Scripture Reading for March 6th

John 9:1-41
The Message - Eugene H. Peterson

1Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked, "Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?"
3Jesus said, "You're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. 4We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. 5For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world's Light."
6He said this and then spit in the dust, made a clay paste with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man's eyes, 7and said, "Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam" (Siloam means "Sent"). The man went and washed--and saw.
8Soon the town was buzzing. His relatives and those who year after year had seen him as a blind man begging were saying, "Why, isn't this the man we knew, who sat here and begged?"
9Others said, "It's him all right!"
But others objected, "It's not the same man at all. It just looks like him."
He said, "It's me, the very one."
10They said, "How did your eyes get opened?"
11"A man named Jesus made a paste and rubbed it on my eyes and told me, "Go to Siloam and wash.' I did what he said. When I washed, I saw."
12"So where is he?"
"I don't know."
13They marched the man to the Pharisees. 14This day when Jesus made the paste and healed his blindness was the Sabbath. 15The Pharisees grilled him again on how he had come to see. He said, "He put a clay paste on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see."
16Some of the Pharisees said, "Obviously, this man can't be from God. He doesn't keep the Sabbath."
Others countered, "How can a bad man do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?" There was a split in their ranks.
17They came back at the blind man, "You're the expert. He opened your eyes. What do you say about him?"
He said, "He is a prophet."
18The Jews didn't believe it, didn't believe the man was blind to begin with. So they called the parents of the man now bright-eyed with sight. 19They asked them, "Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? So how is it that he now sees?"
20His parents said, "We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind. 21But we don't know how he came to see--haven't a clue about who opened his eyes. Why don't you ask him? He's a grown man and can speak for himself." 22(His parents were talking like this because they were intimidated by the Jewish leaders, who had already decided that anyone who took a stand that this was the Messiah would be kicked out of the meeting place. 23That's why his parents said, "Ask him. He's a grown man.")
24They called the man back a second time--the man who had been blind--and told him, "Give credit to God. We know this man is an impostor."
25He replied, "I know nothing about that one way or the other. But I know one thing for sure: I was blind . . . I now see."
26They said, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"
27"I've told you over and over and you haven't listened. Why do you want to hear it again? Are you so eager to become his disciples?"
28With that they jumped all over him. "You might be a disciple of that man, but we're disciples of Moses. 29We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but we have no idea where this man even comes from."
30The man replied, "This is amazing! You claim to know nothing about him, but the fact is, he opened my eyes! 31It's well known that God isn't at the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will. 32That someone opened the eyes of a man born blind has never been heard of--ever. 33If this man didn't come from God, he wouldn't be able to do anything."
34They said, "You're nothing but dirt! How dare you take that tone with us!" Then they threw him out in the street.
35Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and went and found him. He asked him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
36The man said, "Point him out to me, sir, so that I can believe in him."
37Jesus said, "You're looking right at him. Don't you recognize my voice?"
38"Master, I believe," the man said, and worshiped him.
39Jesus then said, "I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind."
40Some Pharisees overheard him and said, "Does that mean you're calling us blind?"
41Jesus said, "If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you're accountable for every fault and failure.

Notes:

John talks in terms of contrasting states of being - such as light/darkness, life/death, above/below, from God/not from God, believing/not believing, accepting/not accepting, loving/hating, doing good/not doing good. Last week it was a question of thirst for water and a thirst for "living water." John also has Jesus compared to bread and "living bread."

In this passage the dichotomy is between being blind and "seeing." It is a question of either being in darkness and being in the light.

Question: Is it really that simple? Are some people 100% in the light and others 100% in the darkness? Or is John's purpose to directly confront us with the fact that we are mostly oblivious to God and the spiritual world around us? In John 20:31, John says that his Gospel was written "so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name."

Again, as in the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, John takes what is a physical condition (thirst) and turns it into a spiritual one (thirst for a spiritual relationship with God). In this case, it is the physical blindness which is related to a spiritual blindness.

In a sense, then, we are all "born blind" are we not? Is it not God who, through Jesus Christ, seeks to restore us "to sight?" In short, although we are created into a sinful state, it is possible for God to "restore us" and in doing so, we "see things differently" and we are, though still imperfect, capble of "new life." Not that we are 100% cured but that we no longer 100% blind to God's presence in our life.

