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The Rev. Jennifer Whipple
Congregational Church of Brookfield (UCC)
February 24, 2008

Stewardship Sunday

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John 4:1-19, 25-30, 39-41

Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts and minds be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.  He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”  These are the first words that escape from the Samaritan woman’s mouth as she enters her town.  I picture her out of breath with her hands on her knees trying to comprehend what has just happened at the well.  After all, she merely went to fill her water jug, right?  There is so much more to this story than meets the eye, though.  There is more to this story than the verses just read.  There is a history, a context, and a transformation beyond imagining that takes place.  It is these things that go beyond the basic story that have led centuries of scholars, theologians, worship leaders, and church school teachers to share the story of the Woman at the Well.  “So what is this beyond?” you might ask. 

             This story, this miraculous transformation, begins with a series of cultural oddities.  As the story begins Jesus is basically running from the Pharisees, who are fuming about the numbers of people who were being baptized.  He realizes that this is a bad situation so he turns from Judea to head back to his home in Galilee.  But his journey, as we might imagine many were in that day, was long and hot, so he takes a rest by a well.  It is noontime when he stops to rest, a time most people spent in siesta to avoid the noonday sun, but there is a woman there.  The woman was at the well at noontime because she had a checkered past.  She had been married five times and now was living with another man out of wedlock.  You can imagine the gossip that went around the town about her and what more might start up if she went to the well at the same time early in the morning as all of the other women did.  So instead she chose to go at a safe time, a time when no one else in their right mind would be near the well.  And yet there is irony in this story because on this particular day, something was different.  There was this man – a Jewish man who many called Rabbi – who chose to break yet another social norm and speak to her.   You see, Jews & Samaritans were not the best of friends during NT times.  Both claimed to be true descendants of the nation of Israel, and a large part of their conflict was due to their beliefs regarding proper place of worship.  The Jews believed Jerusalem was the only true place of worship while the Samaritans located that at Mt. Gerazim.  And here is Jesus, not only speaking to her, but telling her that what is most important in worship is not where it takes place, but what the intentions are of the people worshiping.

             Now it would be one thing if Jesus had merely asked her for drink of water and left it at that.  She could probably tell by the dirt on his feet, face, and robe that he had been traveling.  And despite their cultural boundaries may have taken pity on him and given him a drink and a bit of water to wash up.  However, Jesus does not leave it at the mere request of some water.  Instead he calls her out on her transgressions, “Go call your husband, and come back,” Jesus says.  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.”  Through his words Jesus calls her to repentance, offers her forgiveness through the grace of God, speaks to her of living water and salvation, and promises her that if she believes she will never want for anything. 

           Now, had it been anyone else the woman might have thought him delusional, out in the noonday sun, but this man had just told her the things that she had done.  He had chosen to speak with her, despite the cultural boundaries, despite what his disciples might think of him, despite the laws of their religions.  And she had the courage to challenge him into identifying himself as the Messiah.  “I know that Messiah is coming.  When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”  And Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

             As I was reading about this text in preparation I read a story about a modern day woman who compares her life to that of the woman at the well.  Her name is Staci, and she is in her thirties now.  Staci had fallen into the wrong crowd in her early twenties, had participated in various misdeeds, and had been arrested, and one day she found herself in front of a church.  She decided to go in, and the words she heard that day coming from the preacher changed her life forever.  “The next thing that I began to hear coming from the pastor’s mouth,” Staci describes, “is that Jesus had come for the irreligious, the unholy…that God had come [as much] for the outcasts of society, for the broken one [as for anyone else].  When he said that, I thought, ‘Does this man know who I am?’  It was as if he was speaking just to me…”  That day Staci gave her life to Jesus Christ.  She trusted God to love her in spite of her past and to give her a brand new future.  In her testimony Staci said, “When I said yes to Jesus, I literally felt the chains drop off of my body.  I felt this release, this freedom come over me.  I felt much like the woman at the well, where the woman…goes to tell her friends, ‘Hey, there is this man, and he just exposed me.  He knows everything that I’ve done. Can you believe this?  I’m not shamed.’  That was me,” Staci continued, “God knows everything I’ve done, and He loves me.  And so at that moment, I was filled with freedom and joy and life and love. It was as if love came and just touched my heart, and I knew that was what I was looking for all my life.  God says, ‘I know the plans I have for you, plans to give you a future and a hope, plans to prosper you.  When you seek Me, you will find Me.’”  Staci has since given her life over to using her experiences and her gifts to educate young people about making healthy decisions in their lives.  

