The well of vibrant life

a Sermon for Lent 3A
Text: John 4:5-42

 
Jesus walks
Through the eyes of others, we see our Lord walking
on water, through deserts, in our minds.
We focus on photographs left to time
by those that saw something in Him, something different,
maybe even dangerous. But compelling.
In this picture, a woman stands before Him,
and he sits, relaxed and confident and
when they speak, you can see the magic flowing
between their lips, more intimate than a kiss,
more close than their bodies clutched together.
What we see is love. A dangerous love.

This talk is different. It is a linguistic dance between Jesus and this Samaritan woman. It begins with her self-consciousness; she knows that her people are outcasts and aren’t the right kind of Jews. That they are lesser. But Jesus doesn’t treat her that way. He treats her differently: not like a princess: elevated: but as an equal and participant. That they are the same. And in the end, she is changed. Remember last week’s reading about Nicodemus? Jesus asks if he is willing to undergo a life-long transformation: of being re-created. No. This woman gets the same question and she says yes.

Living Waters
When Jesus says that this living water
gushes up to eternal life, we scratch our heads,
confused: is He talking about heaven?
We focus on the physicality of the water
and permanence of time; but just as John invites us
to see Jesus as offering constant transformation
he offers this woman eternal life—a life

a now
a being
a way

a vibrant life that radiates love
that exemplifies Jesus like a mirror
reflecting life and love onto everything.

The conversation that Jesus and the woman have starts out talking about water, H2O and turns metaphorical, poetic. We often forget that John isn’t writing a biography, but a poetic form that we might today call creative nonfiction. Jesus sees in this well the opportunity to reveal a message about love and about being re-created.

Jacob’s Well
Jacob came across a well with sheep around it.
And a man was there, waiting for more to arrive,
when Rachel comes with her sheep. He refuses
to move the stone from the well, for not all
of the sheep have come. Jacob shoves the rock
so that these sheep may drink now.
This well becomes the people’s well.

Jesus uses Jacob’s well to speak about the power of the Living Water and Eternal Life—this vibrant life of being re-created. That Jesus, like Jacob shoves the rock away. Jesus brings that vibrant spirit to us immediately—we don’t have to wait for everybody to get there. And when this woman hears this, she runs into town to tell everybody.

The Disciples
They don’t get it.
They never do.
Following their master
like puppies, devoted,
always hungry, and
marking their territory.

Jesus gives them this living picture,
our photograph of a woman
transformed into vibrant life
and he tells them
`One sows and another reaps.'
Because she is off to sow and
the bountiful harvest will need reapers.

The woman is filled with the Spirit, and yet the disciples still aren’t sure of their jobs—their place in the story. Jesus has to put the tools in their hands and say “Look! The people will be here soon! Get ready to help them find the vibrant life of being re-created.”

Being Re-Created
I know I’m wrong from time to time.
I know I don’t live the life I should
or follow Jesus’s teachings closely enough
and I certainly don’t pray enough,
so why am I afraid of being re-created?
Why do I fear the vibrant life Jesus promises all of us?
Is it because he promises it to us all?
It certainly isn’t because I think that highly of myself
and this life. But I am. Being re-created means
things have to change and I have to change.
The Pious Young Man was asked to change
and he ran away. Is that what I’m doing?

This is a gospel of transformation. The woman goes from being a nobody and becomes a catalyst for the Kingdom. She isn’t convinced by Jesus’s arguments, nor is she magically given confidence because Jesus is a wizard or a shaman. She is filled with the Spirit because she realizes that she needs it. She realizes that her previous life was not a vibrant life and she was transformed. And was moved to bring others to the well to drink the Living Water offered not just by Jesus, but by his disciples. As Jesus says, we don’t have to drink from His well again—but we must be ready to act, to reap what others sow. May we be so ready and so moved.

Trust in GOD

a Sermon for Lent 1A
Text: Matthew 4:1-11


Matthew 4:1-11

After Jesus was baptized, he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."

But he answered, "It is written,
'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."

Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

This morning we have a different sort of gospel. We get awfully used to coming in to church for a lesson or a teaching from Jesus. A parable or story that can get us to see something in ourselves or the world that we couldn’t see or give us an action that we could do that week. Then we go home and work on it, only to find ourselves coming to church the next week, hoping for a new teaching. It’s a little like shampoo: lather, rinse, repeat. Each week we show up, get our teaching, and go home.

This one is different. The temptation isn’t a teaching—not like that anyway.

