that God is planting in our lives.

Finally, after raining all morning the rain stopped and we immediately went to the fields to pick potatoes. They put me together on a team with the oldest potato picker. She told me about picking potatoes before their family had a horse. She explained how to tell which potatoes were good and which to leave behind. She laughed at my Ukrainian. We had a great time.

After picking potatoes for hours, my whole body hurt. Valodya's family laughed and said, "You just wait until you wake up tomorrow."

They were right. For days my whole body has hurt. Muscles hurt that i didn't know I had.

And in life, we tend to believe quite strongly that pain is bad. If we hurt, we have done something wrong and we need to change. We are taught that we should stop pain. We should take a pill. We shouldn't cry. We shouldn't grieve.

But pain is sometimes good. Pain means that you are becoming stronger.

The heart is a muscle. This pain is making us stronger. We are able to face tomorrow stronger than we were yesterday. We are able to help other people in their grief. Our faith grows stronger in our great weakness.

When my friend Jonathan was dying of cancer, we would pray together and he would always end with the sentence, "God, please don't let me waste this cancer." He wanted God to teach him, to teach others, to show the world something wonderful in the midst of tragedy.

May we not waste this tragedy. May God teach our hearts. May God use our suffering to teach the world a lesson about our faith and our hope in God.

Amen.

Healing

Mark 5:24-34
So Jesus went with him.A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”


Mark is the shortest of all the gospels.  I wanted to preach on this woman and her healing, and I wanted the full story.  Usually Mark is the one who reports the facts and only the facts of a story.  Luke was a physician and he records the most miracles of healing - he was clearly fascinated by the medical aspect of all the healings.  So I had planned to use Luke's account of the Gospel; but Luke records the story of this healing in just a few words.   - but I remembered a few more details and so I checked Matthew and Mark.

Matthew wrote for a largely Jewish audience - so in his book you are most likely to find proof of fulfillment of prophesy.  He had the same account as Luke.

But while Mark told the same story, he added a few details of importance.  Mark is the one who captures most fully this woman's plight.
We think that Mark was the young man who ran away naked in the garden.  

vs. 26 says that she had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse.

Luke the Physician simply states that no one could help her.  We don't have to look very far back into our history to find medical practices close to those practiced two thousand years ago.  The first world war was the first one in which any real painkiller was given to injured soldiers.  In the American Civil war if an arm or a leg needed to be amputated there was a good chance you would die from the infection.  Surgery without painkillers or an understanding of germ theory was deadly and obviously avoided at any cost.

Of course this woman had been sold every potion and chemical that a salesman could sell.  She had tried every home remedy, she had visited magic healers and doctors.  She had suffered much at their hands.  She had spent all of her money, and she had only grown worse.

In ancient days, and truly just until the last few decades, people knew exactly when they would die.  People got quiet sick and they died that night or the next day.  This is why famous people in history have beautiful dying words.  Today our medical belief is that it is better for someone to be kept alive by a machine than to die at home.  This is perhaps why you don't ever hear of modern celebrities and political figures' last words.

This woman's disease was unique.  It was clearly killing her, but she had been in her "final days" for twelve years.  For twelve agonizing years this woman had been in excruciating pain.  She had gone from doctor to doctor and never got any better.

And this woman sees Jesus, with the crowds pushing in around him, and this woman truly believes that if she can just touch the cloth of his coat that she will be made well.  This woman who has been poked and prodded by every doctor, who has drunk every poison and punch, this woman who has been experimented on - she knows in her heart that if she can just touch Jesus' clothes that she will be made well.

This is the most tremendous idea.  This woman who has had everything done to her - she decides in her heart that if Jesus really is who He says he is - that she can take the healing for herself.  Perhaps she was too scared of another crushing blow of disappointment if it didn't work.  Maybe she was too afraid even to ask Jesus for the miracle.  She was a woman and sick and for both of those reasons she shouldn't have been in the crowd of men following Jesus.

