Robert T. Young - "Whoever Drinks" (March 6, 1977)
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| - | Duke university service of worship. | 0:05 |
| Second Sunday in lent March 6th, 1977. | 0:09 | |
| (soft piano music) | 0:17 | |
| - | Let us pray. | 9:27 |
| Our Father, be with each of us this morning as we worship, | 9:32 | |
| help us to be ever mindful of you, | 9:38 | |
| whenever we enter this your home, | 9:41 | |
| so that your guidance and will, | 9:44 | |
| shall be with us each all the days of our lives. Amen. | 9:47 | |
| (soft piano music) | 9:58 | |
| - | May we now join in the prayer of confession. | 13:12 |
| Lord you made the world and everything in it. | 13:18 | |
| You created the human race of one stock | 13:22 | |
| and gave us the earth for our possession. | 13:26 | |
| Lord, we have been divisive in our thinking, | 13:30 | |
| in our speech, in our actions. | 13:34 | |
| We have classified and imprisoned one another. | 13:37 | |
| We have fenced each other out by hatred and prejudice. | 13:41 | |
| Lord you mean us to be a single people, | 13:47 | |
| ruled by peace, feasting and freedom, | 13:51 | |
| freed from injustice, truly human men and women, | 13:55 | |
| responsible and responsive in the life we lead, | 14:00 | |
| the love we share, the relationships we create. | 14:04 | |
| Lord we shall need ever new insights into the truth, | 14:09 | |
| awareness of your will for all humanity, | 14:13 | |
| courage to do what is right even when it is not allowed, | 14:16 | |
| persistence and undermining unjust structures | 14:21 | |
| until they crumble into dust, | 14:24 | |
| grace to excise a ministry of reconciliation, | 14:27 | |
| break down the walls that separate us | 14:31 | |
| and unite us in a single body | 14:35 | |
| in and through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 14:38 | |
| Our heavenly Father, | 14:55 | |
| give us a heart like the heart of Jesus, | 14:58 | |
| a heart more ready to minister than to be ministered unto, | 15:02 | |
| a heart moved back in passion | 15:06 | |
| towards the weak and the oppressed. | 15:08 | |
| We pray for those sorts and conditions of men | 15:12 | |
| to whom Jesus wanted us to give special thought and care, | 15:14 | |
| for those lacking food or clothing, | 15:19 | |
| for the sick and all who are wasted by disease, | 15:23 | |
| for the maimed and the lame, for the blind, | 15:27 | |
| for the prisoners, for those oppressed by any injustice, | 15:31 | |
| for those lost in our human society, | 15:36 | |
| for all those lonely within our gates, | 15:39 | |
| for the worried and the anxious, | 15:43 | |
| for those who are living lives in obscurity, | 15:46 | |
| and for those who are fighting bravely in unpopular causes. | 15:49 | |
| Forgive us when we forget but one of those, | 15:54 | |
| for when we do, we are forgetting thee, | 15:58 | |
| grant that thy loving kindness and causing our own lives | 16:02 | |
| to fall in pleasant places, | 16:05 | |
| may not make us less sensitive | 16:08 | |
| to the needs of the less privileged, | 16:10 | |
| but rather more inclined to lay | 16:12 | |
| their burdens upon our own hearts. | 16:13 | |
| And if any adversity should befall us, | 16:17 | |
| then let us not brew to put our own sorrows, | 16:20 | |
| as if we alone in this world are suffering, | 16:24 | |
| but rather let us busy ourselves | 16:27 | |
| in the compassionate service of all who need our help, | 16:29 | |
| forgive us of our sins our Father, | 16:33 | |
| and help us to grow closer to thee. Amen. | 16:36 | |
| (soft piano music) | 16:46 | |
| (woman singing) | 16:56 | |
| - | Hear with understanding the reading | 19:15 |
| of today's scripture lesson. | 19:16 | |
| Therefore, since we are justified by faith, | 19:22 | |
| we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. | 19:25 | |
| Through him we have obtained access | 19:30 | |
| to this grace in which we stand. | 19:32 | |
| And we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. | 19:35 | |
| More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, | 19:39 | |
| knowing that suffering produces endurance | 19:43 | |
| and endurance produces character | 19:47 | |
| and character produces hope | 19:50 | |
| and hope does not disappoint us | 19:53 | |