Sermon Notes - February 27th

February 27, 2005
John 4: 5 – 42
“Living Water”

1. There is an assumption we all have, I guess, that somehow the writings in the New Testament are all consistent and represent a cohesive whole. All of “one cloth” – we might say.

But, the truth is, they are not all exactly the same. They are not all of “one cloth” but rather they are collection of very different ideas, opinions, and views of who Jesus was and is – all sewn together – somewhat loosely – which makes up a whole. The same is true for the Hebrew Bible as well.

This is why the writings of Paul which we talked about last week –about how Abraham was “saved” because he “trusted God” are somewhat different from today’s lesson (from the Gospel of John) which has a more spiritual approach, referring to Jesus as the “living water.” From this we must understand that one version is not right and the other wrong … they are just different ways of understanding the same thing. Just as we all have slightly differing understandings of God and Jesus because we are not all exactly alike – just like Paul and John in the New Testament.

Is this troubling to you or is it reassuring? Is God troubled or does God understand that by giving us the freedom to think for ourselves we will naturally come to different conclusions about life? As far as I am concerned, it seems as though as long as we agree on the basics, there should be some room for differences of opinion. Don’t you? On this, I think we can conclude that we are, indeed, United Methodists, along with John Wesley, of course.

In fact, as modern scholarship advances, it is now clear that there were not just four Gospels about Jesus – but many. Including the newly rediscovered Gospel of Thomas – the so called Gnostic gospel – now made famous again by the modern biblical scholar Elaine Pagels in her recent book Beyond Belief.


Now some of these other Gospels are pretty far out and yet others are proving to be helpful in ways – especially in better understanding Mathew, Mark, Luke and John which are the officially approved versions. By comparing them to the other Gospels, scholars are learning much that we didn’t know about, say the Gospel of John, which has some similarities to the Gospel of Thomas but in other ways is very different.

But, my purpose is not to get into Gnosticism or the DaVinci Code this morning. What I am more interested in is what the biblical scholar; Elaine Pagels has to say, not about Thomas, but about her own personal life. Here is what she says:

On a bright Sunday morning in February, shivering in a T-shirt and running shorts, I stepped into the vestibule of the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City to catch my breath and warm up. Since I had not been to church for a long time, I was startled by my response to the worship progress – the soaring harmonies of the choir singing with the congregation; and the priest, a woman in bright gold and white vestments, proclaiming the prayers in a clear resonant voice. As I stood watching, a thought came to me: Here is a family that knows how to deal with death. She continues:

That morning I gone for an early morning run while my husband and two-and-a-half-year old son were sleeping. The previous night I had been sleepless with fear and worry.

It turns out that the previous day she and her husband had learned that their son had been diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, and invariably fatal disease and that he had a few months, maybe a few years to live. A most disturbing revelation to say the least. In fact, it is the very last thing a young mother wants to hear about her child.

I returned to that church often, Pagels writes, not looking for faith but because, in the presence of that worship and the people gathered there – and in a smaller group that met on weekdays in the church basement for mutual encouragement – my defenses fell away, exposing storms of grief and hope.

2. Well, enough… You get the idea. So, for moment I would like us to
think about this very gifted, intelligent, sophisticated scholar who is for this particular moment in her life – despite all her intellect, learning, and insight - reduced to a frightened, grieving, frail, human being. And who is accidentally standing outside a church in her jogging outfit on Sunday morning listening to the choir sing and “wondering what is it really all about?”

Does it surprise you that this noted biblical scholar was not attending church regularly? Quite different from what might be expected perhaps, for those who have been properly raised in the church. But, we must realize that not all people in America or elsewhere are raised in the church anymore – even biblical scholars. Many, in fact, have no idea what Christian worship and community is all about. We aren’t as aware of them, perhaps – because maybe they are not here in our midst. Yet, we do know them because they are our friends and relatives. Most likely, there are even those in your extended family who do not attend church and who were not raised in the church and who have no idea what it is all about. Isn’t that true?

3. Now I would like to tell about another gifted writer … Ann LaMott. Ms. LaMott, who lives in California, came to faith in God as an adult. She tells a quite similar story in her book Traveling Mercies.

