ALL SERMONS IN SERIES

Summary 

Coming back from sabbatical, Pastor Peter offers some reflections on our church and how we are to follow Jesus in our time by looking at Jesus' incredible interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well. What Are We About? Well, Jesus is about seeking after the outcast and the sinner and the stranger, so we are to be about delighting in diversity and seeking the stranger. Jesus, somewhat oddly enough, in a conversation with this woman about worship, declares "we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews." He grounds his compassionate engagement with this woman in the long salvation-history of God with his people and their practices. So, SCC is about being historically rooted and embedded in time and place. Finally, this woman makes a massive shift in her understanding of Jesus. As Ephraim the Syrian wrote in the early 3rd century, "First she caught sight of a thirsty man, then a Jew, then a Rabbi, afterwards a prophet, last of all the Messiah." How was this shift possible? Because she was with Jesus. The conversation about water was a conversation about Jesus, her concept of men was shifted because of the presence of Jesus, the conversation around worship found its end in Jesus. So, SCC is about being with Jesus and allowing his person and work to transform us.  .

Transcript

Again, good morning. It really is wonderful to be here with you all this morning. I want you to know that if you are visiting with us or are here for the first time, you really are our honored guest and we are thrilled yo are here. Brothers and sisters who are reading along in Kenyarwanda, you are our honored guests and we are full of joy that you are with us. 

One of the real joy of my sabbatical was worshipping at different churches. And I do want to say a bit more about that, but I can, very truly, say that nearly every Sunday I was away I was wishing I was here with you all singing and learning from the scriptures and taking the bread and wine together. Worshipping as one body, though made of different parts and from different economic and educational and social backgrounds with political positions that sometimes different and personalities that sometimes clash. Worshipping the Triune God and confessing the historic faith in our place. Worshipping and be shaped by Jesus as we are simply with him. Now, don’t get me wrong, there were aspects of our makeup as a body in other churches, and we worshipped at what might be called very high and very low churches in terms of the routines of their gathered Lord’s Day worship, and we worshipped with many people who sought to be with Jesus. But I really missed it here and I think this church really does have something special going on. 

So my sermon this morning is going to be a one-off sermon. In fact, the rest of the fall we are going to be in the beginning of Genesis together asking it speaks to us in our time and our lives. Today though I want us to look at John 4 and Jesus’ encounter with this woman at this well in Samaria. You all have heard me refer to this passage many times because it is so incredibly rich, yet today I want us to focus on this passage with the thought of the title of this sermon: “What are we about?” 

You know sometimes getting away, going on retreat, or vacation, or just simply moving makes you reassess your life. It makes you ask, “why do we do what we do?” or “who are we?” 

So, I want us to look at this passage and answer the question “What are we about?” Ok?

Now, let me just give you the answer that I have to that question, then we will walk through them

1. Delighting in difference and seeking the stranger
   2. Rooted in History and Embedded in Place
   3. Being with Jesus.

First, Delighting in difference and seeking the stranger

One of the things that we see when we are with Jesus in the gospels is that he shows up at unexpected places with unexpected people and often does and says unexpected things. So, already in John his first miracle was turning 120-180 gallons (think 1,000 bottles) or water into wine so a wedding party that had probably, for our sensibilities, already lasted too long. Then in that same chapter, Jesus goes to the Temple (we’re thinking, “Ok, that’s more like it; Jesus - religious guy, should be at a temple - religious place”) and, John tells us that he makes a whip of chords and drives out all of these people buying and selling in the Temple courts. Then he meets with a Pharisee, Nicodemus, who comes to him under the cover of night and they have a conversation about being born again. He tells a member of one of the great religious groups “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”

Unexpected events with unexpected people and unexpected places.

Now, I want you to keep your Bible’s open so turn them to John 4 and let’s start at verse 3. 

³ he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴ And he had to pass through Samaria.

Now, that is not entirely true, as we think of it and nearly all Jews of Jesus’ day would have known that too. Jesus was going from down near Jerusalem in the south to Galilee in the north and, it’s true, Samaria, lay between those two places. But most faithful Jews would have gone around. You know, lots of people here in greater Harrisburg go around the city because they think it is dangerous or dirty or whatever. Well, for Jews it wasn’t just dangerous or dirty, but that the people were deplorable. 