| because God's love has been poured | 19:56 | |
| into our hearts through the Holy Spirit | 19:58 | |
| which has been given to us. | 20:01 | |
| While we were yet helpless at the right time, | 20:04 | |
| Christ died for the ungodly. | 20:08 | |
| While one will hardly die for a righteous man, | 20:11 | |
| though perhaps for a good man, one will even dare to die, | 20:15 | |
| but God shows his love for us | 20:19 | |
| in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. | 20:21 | |
| Since therefore we are now justified by his blood, | 20:27 | |
| much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God, | 20:31 | |
| for if why we were enemies we were reconciled | 20:36 | |
| to God by the death of his son, | 20:39 | |
| much more now that we are reconciled, | 20:42 | |
| shall we be saved by his life. | 20:45 | |
| Let the congregation stand for the reading of the gospel. | 20:52 | |
| So he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, | 21:03 | |
| near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. | 21:07 | |
| Jacob's well was there. | 21:11 | |
| And so Jesus wearied as he was with his journey, | 21:13 | |
| sat down beside the well, it was about the sixth hour. | 21:17 | |
| There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. | 21:22 | |
| Jesus said to her, give me a drink, | 21:25 | |
| for his disciples had gone away into the city. | 21:29 | |
| The Samaritan woman said to him, | 21:33 | |
| how is it that you a Jew ask a drink of me | 21:36 | |
| a woman of Samaria, | 21:40 | |
| for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. | 21:42 | |
| Jesus answered her, | 21:46 | |
| if you knew the gift of God | 21:47 | |
| and who it is that is saying to you give me a drink. | 21:49 | |
| You would have asked him | 21:53 | |
| and he would have given you living water. | 21:54 | |
| The woman said to him, sir you have nothing to draw with. | 21:57 | |
| The well is deep. | 22:01 | |
| Where do you get that living water? | 22:03 | |
| Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well | 22:06 | |
| and drank from it himself and his sons and his cattle? | 22:09 | |
| Jesus said to her, | 22:14 | |
| everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. | 22:16 | |
| But whoever drinks of the water | 22:20 | |
| that I shall give him will never thirst. | 22:22 | |
| The water that I shall give him will become in him | 22:25 | |
| a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. | 22:28 | |
| The woman said to him, | 22:33 | |
| sir give me this water that I may not thirst | 22:35 | |
| nor come here to draw. | 22:38 | |
| Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. | 22:41 | |
| The woman answered him, I have no husband. | 22:46 | |
| Jesus said to her, | 22:49 | |
| you are right in saying I have no husband | 22:51 | |
| for you have had five husbands, | 22:54 | |
| and he whom you now have is not your husband, | 22:56 | |
| this you said truly. | 22:59 | |
| The woman said to him, | 23:01 | |
| sir I perceive that you are our prophet. | 23:03 | |
| Our fathers worshiped on this mountain. | 23:06 | |
| And you say that in Jerusalem is the place | 23:09 | |
| where men ought to worship. | 23:11 | |
| Jesus said to her, woman believe me, | 23:13 | |
| the hour is coming when neither | 23:17 | |
| on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, | 23:19 | |
| will you worship the Father. | 23:22 | |
| You worship what you do not know. | 23:24 | |
| We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. | 23:28 | |
| But the hour is coming, | 23:32 | |
| and now is, when the true worshipers will worship | 23:34 | |
| the father in spirit and truth | 23:38 | |
| for such the Father seeks to worship Him. | 23:41 | |
| God is spirit. | 23:45 | |
| And those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. | 23:47 | |
| The woman said to him, | 23:52 | |
| I know that Messiah is coming he who is called Christ. | 23:54 | |
| When he comes, he will show us all things. | 23:58 | |
| Jesus said to her, | 24:03 | |
| I who speak to you, am he. | 24:05 | |
| Amen. | 24:10 | |
| (soft piano music) | 24:16 | |
| - | Let us now affirm what we believe. | 25:03 |
| We believe in God, who has created and is creating, | 25:08 | |
| who has come in the truly human Jesus, | 25:14 | |
