Third Sunday in Lent, Year A, March 12, 2023

Prayer

O God, the living fountain of new life, to the human race, parched with thirst, you offer the living water of grace that springs up from the rock, our Savior Jesus Christ.  Grant your people the gift of the Spirit, that we may learn to profess our faith with courage and conviction and announce with joy the wonders of your saving love.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year A, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on John 4:5-42
[Some lectionaries may have Matthew's transfiguration - 17:1-9. Please see last Epiphany A for this text commentary]


"What gives me life is the knowledge that there is someone who loves me unconditionally, irrevocably, and absolutely. That assurance is liberating, it's healing, and it's invigorating." 

"Life Giving," Alan Brehm, The Waking Dreamer.


"She is not a prostitute. She doesn't have a shady past. Yet when millions of Christians listen to her

story this coming Sunday in church, they are likely to hear their preachers describe her in just those terms "
Misogyny, Moralism and the Woman at the Well, David Lose, The Huffington Post, 2011. 

"This text suggests in a number of ways that it is not about what we know but who we know."

Commentary, John 4:5-42 (Lent 3A), Meda Stamper, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text


It is probably good to remind ourselves that the Samaritans are the Israelites who were not deported during the Assyrian occupation. They did not go with Isaiah to Babylon. They settled in Palestine with the Gentiles. They had recently been a fight between the Jews and the Samaritans and the Romans had intervened. (Chris Haslaam points us to Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20.6.1-3 118-36; Jewish Wars 2:12.3-5 232-46). [NJBC]

Shechem was a real place, maybe called Askar. The geography is important as a revelationary vessel of who Jesus is. Chris Haslaam does some great research and reminds us that "in Genesis 33:19, Jacob buys land at Shechem. In Genesis 48:22 he gives land to Joseph and his brothers, giving Joseph a double portion. In Hebrew, portion sounds like Shechem. See also John 1:51, where Jesus tells Nathanael, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”. Jacob, with his ladder to heaven, is the type (forerunner) of Jesus. [NOAB] [NJBC]" So we cannot underestimate the power of the place in memory and prophecy within the tradition of the first followers of Jesus. 

Jesus begins by breaking down the barrier between them by asking her to give him a drink. (Jews and Samaritans did not share things in common.) This invitation though leads into the revelation of Jesus as not only the Son of God, who has come down and is with us, but also as the one through whom all things come. Jesus is the gift.  Jesus is the living water for those who thirst. Jesus is the one who will give the Spirit of life. 

We remember then also that the water rose to the top of the well for Jacob, that in Jeremiah 2:13 God is the fountain of living water. As Christians, we see the revelation clearly and powerfully, but for her, in the midst of this story, she asks the questions that many must have been asking of Jesus. We might well remember that for those still seeking God or in the midst of a dark place on their pilgrimage the question she asks is important and worth hearing again - even if we have not asked them yourself in a long time. She questions, "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 then responds. While the well obviously had been enough for the great herds of Jacob, and his family, one will always thirst again. So Jesus is speaking of a different thirst the thirst and hunger for God. He is the bread of life who has come down from heaven. Like the words of God to Moses, "I am going to rain bread from heaven for you." (Exodus 16:4) Here I am so very struck by the beginning of a switch. The place, the earth, the well, the water, and the bread...are earthly physical things. Jesus is holding up a mirror to our human condition in some manner and saying that while you have the need and desire for these basic things your soul hungers for something different. 

Believing that the world will give to you what is needed for spiritual things is misguided. Jesus is offering to this woman and to us “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." We might remember furthermore that in 10:10, Jesus says: “‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’”. So just as last we and this week we see the reoccurring themes of the incarnation. Jesus comes from above. So too we see the imagery of spiritual life flowing from God, in Jesus, to the Holy Spirit and out into the world. Jesus continues: 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. The theme continues then as Jesus offers a vision that worshiping God then is not located to geography. 

