Walking the Sinai – St Giles Cheddington Lent 3
First Reading Exodus 17.1-7
1From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?’ 3But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ 4So Moses cried out to the LORD, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ 5The LORD said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the LORD, saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’
Gospel John 4.5-42
Praise to you, O Christ, King of eternal glory.
The Lord is a great God, O that today you would listen to his voice. Harden not your hearts.
When the Gospel is announced the reader says
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to N.
All Glory to you, O Lord.
5Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7A 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.) 9The 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.) 10Jesus 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.’ 11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but 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.’ 15The 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.’
16Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 17The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ 19The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 25The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ 26Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’
27Just 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?’ 28Then 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?’ 30They left the city and were on their way to him.
31Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ 32But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ 33So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ 34Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35Do 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. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’
39Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They 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 Saviour of the world.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All Praise to you, O Christ.
Sermon
In 2006, Vicky and I walked across Sinai for 10 days with a small group of pilgrims from Southwark cathedral. Sinai is not flat nor particularly sandy. Looking back at photos – mountains made of red rock, large boulders to climb, miles of hot arid terrain.
Most river beds are dry – there are flash floods in winter – dying palm trees and forgotten dams reveal where there had very recently been water now dried up owing to climate change.
You need to carry 2 litres water per person, and fill up regularly to avoid dehydration, which can be very serious. Night time temperatures can drop well below freezing especially at altitude, yet soar to 40C or more during the day.
Water is life itself. Israelites remembered the events of Massah and Meribah when Moses struck the rock for centuries afterwards in their oral tradition. Massah means ‘to test’ and Meribah is the word for ‘to quarrel.’
If you thought the Children of Israel were a fractious and petulant lot, complaining about being brought out of the lush Nile delta into the wilderness of Sinai where there was no water, you’d have more sympathy with them having once experienced the conditions for yourself.
Wells are precious facilities. Remember the scene in Lawrence of Arabia when Serif Ali played by a young Omar Sharif shoots dead a rival Bedouin tribesman who drank without permission from a Harith well.
It was just such a well that our group came across as we climbed down to a plain over huge rocks. A young woman dressed all in black was about to water her goats, when she spotted our group in the far distance. She froze in fear at our presence, and did not move a muscle for the 20 minutes or so we sat catching our breath and drinking our water under the shade of a tree.
Wells were covered and probably locked. Jesus was probably sitting on the well cover when the Samaritan woman approached. As a woman, she would not speak to a man. A Jew would recoil in horror at the thought of any contact with Samaritans. Usually they took a long route to avoid Samaritan territory altogether.
The woman would have expected to wait at a distance for the man to move on. Imagine her surprise when Jesus, a Jew looking like a rabbi asks a woman and a Samaritan for a drink.
The scene plays itself out in three acts.
Water
Jesus is thirsty and alone. He asks the woman for a drink. She is wary, and asks him what container he can use, as a Jew would not drink from a Samaritan’s cup.
Jesus quickly moves the conversation on to what he calls ‘living water’ – the kind of water that flows to eternal life – the kind that is so refreshing that the drinker need never thirst again.
It’s a play on words. The Greek phrase refers to flowing water that is fresh and not stagnant. But it also means ‘living’ linking it to the gift of eternal life, gushing up in the believer who receives the gift Jesus offers.
With some irony, the woman asks for this water, like a mains supply in her house that would mean she never had to walk down to the well in the heat ever again.
The woman’s private life
Jesus moves the conversation on to the woman’s private life. What he knows about the woman sets him apart as a seer or some kind of prophet. How otherwise could this stranger have so intimate a knowledge of the woman’s affairs?
Worshipping God
Now we move to the third act. The woman asks Jesus a serious question about worship. Can God be worshipped from a mountain in Samaria, or must God be worshipped only in Jerusalem? Are the Samaritans therefore barred from worshipping God?
Jesus answers with the radical notion that it doesn’t matter where God is worshipped. It’s the Spirit that is important. Worship is about relationship with God’s Spirit and not location. Now, of course, the Samaritan woman has entered into a form of relationship with Jesus, the Son of God incarnate.
The woman suddenly suggests Jesus might be the coming Messiah, whom the Samaritans were awaiting as much as the Jews. For the first and only time in John’s gospel, Jesus admits that he is the Messiah.
Although as the woman admits, Jesus knows everything about her life, there is no hint of condemnation. No telling her to go and not sin again. There is acceptance that, for one reason or another, the woman may have had little choice but to live as she does. Every woman needed a male protector, and this woman may have been unlucky rather than promiscuous.
The encounter with Jesus is life-changing. God seeks true worshippers, regardless of race, and the Samaritan woman is clearly one of them. She has heard and believed. Now in a piece of realism she dumps her water jar without filling it, and hurries back to the village to tell everyone about who she thinks she has encountered.
She has truly received the gift of living water offered by Jesus, and like a conduit it flows now in the woman and she goes to pass it on to her friends and neighbours. Having entered this special relationship with the Messiah, she sets out on a mission to tell others about him.
The disciples know better than to question Jesus about why he has been talking to a Samaritan and a woman, and whether he has been given food and water by anyone whilst they had gone in search of sustenance, no doubt not in a Samaritan village.
The woman has gone on a mission, and Jesus explains his food is the will of God. His harvest is the harvest of souls. Jesus has sowed the word, and the woman has gone to spread it. Most of the Samaritans believe her. Now it is the turn of the disciples to reap where they have not sown, to gather where they did not labour.
Like a little message, at the very end, there are words that are aimed fairly at us. Why did the Samaritans believe the woman? They told her.
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 Saviour of the world.’
Which means that no words of mine or yours will suffice. Unless we have that relationship with the Spirit, words are not enough. We must hear for ourselves the Holy Spirit, and develop that personal relationship with God in order to know, like the Samaritans, that this is the Saviour of the World. Amen
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