| to reconcile and make new, | 25:17 | |
| who works in us and others by the spirit, | 25:20 | |
| we trust God who calls us to be the church | 25:24 | |
| to celebrate life and its fullness, | 25:28 | |
| to love and serve others, | 25:31 | |
| to seek justice and resist evil, | 25:34 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 25:37 | |
| our judge and our hope, | 25:41 | |
| in life, in death and in life beyond death, | 25:43 | |
| God is with us, we are not alone. | 25:48 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 25:51 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 25:54 | |
| - | And with your spirit. | 25:55 |
| - | Let us pray. | 25:57 |
| We prayed to thee our Father, | 26:09 | |
| who is the source of our life, | 26:12 | |
| and the end of our pilgrimage. | 26:14 | |
| We are thankful for your presence all of our days. | 26:17 | |
| Your loving kindness is our satisfaction. | 26:20 | |
| Your spirit is our strength. | 26:23 | |
| And as we rush toward the evenings of our lives, | 26:26 | |
| you are our hope in our rest. | 26:29 | |
| We remember your goodness toward us, your love and support. | 26:33 | |
| May we not be anxious and fearful, | 26:38 | |
| but always be upheld by our sure trust in thee. | 26:41 | |
| May we be supported in sickness and in health | 26:45 | |
| by the knowledge of your presence with us. | 26:48 | |
| And may that knowledge sustain us in sorrow and in enjoy. | 26:51 | |
| When our hope is denied and when it is fulfilled, | 26:56 | |
| may we be sustained, | 27:00 | |
| in the midst of our lives and in the hour of our death, | 27:02 | |
| give us the strength of our conviction | 27:07 | |
| so that all that we may do, | 27:09 | |
| we can be proud to share with thee. | 27:11 | |
| Put far from us all things | 27:15 | |
| that leave us unaware of your presence. | 27:17 | |
| Give us the strength of mind and body | 27:20 | |
| that will enable us to do our part, | 27:22 | |
| to establish thy way, | 27:25 | |
| so that we may have last enter into thy peace. Amen. | 27:27 | |
| May we now join together, in the Lord's prayer. | 27:33 | |
| Our Father, who art in heaven, | 27:39 | |
| hallowed be thy name, | 27:42 | |
| thy kingdom come, | 27:44 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, | 27:46 | |
| give us this day our daily bread | 27:50 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 27:53 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us, | 27:55 | |
| lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, | 27:59 | |
| for thine is the kingdom, and the power, | 28:04 | |
| and the glory forever. Amen. | 28:07 | |
| I was asked this morning to make two announcements. | 28:17 | |
| There will be a communion service immediately following | 28:21 | |
| this service in the Memorial chapel. | 28:24 | |
| For those of you who would like | 28:26 | |
| to join with us in that service of worship. | 28:27 | |
| The Gideon Bible International Society | 28:33 | |
| will be outside of the chapel, | 28:36 | |
| immediately following this service | 28:38 | |
| and would appreciate any contributions | 28:41 | |
| which you would like to make to further their work. | 28:43 | |
| - | In the name of God who creates us, | 29:10 |
| makes us whole, and sustains us. Amen. | 29:14 | |
| In a book of his entitled, | 29:24 | |
| The Journey That Men Make, | 29:25 | |
| Bishop James Armstrong of the United Methodist Church | 29:30 | |
| writes some straight and stark and searching words. | 29:33 | |
| There are hosts of us who suffer | 29:45 | |
| because we suspect that the things we do from day to day | 29:51 | |
| are without real meaning. | 29:54 | |
| We wonder if there is a God, | 29:59 | |
| and if so, what does He do with Himself? | 30:03 | |
| We wonder if there is any thread of continuity running | 30:08 | |
| through our days giving them direction and content. | 30:11 | |
| Do we, he asks, as individual human beings | 30:16 | |
| have any significance beyond the space which we occupy | 30:20 | |
| and the air which we breathe? | 30:25 | |
| Do we? Do you? Do I? Does any person? | 30:30 | |
| Is there any significance to your life or mine | 30:38 | |
| beyond the space which we occupy | 30:41 | |
| and the air which we breathe? | 30:43 | |
| I have an idea that the woman at the well at Sychar | 30:48 | |
