Poetic Sermon/Gospel Reading

The Holy Gospel According to John the 4^th Chapter

         So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Resting on the wrong side of the track

The bad part of town

A gay couple wandering into Westboro Baptist,

Into Fred Phelp’s funeral

A Ukrainian Soldier off base in Crimea

When the gates smashed open

Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

When Nicodemus showed up,

To meet with Jesus

It was night

In the darkness was unbelief

Not now

Now in this noonday sun

All is visible

All is known

Here comes belief.

         A Samaritan woman came to draw water,

A Samaritan woman…

No name.

Nicodemus had a name

She does not

Nameless

Just some other person

and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."

         (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

When a parent wants to get something done

But the kids are there

They might be in the way

Daddy gives them busywork

Dig a hole

Count the leaves

Fill in the hole

Jesus says,

“Oh… could you all go and get us some food?”

So the disciples won’t get in the way

In the way of this woman’s important experience of Jesus

         The 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.)

She’s unnamed… but

She’s a woman

She’s a Samaritan

The wrong gender

The wrong religion

For Jesus

         Jesus 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."

Living water

The Rabbis recommend it

For ritual baths

The Early Church Fathers recommend it

For Baptism

Water that flows

Fresh and clean

Bubbling, clear, and living

From God’s good earth

         The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"

         Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but 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."

Think of it!

To be filled up with a life flowing

Flowing from the goodness of what God creates!

A living, clear, bubbling life

Fresh and clean

Flowing from purity and in the likeness of our Baptism

         The 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."

She just wants a small thing

One less backbreaking job

No more going to draw water in the heat of the day

That’s all, slaking thirst and less monotony

A small thing

But he’s offering more

A big thing

         Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back."
         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. What you have said is true!"

 

Five husbands

Some assume adultery

But

My bet is abandonment

Maybe because of barrenness

Left

Again

And again

And again

And again

And again

Left to fend for herself

To carry her own water

To grow hard

Abandoned

         The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

Peter doesn’t even top this

Nicodemus was blind

But she sees

Sees Jesus in the noon light

Both of them

Exposed for who they are

He names her and she names him

And they see

There at Jacob’s well

         Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem."

         Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
         You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

You’re a prophet, but not of my religion

So

Brass tacks then

The place between you and me

The space between Mt. Gerezim and Jerusalem—Mt. Zion

What of it?

…You say there is no space?

It’s not about place…

Huh.

         The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us."

         Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."

He doesn’t say I am he…

English communicates this poorly

He says I am.

I AM

…When Moses spake with the burning bush

The bush said, “I AM”

I am. with a period after it

No genealogy, but Genesis instead

The origin

The formation of it all

It all flows out from this

He says I AM

         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?"

These awkward, unspoken, question marks

Would be shepherds crooks

Removing this bad comedian from the stage

Removing this woman from the Lord’s presence

This is why Jesus came up with that task

This is why he said,

“Oh… could you all go and get us some food?”

They see a woman

They see a Samaritan

The Disciples get in the way of Jesus

         Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"

         They left the city and were on their way to him.

Her question mark is a shepherds crook too

One leading her people,

Like Moses with a staff

Miriam’s song at the river

She’d found the one who fills her water jar

Fills it forever

She’d seen one who saw her

Knew her name and saw her

In the noon sun

She saw him

Come and see

         Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something."

         But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about."

         So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?"

         Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.

Sometimes the disciples don’t see

Even in the noon sun

They don’t see

         Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

She sowed

She sowed with her words

Sowed in the noon sun

Sowed because of who she saw

They did not labor

But they will reap

Because she sowed

There in the noon sun

         Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done."

         So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word.

         They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

They came to see

In the noon sun

Bright with belief

These Samaritans

Stayed with the Savior

Seeing him

Because she sowed

And said

And suggested

And saw her Savior.

The Gospel of the Lord,