The Call to Care:
Women and Men
A sermon by Brent J.
Eelman
February 26, 2006
Abington
Presbyterian Church
John 4:5-30, 39
5So
he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground
that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s
well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by
the well. It was about noon.
7 A
Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give
me a drink’. 8(His
disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The
Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a
drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in
common with Samaritans.)*
10Jesus
answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that
is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked
him, and he would have given you living water.’ 11The
woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is
deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are
you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with
his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus
said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty
again, 14but
those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be
thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of
water gushing up to eternal life.’ 15The
woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may
never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
16 Jesus
said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’
17The
woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to
her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”;
18for
you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your
husband. What you have said is true!’ 19The
woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our
ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you
say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus
said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you
will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
22You
worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation
is from the Jews. 23But
the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will
worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as
these to worship him. 24God
is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and
truth.’ 25The
woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who
is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things
to us.’ 26Jesus
said to her, ‘I am he,
the one who is speaking to you.’
27 Just
then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking
with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or,
‘Why are you speaking with her?’ 28Then
the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to
the people, 29‘Come
and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be
the Messiah,
can he?’ 30They
left the city and were on their way to him.
39 Many
Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s
testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’*
Why
am I here? Why do I exist? Do I have a purpose beyond myself? Does
my life make a difference? These are good, albeit troubling
questions that one can ask about one’s life. But we can also
ask the same questions about the church, including this congregation,
Abington Presbyterian Church. Why are we here? Why do we exist as a
church? Do we have a purpose in this community and world? Do we
make a difference? I was recently musing with a colleague about
church property and he made the statement that our building is
located on one of the most desirable commercial pieces of property in
Eastern Montgomery County. I think that might be a bit of
exaggeration, but it is also the foundation of a very important
question. How are we using this land, this property, this building?
These are the questions that I would like to explore in the coming
weeks. I have asked members of the congregation to reflect on this
with me and they will be giving their perspective on the various
ministries activities of Abington Presbyterian Church. My intention
is that we all will see our life and work grounded in the biblical
story, and challenged to pursue our call to discipleship with more
diligence.
Eight years ago, a committee of our congregation struggled with precisely these questions. They developed a large document which is entitled A Plan for Ministry. At the heart of that plan is the statement that we are called To be Christ in our time. Some may think that there is a great deal of hubris in that statement, but that is not its intention. It is a challenge and a call to care in the spirit of Jesus Christ: to embody the call of Christ in our day and in our age. The story of the woman at the well is a story of Christ’s love and care for an individual. Today, in the next few moments, I will reflect on that story and its message. Second, I will outline the challenges that it places before us. I will conclude with the specific challenges that it brings to us as a community of faith called Abington Presbyterian Church.
I
The account of Jesus’ meeting the woman at the well is filled with drama and tension. The bible has other stories of men and women meeting at wells and they are romantic stories. Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah. The story begins with tension and it is compounded by the fact that this woman was a Samaritan. She was regarded as unclean and apostate by the Hebrews. The drama is further complicated by the fact that she has been married five times and was living with someone who was not her husband. Think about it: Is this the type of person you would want your son or daughter to meet? It is scandalous! Yet in this encounter, the person of Jesus is revealed to us. We learn the following: 1. Jesus was not a respecter of traditionally boundaries and prejudices. He risked scandal and condemnation to share his message and reveal himself to this less than acceptable woman. 2. Jesus was not judgmental about her situation. He did not flee involvement with her, but rather ministered to her in a caring manner. Third, Jesus listened to her. She thought she knows what she wanted and needed, but Christ, in dialogue affirmed her real need: living water that brings hope, promise and salvation.
II
What
a challenge this presents to those who will listen. The first
challenge is risky. Can we dare to care in a manner that moves
beyond traditional prejudice and boundaries? There is a price that
we have paid for respectability. We don’t always reach out to
those who do not measure up to our expectations. I understand from a
conversation with Lee Bowie that there are still two small groups of
Samaritans, numbering about 400 people. Other than this small group,
who are the Samaritans of our age? Who are the people we would
rather not associate with? Where are the neighborhoods we would
rather not go? The first challenge is the challenge to risk….
Risk to care!
The
second challenge is check our tendency to judge. All of us have to
make judgments in life. That is the reality of being human, but the
challenge here is not to judge people in a way that excludes them.
Jesus did not say: “It is too bad you are a Samaritan…
if you had the right genes, I could tell you about the living water
of hope.” Jesus did not say: “You have a bad reputation
and you shouldn’t be living with the guy you are currently
living with…” No! He shared with her his message of
hope.
The third challenge is to listen. Jesus listened to the Samaritan woman. Listening, he was able to speak to her needs as a child of God.
III
We
are called to be Christ in our time. We are called to care
for women and men in the same way that Christ did. As I listened to
M.M. describe the ministries in which we are involved that touch the
lives of women and men, I began to realize that we embody many of the
virtues of Christ’s ministry. But we still have our
challenges. Let me try and articulate these challenges:
We need to recognize that we are not confined to this corner of God’s world. Our ministry does not end where our property end, rather this is where it begins. This real estate and the facility that is upon it is the staging ground for reaching out to the world.
We need to embody the hospitality of Christ. The woman at the well shared water with Jesus… and he shared his living water with her. Do we practice that same hospitality with strangers in our midst? Do those who come into these walls, thirsting for living water, for hope, for meaning, for comfort, for love….are they met with scornful curiosity, or with the acceptance with which Christ greeted the woman at the well. The challenge is to share these wonderful ministries with all the women and men who enter these walls, but more: to extend that hospitality beyond these walls, reaching out to the world in the name of the one we follow, Jesus Christ.
We need to encourage ministry. The woman at the well, five times married, an “unclean Samaritan” was the first evangelist. She went back to her community and shared the good news of the messiah. We don’t know her name. She is one of the anonymous heroes of the Bible. Ministry to men and women in this age not only includes proclaiming the good news of Christ. It includes freeing them to share the good news with others. The great theologian, Karl Barth, once wrote that the sure sign of conversion is the willingness and desire to share the message of Christ with others.
Why are we here? What difference do we make as Abington Presbyterian Church? We are not a closed club that prays…. We are the body of Christ… transformed by the spirit to minister to others in Christ’s name. Why this building? This property? Not because it is beautiful or convenient, but rather because it provides a place to gather to worship and praise the God who calls us in Christ. It provides a staging ground to move out into the world, to encounter the nameless women and men who thirst for living water and to offer it to them. This is the good news and the challenge of the gospel. Amen.
*The
New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers)
1989.
Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania, www.apcusa.org