| had asked herself that question numerous times. | 30:51 | |
| And Jesus had an answer. | 30:58 | |
| Jesus gave her an answer. | 31:00 | |
| Jesus showed her an answer. | 31:02 | |
| Jesus related to her an answer. | 31:04 | |
| Or to put it in other words that pose the question | 31:10 | |
| in ways I think we can all understand John Killinger writes | 31:13 | |
| in his book, The Salvation Tree. | 31:16 | |
| He says the question, | 31:20 | |
| what if there is no life after death? | 31:22 | |
| Has given way and the question has become, | 31:25 | |
| what if there is no life before death? | 31:28 | |
| I have an idea that the woman at the well at Sychar | 31:36 | |
| had asked herself that question numerous times | 31:39 | |
| and Jesus was an answer. | 31:44 | |
| In his, a spiritual autobiography, | 31:51 | |
| William Barclay confesses, | 31:54 | |
| I am very much a natural believer. | 31:56 | |
| It is not that life has been specially easy for me. | 32:01 | |
| And it wasn't because he and his family were vacationing | 32:05 | |
| on the beach of Scotland one time | 32:09 | |
| and his 18 year old daughter was swept out to sea and drown. | 32:12 | |
| He said I shall later on in this book talk | 32:16 | |
| of the blows that life has launched against me, | 32:18 | |
| but I have never found myself doubting God | 32:21 | |
| or doubting the love of God. | 32:23 | |
| In matters of belief there is only one way to begin, | 32:26 | |
| I believe in God. | 32:29 | |
| Life had launched some very hard blows against | 32:34 | |
| the woman at the well at Sychar, | 32:37 | |
| life had not been specially easy for her | 32:39 | |
| and there she was all alone at the well with Jesus. | 32:43 | |
| And so are we often all alone | 32:48 | |
| at a well seeking to draw some water. | 32:53 | |
| Thomas Wolfe it was who once wrote | 32:57 | |
| I have discovered that the constant weather | 32:59 | |
| around one's life is not love, but is loneliness. | 33:02 | |
| And he referred to his being aloneness | 33:08 | |
| as a kind of a terrible joke. | 33:10 | |
| Or as Anne Frank at age 13 just before she was to die | 33:14 | |
| in a German concentration camp wrote in her diary one day, | 33:19 | |
| in its inner most depths youth is lonelier than old age. | 33:22 | |
| In the significance, | 33:30 | |
| life before death, blows of life, loneliness, questions, | 33:32 | |
| yes all questions, questions from life in life | 33:38 | |
| about life for life over against life, | 33:42 | |
| through life and with life. | 33:46 | |
| The nameless woman of Samaria came to the well | 33:48 | |
| at Sychar very much a routine trip for her. | 33:52 | |
| Just as a woman today might make a trip | 33:56 | |
| to the grocery store. | 33:59 | |
| Women made this trek every day, | 34:00 | |
| not often at the noon hour however, | 34:02 | |
| but they made this trek to draw water | 34:05 | |
| for the needs of their family. | 34:06 | |
| How strange it was though for her to find Jesus there. | 34:08 | |
| He was a Jew. | 34:13 | |
| And Jews ordinarily did not go through Samaria, | 34:15 | |
| Jews and Samaritans hated each other | 34:18 | |
| they had hated each other for over 700 years. | 34:20 | |
| Thus when Jesus had to go from Judea on the south | 34:25 | |
| to Galilee in the north | 34:30 | |
| as he and the disciples were doing in this trip, | 34:32 | |
| they usually went east to across the Jordan river | 34:36 | |
| and up the bank of the Jordan river | 34:39 | |
| and then back over into Judea | 34:41 | |
| and didn't even bother to go through Samaria, | 34:42 | |
| but not this trip. | 34:46 | |
| Strange that Jesus was there in Samaria at a well. | 34:48 | |
| Strange dialogue between Jesus and this woman. | 34:54 | |
| He said, give me a drink. | 34:58 | |
| How is it she said that you a Jew, | 35:01 | |
| ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman. | 35:05 | |
| Woman if you only knew what God gives | 35:10 | |
| and who it is that is asking for a drink, | 35:12 | |
| you would have asked him | 35:14 | |
| and he would have given you living water. | 35:15 | |
| Not understanding the woman said sir | 35:20 | |
| but you don't even have a bucket. | 35:22 | |
| And the well is deep. | 35:24 | |
