QUESTion: Who Goes With Us? Sermon March 22, 2020

Scripture:  Psalm 23

Sermon:  QUESTion: Who Goes With Us?

Sometimes I can close my eyes and still feel like I’m right there. I can vividly feel the child size, wooden, slat-back chair with a hemp rope bottom that was itchy and picked at my white tights. I can feel the smooth table top, smell the musty basement moisture trapped in the cinderblock walls, and the sweet taste of cherry Kool-Aid and vanilla sandwich cookies still linger on my tongue.

I’m in my childhood Sunday school class in the basement of Longs Chapel Missionary Baptist Church. My grandmother is teaching and she has handed us all a freshly sharpened pencil and I run

my finger over the point and smell the fresh shavings and metallic lead.  She reads the 23^rd Psalm. She has been helping us to memorize it and I almost have it. She hands us what appears to be a high gloss, smooth, square of paper and invites us to use the side of our pencil lead to begin shading the paper. Slate gray markings start to fill the page until, as if by magic, white lines appear, and a picture begins to emerge. I take my time and savor the moment as first I see his feet...then the hem of his robe...then his arms, one wrapped around that cute little lamb, a shepherd staff in the other...and then his face, peaceful, with a sweet smile.

I don’t know why that one day of Sunday school is burned into my memory except that on that day I was sure, for the first time in my six or seven years of life, that I was that lamb in the arms of Jesus, and I felt comforted and safe and happy. 

That picture was one of the things that helped me learn that Psalm. Experience taught me the rest. Those first two verses were easy for me to learn, maybe because I had also spent a great deal of my childhood in green pastures and beside still waters. We were a mountain family with a small farm of livestock, but also a family that loved to hike, camp, fish, and play. So when my grandmother read me those first two verses, I had no trouble imagining the places that this shepherd was going to take me because they were already some of the best places of my life.

The other four verses however, would require some age and life experiences to figure out.

I wouldn’t understand what it meant for the shepherd to restore my soul until I had my soul crushed.

I wouldn’t understand the shepherd leading me on a righteous path until I wandered off the path and gotten myself lost.

I wouldn’t understand the crushing weight and severity of the valley of shadow and darkness for another eight years but then I would watch it devour many people I loved. 

Its funny how I once thought our Sunday school teachers wanted us to learn this psalm because it was about cute little lambs and it is only now that I can see they were trying to give us a scripture that would be a comforting guide for every aspect of our life journey.

What I don’t remember being taught in Sunday School was that my blissful six or seven-year old experience would be challenged as life got more complicated. Perhaps my grandmother and the other adults at our church didn’t want to burst our childhood bliss with such truth. So, rather than admit that there will be times when we feel alone and lost, as if no one cares…rather than admit that life was going to be a mix of good and bad, of abundance and denial, of light and darkness…rather than admit that truth, they simply would give a comforting hug and say, “everything will be fine.” And that was enough for us….until everything wasn’t fine. 

Maybe they wanted to deny the darkness for as long as possible, not realizing that denial simply gives its reality more power. Perhaps they knew that there was really no way to prepare someone for the darkness that would be part of every journey so they taught us this psalm and hoped that when we hit that valley we would remember it and we would know that we are never alone in the darkness and we would look deeper for the shepherd we know is there. 

When I think about this quest we are on, the journey of a life lived for Christ, I can’t help but think of other famous quests from literature. Quests in which we find the hero is never fully alone on the adventure, there is always a sidekick to bring comfort and companionship: Don Quixote had Sancho Panza, Tom Sawyer had Huckleberry Finn, Frodo Baggins had Samwise Gamgee. I guess great authors know what precious grandmothers know – life gets hard and challenges can sometimes seem like windmill giants too large to overcome but we do not have to face them alone. 

The Psalmist writes as one who has been there, done that. He writes as one who has known the Lord in times of goodness and plenty but now finds himself in a valley of darkness. One might suspect if a good life has turned to struggle that the natural tendency would be to ask, “Where did God go?” “Why am I suddenly alone and forsaken?”

But notice that the Psalmist has grown to trust in God so much in green pastures and still waters that when he ventures into the dark valley and the shadows close in, he is assured that God will be there also. And not only will the Lord be present, but the Lord will be a comforting presence that will lead him back to the path that will eventually lead him out of that dark valley. You see that right? The Lord leads him “through” the valley….all darkness and suffering and shadow will come to an eventual end when the Lord is leading the way. 