Here in this Holy place, which offers us a revelation of who Jesus is, is not the only place where Jesus is found. Those who follow him and those who are filled with the Spirit find and discover that God is worshipped and followed in all places and in all times. A disciple does not have to make their pilgrimage to a place but that God is with the pilgrim everywhere. Likewise, the responsibility of the pilgrim is to make God known and to worship God in all places of their daily life. These are revolutionary and revelationary words. 

 Humans from the very earliest of recorded history have desired to mark out sacred space in the world, to separate the sacred and the profane. Our desire to continue to build altars in the world and churches and sanctuaries illustrates this fact. The reality is though that as Christians we believe in a God in Jesus Christ who came and walked with us and left the holy places and went out. It is this God that beckons us still. Clearly gathering that Jesus is different and special she says, “‘I know that Messiah is coming’” There is a lot of conjecture about who the Samaritans thought and how they thought about the messiah's coming. Most agree it was something like a hope for a new prophet, a great prophet, like Moses. This is partly based upon the fact that they used the prophetic books, while most Jews only used the first five books of the scripture. Chris Haslaam writes about the next verses: “I am he”: Perhaps Jesus points to his divinity, in an echo of God’s self-identification in Exodus 3:14: “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you’'”. 

This is the first of a series of self-revelatory sayings, all echoing an Old Testament formula This is particularly striking in those sayings (6:20; 8:24, 28, 58; 13:19; 18:5-8) in which Jesus uses the words I am without any predicate. This verse is in striking contrast to the synoptic gospels, where Jesus tells his disciples not to disclose to anyone who he is. Perhaps he felt he could say openly in Samaria what would have seriously impeded his mission in Jewish territory. [BlkJn]

So what we have just witnessed, like the conversation with Nicodemus, is that Jesus is continually in conversation with those who do not yet believe. As Lent is a time for new converts to be prepared for baptism and confirmation, and the whole of the church is to be renewed in its faith, the message of the woman at the well and her conversation helps us to remember the power of conversation with those who do not yet believe. We are to listen and reveal who Jesus is. We are to be out in the world. We are to engage and make holy all the places we make our pilgrim way. To make places holy through conversation with all people, perhaps even those who are the most separated from us by either wealth, or status, or ethnicity.

Look at what happens in the text: 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. 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.” When we dare to do this we will find and discover that the converts zest for new life, living water, and the holy spirit will renew the greater community and draw others to Jesus Christ. We too will be renewed and have the opportunity to leave our buildings and go with them out into the world. 

All receive not from our testimony but from God's empowering Spirit that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. What happens is that the disciples show up and they are all upset for many reasons, most of which probably escape us today. (I think we spend a lot of time on the woman's background and on why they are upset because Jesus talks to her. This seems less important than the conversation about conversion and evangelism) Jesus responds to them with a proverb and teaching. Jesus begins with this proverb: Four months more, then comes the harvest? In everyday language, the proverb may have simply meant, "what's the rush?" You have to remember when you sowed seed, instead of drilled seed into the ground, you had to wait for the seed to take root. So we have this beautiful image of Jesus saying just be patient. It is a parallel conversation with the actions of the townspeople. See the seeds are taking root in the people's ears and hearts. Sowing and reaping are the work of the disciple. And, sometimes the disciple does not get to see the fruit of their labors. We live in such an instant society we want to see the change now! 

We want to see new disciples made by our proclamation now! The reality is that if we are like the sower, and are focused on the work of the sowing we will have a great harvest - though someone else may be the one to harvest for us. In fact, Jesus is saying that part of living in the kingdom now, part of living in the reign of God, is the proclamation of the word. When we do this both the sower and the reaper rejoice together. As we think of our own Christian story between John and Acts, we can see that while Jesus stays with them for a few days, it is Philip in Acts who returns sows some more and reaps. (see Acts 8:5-17) This is a great passage to talk about evangelism, conversion, the work of the church in the world. It has images of how we meet people where they are in the world where they live. I hope you enjoy exploring what is a very full passage, it is itself a deep well from which much living water can flow.