| How can you give me any water to drink? | 35:25 | |
| And she went on to ask, | 35:28 | |
| are you even a greater man than our ancestor Jacob | 35:30 | |
| who gave us this well and drank of it himself, | 35:33 | |
| are you greater than he? | 35:36 | |
| Jesus replied, everybody who drinks | 35:39 | |
| this water will be thirsty again, | 35:41 | |
| but whoever drinks the water which I give | 35:44 | |
| will not thirst again the water I shall give | 35:46 | |
| will be an inner spring always welling up to eternal life. | 35:48 | |
| The woman was expecting simple down to earth replies | 35:53 | |
| and Jesus was trying his best to move her | 35:57 | |
| to a spiritual realm which at the moment | 35:59 | |
| was quite beyond her understanding. | 36:02 | |
| The conversation continues with Jesus revealing | 36:05 | |
| that he knew much more about this woman | 36:10 | |
| than she thought that he knew. | 36:12 | |
| He knew that she had had five husbands | 36:13 | |
| and that the man she lived with now was not her husband. | 36:15 | |
| She had been rejected, not once or twice or thrice, | 36:19 | |
| but five times and was now living in sin, a real outcast. | 36:22 | |
| Maybe that's why she came at the noon day | 36:27 | |
| when all of the other women came in the morning | 36:30 | |
| or at night because she knew they didn't want her around. | 36:32 | |
| And then this dialogue moves to even greater heights. | 36:38 | |
| Believe me, Jesus said, the time is coming | 36:41 | |
| when you will worship the Father, | 36:43 | |
| neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. | 36:45 | |
| The time is coming indeed, the time now is, | 36:48 | |
| when the true worshipers will worship | 36:50 | |
| the Father in spirit and in truth, | 36:52 | |
| not in a place and not in a building, | 36:54 | |
| but in spirit and in truth. | 36:56 | |
| The woman replied, well I know that when the Messiah comes, | 36:57 | |
| he will come and he will tell us everything. | 37:01 | |
| And Jesus replied, I am he. | 37:03 | |
| Never before had Jesus been willing to answer the question | 37:09 | |
| and he was ask at many times, who are you? | 37:13 | |
| He never answered the question, but it was to a woman, | 37:16 | |
| a woman who had not even asked, | 37:20 | |
| to whom he gave the words of fate and faith | 37:22 | |
| and said I am he, | 37:25 | |
| I am that Messiah who will come and give you the answers. | 37:28 | |
| I'm sure you're familiar with this passage as I am. | 37:35 | |
| And I'd read this passage many times in the past | 37:37 | |
| the whole chapter as a matter of fact. | 37:41 | |
| And it seemed interesting enough, somewhat unusual, | 37:43 | |
| but really nothing particularly overwhelming or sensational | 37:47 | |
| or earth shaking or far reaching about it | 37:51 | |
| until I read it recently. | 37:54 | |
| It is the gospel lesson for the second Sunday in lent today. | 37:57 | |
| And so I read it and re-read it | 38:01 | |
| and then suddenly some of the real power | 38:03 | |
| of God's word here spoke to me. | 38:05 | |
| This is an absolutely magnificent story, | 38:08 | |
| a beautifully rich revelation of the radical nature | 38:12 | |
| of God's amazing love, of God's unconditional acceptance, | 38:17 | |
| and of God's unquestioning forgiveness. | 38:23 | |
| This story shows us, | 38:28 | |
| that there are absolutely no boundaries to God's grace. | 38:32 | |
| Jesus broke all the barriers | 38:39 | |
| that existed of personal relationships. | 38:42 | |
| Where Jesus spoke in the first place to a woman, | 38:47 | |
| married and divorced five times | 38:51 | |
| a woman now living with a man who is not her husband. | 38:54 | |
| Jesus spoke in the second place. | 38:58 | |
| Jesus as a Galilee and Jew spoke to a woman of Samaria, | 39:01 | |
| the land of hated peoples. | 39:06 | |
| Jesus spoke in the third place as a Jewish male, | 39:09 | |
| to a woman in public, a strange woman, | 39:13 | |
| not his wife nor his mother nor his sister. | 39:17 | |
| Was Jesus really radical in his teaching? | 39:23 | |
| Was Jesus really radical in his behavior? | 39:28 | |
| I believe that in both what he said and in what he did | 39:32 | |
| and accepting and loving persons, | 39:35 | |
| Jesus was absolutely revolutionary. | 39:38 | |