I used to be afraid of the dark when I was little. I never wanted to venture into dark places unless someone went with me. Having someone by my side comforted me and helped me stay calm. The truth is, having the Lord by our side does not diminish the darkness, it doesn’t change the darkness at all. 

Instead, having the Lord by our side changes us – it gives us comfort and courage – it gives us hope and assurance that this time of shadow will indeed pass from us. It reminds us of the best places in life that came before this valley and calls us to know those best places are also at the other end of this valley and we will get through it.

Having the Lord by our side doesn’t change the darkness, it changes us, how we perceive our surroundings and our time in that space. The darkness will try to overwhelm us and convince us that we are alone and isolated and lost – but we, brothers and sisters, know better. Jesus, our shepherd, walks on every mountain and in every valley, we trail in his footsteps, we serve as his sidekick, on a quest for righteousness and justice, for holiness and life. 

The Psalmist is in the darkness and knows the feeling of loneliness and suffering but he is perceptive enough and faithful enough to know he isn’t alone. He knows the Shepherd is there to comfort and lead him safely out of the valley no matter what happens along the way. Even if he gets scared and tries to run off to seek his own protection…look at the final verse..

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me….of course we know goodness and mercy doesn’t always follow times of struggle but the Hebrew word for "follow" has another translation – "pursue."

Even if the valley of darkness and shadow spooks us and we withdraw from or forget the Shepherd's presence God will not let up or let go, no matter the darkness or the valley

...when the world denies, the shepherd provides

...when the world threatens, the shepherd comforts

....when the world casts out, the shepherd gathers

God’s goodness and mercy will pursue us all the days of our lives.

When times are dark, full of shadow and uncertainty, when life seems like a cold, smooth, blank piece of paper….look closer….see the shepherd emerge from the shadows…

You may not see him all at once, but he is there…

Jesus emerges from the darkness, like a shaded drawing, slowly, bit by bit

his feet to guide you

his garment hem to heal you

his arms to hold you

his smile to call you beloved

Surely goodness and mercy are mine already.

The Power of Miracles: God + You

This sermon is Part 1 of a Series The Power of Miracles

inspired by 

Made for a Miracle: From Your Ordinary to God's Extraordinary 

 by Mike Slaughter

This past week has been a difficult one to process. Many of us gathered here on Wednesday evening to contemplate our mortality and our need to sit in the ashes of repentance for our sins and draw closer to God. We met even as the news was still unfolding that 17 people in Parkland, Florida had been gunned down in yet another school shooting. It made for a difficult night for me as each time I made the ashy mark of the cross on someone's forehead and said, "Remember from dust you came and to dust you will return" I thought of some parent in Florida learning all too well the truth of those words. I wanted to weep, I wanted to rage, I wanted to demand that God provide a miracle. I wanted to demand that God bring healing to the brokenness that leads us to these horrific pits of despair. 

I went home after the Ash Wednesday service and I sat down and opened my bible and reread the scripture I had chosen for today. And I realized God has already provided the miracle I asked for... is all around us...and within us. 

Our scripture today opens our eyes to the truth that God lays an important call upon those who follow Jesus. These two little verses of scripture may not seem like much at first glance but truly they have the potential to change the world.

Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.                                                  Luke 9:1-2

"Jesus called the twelve together." Who are the 12? They are his core group of faithful followers. Jesus had many followers, both men and women but these twelve were his core group of leaders. This group included uneducated fisherman, a tax-collector, a zealot (a modern example of a zealot might be a civil rights marcher, a revolutionary, a protester willing to fight for what they believe in), and at least one verse says Judas was a thief and embezzler (John 12:6). We don’t know the occupation of the others but I imagine they were from similar backgrounds, unremarkably ordinary.

Who were the disciples? They were sinners, trouble-makers, laborers, and ordinary men and women just like me and you. My point is, they were very human, very flawed, very imperfect, marginally understanding and fleetingly devoted and yet there are several extraordinary things that stand out.

1. They tried very hard to be faithful followers; even though most of the time they seemed to have no idea what they were doing.

2. They tried so hard and at times made such great progress that they were forever changed and Jesus acknowledged that by giving them new names: Simon became Peter (the Rock), Levi became Matthew (Gift of Yahwey), and later Saul would become Paul.

What we learn from this is that devotion to following Jesus can create a new identity for us. We can gain a new name for ourselves based upon our faithfulness. I tend to refer to myself has having three lives because in each one I was such a different person. Each "life" brought a new sense of transformation and while my name never changed my identity sure did. Jesus has that effect upon people.