But she follows her heart and faith and begins pushing her way in toward Jesus.

This is Jesus the celebrity.  He is known for his miracles and his healings.  As soon as he steps out of his boat the people begin crowding around to see what he will do next.  When an important official asks him to come and heal his daughter, the crowd goes wild in anticipation of seeing this miracle first hand.  The crowd crushes in just to get a glimpse of this miracle in action.

There are so many things that crowd us.  The busyness of life and schoolwork and work-work all keep us from the silence and stillness.  Email and facebook and Vkontakte all keep us busy.  There is always a song on the radio or on our music player.  Our entire generation is somehow afraid of being still and silent.  The silence is frightening.  The world is crushing in on us and we like it that way.  We don't want the silence.  Sitting down face to face and just talking can be scary.

And throughout the Bible we read of these bold types who come up to Jesus directly and plead their case.  Jarius who's daughter is deathly ill comes and throws himself at Jesus feet just moments before we meet this woman.  Over and over someone comes up to Jesus and begs or demands something of him.

And even in this crowd, we feel this woman's silence.  The strongest sense of loneliness can be felt at a party full of people and no one to talk to.  No one notices this woman.  For more than a decade perhaps, no one had noticed this woman.  Perhaps she had been beautiful and wealthy and in love - but this day she looks old, tired, and sick.  She has no money left and she is alone.  This is a woman who has suffered.

I don't need to retell the hell that we have faced this summer.  We are a hurt and damaged people.  We are in pain and we have suffered much.  This is our reality.  Our semester is starting and our schedules and activities are beginning to weigh us down.  The crowd is pushing in and in this moment we must be certain that if we can just touch the fabric of Jesus clothes that we will be healed.

What does that mean for us?  What would it mean for us to touch the hem of Jesus cloak?  What needs healed in your life? What can God do for our group to continue to heal us? As the world crushes in what promise or idea can you grab on to to be healed?

As we sing our final songs, please take a marker and write on this piece of cloth.  Write your problems, your worries, your prayers.  Hold on to the hem of Jesus cloak and write what is on your heart.  Bring it up and place it here on this table.

When we reach out to Jesus we will be made well.

This woman immediately knew that she had been healed.  After twelve years of sickness, she felt the bleeding end and knew that she was well.  My mom had back surgery more than 20 years ago.  At that time it was an experimental procedure.  She couldn't stand up before the surgery.  Afterwards they offered her painkillers and she just looked at them puzzled.  "Why? I'm in much less pain now than I was before the surgery."  She said that as soon as she woke up she knew she was better and she wouldn't be in pain any longer.  She said it was one of the most tremendous feelings of her life.

And Jesus knew that she had touched him.  He knew that she had  reached out and had been healed.  He felt the power going from him.  Dear friends, over and over again since our tragedy we have felt God's hand on us.  Last week we promised that we would be meeting in an apartment in Kulisha - when that apartment fell through I was so upset.   I went to my quiet place to pray and I prayed, "God, we have had so many problems these last few months.  I got a little pushy and I said, "If we were going to learn our lesson - don't you think we would have learned it by now."  The leadership group has been fasting and praying for this place - and I get a little grumpy when I don't eat enough. 

We had called a realtor and talked with her about our needs and she said that she would have time on Friday to look  After I finished praying, this woman called me back and said that she had one option we could look at.  We met and Valodya and I went with her to view the apartment.  I smiled a little smile of relief as I read the sign of the last tenants - без проблем - as God once again taught me the lesson that I need to learn better - that God is with us and is watching over us.

It's easy to believe that in the midst of the crowd our needs are small or minor.  This is not true.  Our needs matter to God. 

When we are in need of healing and hope we need to go to Jesus.As you write and bring your piece of cloth forward, know that God is healing you.  Feel God's presence as He continues to heal our community and restore us.

God is with us.  God's great love has watched over us for the years we have been a community, through the accident, through the summer, and God is still with us.  Tonight we hold on to the hem of his garment and our faith will make us well.

Amen.