| And I say, thank God. | 39:43 | |
| Thank God, or perhaps not a one of us here this morning | 39:49 | |
| would have ever known or heard of this one | 39:54 | |
| who came from God to give us that water | 39:57 | |
| which is welling up into eternal life. | 40:01 | |
| I read of Jesus experience with this woman and re-read it. | 40:06 | |
| And the more I read it, | 40:13 | |
| the more I began to realize how far short | 40:14 | |
| of living the gospel, some of us thought. | 40:19 | |
| In the first place, | 40:25 | |
| Jesus was talking to a woman who had had five husbands. | 40:26 | |
| What do we do in our society? | 40:34 | |
| And even, or maybe even, especially in the church, | 40:38 | |
| what do we do with those persons who are separated? | 40:43 | |
| Or who are getting a divorce? Or who are divorced? | 40:48 | |
| I remember one of the most painful conversations | 40:55 | |
| I've ever had with a man in my life, | 40:57 | |
| was when he was elected to an official board | 41:00 | |
| in a local church, this was in the community, | 41:02 | |
| the first church where I serve, | 41:04 | |
| he was elected to an official board in the church | 41:05 | |
| where he and his wife had been going for years. | 41:08 | |
| They found out that he had been divorced and they asked him, | 41:11 | |
| they told him that he could not serve | 41:14 | |
| on the board to which he had been elected. | 41:17 | |
| So what do we do with those persons | 41:21 | |
| who are separated or divorced? | 41:23 | |
| Usually, we ostracize, | 41:24 | |
| both the husband and the wife. | 41:30 | |
| We sit back and we say to ourselves | 41:33 | |
| and then often we say to many others as well, | 41:35 | |
| I wonder what she did wrong. | 41:37 | |
| Why can't he get along with her? | 41:40 | |
| Or what's the matter with him? | 41:43 | |
| Or what's the problem? | 41:45 | |
| Or what are the problems with her? | 41:47 | |
| And I guess nearly all of us married couples | 41:51 | |
| have had the experience of being very good friends | 41:54 | |
| with another married couple, | 41:56 | |
| going out with them, having them over for dinner, | 41:58 | |
| going over to their house for dinner, | 42:00 | |
| becoming rather good and close friends | 42:03 | |
| until they separate and divorce. | 42:05 | |
| And we don't know what to do | 42:10 | |
| with separated or divorced persons. | 42:12 | |
| And so we usually do nothing. | 42:15 | |
| We keep them at a distance, | 42:19 | |
| as if they had some kind of contagious | 42:22 | |
| or infectious or fatal disease. | 42:25 | |
| They become something along the order of undesirables | 42:27 | |
| in the eyes of far too many of us. | 42:31 | |
| And so if you are separated or divorced this morning, | 42:35 | |
| my guess is that you have probably experienced | 42:38 | |
| some of the coolness and the distance | 42:42 | |
| that others of us have shown | 42:44 | |
| or have put between us. | 42:47 | |
| If you know of someone who is separated or divorced, | 42:49 | |
| I invite you this morning to think | 42:53 | |
| about your relationships with those persons. | 42:54 | |
| Here was a woman who had had not one | 42:57 | |
| or two or even three but five husbands. | 43:00 | |
| It's hard for us even to begin to conceive | 43:05 | |
| of the feelings of rejection | 43:08 | |
| which this woman must have had and known | 43:10 | |
| and lived with day by day | 43:13 | |
| and all the broken relationships which she had suffered. | 43:15 | |
| Remember, if you will, if none of her husbands had died | 43:19 | |
| and we really don't know about that, | 43:23 | |
| they were the ones who had rejected her, | 43:25 | |
| because she as a woman had no rights | 43:27 | |
| to divorce any of her husbands, | 43:31 | |
| it was all within their power. | 43:33 | |
| Only the husband could file for divorce. | 43:35 | |
| She had been constantly the object | 43:39 | |
| of rejection and brokenness, and Jesus loved her. | 43:41 | |
| He loved her my friends. | 43:48 | |
| He knew her sorted story, | 43:51 | |
| her suspicious past, her sinful present. | 43:53 | |
| He must've known because he told her about it | 43:56 | |
| even before she told him. | 43:58 | |
| He accepted her. | 44:02 | |
| He loved her. | 44:04 | |
| He changed her life. | 44:06 | |