So, who were the disciples? They were ordinary, fragile, sometimes foolish folks just like you and me who did their absolute best to do what Jesus asked of them – hopefully just like you and me.

Yet, as our scripture points out today these ordinary, fragile, sometimes foolish, yet devoted people were also called to be a miracle.

Jesus gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.

These are things that up until now we have only seen Jesus do but he now tells his disciples that they too are able to do these miracles. As a matter of fact in the 14^th chapter of John’s Gospel, he records Jesus as saying, 

“ Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these…”

Wednesday we are beginning a Lenten Bible Study written by Mike Slaughter entitled Made for a Miracle and he points out that God calls ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things and the key is making yourself available for God to use you to bring God's miracles into the world.

Slaughter goes on to show how Miracles always have two components: Divine Intervention and Human Initiative.  In other words, God’s actions in the world are accompanied by human participation. We can see this in the example of Moses. When Moses led the Hebrews away from Egypt and Pharaoh's army was in hot pursuit the people were greatly afraid. Their terror intensified when they ran straight into the Red Sea – trapped. Exodus 14 records it this way...

¹³ And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. ¹⁴ The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”

Moses understands that the Hebrew’s need a miracle to survive and he has all faith in the God of miracles so he says, just stand still and wait, see how God will take care of this.

Moses, despite having seen God do some fantastic things still doesn’t quite get it. He acts as if God is in the magic business not the miracle business. Just stand here and wait to see what rabbit God pulls out of the hat for us.

But God says this….

¹⁵ And the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. ¹⁶ But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. 

I love this response from God. Why are you just standing there? GO! Tell the people to move, lift up the rod, stretch out your hand! It is as if to say, "Moses I know the people need a miracle to get out of this but you don't realize YOU are their miracle. I sent them YOU. I gave authority to YOU.

Jesus could declare healing with mere words but then always came an action to be performed: Go, wash yourself in the pool. Go, show yourself to the priest. Disciples lay hands and lift prayers. Need to feed 5000? God can get it done but you better show up with the bread and fish.

When God acts in miraculous ways it is always accompanied by a human response. And that brings me back to my pain from Wednesday's events. We cannot afford to be passive at every tragedy and simply keep saying “My thoughts and prayers are with you,” and then expect miracles to happen as we sit back and do nothing. If we bother to actually pray God might likely respond with, “Why are you calling out to me? You feed them! You heal them! You bring peace to the world!

If Luke understands that Jesus gives his disciples authority over demons and to heal disease and if John understands Jesus gives his disciples the ability to do even greater things than he, we can begin to understand why these 12 ordinary disciples who struggled so many years to get it right would almost all go on to do some extraordinary and miraculous things. They were willing to follow Jesus and allow themselves to be used for God’s miraculous purposes. Slaughter says it best when he reminds us that God is not interested in our ability, but God is very interested in our availability.

Brothers and sisters, are you available for a miracle? Are you willing to put yourself out there so that God can use you to bring acts of healing into the world? Are you available to help subdue the demons that seek to destroy communities and households and our precious children and their teachers?

Friday I picked up my three month old granddaughter and babysat for the night. At 6 am as we sat by a warm fire and watched the sunrise all I could think about was the miracle needed to make this world a safe place for her: a place where I don’t have to worry about her being abducted into the sex trafficking industry; a place where I can watch her go off to her first day to Kindergarten and not have to wonder if she will come home at the end of the day or if she will be gunned down by some broken, or mentally ill child or young adult with access to an assault weapon.

I beg God for that miracle not just for my granddaughter but for yours and every other child on this earth. I beg for that miracle and then I open my bible and I see it plain as day – God has already declared the miracle of peace – God has already declared the day when weapons are flattened into plowshares – God has already sent his son, the Prince of Peace, and forgiven our sins – God has already achieved the Miracle! So if I’m going to be a faithful disciple and make myself available for the carrying out of that miracle then I have work to do…and so do you. If we want the miracle of peace – it is time we make it happen. The miracles of God are indeed all around us and if you are having trouble seeing where then go home and look in the mirror! The miracle may be you. Who is to say you weren’t made for a such a time as this?

Darkness to Dawn: Letting the Light of Christ Transform Our Tomorrow Part Three - Transforming Blindness to Vision

Artist: El Greco (1567)

Read John 9

"One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."