Some Thoughts on Romans 5:1-11

"So for Paul peace is about being in a right relationship with God, not as some distant judge nor as someone who is trying to draw us up into himself, but as one who is expansively living love out into the universe."
"First Thoughts on Year C Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Trinity, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

"The past and the future. Memory and expectation. Remember and hope. Remember and wait. Wait for him whose face we all of us know because somewhere in the past we have faintly seen it, whose life we all of us thirst for because somewhere in the past we have seen it lived, have maybe even had moments of living it ourselves. Remember him who himself remembers us as he promised to remember the thief who died beside him. To have faith is to remember and wait, and to wait in hope is to have what we hope for already begin to come true in us through our hoping."

"Hope," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.Justification, from Whistling in the Dark

"In the space of five verses, the second reading for Trinity Sunday mentions God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit."

Commentary, Romans 5:1-5, Mary Hinkle Shore, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

Paul is clear that humanity was not doing so well on its own and that now because of the work of Christ we have a mediator with God.  He is very clear that this particular work of mending the relationship resides at the foot of Jesus upon the cross.  

Paul writes, "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us."

So it is here that we find the key to Paul's understanding of the atonement.  For Paul, we are spared what we are truly due to pay to God for our sinfulness only by Jesus' action on our behalf. We are given grace, we are restored, we are united once again.  There are many debates about this and many scholars will go on endlessly about the meaning of this passage. In its very essence what we know is that Paul believes (as I do) that the crucifixion is the cross-roads of the salvation narrative.

Paul writes, "But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."  As John Newton reminds me reconciliation is always and foremost a vertical action that takes place between humanity and God through the work of Jesus.

We are in fact unable to do the reconciliation work between us, that horizontal work if we don't recognize that it is always dependent upon the vertical work of Jesus. Why? Because as Paul says, "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die."

It is this vertical work that is our grace. It is this work that justifies us. It is this work that brings peace. It is always God's work and God's work in us that enables these things. It is never by our own merit. It is God's faithfulness in us that provides endurance and produces the character and the hope.  It is the very fact that God's love for us is constantly poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And for Paul, it is poured out from the cross.

Some Thoughts on Exodus 17:1-17

"The mutual testing in the wilderness yields a people with a uniquely articulated faith, along with a unique, fundamentally counter-cultural god, both of whom have inspired countless generations of people to follow them."
Commentary, Exodus 17:1-7 (Pentecost +15A), Amy Erickson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"Exodus 17 records the fourth occurrence of 'complaining' by the Israelites in the early days after the exodus from Egypt."
Commentary, Exodus 17:1-7 (Pentecost 20), Nancy deClaissé-Walford, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

"The people's quarreling and testing is born of a stressful environment, and we would do well as preachers to be as compassionate in our treatment of the people's plight as God is depicted as being."
Commentary, Exodus 17:1-7, Callie Plunket=Brewton, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

"Following Yahweh in the wilderness, however is not the life of the salon or the drawing-room, sipping from fine china. It is a hard-scrabble, risky existence whose practitioners have to drink directly from the rock."
"The Politics of Water," Timothy F. Simpson, Political Theology Today, 2014.



Oremus Online NRSV Text 

The people of Israel are wandering in the wilderness. They grumble and they camp here and there. They quarrel with each other and God. And, they want something to drink.

It is one of three "grumbling episodes" during the flight and wilderness pilgrimage. It is interesting to note that Robert Alter in his translation points out that part of the frustration isn't just the lack of water but it is God's itinerary that brings them to the lack of water. (Exodus 17; note 1) This is an important part of the story. We as Christians often think of this desert time as a time of lostness. I have addressed this in some of my writing. God is directing, leading, and continuing to go before them. This is especially clear in this particular passage. Why is it so hard? They are learning to depend upon God.

Alter also points out that there is no separation between the leadership of Moses and God implied here. They are one and the same. So, it isn't merely that they are grumbling at Moses and Aaron, but because this is God's itinerary they are grumbling to God. (note 2)

Here is the complaint - that God has brought us out of Egypt to die in the desert.

So, Moses went to Horeb and struck the rock and water flowed from it. Moses renamed the place, not for God’s providence of water, for the people’s quarreling and testing of God.