| Then in the second place, | 44:11 | |
| Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman. | 44:12 | |
| The wall was very high between Jews and Samaritans. | 44:16 | |
| They all trace their ancestry back to Jacob and even beyond. | 44:21 | |
| But around 700 BC the Assyrians invaded Samaria. | 44:25 | |
| Intermarriage between the Jews of Samaria | 44:30 | |
| and these foreigners from a Assyria took place. | 44:34 | |
| The Samaritans lost their racial purity. | 44:38 | |
| They committed the unforgivable crime. | 44:42 | |
| They lost their right to be called Jews. | 44:45 | |
| But then the Jews of the south remained pure | 44:48 | |
| and never intermarried. | 44:51 | |
| They remained stubbornly and an unalterably Jewish | 44:53 | |
| and rejected all of those of Samaritan stock. | 44:56 | |
| The Samaritans were different in the eyes of the Jews | 45:01 | |
| for they had been unfaithful. | 45:05 | |
| They were of impure blood. | 45:07 | |
| They of all people were to be left alone. | 45:09 | |
| And now the questions, | 45:15 | |
| what do we do with those people who are different from us? | 45:18 | |
| Those who we think are defiled because they live | 45:29 | |
| in a place we think not quite as good as ours. | 45:32 | |
| Those who are unfaithful because they don't believe | 45:36 | |
| as we think they should. | 45:39 | |
| Those who are unworthy because they don't have | 45:41 | |
| as much or as good an education as we have, | 45:44 | |
| or as we think they should have. | 45:47 | |
| Those who are impure because of the color of their skin, | 45:50 | |
| because their skin is either darker or lighter than ours | 45:55 | |
| or because of the shape of their nose or eyes | 45:59 | |
| and these are different from ours. | 46:04 | |
| Those who are not on our level in life | 46:07 | |
| because their jobs are menial or are low class, | 46:10 | |
| what do we do with these folks? | 46:14 | |
| Too often, we stand apart from them or above them, | 46:19 | |
| or are distant to them or are condescending to them, | 46:24 | |
| or we have nothing to do with them at all. | 46:28 | |
| Here was a woman, obviously Samaritan, | 46:32 | |
| obviously different from Jesus, | 46:36 | |
| obviously among those who were to be hated by Jews, | 46:38 | |
| obviously not to be associated with or spoken to, | 46:41 | |
| worse, much worse than a total stranger, | 46:44 | |
| for a total stranger has no real identity to us | 46:47 | |
| and yet her identity was known | 46:51 | |
| and she was to be avoided in every possible way. | 46:53 | |
| And yet Jesus loved her. | 46:57 | |
| He loved her my friends. | 47:05 | |
| He knew she was Samaritan. | 47:09 | |
| He knew she belonged among | 47:12 | |
| the despised and hated and condemned. | 47:14 | |
| He accepted her. | 47:17 | |
| He loved her. | 47:19 | |
| He changed her life. | 47:21 | |
| Finally though, to show how truly radical Jesus was, | 47:25 | |
| John says that Jesus was talking in public with a woman. | 47:32 | |
| Jesus' attitude toward woman, | 47:45 | |
| was one of the most revolutionary | 47:50 | |
| and radical features of his entire ministry. | 47:52 | |
| For women, were truly the powerless, | 47:59 | |
| secondary, non entity persons of Jesus' day. | 48:05 | |
| Socially they were supposed to stay out of view | 48:10 | |
| and anytime they came out into view | 48:12 | |
| they were to have their faces covered | 48:15 | |
| and were not to converse with men in public. | 48:17 | |
| Legally, they had no rights. | 48:20 | |
| They could not even own property. | 48:21 | |
| Everything they had belonged to their father | 48:23 | |
| or brother or husband. | 48:25 | |
| Religiously they were non-existent. | 48:28 | |
| The Torah was not even taught to the mother | 48:30 | |
| or to the daughters in the household | 48:33 | |
| what was taught by the father to the males in the household. | 48:34 | |
| There was a saying in Jesus' day | 48:39 | |
| that a man upon rising each day would pray, | 48:41 | |
| thank God I am not a slave, | 48:44 | |
| I am not a Barbarian, | 48:49 | |
| and thank God I am not a woman. | 48:51 | |
| Woman had no place, no status, no rights in Jesus' day. | 48:58 | |
| But I believe that Jesus changed that | 49:07 | |
| and changed it drastically. | 49:10 | |