John 9:25 NRSV

There are probably few things harder in life than transforming from blindness to vision. Our physical body proves this, as we know that most of us begin life with perfect vision and spend the rest of our life inching toward blindness. However, the transformation from blindness to vision is an essential part of our faith journey as Christians. We have all sung the beautiful line in Amazing Grace declaring, “I once was blind but now I see,” but we also know full well that the vision with which we see is not always clear or easy to come by.

John’s story today is a great example. A man who is blind becomes a man with vision, while a group of Pharisees who have vision, are truly blind because they can’t see the work of God being done right under their noses. It is a story that should prompt all of us to stop in our tracks and wonder: Am I missing God at work in my midst right now?

Perhaps it is like that old joke of the man who is trapped in his house by a raging flood. The floodwaters rise and he prays for God to save him. Soon a man in a boat comes by and tries to rescue him but he says, “No thanks, I’m a praying man and God is going to save me.” The floodwaters rise more, the man prays more as he climbs onto his roof. A helicopter comes and drops down a rescue basket and yells for the man to climb in. “No thanks,” he yells back, “I’ve prayed to God, he will save me.” The floodwaters rise and the man is washed away to his death. When he gets to heaven he is ANGRY. He stomps up to God and shakes his fist yelling, “What just happened down there? I prayed for you to save me and you failed me.” To which God replied, “Man, I sent you a boat and a helicopter, what more did you want?”

Sometimes we get so caught up in our own idea of what God should and should not do that we are blinded to what God truly is doing. Sometimes we get caught up in our limited understanding or experience of God and we don’t let ourselves see God outside of what we already know.  Much like the Pharisees who could only see God as the Giver of Law, we often can’t see God as the light of the world, because our eyes are adjusted to the dimness of our spiritual blinders.

In John’s Gospel there are really two kinds of people: those who see and those who don’t. For John, seeing is believing and those who can’t see the truth of Jesus are blinded by misunderstanding and sometimes outright stubbornness. So, how do we embrace Christ in ways that transform us spiritually from blindness to vision? How do we make sure we are the man who once was blind, rather than the Pharisee who chooses to live in blindness? Scripture shows us three things we need to do in our life…

The first thing we need before we can see is to HEAR.

When Tim (my husband) received his first full time appointment as a United Methodist pastor he were in for quite the culture shock. He was born and raised in the city of Charlotte, NC so he had very little experience with the country life. They moved us to the middle of an Amish community in Hamptonville, NC so you can imagine how foreign this seemed to him.

I will never forget one day he left to take something to one of three small churches which was down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. After he had been gone for a while I hear his car come screeching into the driveway and he came running in the door yelling, “Get the girls! Hurry! Get in the car, I’ve seen a creature you won’t believe! You have to come see for yourself.”

Naturally I’m curious but he will not answer any questions until we are in the car and speeding back toward the church to see the “creature” he has discovered. So I began to question him as to what the “creature” looked like and this is what he said, “It has the hump of a camel, the ears of a goat, the face of a sheep, and the body of a cow.”  He didn’t understand why I burst out laughing at this description instead of having my curiosity peaked by it. The reason was, of course, that I was a country girl and I knew exactly what he had just described.

Tim had seen the “creature” which is own eyes but with no knowledge of the existence of such an animal he was lost as to how to identify it. On the other hand, I wasn’t there to SEE it, but by his description I could hear his description and know exactly what it was. My own eyesight only confirmed what I already knew: Tim had had his first encounter with a Brahman. 

Hearing can be a powerful witness.

Science has proven to us that those who are visually impaired often have a heightened sense of hearing. It is the body’s way of compensating for not being able to see danger. Even if one can’t see with their eyes, they can often hear enough to “see” what is happening around them.

We know from the story that the man gains his vision and goes on to be a powerful witness for Jesus. Notice, however, when he is giving testimony he still has never seen Jesus, he has only heard him. We know this because at the end when Jesus finds him he has to tell the man who he is.

Transforming from blindness to vision requires us to first hear what Jesus is saying to us. In John 10:4, Jesus goes on to say he is the shepherd and his sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. Of course we don’t recognize a voice we have only heard from one to two times. Recognition implies familiarity. We come to hear Jesus by spending time listening to him and getting to know his voice.

When we read scripture daily we learn to hear his voice in his teachings and interactions with others. When we devote ourselves to prayer we hear his whispers of love and acceptance and his murmurs of direction and guidance. We learn his voice when we surround ourselves with people who also recognize the shepherds voice and can help us hear when noise inside our own heads gets too much. We need prayer warriors and other faithful sheep to help us hear what Jesus is saying.

