Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
September 27, 2015
Scripture: Isaiah 55: 1-5; John 4:3-30; 39-42
Pope Francis has made quite a stir. He has stirred hearts, stirred up conversation; stirred up the press. He stirs up the crowd each time he speaks. People press close together, crane their necks to see him as he passes by, reaching out hands and holding out babies, hoping for a blessing. Rarely have I seen so much ink devoted to so positive and prophetic a subject as the pope’s call to us to be more just, more merciful, more determined to protect this earth and all its creatures. This in itself is remarkable: that a sermon would make headline news, in place of the most recent eruption of violence in the world. Why has his voice resonated with such power? And not just among Catholics. People of all Christian stripes, even skeptics and people of no faith, seem drawn to this pope, increasingly convinced that he is the ‘real thing’ – not a hypocrite, or a self-serving patriarch or a deluded old man but a person of integrity with something noble, something courageous – dare I say rebellious and faithful – to proclaim.
It seems to me that we are thirsty to hear it. 20,000 people in Madison Square Garden tells me that we are thirsty to hear a word of hope, of grace, of truth spoken to power, thirsty for the assurance that healing and goodness are possible in this mixed-up world. At least, I am. Sometimes, I don’t even realize how thirsty I am – until someone I trust and admire looks me in the eye and tells me that I am forgiven or beautiful or beloved. And all of a sudden my eyes fill up with tears. It is like a spring released to well up inside me, the promise that there IS hope and grace in the world, and that God – holy and good – may, in fact, be at the center of it all.
I wonder if that’s how the Samaritan woman felt, as she spoke with Jesus. She went to the well to find water – water for cooking, and maybe for washing. Water to drink, to quench her thirst in the midday sun. She went looking for water, and maybe something more: Comfort? Clarity? Maybe she didn’t even realize how thirsty she was, at least not at first. She’d lived with it so long, she’d stopped noticing, stopped expecting to feel anything other than parched. Lost in her own thoughts, the Samaritan woman approached the well and lowered the rope. Then Jesus spoke to her. Imagine how she must have jumped, looked over one shoulder, than the other, as if to say, “Who else is here? He couldn’t possibly be speaking to me…” Jews, you see, generally had nothing to do with Samaritans. And Jewish men generally did not speak to women to whom they were not related. This woman, in particular, the one whose name we don’t even know, may have been accustomed to being disregarded.
You see, she had had five husbands. And although many readers have assumed that Jesus was wagging his finger at her when he mentioned this, it is more likely that he was expressing compassion, acknowledging that she had known deep pain. You see, a woman of that time period would have had little control over her marital status. She may well have been repeatedly widowed, or abandoned, or divorced. Whatever the case, her circumstances were more likely tragic than scandalous, her spirit parched for want of human care and connection. Then Jesus looked her in the eye, asked her for help, accepted a cup of water from her hand, even engaged her in theological discussion. It was as though she was being seen for the first time, seen as a person worthy of time and attention. (Jesus had a knack for that kind of seeing, didn’t he?). Something unlocked inside her, and springs of healing water bubbled up.
Do you know what it is like to be thirsty? Maybe desperately so? To long for something that seems just out of reach? To live with that thirst for so long that you almost forget what it’s like to be anything but parched? Because none of this, not the Pope’s words, or that conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, or this going to church, makes any sense at all if you haven’t been thirsty. If you are lucky enough to have had a trouble-free life, a life unencumbered by pain or loss, failure or confusion; if your plans have never gone awry, you have never been disappointed and your glass is always just the right amount of full, well, then you may have no need for church, or popes, or Jesus.
If, on the other hand, you have ever felt desperate or dejected, well, welcome to the human race – and welcome to church! It’s ironic: how often we get it backwards, how we confuse church with a place reserved for polite company, assume that we need to keep up appearances, mind our spiritual p’s and q’s, know the bible, resolve our most pressing questions and generally have our act together before we walk through the door of a church.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been to church recently. It’s just that life has been really tough. Once I sort it out/ once I get through these chemo treatments / once I find my way out of this painful relationship or get clean and sober… then I’ll come back to church. I promise.” Has anyone ever said that to you? Have you ever said something like it yourself?
Maybe we all have. Maybe it’s just human to want to make a good impression. Years ago, when I first contemplated taking up karate: I watched my friend practice, took note of how centered she seemed, how strong and graceful. I longed to be part of that community, until I learned that they had to do push-ups on their knuckles. This terrified me. So, to avoid utter embarrassment, I practiced at home, until I could manage 10 push-ups without looking like a fool. Then, and only then, did I register for a class. The crazy thing is I was a beginner in every other way. I could do a few push-ups, but I stumbled through the rest of the exercises. And as it turned out, that was ok. Beginners were welcomed, even celebrated. My hang up had been my own, and holding out just meant I missed out on all those months when I could have been training in a supportive community instead of trying to figure it out on my own.
That need to look good, and polished, and successful – that’s our hang-up, not Christ’s – not Christian at all. Nowhere in our sacred texts are we told that we have to have our act together before we show up. On the contrary. Church is precisely the place to come when we are a mess, at wit’s end, completely undone, parched beyond measure.
Terrified by the cancer prognosis? Come to the water.
Struggling to stay clean and sober? Come to the water.
Tangled up in a painful relationship? Come to the water.
In debt and unable to see your way clear? Come to the water.
For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring. – Thus spoke the Lord, through the prophet Isaiah (44:3)
So what is the water, exactly? It’s being seen when you felt invisible. It’s being embraced even when you despised yourself. It’s feeling the love of God, no strings attached. It’s grace – a churchy word that means God meets you wherever you are, but loves you too much to leave you there. I once served a small church in Chicago, the Peoples Church, where an airline attendant named Grace stood up every Sunday and said, “if no has told you today that he or she loves you, I want you to know that I do. I love you, I love you, I love you.” One Sunday, another member, Lucille, spoke up and admitted she didn’t feel very loveable. She apologized for her disheveled state. “You see, I took too many pills last night, and I wasn’t sure whether I was going to wake up this morning.” At that, another member, Louise, stood up and said, “Lucille, you look beautiful to me.” Water. Living water, gushing up everywhere.
Tell me: where have you found that living water at Saugatuck Church? Maybe it was when MaryEllen Hendricks invited you to show her your ‘thin place,’ when she sat and listened deeply as you shared your story, then captured your story on film – so honoring something sacred in your life, maybe even reminding you of God’s abiding presence. Maybe it was when you realized that the children whom you’ve helped to raise here are now teenagers prepared to teach us a thing or two about God’s love at work in the world (as they did last Sunday).
Maybe you found the water when you were up to your elbows in flour, making apple pies to serve to hungry folks down the street at Gillespie Center; or while you ate scrambled eggs and toast with newfound friends who have become companions for your faith journey; maybe you have found someone to walk with you through your darkest valley, someone who has helped you to find your courage, so that living water bubbled up between you…
Maybe you are still looking.
We all have our own story. Perhaps we’re even willing to share it. Like the Samaritan woman, maybe we will leave this place, so blessed, so filled, so refreshed, that we can’t help but share the news with others: “Come and see!” Come and see what we have seen – Christ full of love, God who meets us where we are; water for healing, hope and grace: water enough, bubbling up, overflowing, and to spare… Come to the water! Amen.
Scriptures
Isaiah 55:1-5 – NRSV Translation
Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
John 4:3-30; 39-42 – NRSV Translation
3 Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’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.) 9 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.) 10 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 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.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 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. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 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.” 26 Jesus 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?” 28 Then 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?” 30 They 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.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 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.”