If I happened to be there between eleven and one on Sundays, I could hear gospel music coming from a church right across the street. I was called St. Andrew Presbyterian, and it looked homely and impoverished, a ramshackle building with a cross on top, sitting on a parcel of land with a few skinny pine trees on it. But the music wafting out was so pretty that I would stop and listen. I knew a lot of the hymns from times I’d gone to church with my grandparents and from the albums we’d had of spirituals. Finally, I stopped in at St. Andrew from time to time standing in the doorway to listen to the songs.

Ann LaMott’s life at this point was not good. For despite her intelligence and ability she had become pregnant out of wedlock. She also had abused drugs and alcohol. Her life was, by self admission – a mess.

And so, she goes on to describe how a very bright college educated upper middle class white woman very slowly and gradually found her way back to faith in God and Jesus by attending a poor black Presbyterian Church in Marin City, California. If you are not familiar with Ann LaMott, she is very honest, entertaining, and thoughtful person, speaker, and writer. I had never heard of her either until a friend of mine invited me to hear her speak at the Macalester college chapel in St. Paul. After that, I read her book, Traveling Mercies.

4. Now, imagine if you can, what it might be like to be one these women … growing up outside the church … and who, for various reasons, were turned off to the whole thing about God and Jesus.

Suppose that, instead of seeing the church as good place to be - where people are supposed to love and care about one another, you saw the church as rather cold and impersonal. And suppose you had come to feel that these so-called Christian people were looking down on you?

What would that be like? Can you imagine it? Perhaps there are those here to today for whom going to church is still a strange and unfamiliar experience. Something filled with a tinge of anxiety. What am I doing here? What if I don’t do the right thing? What if I stand when I should sit? …What if no one talks to me? … What if I just don’t get it? Can we imagine -- those of us who are very comfortable here -- what it might be like to be a stranger in our church – or any church? Yet, I remind you that every Sunday we have visitors in our midst. What do you suppose is going on in their minds? Or are we so accustomed to the routine of being in church that we fail to see those among us who perhaps are having a very different experience. Visitors who may be in the beginning stages of reaching out for something to believe in … who are trying to reach out to God … and who maybe even be reaching out to one of us … just like Elaine Pagels and Ann LaMott were doing?

5. Now suppose, for a moment, you are the Samaritan woman and you have gone at noon to the well outside town. And perhaps you have come to the well at noontime, in the middle of the day, because no one comes to the well at that time. This is because it is too hot and most of the village women actually go to draw water in the early morning when the temperature is still cool and you would rather avoid being with them. Perhaps this is because you are not all that accepted by your family and neighbors … because your life has not been good … because you have been married several times … bad choices … and now … you feel alone …and rejected.

Or, maybe you just needed to get away from town … to go for a walk to get some space …to be alone with your thoughts … to ponder what your life has come to … to maybe ask God … however it may be … to enlighten you a little bit …to provide some guidance … things like that.

Also, suppose because of your upbringing, your family, your mistakes, your bad relationships … suppose your relationship with God is not all that good. Not good at all. And yet somehow you want to believe … because you don’t feel good about things … and you want to make things right again … but you don’t know how.

Could that be what has happened? What do you think? We don’t know for sure … but it seems possible. And, could this woman from Samaria … also be someone today? … could it be one of us? … could it be ourselves? … could it be someone we know? – a friend or co-worker for instance? Could it also be the women whose stories we just heard about?

6. And suppose now that when you arrive at the well … suddenly, unexpectedly, there is a man there all alone.

Now that is trouble - right away! For obviously, your relationships with men have not been all that good. And besides, in your culture … it is forbidden for a woman to speak to a strange man. Or any man, in public, at least, other than your husband or members of your family. What if someone saw you talking to this man … it could be a scandal … especially since your reputation is already not that great.

And, as you are about to leave to avoid a potential problem … the man speaks to you … and asks you for a drink of water - for it is obvious that he has no bucket to bring up the water from the well - which is very deep.

Oh, oh! … this is not good … for him to be speaking to you … especially because from the tone of voice and his mannerisms he is not a Samaritan … but a Jew … someone whom the Samaritans have been opposed to for centuries … this is really not good. It’s really a double no-no!

7. And so you object … and you say … “How is it that you, who are Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?”

That should end things right there … you think, perhaps.