Once we have heard from Jesus, the transformation continues as we OBEY what we hear…

I would imagine that the blind beggar’s ears perked up when he heard a large group approaching. Maybe his excitement over a possible donation dimmed when he heard whispered of the dreaded question that had haunted him his whole life: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? (John 9:2)” It seems a ridiculous question today but then they had little understanding of the physiology of the body, so it was often assumed that a disability was a punishment from God. He had probably heard this question debated hundreds of time but I bet he had never before heard a Rabbi answer in the way of Jesus.

“Neither…he was born this way so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” Jesus goes on to make his startling confession, “I am the light of the world,” the one sent to do the work of God. Perhaps this is what prompts the man to obey what Jesus tells him next, even though it seems quite odd (John 9:6-7) – because he had never before had a Rabbi declare him innocent of a sinful past. Or perhaps because he had never before hear ANYONE say that he was useful for anything, but especially to be used by God.

Obediently he makes his way to the pool of Siloam and he enters the waters to wash the spit moistened mud pie off his face and suddenly his darkness is gone and light floods in. The man who was blind is now the man who can see.

The man who HEARS and OBEYS can now SEE, but we learn very quickly that those in the story we assumed could see are in fact quite blind as to what God has been doing in their midst.

What causes their spiritual blindness? How they “see” the man gives us a clue: To the Disciples he is the man who was born blind, to the neighbors he is the man who used to sit and beg, to the Pharisees he is the man who was formerly blind. Here before them stood a miracle – a man who could now see - but all they see is the man who once couldn’t.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the past that we can’t see that God is doing something new and beautiful right now. Being blinded to Jesus isn’t hard at all, we simply live looking backward – at who we’ve always been, what we’ve always done, where we’ve always gone - and we fail to see who God wants us to be, what God wants us to do and where God wants us to go.

This is the reason that Spiritual vision is so vital – we can’t live into God’s will without it. God wants us to see what we can become, who we can become, in light of the one sent to save us. What does that mean?

When John begins his Gospel he takes us back to the creation story with his opening words, “In the beginning…” it is a theme he returns to often and it is in today’s story as well. Jesus, reminiscent of God on the newly created earth, leans down and runs his fingers through the dust, he spits to create earthy clay and places it upon the mans eyes, from the waters, he rises, cleansed and reborn into a new life of new vision. Where once he could only hear Jesus, now he will see as well.

The voice of our shepherd invites us to become a whole new creation; that we might shed our spiritual blinders and step into the light of his healing hand to embrace a future of purpose and vision. 

Hear that Jesus is calling

Be obedient to that call

See all that God has in store for you.

Darkness to Dawn: Letting the Light of Christ Transform Our Tomorrow Part Two - Transforming Emptiness to Fulfillment

Woman at the Well iii

Facebook.com/HyattMoorePainter | Copyright 2017 Hyatt Moore

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 meet him. John 4:28-30 NRS 

 Read John 4:5-42

Several years ago I hosted a party for a family member who asked that I include certain friends on the guest list. It was set up to be quite an informal event and I’m a pretty casual person so I was quite anxious to realize that there was a “prestigious” family on the list. They lived at the country club, came from “old money” and were the founding family of a national retail chain. I had been to their hometown and seen the mansion that this family had called home decades before. To say I was intimidated is an understatement. I began to second guess every detail of the party for fear I would embarrass the family member who I was intending to honor by seeming so “common” in front of this wealthy family.

The truth is, I could second-guess all I wanted I couldn’t afford to change anything about the party because I wasn’t wealthy. So the venue remained an old church fellowship hall, and by old I mean it was no longer used as a primary kitchen and therefore sat empty quite often. The wealthy family arrived and much to my surprise seemed quite normal. They didn’t show up in furs and diamonds; they were engaging and easy to talk to but I still remained on edge. When it came time to cut the cake the father of the family stood leaned against the kitchen counter which held the knife I would need so I asked him to hand it to me. As he took the knife out I worried – I hadn’t checked that drawer – this was an old kitchen in an old fellowship hall – what if there were mice droppings? – When was the last time this was washed? – What will he think if I use this knife! So, as he handed me the knife I sheepishly replied, “I might should go wash this first,” to which he proceeded to place the knife in the armpit of his shirt, wipe it off and say, “Na, it’ll do just fine.”

Sometimes the adage is true, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” especially when your own imagination designed the cover.