Some of you may remember your Old Testament history and how in 730s BC the Assyrian Empire attacked the ten northern tribes of Israel. Well, when they did that they took away many of the brightest and best looking strongest and then they imported people into the area to intermarry with the remaining folk. Samaria was the name of the main ruling city of those ten northern tribes and so people of that area became known as the Samaritans. Now, here’s the things, the Assyrians didn’t just bring in anyone, but the samaritans brought people from Babylon and Media. And some of you know that later on, in the beginning of the 6th century BC the Babylonians came and conquered the two remaining southern tribes of Israel. Alright, so the samaritans were just half-bred Jews, that mixed their lineage and their worship with pagans, but specifically they were half-bread Jews with people from Babylon, one of the great enemies of Israel. 

Ok, so, Jews don’t go through Samaria and they don’t have relationships with Samaritans. 

If we keep reading though, Jesus goes tot this town called Sychar and sits beside a well at noon (that what the 6th hour meant - and it says that he was weary because it was really hot out!). When he does this, a woman comes from the city where Jesus’ disciples had gone to buy food. She is by herself and it is the 6th hour of the day. What we are supposed to learn from that is that she was estranged from her community. She should have gone out to the well, outside of the city, with the other ladies in the morning or the evening when it was cool out. But she was relegated to the social sidelines. And maybe that was her own doing. What we learn is that she had five husbands and the man she is with is not her husband. Maybe she had burned all of the social bridges. Or maybe she was the one who was abused. We don’t know. We know that she was on the outside. She was on the outside of the people at the place. And she sees this. 

Verse 7, Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” And verse 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Ok, I could give you more detail here, but I hope you are seeing that Jesus’ “had to” go through Samaria here was because he is about reaching the outsider, the stranger, those who are shunned, those who are lonely, those who need saving. 

And the reality is that that is every one of us. We all live to varying degrees as those on the outside and we all live as those who are sinned against and who are sinners and what the Bible teaches us from beginning to end is sin produces estrangement and distant and Jesus ‘ love brings healing and intimacy. 

So, Second City “What are we about?” I want this sermon in some ways to be encouraging, and yet I also want it to challenge us. We must commit again and again and again in this world of dismissive polarization to feeling compelled and acting on that compulsion to be a community where are differences are relegated around Jesus and our hearts are moved towards those on the outside. 

By this I mean, we must commit to protect the fact that we are a church where the poor are welcomed as are the well-to-do. We must be a church where those who have doctorates worship right alongside those with a GED. We must be a church where the old and the young are delighted in - and, yes, this means that some of the songs we sing may not be your favorite. There are planty of churches where everyone looks the same and the music all is from the same decade. That is not this church. We must be a church, despite everything you will be told this election season where people that vote for Trump and people that vote for Harris can sing and worship together. And we must be a people that look for the estranged that look for those who need someone to sit down and talk with them. Very practically with where our church is at right now, this could look like signing up for ESL. Friends, for real, Jesus here is going not just to the estranged, but to the enemy. What are we about if not the way of Jesus?

Delighting in difference and seeking the stranger. I am convinced that this is a necessary part of the faithful witness of the church in our time.

Alright, what are we about, answer number 2:

Second, Rooted in History and Embedded in Place

Ok, so Jesus has this long and sort of rambly conversation with this woman. They talk about living water (we’ll get back to that) and then he asks her to go get her husband she shirks him off a bit by saying she doesn’t have one. He calls her out and then she starts talking about worship (maybe to divert Jesus from the whole “husband” conversation). This is what she says: 1⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

You would think maybe here that Jesus, “Wait, wait, we were talking about you who ‘husband’ think that you have going on for a while. Don’t change the subject on me.” Instead he entertains this. And I think he does this for a few reason. One: his compassion is great and his patience is enduring. But also, two, he knows  that worship is an important conversation and it does influence the rest of our lives, including what we love. So Jesus is patient in the place that he finds this woman. But he also roots himself in history. 

You know, Jesus does, once again, confront this woman. Verse 22: ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

If Jesus is patient and attentive to the place where this woman is, well, then he also is rooting in history of God’s saving acts in the world.

What are we about? We are about being rooted in history and grounded in place. 

The first Sunday we weren’t with you all in May we worshiped at a local church here in Harrisburg and they didn’t have communion and James looked at me as the service was finishing and said, “Dad, they didn’t take the bread and wine!” Like he was just shocked that they would do that! And I loved it. Why? Because God has always been about restoring his relationship with his people that is broken by sin and then dining with them! And Christians, as far as we are aware, almost always devoted themselves to the word of god, the apostles teaching, fellowship and the breaking of bread. 