But, instead, he answers in the most enigmatic way … and he starts talking about “living water” … and about “thirst” … not for water … but for the spirit … for God …

Well, this is totally unexpected. And suddenly, you are not only challenged but you are charmed in a way. For this seems to be no ordinary man. For, he seems to understand you. He even seems to know you in a way that is not totally explainable. And suddenly, against your better judgment, you want to know more about this man.

And you continue to talk … and the conversation goes on for a good while as you slowly and carefully begin to tell him about your life. Even things you have not shared with just anyone and, although it is not all that pleasant, he seems not to care. He seems not to be judging you as you would have expected.

And finally, it begins to dawn on you that he is some kind of prophet … for you say to him “Sir, I see that you are a Jewish prophet.” And you remind him again that he is a Jew, and you are a Samaritan, for you say, “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain and you worship at the Temple in Jerusalem.” And, surprisingly, he brushes this aside by saying, “The time is coming when you will worship neither on this mountain or in Jerusalem.”

8. Now this is altogether too much! And finally you say to him … “who do you think are you – the Messiah?” And he says “I am!”

Whooah! Pretty big stuff … don’t you think …? What do you make of this story? What do you think?

Yet, I ask you now, how is this story similar to the stories of the two modern women that I described just a moment ago? How were they too, like the woman at the well? What were their responses to the unexpected call of God in their lives despite their troubles and misfortunes? Has this experience ever been something like what may have happened in your life or the life of one of your friends?

Now, before, we go on, notice for a moment … how Jesus takes his time … gradually … to reveal himself … not all at once. For He seems, first of all, to be mainly interested in getting to know her by developing an understanding relationship with her. For it is quite obvious that he doesn’t come running up saying … “Are you saved?” as some people think evangelism is all about. Instead, he respects her troubled situation …and he isn’t in a hurry. And He makes her feel welcome and understood before he reveals who he really is.

And that is point number one – this morning … God is continuously working to develop a relationship with us so that we might know Him. And yet God is very understanding and patient with us … even when we just don’t get it at first … like the woman at the well. God, it turns out, is not in a hurry!

9. Now I ask you … do you really understand that this is how God works in our lives? That instead of running up to us saying “Are you saved?” -- God is patient … far more patient than we can imagine. And yet, He waits until the time is right … until we are ready hear what He has to say. And is God not also interested in what we have to say? Even though God, it seems, like Jesus, always seems to know what we need to talk about – and yet lets us say it anyway and never cuts us off until we are done talking. For God is always always listening. And sometimes, like Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman, God shows up, when we least expect it! -- Amen!

Now, do you understand what this story is all about? The whole story … it is really about all of us - isn’t it … for, in one way or another … we are all like the Samaritan woman at the well … isn’t that right?

For do we not all come to church, more or less, every Sunday like the Samaritan woman who came to the well … for what? For water? What kind of water? For bread? What kind of bread? Are we hungry … hungry - for what? Are we thirsty - for what? Well, as Jesus reveals to the woman … there is much more to life than material things. Just as for the two women Elaine Pagels and Ann LaMott. What were they really hungry for … what did they thirst for? Comfort, a relationship, shelter, caring, understanding, direction in life – all of those – and more, perhaps.

10. Now, the symbolic metaphor of “living water” … may sound strange to us … in this land where we have so much that we never go hungry not even for a day … and we can draw water just by turning on a tap. No, the truth is that we are very far from the more immediate physical world of Jesus where a well that “bubbled” meant that the water was fresh and therefore was referred to as “living water”-- as opposed to a stagnant pool which could be polluted and unhealthy.

The other day I went for a walk in the woods. Back behind my cabin where the woods extend for several miles or more. In fact, I think, if I had all day I could walk all the way up to Buena Vista on the trails through the woods … if I didn’t get lost that is …

It was a bright sunny day on Monday … and I walked about a half hour and finally turned around and walked back … almost an hour in all. While it was a good day for walking I was a little tired and glad to get back. Do you like to walk? How far is a good walk for you? A half mile … a mile … more than a mile … several hours … what is the longest walk you ever went on? How did you feel when you got back?

11.What we don’t realize is that back in Jesus’ day … there were no
buses, no cars, not even horses. People walked everywhere.