            So much like Staci’s strange encounter that called her from the street into the church, after this strange encounter at the well, the Samaritan Woman not only leaves to go back and share what has just happened with those in her town, she leaves a valuable possession behind, her water jug –the source of her refreshment and survival.  Back in the village she told the people, “Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out.  Do you think this could be the Messiah?”  She realizes she has something more valuable than any of her possessions. Despite the questions and doubts that still linger, she has her newfound faith and the love of God. She shares with the people around her so that they might understand what amazing gifts faith and forgiveness truly are. 

             And through her sharing out of her newfound abundance she opens herself up to other people.  She offers them the opportunity to share in the gift that she has just discovered.  She offers them the chance to see for themselves – to come to the never-ending well – to sit with Jesus.  She realizes that Jesus’ message is for all people, not just those who have years of faith to back them up, but for people with questions and doubts – for people with not so perfect pasts and those who would call themselves righteous alike – that Jesus’ message was and is for all who have eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to feel.  And with the grace of God, despite her reputation – despite her past, the people listen.  Many go back to the well to spend time at the feet of Jesus.  And through her testimony, and their time spent at the feet of the Master, many came to believe.  The Samaritan Woman at the Well, the woman with the checkered past and doubts, became Jesus’ first missionary in Samaria.  She followed all of the patterns of the disciples who had come before her – she leaves that which is most valuable to her in order to share her knowledge and newfound love for Jesus and his message.

             In my travels through books and on the internet this week I also found a series of books, excerpts of which are on-line, that are in the series of the “For Dummies” books.  I read one that was from Women of the Bible for Dummies.  If only my seminary professors had offered us those as a textbook option.  In this excerpt it describes the Woman at the Well in the following way, “The Samaritan woman’s spirit is enlightened, accelerated, illuminated by Jesus.  She now realizes what it means to take freely of the water of life, which is the spiritual refreshment that comes into her soul after her encounter and confession with Jesus…Through her zeal and love for God she leads many other people to Jesus.” 

             In this season of Lent, this season of Transformation, and on this Stewardship Sunday, that is what we are called to do as Christians, as people whose spirits have been enlightened, accelerated, and illuminated by Jesus.  What we are called to do as people who have abundance – whether that is the family and friends we have been blessed with, the choice of what food to eat out of our cupboards or what clothes to put on our backs in the morning, the gifts and talents that each of us are able to identify in our lives.  We are called to share out of our gratitude.  We are called to share out of our sense that we are forgiven – that we are recipients of God’s amazing grace.  We are called to share those things that the world deems most valuable – our treasures -- (after all how would Jesus have received a drink of the water from Jacob’s well had the woman not left her pitcher there?) – but also importantly to share the things that God deems most valuable.  We are called to be good stewards of the gifts we have been given, and of the gospel message.  For God so loves each of us – no matter what – that he sent Jesus to show us the way. God sent us the fountain of living water, the bread of life that feeds and sustains us spiritually, the man who shows us who we should be in this world.  God loves us so much that God sent his only Son that whoever believes shall have life and have it abundantly.  With that we are abundantly blessed.   Let us share out of our abundance and gratitude, and let us fully participate this Lenten Season in God’s Miraculous Way of Transformation.  Amen.