| Tragically but sadly woman is still not treated equally | 49:14 | |
| with man even in our own society | 49:17 | |
| or our own nation or state or country. | 49:19 | |
| And I guess I must say to you this morning | 49:22 | |
| as I was thinking about this sermon and preparing it | 49:24 | |
| I thought we would have a moment of celebration this day | 49:26 | |
| at this point in the sermon, | 49:31 | |
| but unfortunately we do not. | 49:34 | |
| But it is not because Jesus did not show us | 49:37 | |
| by word and deed that woman is worthy | 49:40 | |
| in his sight and in God's sight, | 49:43 | |
| the real equal rights amendment or the entire constitution | 49:47 | |
| of equality of rights, was adopted by Jesus the Christ. | 49:51 | |
| And one day we may realize that. | 49:58 | |
| I was reading recently a woman's statement | 50:04 | |
| as she wrote on the theme, | 50:08 | |
| being a woman means, | 50:12 | |
| and she finished that sentence with a statement. | 50:15 | |
| Among many powerful and beautiful affirmation, | 50:19 | |
| she made this statement about herself | 50:23 | |
| and about her own faith. | 50:25 | |
| For me, she said, my definition of being a woman | 50:26 | |
| is set in the context of my being a Christian | 50:29 | |
| rather than being restrictive when I recognized | 50:33 | |
| that Jesus did more than anyone in history | 50:35 | |
| to raise the status of women. | 50:37 | |
| My Christian commitment gives me | 50:40 | |
| an exhilaratingly freeing outlook on life. | 50:42 | |
| My faith confirms my uniqueness and my importance | 50:46 | |
| as a person created in God's image. | 50:50 | |
| This woman's beautiful self-affirmation under God continued, | 50:55 | |
| I am a woman in transition. I am a woman. | 50:59 | |
| For me now that means female, God's creation, | 51:02 | |
| a person in my own sight that's good, that's enough. | 51:07 | |
| That is good. That is enough. | 51:15 | |
| No wonder then that the Samaritan woman went | 51:23 | |
| from the well to her village | 51:27 | |
| to tell the people | 51:31 | |
| of the new life which she had found in the Messiah. | 51:35 | |
| It is good, it is enough, to meet the Christ, | 51:41 | |
| to know the Christ, to hear the Christ, | 51:48 | |
| to be accepted by the Christ, | 51:54 | |
| to be loved by the Christ. | 51:59 | |
| But I really didn't want to preach this sermon | 52:06 | |
| to talk about how we ought to relate | 52:09 | |
| to people who are divorced | 52:14 | |
| or to people who are different from us, | 52:16 | |
| or even to talk about how we are to relate to women. | 52:20 | |
| Although I think all three of those messages | 52:24 | |
| are powerfully present in this beautiful passage. | 52:27 | |
| What I really think this message is saying | 52:31 | |
| is that whoever drinks, | 52:34 | |
| even someone like her, | 52:39 | |
| or someone like him, | 52:45 | |
| whoever she is or he is. | 52:49 | |
| You see that's the affirmation of it all. | 52:54 | |
| Stranger, hated, ostracized, whoever. | 52:59 | |
| Whoever drinks. | 53:07 | |
| Jesus spoke here to a woman who was not very bright, | 53:17 | |
| to a woman who was not very virtuous, | 53:25 | |
| to a woman who was a foreigner. | 53:31 | |
| He spoke to one who would have been considered unworthy | 53:35 | |
| of hearing his words and uncapable of understanding. | 53:38 | |
| Unworthy, incapable, yet loved, | 53:44 | |
| and forgiven, and accepted. | 53:52 | |
| But my friends with love like that around, | 53:57 | |
| there may even be hope for me. | 54:04 | |
| Whoever drinks. | 54:15 | |
| Amen. | 54:23 | |
| (soft piano music) | 54:36 | |
| (woman singing) | 58:46 | |
| - | Our heavenly Father, | 1:04:28 |
| accept these gifts and accept our hearts. | 1:04:30 | |
| And with them both help us to help others | 1:04:34 | |
| and to lead them into thy way. Amen. | 1:04:37 | |
| (soft piano music) | 1:04:49 | |
| - | I remind you that representatives | 1:10:13 |
| from Gideon International will be at the doors as you leave, | 1:10:14 | |
| asking that you help them to further their work. | 1:10:18 | |
| And now may the peace, | 1:10:24 | |
| the love and the hope of Jesus Christ, | 1:10:27 | |
| be with each of you now and forever. Amen. | 1:10:30 | |
| (soft piano music) | 1:10:51 |
