"Jesus: Friend of the Rejected, Part 2"

John 4: 16-29

     Dear Friends in Christ,

   If you happened to be here last Sunday, then you know that I did something I don’t normally do.  I started a sermon based upon Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.  But I didn’t finish the sermon.  I kind of left you hanging.  And the reason if did is because this is a rather lengthy text with a lot of meat to it that demands our attention.  So rather than trying to rush through it, which I didn’t think God would appreciate, and rather than preaching for 40 minutes, which I didn’t think you would appreciate, I decided to break it into 2 parts.  And just to briefly summarize what we talked about last Sunday, we first of all focused upon the presence of Jesus in Samaria, which was enemy territory for any Jew.  Yet just as Jesus often times purposely placed himself directly in the pathway of hurting people so that he could help them, that’s exactly what he did with this Samaritan woman even when it meant going into a region where Jews were not normally welcome.  And the reason Jesus did this took us to point #2 of my sermon which was the passion of Jesus that he felt deep down in his heart for this woman in whom he saw so much pain, but also so much potential. 

   We talked about the strikes that this woman had against her.  She was of the wrong race or nationality.  She was a Samaritan at a time when Samaritans were barely hanging from the lowest rung of the social ladder.  But not only was she of the wrong race, she was also of the wrong gender.  She was a female in a very male-dominated culture.  And not only was she a female, she was a female who had made some very wrong choices in her life as she was divorced 5 times and was presently living with a man who apparently didn’t respect her enough to marry her.  Then I concluded my sermon by talking about the cycles that people sometimes get themselves into whereby they spiral deeper and deeper into the problems and pitfalls of life.

   In fact, I even shared a fictitious scenario with you that I want to repeat for those who were not here so you have an idea of what I’m talking about when I speak of these cycles that people sometimes get themselves into. For those who heard this last week, I give you permission to take a 2 minute nap. 

   Let’s say your first problem is your job.  The economy has turned sour, as has happened in our country and especially our area over the past couple of years.  So now you’re having to work extra hours or an extra job just to meet all you financial obligations that you incurred when the economy was good and you lived beyond your means. So you leave the house when it’s dark in the morning and you return when it’s dark in the evening, all of which is placing a tremendous amount of stress on you and your family.  Which leads to problem #2.  And that is you and your spouse.  Because you’re not spending good quality and quantity time together, you’re certainly not getting any closer to each other.  Home feels like the Arctic Circle as you feel like you get the cold shoulder every time you turn around.  That creates tension in an emotional sense, which leads to problem #3: health issues.  You get this crick in your neck or this pain in your back or these migraine headaches as your body starts to react negatively to what’s going on.  But how are you going to deal with health issues?  You can’t take a vacation because you need the overtime at work.  You can’t quit your job because you need your health insurance.  It’s just one thing piled upon another and another and another. 

   But then one day you see the solution as you’re driving home from work.  There it is parked out front of a boat dealership – a 22 ft. beauty.  And for just a few moment you allow yourself to just kind of escape into this fantasy world of what that boat could do for you.  And before you know it, that boat has acted like a giant magnet and pulled your car into that parking lot.  And there you are standing in front of it, wondering should I or shouldn’t I, should I or shouldn’t I?  And then you see the sign.  It says “0% financing.”  You figure that has got to be a sign from God that this boat is supposed to be yours.  So you buy it without even consulting your wife and you pull it home to your driveway.  Which leads to problem #4.  You are now deeper in debt than you’ve ever been before.  Which leads back to problem #1.  You have to work more hours to pay for the boat.  Which only intensifies problem #2 as your spouse is not too happy with what’s parked out in the driveway.  Which leads to problem #3.  You can’t get that crick out of your neck.  And on and on it goes as you get deeper and deeper and deeper into your cycle of problems.  

    What I’ve just described for you is where a lot of people live today.  Maybe you know somebody like that.  Maybe you are somebody like that.   And if you are, you may very well be a sitting duck for a victim mentality, for depression, for a multi-variety of health problems, marital problems, and family problems.  Put simply, you need help in breaking the cycle, just like the woman in our text did.  So I want to show you what Jesus did with her, what I’m going to call the prescription of Christ. 

   First of all, he encourages her to get honest about her past.  He tells her to go and get her husband.  And much to her credit, she doesn’t try to make excuses.  She doesn’t lie about the fact that she has no husband.  She just tells Jesus she doesn’t.  To which Jesus replies: "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.” You see what Jesus is doing there?  My hunch is that her past failures are the last thing this woman wanted to talk about.  But listen, my friends, Jesus wants to talk to us about the issues in our past that we may want to leave buried.  And the reason he does is because he know that we cannot be effective, efficient, and productive members of his kingdom as long as we’re carrying around all that excess baggage.  Now please don’t misunderstand me here.  He doesn’t want us to dwell on our past.  He only wants us to deal with our past.  There’s a big difference between the two. 