I wonder if we have done the same misfortune to the woman at the well as I did to our family friends in assuming she is something that she is not.  I am sure that at one point in our lives we have all heard this story of the woman at the well and concluded some unpleasant things about her. We need only know two things to lead us down the rabbit trail of assumption: She goes to the well in the middle of the day, thus avoiding the “normal” time and so we assume she is avoiding the other women because she is hated and cast out; And she is said to have five husbands and the man she is currently living with isn’t one of them so we assume she is morally loose and promiscuous which is why the other women of the town must shun her.

We make these assumptions and then we rejoice that Jesus came to save her from her life of sin and she takes on a new life of piety. There is only one problem with this assumption – the rest of the story doesn’t support it. There is no mention of sin, repentance, or wrongful living: there is simply a thirsty savior and a thirsty woman willing to cast aside all of their own assumptions and cultural norms and sit down to have a meaningful conversation about life and faith.

If we strip away the book cover we have designed for this scripture we might find an altogether different story than the one we assumed.

What are some things we learn about her? She is a Samaritan of great faith. She thinks theologically and responds to Jesus with thoughtful questions. She is a risk-taker, boldly taking the initiative to hold a deep conversation with a Jewish Rabbi, something unheard of in their day. She is curious and desires to know the proper place to worship, even if it means her tradition has been wrong. She faithfully awaits the coming of a Messiah and believes that with the coming of that savior the world will be changed. And yes, we learn that she has indeed had five husbands and the man she is currently with is not one of them, but lets stop for a moment and think about this.

In this ancient time we must remember that women were often no more than property. A woman was forced to rely on a man for a sense of identity and was subjected, in a sense, to being “owned” by her husband or her father or brother. A woman had little power in the marital relationship. The husband could divorce a woman for being barren, for example and she had no recourse. Or, if her husband died and had no heir, there was a law that stated she would be given to her husband’s brother, so that she would bear a child by him in her dead husband’s name. Sometimes that brother wouldn’t even marry her but she would still be considered to belong to him. Yes, we are told she had five husbands but we are not told why. It is very likely that this fact was something she had no control over – that there wasn’t an issue of morality but of legality that left her trapped in an isolating circumstance.

Perhaps this is why there is no mention of sin or a need to repent because she had done nothing wrong. Perhaps she came to the well in the middle of the day not because she was an outcast but simply because she was thirsty, or perhaps because the Spirit nudged her to do so, or because she tried to avoid the pity of the women who felt sorry for her. I think it explains a few things about the rest of the story. If the woman were truly morally questionable would the people have rushed out to see Jesus simply because this woman said she believed him? It would seem to me if a morally loose woman ran into town claiming she met a new man everyone would have rolled their eyes and said, “here she goes again.” Instead, they rush out to see if she has indeed found the Messiah she and the others have long waited for.

My point is this: Whatever the reason she has five husbands, Jesus doesn’t seem to care. He is about to tell her that he is the Messiah she yearns for; he simply wants to compassionately tell her first that he knows of her situation and it is not a hindrance to the water of life he is about to offer her.

Isn’t this really what all of us want from Jesus? Don’t we all desire that he might know our story, understand the places where we feel trapped and stagnant in simply existing in our pain and offer us an opportunity for things to change? When we are stuck in our circumstances and feel there is no way out we simply begin to live life by default – going through the normal routines with little passion or excitement; or maybe we go from place to place, relationship to relationship, with cup outstretched begging others to fill the thirsty places within us.

Maybe, like the woman, we don’t always understand at first what Jesus is really offering us. We think his offer is all about some future day of salvation, or a thirst to be quenched when we all get to heaven.  We are perched on the edge of a well saying, “someday Messiah will come and all this will get better,” and Jesus leans in and whispers, “I am he, and I am here right now, and you don’t have to wait for someday.”

The woman’s encounter with Jesus didn’t miraculously change her situation: she still went home to the man who wouldn’t marry her. However, her encounter did change everything about how she lived. Whereas the story begins with her solitude and painful awareness of the ways she was powerless over her own life, it ends with her becoming the city’s first Evangelist. Once she avoided people, suddenly she was seeking them out to save them. Once she was wondering around at noon looking to get water, suddenly she left her water jar in the dust and was out telling everyone who would listen that there was life-giving water that could end thirst now.

Her situation didn’t change but how she lived it sure did. This is the promise of Christ, the living water, a life transformed NOW in purpose, joy, and fulfillment.

Thanks be to God.