Thirsty?

“Thirsty?”

Sermon for MCC New Haven

March 23, 2014

Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.

Exodus 17:1-7

John 4:5-24

         Good morning church! I don’t know about you, but I’m thirsty! You look thirsty too! Somebody say, “I’m thirsty!” Jesus was thirsty when he got to the Samaritan city called Sychar. The name “Sychar” was a pejorative term the Jewish people used against the Samaritans. It means “liar” or “drunkard.” So Jesus went to the city of drunkards to get a drink… of water that is.

         A Samaritan woman met Jesus at the well and Jesus asked her for a drink. She must have gasped! It was against the law for a man to address a woman and it was highly taboo for a Jew to address a Samaritan. Remember, Samaritans were a sect of Jews that were left in Israel during the Babylonian Exile. The Samaritans had built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim and claimed it to be the only place to worship, not the main temple in Jerusalem. When the Jewish people returned from Babylonia, they brought with them new teachings about the Torah that the Samaritans reject to this day.

         The Samaritans call themselves “Guardians/Keepers of the Torah.” Jews in ancient times called them the pejorative term “cuthim” referring to the city of Kutha in Iran. They were essentially saying, “These people are not Jewish. They claim to be descendents of Abraham, but they intermarried with other races, so they are not part of us.”

         When Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman at the well, he did not care about rules of segregation. He saw the woman as a child of God, an heir of God’s promises, even if she was a Samaritan. Not only did Jesus speak to her; he asked to drink from her cup. Her lips were not unclean to him.

         Jesus takes the opportunity to teach her the message of the Gospel. Jesus tells her about a “living water” that will quench thirst forever. She takes him literally and asks where she can find this magical water so she doesn’t have to keep going to the well. Jesus responds with a sort of “word of knowledge.” Has anyone ever told you things about your life that they never would have known? These people have a special gift. The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus had this gift. Jesus asks her to bring her husband to him. She responds that she does not have a husband. Jesus then says, “I know you don’t have a husband. You’ve had five husbands and the man you’re with now is not your husband.” Now this sounds like what we call in the drag community “throwing shade” or “reading.” This catty practice is done to show the other person their faults. For example, I could ask my friend Trisha, “Girl, who put on your makeup, an orangutan?” But of course I wouldn’t do that because she always looks perfect…

         Contrary to popular belief, Jesus was not talking down to the Samaritan woman. He was not calling her a slut for having had five husbands. No one knows why she had had five husbands but it was likely because they had died or dismissed her for some reason. Her story was not one of shame, but rather of misfortune. She had been tossed around as property and by now the man who she was with would not even take her as his wife. So Jesus showed her compassion, not judgment.

         He tells her something that would be considered blasphemy to both the Jews and the Samaritans. He says that soon, people will not worship in any temple. Instead, they will worship “in spirit and in truth.” Keep in mind, the Jews had destroyed the Samaritan temple in 128 BCE and it would not be rebuilt until after the Gospels were written in 135 CE. The Jewish temple in Jerusalem had been rebuilt since the Babylonian Exile, but it would soon be destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE, four decades after Jesus’ death.

         By saying that true worship is “in spirit and in truth” was affirming God’s omnipresence, that God is everywhere, so everywhere is where God should be worshipped. Jesus sought to unite, not divide. The Samaritans and Jews had been long divided and Jesus saw the reasons for division as petty. Also remember that Jesus was not trying to start a new religion. He was a Jewish rabbi who taught the truths of his own tradition, focusing on the God of Love that he knew and loved.

But what came to be known as Christianity through the efforts of Jesus’ disciples initially became a unifying faith. The apostle Paul preached to pagans throughout the Mediterranean region, converting them- not to the strict Judaism of his upbringing, but rather to a new faith in the truths of Jesus called the Christ. Early Christ-followers worshipped with the assurance that God’s Spirit was among them. They worshipped in Spirit, affirming the truth they had come to know. We too continue the long tradition of worship in spirit and in truth.

         Like Jesus, we are called to meet the “other” at the water cooler, at the pub, at the gas station, and in the church with a nonjudgmental attitude and a spirit of coexistence. Who is the Samaritan in our society? Perhaps it is the Muslim, the Sikh, the Hindu, or the Wiccan. Perhaps it’s the drug addict, the alcoholic, the sex worker, or the homeless. Or perhaps it’s the queer person in our midst that does not want to assimilate to heterosexual standards of gender and sexuality. Many of us are taught from childhood to identify the “other,” the “stranger” and to stay away from them. But this is not the way of Jesus. Jesus was a friend to all.

         According to the Gospel of John, Jesus made a follower out of the Samaritan woman at the well and she in turn brought others to follow Jesus. As Christians, Jesus’ Great Commission calls us to make disciples of all peoples. In the time of the Crusades, the commission was taken to mean that everyone who does not convert is to be slaughtered. We have come a long way since then, but that mentality still lingers. Around the world, people still kill in the name of Jesus.  And in the U.S., non-Christians are still very cautious of Christians who attempt to convert or “save” them. I know I’m pretty annoyed when a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon wakes me up on a Saturday morning!

         But that does not mean that we should not share our faith. A general guideline that I use for sharing faith is to only talk about what my faith means to me. I have my own testimony about what my faith has done for me in my life and I’m sure you have one too. In some churches, testimony is practiced regularly. In many other churches, it has fallen out of importance. In MCC, let’s never forget the power of testimony. Over four decades of ministry in MCC, we have fallen back on the notion that we will grow naturally by people coming to us after they have been wounded by other churches. This phenomenon still occurs, but we cannot rely on it. There are plenty of “spiritual but not religious” people out there who could benefit by joining in spiritual community with us. We do not tell people what they need to believe in order to earn a ticket to heaven or buy “fire insurance” from hell. We simply worship in spirit and in truth: teaching the Gospel of Unconditional Love that Jesus taught and basking in the presence of the Holy Spirit that we feel in our lives.

         Since religion has been given such a bad reputation, many people live in a spiritually barren desert. Remember that Moses led the Israelites through the desert… and they were thirsty! Someone say, “Thirsty!” The wilderness they were in was called “Sin.” That is not referring to sin as we know it, as in “error.” Rather, the desert of Sin was actually called Pelusium, which meant “clay.” So the dirt was probably clay with no water or vegetation. So the people complained to Moses, saying, “Why in the world did you bring us out here to die of thirst?? We’re thirsty! Give us water!” So Moses prayed and God told him, “Go to the rock at Horeb (“dried up ground”) and strike it with the staph you struck the Nile with.” So he did, and water gushed out for the people to drink. Moses called the place Massah, which means “trials and temptations” and Mirebah, which means “quarreling and strife.”

         Folks, the people in the desert are thirsty! There is plenty of quarreling and strife out there. People are thirsty for something else. There must be another way… and there is! Our own special brand of Christianity or anyone else’s is not the Living Water. The Living Water that Jesus spoke of can spring out of nowhere, just as it did in that dry desert long ago. You don’t need Moses’ staph to make the water flow. You don’t need some special incantation. All we need is a sincere desire to quench the thirst of our siblings in the human family.

         Don’t judge people’s resistance to anything called “spiritual.” They have every reason to be skeptical. Don’t ever tell anyone “I have something you don’t” or “You need Jesus.” Just live your life in such a way that the Living Water flows from your very being. And maybe, just maybe, someone will take a drink. And maybe, just maybe, someone will follow you back to this well we call MCC to share their cup with us. And maybe they’ll share their water with you too. Are you thirsty? I know I am. Drink deep with me. Amen.