So as the story starts out – Jesus had decided to take his disciples and leave Judea and go to Galilee. But this was about three days on foot and to quickly get to Galilee -- one had to go through Samaria – otherwise it would take twice as long to go along the eastern side of the Jordan River. So they decided to take the shortcut even though Samaria was not a popular place for Jews because of the great animosity which existed between these two groups of people.

Now according to the Jewish day … which ran from 6 AM (at sun up) to 6 PM (sun down) the middle of the day was around noon. So can you imagine walking for six hours from 6 AM to midday? Can you imagine how tired and weary Jesus was? And how thirsty?

No wonder he wanted a drink of water!

12. Now of the many accounts of Jesus … it is said that John’s Gospel is the most “spiritual” of all four … for John intends to have us believe that Jesus is not merely a man … but a Divine and Holy Person … that he is really the Word of God – made flesh.

Yet we must also understand that in the days after Jesus there were certain ideas about Him which claimed that he was not a man at all … only that he appeared to be one. Some people believed that Jesus was a purely supernatural entity like an angel of God. Those who professed this idea were called docetists.

So, in the telling of John’s story of Jesus at the well there are elements designed to refute the docetists. For after all, John began in the very first chapter in his Gospel by saying "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.”

John therefore reveals to us the “fleshly” side of Jesus when we read that he was tired and hungry … and weary … and thirsty. In other words, Jesus was a living human being even though John also believed him to be the Word of God incarnate. Jesus, according to John, felt pain, sorrow, anger, joy, and all the rest. He was not merely some purely “supernatural entity” – as some people even today seem to want to believe.

Jesus in short has both a “physical side” and a “spiritual side”. Just as all of us do … for we are all both body and spirit.

13. Hence, the second point of the story is that, as human beings, we have both a physical hunger and physical thirst and a spiritual hunger and a spiritual thirst as well. And both are very great.

And so, the story about the well in Samaria reveals that though Jesus was very thirsty … and while he welcomed the offer of water from the woman … he used that moment to also remind her that there is more to life than water. Namely, we also have a thirst in our hearts and in our souls for God as well.

As St. Augustine once, “Our hearts are restless until we find thee.”

14. Lastly, I want to say a word about the fact that Jesus made his claim on behalf of God to literally everyone he met. In his Gospel, John wants us to understand that God is all-inclusive. God, the story reveals, cares as much for the Samaritan woman as anyone else.

This is very hard for people to accept. After all we want to be the ones who are accepted by God - not those “other” people. We prefer to believe that we are special and we can think of all kinds of reasons why we are, in fact, better than “those people.” It goes on all the time.

Recently I watched a movie based on E. M. Forester’s novel A Passage to India, which is about British “colonialism” in India. It is about the clash of different cultures and how the English, as enlightened Christians, really thought they were there to “help” the poor and backward Hindus and Moslems.

While all the time they were continuously looking down their noses at them. “White man’s burden” – I think it was once called. It was so pervasive … and yet only few people in the movie could actually see it and almost no one could do anything about it. The cultural divide in Colonial British India was just as great as that between the Jews and the Samaritans in Jesus’ day.

15. But, the story of the Samaritan woman reveals that while we may have our prejudices … and our tendencies to think better of ourselves than those less fortunate … or those who are different … or those of other cultures … it is loud and clear that Jesus did not care … and God does not care … about people’s cultural and ethnic differences -- otherwise the story of the Samaritan woman makes no sense … at all.

And that is point number three … God is all inclusive … God sets up no barriers … and allows all to call upon him. Everyone … including even you and me … and our neighbor next door.

All we have to do then … is go out to the well … the spiritual well … with our bucket … or our heart (so speak) and it will be filled.

And that, is another word for salvation … this week from John instead of Paul.

16. In conclusion then, John’s three points are:

1. God is continually working to develop a relationship with us that
we might know and love Him.

2. We are both physical and spiritual beings who, while we hunger and thirst for food and drink, we also hunger and thirst spiritually to know and be accepted by God.

3. Lastly, God, despite our personal prejudices, is all-inclusive. God
accepts everyone – Elaine Pagels, Ann LaMott, the Samaritan
woman at the well, and even you and I.

Let us pray…