   You see, sometimes we’re like King David who at one time in his life committed adultery with another man’s wife, which in turn led to a whole host of other sins, all of which David tried to conveniently sweep under the rug.  But it didn’t work.  In fact, in Ps. 32 David gives us a rather graphic description of how he was feeling when he tried to keep his sins under wraps.  He says: “When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long.  Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.  My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.”  David is telling us from personal experience there that it’s neither wise nor healthy to try to hide your past mistakes and failures.  It’s neither wise nor healthy to try and make excuses for them or to try to blame them on somebody else, making yourself out to be the victim, which unfortunately is so common in our day and age.  “My dad yelled at me too much.”  “My mom didn’t potty train me correctly.”  “My teacher put too much pressure on me.”  No, David says in that Psalm that the time for excuses is over; the time for blaming others for his problems has come to an end.  In fact, in the very next verse he says: “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide them.  I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.’  And you forgave me!  All my guilt is gone.” 

   Perhaps it’s time for some of us to do what David did there, to come clean with God, to get honest about our past.  Remember, not to dwell on the past, not to camp there, but to deal with it  by laying it down at the foot of the cross so that God in his amazing grace and goodness can delete it from his memory and his record forever.  Indeed, he wants to do for you what he said he would do for his chosen people Israel through the prophet Jeremiah when he said: "I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."  That’s step #1 in Christ’s prescription.  Get honest about your past.

   Then step #2 is: Get honest about God.  Getting back to our text, after Jesus tells this woman whom he has never met before all about her not-so-pretty past, she realizes that he’s not your typical everyday run-of-the-mill man.  She says, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.”  Which then catapults her into a discussion with Jesus about an issue that was really weighing heavily on her heart.  In essence she says to Jesus: “Can I talk to you about what really keeps me up at night?  People where I grew up say that you can only worship God on this mountain while you Jews say you can only worship him in Jerusalem.  I’m confused.  Would somebody please tell me where I can find God?”

   What do you think that moment meant to Jesus?  Here he has come all the way from heaven to earth looking for somebody on earth who is searching for heaven, and finally he has found her.  He’s found a thirsty soul whose thirst he alone can quench.  So he gently leads her to an understanding of how to find God.  And that is through proper worship.  In v.23 Jesus says: “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”

   What does that mean to worship the Father in spirit and in truth?  Well, to worship in spirit means to seek God, to worship him with our innermost being.  We’re not talking about simply showing up for church occasionally and going through the motions and rituals of worship without giving much thought to what we’re doing.  Rather Jesus is talking here about worshiping God with all of our heart, giving to him our deepest longings, our secret hurts, our private passions.

   And then to worship in truth means to worship him honestly, to not try to hide anything from him, like we talked about before.  And what exactly is the truth?  The truth is that we are all sinners who are in dire and desperate need of a Savior.  The truth is that we are born into this world separated from God and with 3 strikes already against us for the Bible says that by nature we are spiritually blind, spiritually dead, and enemies of God.  The truth is that we are absolutely helpless when it comes to saving ourselves.  The truth is that God saw our desperate plight and did something about it when he sent Jesus to take our place and bear our sins on the cross.

   Now, when the Samaritan woman hears Jesus’ solution to her problem-plagued life, she makes an interesting comment.  She says: "I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."  What kind of expression do you think Jesus got on his face at that moment?  Though we can’t say for sure, I can’t help but believe he got this twinkle in his eye and a slight grin on his face because he knew he was about to share with this woman the most important news she would ever hear.  In essence he says: “You’re looking for the Messiah?  Well, guess what?  You’re looking at him right now.  I am he.  I’m the one that you’ve been waiting for.”

   Now does Jesus solve her problems?  Does he give her a crash course in marriage?  Does he talk to her about divorce?  Does he talk to her about her current living arrangement?  All of those would have been valid issues to discuss with her, but he doesn’t touch on any of them.  He doesn’t give her counsel or advice for any of her problems, but look at what he does give her.  He gives her himself.  “I am the Messiah,” he says, which is exactly what that woman needed.  And guess what, my friends?  He does the same for us.  He gives us himself.  In fact, he’s going to do that in a very personal and intimate way in just a few minutes as we come to the Communion rail to receive his Holy Supper.  He’s going to say: “Here, this is my body; this is my blood, given and shed just for you.  As you receive it, you receive me.  And as you receive me, you receive all the blessings and treasures I earned for you.”

   By the way, does Jesus’ gift of himself to the Samaritan woman make a difference in her life?  You better believe it does.  Notice what she does.  She rushes back into town and tells anyone who will listen: "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.”  In other words, this 5-time divorcee who had experienced so much pain and so much rejection in her life now becomes a spokesperson, an ambassador, a missionary for the One who finally accepted her just as she was, right where she was.

   One more thing before I close.  Did you notice how this story ends when I read it to you before?  Remember how this woman came to the well carrying a jug?  Well, guess what she forgot when she ran back to the village?  The jug.  John writes: “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town.”  What had been so heavy on her shoulders when she came was left at the feet of Jesus when she left.  May the same hold true for you.  May what was heavy on your shoulders when you came to church today be left at the feet of Jesus as you leave for he can handle it and he can carry it a whole lot better than you can.

      Amen.