The Temptation
Jesus isn’t tempted with chocolate cake or ice cream: he isn’t being pulled to do something simple and relatively harmless. The temptations are all about power: naked power. The tempter gives him three different options:

1. To make a miracle
2. Test GOD’s power
3. Take control of the world

And Jesus rejects all of it. He says no because his is a way without power; a way of humility. We know this because of what comes after this. He calls some humble people to be his disciples. Remember, these aren’t star students, but simple people. Then he climes a mountain with them and preaches a sermon about humility: the Sermon on the Mount.

Our Temptation
It’s a good thing that we weren’t tempted this way. Because we love power. Our real temptation isn’t chocolate cake, either; it’s power. I know it isn’t en vogue to want power, and hasn’t been since the 1980s. So let’s call it what we normally do: influence and control.

Let’s be honest, we love having the ear of the powerful, being sought for advice, or being seen as someone who is smart or wise. We love being praised for our beauty or grace, because we know that it gets us something. We want control over all the people out there on the road: the people who drive too slow and the ones that drive too fast. We know better than all of those people, don’t we? We just want everything to go our way. We love power.

And we know this about ourselves. We know that this is part of who we are—that it is part of the human condition. We even have an old adage about it: “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Jesus Rejects Power
And yet Jesus rejects the power, not with willpower, but with trust in GOD. Jesus doesn’t overcome temptation; he rejects it right out. Let’s look at how the interaction plays out:
Satan:

I know you are hungry. You’ve been out here for 40 days, and you must be starving. I get the feeling that you are waiting for GOD. You are, aren’t you? But it is taking him so very long to feed you. I know you Jesus. I know who you really are. I know that you could just make some food. So just feed yourself. What do you say?

And when Jesus doesn’t go along with it…

OK, I hear you. But I’ve read Scripture too, and I know that GOD has promised to protect you. See, I know who you are to become, and GOD won’t jeopardize that, so why don’t you let GOD protect you. You know that he will; you trust him don’t you?

And when Jesus refuses him again…

Well, Jesus, why should you wait for what GOD has promised? If He is so powerful, why doesn’t he give it to you. I can give it all to you right now! All this can be yours! Even Rome! I know how they hurt your friends. You can fix that. You can make them do what you want today! You can end their suffering. Just bow before me and I can make it happen.

See, Jesus isn’t just rejecting power for humility, he is rejecting the Tempter for what he is asking him to do: to reject GOD. And Jesus won’t have anything to do with that. That is why it doesn’t seem like Jesus is really even tempted by any of this. Not because he is stronger than humans or that he is divinely perfect or anything, but because if Jesus were tempted, it would mean that he could be someone that does reject GOD. And Jesus isn’t about to do that; he doesn't want that. He knows that he is nothing without GOD. That the power all comes from GOD and that it isn’t something for him to possess. Therefore, if he were to engage the Tempter, he would be giving up on his own fundamental principle—that you never reject GOD —under any circumstance.

So we see how Jesus does it: he doesn’t argue with the Tempter, or even use his own words. He simply says “for it is written” and then quotes Deuteronomy: the Word of GOD. This isn’t prooftexting or using Scripture to make your point: this is Jesus demonstrating to the Tempter, that it is GOD that speaks for Jesus, that it is GOD that is provider and liberator, not the other way around.

This image is powerful for us. Take a minute to visualize it with me. There are two men in this Gospel, right? Picture them for a moment:

• One smells of tea tree oil, has a $200 haircut, $600 sunglasses, and a $1000 watch. He is wearing a tailored suit, and his shoes are as shiny as his teeth. He is absolutely gorgeous. That is the devil.
• One just smells. His hair is long and scraggely, matted together. His clothes haven't been changed in 6 weeks, and he is covered in sand and dust. He is absolutely disgusting. That is Jesus.

Trust in GOD
We are given the opportunity in this season of Lent to reject the temptation of power through our own trust in GOD. That GOD is the origin of our sustenance and the bringer of all good things.

For us, Lent isn’t a time to torture ourselves or make ourselves miserable or put ourselves in a position to feel temptation just so we can avoid it. It isn’t a time of misery in which we simply deprive ourselves of a little chocolate cake to prove something to somebody that might want us to be deprived. It is a time to trust GOD, and help bring others to trust GOD.

This is the beauty of our faith—that GOD trusts us enough to trust GOD.

It is remarkable that GOD would trust us! To trust us because of all of our faults and all of our ambitions. But GOD trusts us to trust GOD. And what joy that can bring, even in Lent. That is why I wish each of us, without the least sarcasm, to have a truly happy Lent.