Part of what I want you to hear is that we are a church and I believe we ought to commit ourselves to being a church that takes historic worship very seriously. Salvation is from the Jews. Our faith has a particular history with particular practices. I love that we recite the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s prayer. I am absolutely committed to us hearing a call to worship and confessing our sins and being taught by our Lord through his word and taking the taking the bread and wine together and being sent out with the blessing of God. These are not trivial things. Our salvation has a history. And we are a church that is rooted in the great history of Gods’ working through the Jews of the Old Testament, the Apostles of the New Testament and the Church throughout history. But, brothers and sisters, we must also know that we are in a particular place and a particular time and let me say that those dynamics also influence our worships. We use different instruments today that people did when our church was founded here in Harrisburg 160 years ago. That is as it should be. After all, 160 years ago they sang different songs than they did 160 years before that! And today we are translating this sermon into Kenyarwanda because we have brothers and sisters with us today that speak that language. And we hope that we grow in difference and that may mean that some things will need to shift to accommodate the particularities place and our particular time. 

Rooted in history, embedded in place. I am also convinced that this is a necessary part of the faithful witness of the church in our time.

The this answer to “What are we about?” is this:

Third, Being with Jesus.

When we were away this Summer, my family and I went to a place where I had dreamed of going all the way back in high school. It’s kind of one of those mythical places in my mind that I have long wanted to visit. We went to the island of Iona in the inner Hebrides (the Western inner island) of Scotland. You may know that that is where St Columba founded the Abbey there in the late 6th century that had a massive influence in the Western church through reaching the Celts with the gospel. There is a cross, St Martins, that was built around the year 800 that still stands right when it was initially placed, all 16’ 8” of it! This island is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and it feels mystic, religious. And yet for all of the history and all of the mentioning of St Columba and the cross, I don’t know if I once heard or read the name of Jesus. If I did, it was very little. 

And there are churches where the liturgies are immaculate, the sense of history overwhelming, the beauty of their sanctuaries almost unparalleled and yet Jesus is barely mentioned. There are churches where their are great initiatives to care for the poor, where creation care is emphasized and many other good things, and Jesus is barely mentioned if at all. The crosses are lovely, but the cross is only lovely if we know the one who hung upon it for our sin and rose again from death there on the cross for our salvation. 

Let’s continue where we left off the conversation about worship: 

²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” 

“The Father is seeking worshipers through me” he is saying! And if we miss Jesus we miss it all! If we have the long history of the work of the Father, but fail to see the gift the Father gave in Christ, then we miss it. If we say we have the Spirit, but don’t have the one to whom the Spirit testifies, we miss it. 

We must, brothers and sisters, we must, unapologetically and emphatically be about being with Jesus. That is why we reach out to the outcast and the stranger. Not because we are their hope, but because Jesus is their hope. That is why we much unite despite our social difference, because our life in Jesus is what defines us over everything else. That is why we are rooted in history, because Jesus came in real space and real time. That is why we are imbedded in place because Jesus took on flesh and dwelt among us. 

Brother and Sisters, more than anything, I am convinced we need to be with Jesus. And really, what we need is Jesus to be with us. Jesus to sit with us, Jesus to speak to us, Jesus to be patient with us, Jesus to call out our sin, Jesus to bring us to himself. 

Ephraim the Syrian, who was born around 300 wrote this:First she caught sight of a thirsty man, then a Jew, then a Rabbi, afterwards a prophet, last of all the Messiah. She tried to get better of the thirsty man, she showed her dislike of the Jew, she heckled the Rabbi, she was swept off her feet by the prophet, and she adored he Christ.

Commit with me to being with Jesus. Commit with me to being with Jesus so that he can do his work in us. Some of us likely see him as a good teacher, but not yet as the object of worship and the one for whom our hearts long. Some of us see him as a prophet, we like to discuss matters of worship and theology with him, but won’t let him touch our hearts and heal them. Let’s commit to sitting with Jesus and letting him do all of the work he need to in us. 

Friends, today there is Samaritans Purse, a ministry that cares for the physical needs of many throughout the world. In England today there is a ministry called “The Samaritan” that care for those in need of mental health. Christian ministries named after those who were once outcast. Why? Because this woman was with Jesus and went and told others about Jesus.

What are we about? There are a lot of ways we can answer that question. Let’s be about Jesus.

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