A woman of no significance

Before the reading:

Last week we heard about Nicodemus

Nicodemus, a Jewish man, a religious leader, went to meet Jesus at night

This week we will hear about an unnamed woman,

A Samaritan woman, who has lived a hard life, who went to get water in the middle of the day.

You may have heard that this woman is a sinner, because she has had 5 husbands, and is now living with another man. The reality for women in first century Israel, was that marriages were arranged, woman could not divorce, but her husband could divorce her.

She needed to be living with a man, it could be a brother, a son, a brother in law, a cousin, anyone who would take her in, otherwise she would not survive.

Nicodemus and the unnamed woman,

both met Jesus

One at night

One in daylight

One a Jew

One a Samaritan

Both confused by what Jesus says to them

Both offered new life

Nicodemus went back into the shadows, for now

She went to tell everyone

….Reading John 4:3-42, in 3 voices ...

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John recorded my story, I am not really sure why.

It is a few years since it happened.

People didn’t say much about my life. you could call it tragic,

Marriage, divorce, marriage, death, marriage – I know my family were trying to do the right thing by me, and the ending of each marriage made it more difficult to arrange another husband. Finally, a relative took pity on me, took me into their household, though at times I feel like a housekeeper.

The day that John wrote about,

it was a warm day, and water was running low,

so I went to fetch more water.

When I arrived, a man was sitting there.

And this man spoke to me.

I didn’t realise who he was at first,

but I knew he was a Jew,

I wondered why he would talk to me, ask me for something.

Turned out he offered me, more than he asked for.

I won’t go into all the details, you have heard the story.

For me it was life changing.

I had downplayed my past

I mean who wouldn’t,

and Jesus, knew and acknowledged my pain,

my sadness,

my isolation

my wondering if I belonged

He knew and acknowledged me

He didn’t criticise me or ask me to justify or explain

So, I asked him about worship

And after we talked for a while, some friends of his turned up and I went to tell the rest of the village about the Messiah.

By then I knew who he was, this mysterious man is the Messiah.

He took me, a tired woman,

A woman of no significance

And asked for water to quench his thirst

..

And changed my life

..

And the life of the people who came to know him through my story.

…..

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In this reading, Jesus goes from being called:

Ø  a Jew

Ø  Sir

Ø  a prophet

Ø  Messiah

Ø  the Saviour of the world

and the woman goes from

Ø  an unnamed woman collecting water for her household,

Ø  having a theological discussion

Ø   to telling people the good news

Last week we heard about the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus, and the need to be born by both water and spirit

the unnamed woman is offered living water

and told that worship is not about where,

but that ‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ John 4:24 NRSV

In her encounter with Jesus, this woman is transformed

she not only leaves behind her water jug,

She leaves behind her ostracism,

her marginalization,

her loneliness,

because Jesus has brought her into his fold.

She leaves behind her disgrace,

her disregard, and

the disrespect

she has endured

to enter into a new reality,

a new life that is abundant life.

- Karoline M. Lewis

[on screen]

She leaves behind her ostracism,

her marginalization,

her loneliness,

because Jesus has brought her into his fold.

She leaves behind her disgrace,

her disregard, and

the disrespect

she has endured

to enter into a new reality,

a new life that is abundant life.

- Karoline M. Lewis

What do you need to leave behind?

What new life are you being offered?

If you wish, as the music is playing,

you can collect a stone, it will become a symbol of something you wish to leave behind. Place it near the water.

The butterflies are here if you would like to pick one up a sign of the new life you are being offered.

PPT: come to the water

People move to collect stones and place

and/ or pick up butterflies

The Wrong Person gets Living Water

On Monday Ian and I went to the movies with some friends. We saw the movie: Hidden Figures. Now for people like Ian and me who like Maths and Science and technical stuff, it was great. If you aren’t into the technical stuff, it is a wonderful story.

The film is set in the space race era, at NASA; as the US attempt to get a man into space.

This was pre-computers, so all the calculations for the orbit of the rocket were done by people. The same for the calculations of where the rocket would land on re-entry.

Who do you imagine did all those calculations, and checked and double checked them? Calculations that could be the difference between life and death?

…..

Jesus and his disciples are travelling from Judea to Galilee.

Galilee is in the north, then [below that is] Samaria, then south of there is Judea.  Jesus and the disciples are heading north, but good Jews do not go through Samaria, they go the long way to avoid the place. But Jesus and the disciples take the ‘short cut’, which means a three to four day walk.

….

In schools, and some other groups, there can be people who are always left out – children that the other children don’t want to play with, or sit with. It maybe they have look different or smell different, or for some reason are considered ‘odd’.

We meet one of these ‘odd’ people in this morning’s reading. Well, maybe we meet two : )

This is the longest recorded conversation Jesus has with anyone in the Gospels, and

it is with a woman

who is not Jewish,

and worse than that,

she is a Samaritan

with a chequered past.

What was Jesus thinking?!

Well…

maybe he was just thinking

I’m thirsty

She has a bucket

We are at a well

Maybe she will give me some water, if I ask her.

Thirst led to a request, which led to a conversation

A conversation about where to worship.

The people of Samaria and the Jewish people are both descendants of Abraham.

But they were also enemies.

And like many family feuds, it permeated into many parts of life.

Where to worship was one such area. 

This woman who was ‘wrong’ in the eyes of many,

This woman talked theology with Jesus.

The woman who was the wrong gender

and the wrong colour and

from the wrong place,

who was without a husband

becomes a theologian and an evangelist.

She saw in Jesus something that others had not.

And Jesus saw her in ways that others had not.

This woman is often portrayed as a sinner, but there is nothing in the conversation between Jesus and the woman to suggest that Jesus saw her in that way. In the time when Jesus was on earth, women were property of men. And without a man, you didn’t have a home, or food. Without a husband, or son or father, you needed to resort to begging or prostitution. 

……

Each of us will have received messages from family and friends and colleagues, about who we are and what we are. I was told at school that while I was an enthusiastic singer, I was not good enough, and was no longer part of the school choir.

The people who did many of the calculations in the rocket program were black women. In a time when only some schools took non-white children, and educational pathways were limited, NASA realised they needed the best available brains.  That didn’t mean they were treated equally. The bathroom for ‘coloured women’ was across the campus from where one of the characters was working. Her boss wondered why she disappeared for 40 minutes a couple of times a day.

I have lived in country towns where the phrase ‘the wrong side of the tracks’ was real. Disadvantage was shown by the railway track, or the river, or the highway.

It is easy to see people in terms of one characteristic – colour, gender, religion, race, test score. But we are not one characteristic.

The reading about Jesus and this woman, is one of my favourite in the gospels. I really wish she had a name!

This story speaks to me of how we are known, fully known; and loved. Despite what others may say about us,

No matter how odd people think we are

No matter how hard a life we have had

No matter what our life might look like to others

Jesus comes

Is willing to chat, not tell us off

And offers us life giving water

When Jesus offered the woman living water, it wasn’t to wash away her sin.

Living water is about refreshment,

like rain after a hot day

or a hot bath in winter.  

When the woman left her water jar behind. She also left behind her abandonment, rejection, marginalization.[i]

Are there things you would like to chat with Jesus about?

What difference does it make to you that you are fully known, and fully loved?

Are you willing to accept the life giving water Jesus is offering?  

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[i] Karoline Lewis, Holy Conversations in Working Preacher, posted Sunday, March 12, 2017 10:30 PM