There one last piece worth noting here. First, the staff itself is a sign of God's beneficence. It is a type of sacramental instrument of God's provision. It provided engagement with Pharoah, it provided the parting of the sea, water from the rock, and in the very next verse deliverance from an army's attack.

The tradition of this rock and its ever-flowing and refreshing water is held throughout Midrash teaching and very interesting. Here we see a tradition that the rock was carried with them. That God led them to the rock, water was brought forth from it, and then they took the rock on their pilgrimage. In this way, the rock was with them to bring water at all times and in all places.

The Targum Jonathan on Numbers 21:19 describes the well this way:

"From the time that the well in Mattanah was given them, it was made again to them brooks that were overflowing and violent; and again it went up unto the tops of the mountains, and went down with them into the valleys...". (The targums were early Aramaic paraphrases of the Bible; Etheridge, The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel On the Pentateuch With The Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum From the Chaldee, (London: 1865), p.300)

In the Tosephta, it is written:

"It was likewise with the well that was with the children of Israel in the wilderness, it [the well] was like a rock that was full of holes like a sieve from which water trickled and arose as from the opening of a flask. It [the rock-well] ascended with them to the top of the hills and descended with them into the valleys; wherever Israel tarried there it tarried over against the entrance to the tabernacle" (The Tosephta or "additions" to the Mishnah were compiled near the 5th century A.D. Sukkah 3.11 ff., cited in Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, vol. 3, p. 406; cf. Neusner, p.220)

The Midrash on Numbers suggests this explanation:

"How was the well constructed? It was rock-shaped like a kind of bee-hive, and wherever they journeyed it rolled along and came with them. When the standards [under which the tribes journeyed] halted and the tabernacle was set up, that same rock would come and settle down in the court of the Tent of Meeting and the princes would come and stand upon it and say, Rise up, O well, and it would rise." (Midrash Numbers Bemidbar Rabbah 1.2)

So, the rock brings forth water and it does so forever - it flows in an everlasting way.

Switching to the first Christian understanding and usage of the text we find that this passage is referred to in the Gospel of Matthew 4:1-11 when the Devil tempts Jesus. Jesus’ reply is that God is not to be tested. This relies on Deuteronomy’s and Number’s account of today’s passage. See in particular Deuteronomy 6:16. 

The religious leaders of the day have put God to the test by asserting themselves into the powers and principalities of this world. They have put God to the test by actually doing the things the devil tempts Jesus with. They have sought to be part of the powers, they have sought to feed their greed, they have claimed God’s sovereignty over their actions. Jesus rebukes this way of being in the world and he rebukes the devil in Matthew. He rebukes this way of being by reminding that God is not pleased with this “self-assertion” or “self-enrichment”.

The Sinai God invites instead a different way of being in the world one that is about neighborliness. The Sinai God invites love and love of neighbor as the highest commandments. God in Christ Jesus fulfills such with his own obedience in the face of powers, principalities, wealth, and self-protection. Instead, Jesus shows his obedience to the Sinai God of Moses by keeping the commandments, loving others, and being obedient. God in Christ Jesus reveals a complete dependence upon God.

As John reminds us everlasting water which quenches all kinds of thirst will be given by God through Jesus (the one through whom all waters spring). This Christ is with us forever as with the woman at the well.

We also cannot miss the typological conversation going on regarding this rock, water, Christ as rock, and the water flowing from his side at his death. These are typological plays of importance to the first writers and theologians in Christianity. While there is a great deal of argument between Jewish apologists and Christian apologists we should not miss the point that there is an overarching story being woven by those who first experienced the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The everlasting and ever-present quality of the rock reflects God's presence in the wilderness with the freed Israelites as it reflects Christ's presence with us in our wildernesses today.

Shall we grumble and quarrel or shall we be obedient to the command to love each other and love God by doing so? Jesus, in the end, shows the way through the wilderness in a manner that is foreign for the humanity that confronts Moses. Regardless of the typological history, we have in Christ someone who leads as Moses led, who like the staff provides, who like the stone gives living water, who like the early motifs of the stone in Midrash becomes the chief cornerstone and is ever-present, who delivers us from the enemy of death then as today.