Broadway Christian Church ·Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship ·February 27, 2005

The Third Sunday of Lent

Prayer of the Day

Lord, make us eager, expectant, and ever ready to meet you wherever you will, so that we may receive the wonder of your living water for this day and for all that lie ahead.  Amen.

Scripture
John 4:5-18;25-30

So Jesus came to a town in Samaria called Sychar.  He was near a field that Jacob had long ago given to his son Joseph.  The well that Jacob had dug was still there, and Jesus sat down beside that well, because he was tired from traveling.  It was about noon, and after Jesus’ disciples had gone to town to buy some food, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well.

Jesus asked the woman, “Would you please give me a drink of water?”

She replied, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink of water when Jews and Samaritans won’t have anything to do with each other?”

Jesus answered, “You don’t know what God wants to give you, and you don’t know who is asking you for a drink.  If you did, you would be asking me for the water that gives life.”

“Sir,” she said, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep.  Where are you going to get this life-giving water?  Our ancestor Jacob dug this well for us.  He and his family and animals got water from it.  Are you greater than Jacob?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again.  The water I give is like a flowing fountain that gives eternal life.”

The woman said, “Sir, please give me a drink of that water!  Then I won’t get thirsty and have to come to this well again.”

Jesus told her, “Go and bring your husband here.”

And she answered, “I don’t have a husband.”

“That’s right,” said Jesus.  “You don’t have a husband.  You have already been married five times, and the man you are living with now is not your husband.”

The woman said, “I know that someday the Messiah will come.  And when he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Jesus replied, “I am that one, and I am speaking to you right now.”

The disciples returned about this time and were surprised to find Jesus talking to a woman.  But none of them asked him what he wanted or why he was talking to her.

The woman left her jar and ran back to town.  She said to the people, “Come, come, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did!  He couldn’t be the Messiah, could he?”  Everyone in that town went out to see Jesus.

Message
 “All Right, You Can Come in Now!”
Rick Frost

How to get into this multi-leveled Scripture?  Good old John loves to do that to us.  We will try our best.  Let’s see if this works.

When you were a kid, did you ever play hide-and-seek? Let’s see the hands of the “hide-and-seekers.”  Yes.  In the neighborhood where I grew up, it was the greatest game ever.  The best time to play, of course, was not at high noon.  It was just about the time it was starting to get really, really dark.  Some kids were so darn good at hiding that we would hardly ever find them.  Do you remember that in your neighborhood?

My wife, Jan, is one of those types of kids.  She is a great hider.  When Molly, our daughter, was younger, we would go with Guy and Martha and their kids (all members here) for an overnight down by Meramec River.  After supper, we would all – well, everybody but Guy – would all go out and play hide and seek.  (I don’t know why, but he just wouldn’t play.)  One of the things you learn very quickly when you play with us is you don’t want to be in the way when Jan decides to come in to the base.  I mean, nothing, absolutely nothing, not a child, not an adult, not a tree, not a stump, not a boulder, nothing is going to keep her from that base.  She still has scars to prove it.  I can tell you that.

The question today is: Have you ever played hide-and-seek?  Have you ever played spiritual hide-and-seek?  You know that is a game, don’t you?  Spiritual hide-and-seek.  Have you ever played that?  I bet every person in this room has played spiritual hide-and-seek.

There are persons right here today who are seekers.  You want more than anything else to encounter the Spirit of the Living God.  You go on retreats.  You attend Bible studies.  You pour over Scripture.  You worship at your church.  You learn how to pray and do all kinds of wonderful things.  There is nothing that you would like more than some dramatic, face-to-face, one-on-one meeting with the Christ.  Some flash of light, maybe, that would jolt you out of bed in the middle of the night, or maybe appear to you when you were out climbing in the mountains, or sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon, or spending a spiritual retreat at a Benedictine monastery.  There are people right here in this room, right among us, who have had dramatic, spiritual experiences – encounters with the Living Spirit of God.  It is a direct result of their searching, seeking God.  It actually works.  Something that God seems to love is when we open ourselves up enabling God to take us where we are spiritually and move us to where we can be, if we’re willing to go.

Now, that is wonderful, and that is good.  But what is really interesting to me is that when you listen to people who are willing to tell you about their personal experiences of the presence of God, many of them, I have learned, were not looking for God at all.  Not at all.  Most of them were just going about, minding their own business, doing what they ordinarily do, and they found themselves one day or one night completely surprised to find that the Spirit of the Living God was actually looking for them.  Do you know such people?  Isn’t that interesting?

Jesus told Nicodemus in our Scripture last week, “The Spirit of the Living God blows where it wills.”  We don’t know where it is and when it will.  It doesn’t matter rather we are ready for it; whether we are looking for it, or even if we want it.  “The Spirit of the Living God blows where it wills.”

It today’s text we have this woman.  Now don’t expect much to happen here, because this woman has some baggage.  First of all, she’s a she.  She’s a woman.  There’s not anybody in this room who doesn’t know the history of religion with women.  Most teachers then, and even in some places today, did not bother teaching really important things to women.  A huge mistake.  Can you imagine?  A huge mistake!  But that was true then. 

Secondly, she’s not only a woman; she was a Samaritan woman, which means she was sort of a Heinz-57-type pedigree lady.  She is what we might call a true North American today, a melting pot type.  She was likely a collaborator with the Romans, which would mean for us in our day a person who would collaborate with al-Qaida.  Jews despised her.  They hated Samaritans.  “Samaritans – Yuck!”  And here she is in her own country, at her own well, minding her own business, just wanting a little water so she could take it to her family back home.  That’s all she wanted to do.

Thirdly, she’s not only a Samaritan woman, but she’s had more husbands than Elizabeth Taylor.  This guy she is living with now is not her own husband.  She’s not there looking for God, folks.  She’s just there taking care of business.  She’s just doing what she’s always done.  She’s just surviving.  She’s just doing what her culture taught her to do. 

And here, this woman, at this well, is approached by Jesus.  Jesus engages her.  Jesus surprisingly actually speaks to her.  They talk about water, and buckets, and wells, and stuff.  Then he reveals to her that, yes, he knows more about her than she could imagine.  He knows her gender, her race, her religion, her marital status, her successes, her failures, her sadness.  He knows.  He really knows. 

She, in response, is stunned.  She’s shocked.  She’s overcome.  And what should she do? She gets up, and she runs back to her little village and tells her people, “Come!  Come see this man who told me everything I ever did.  He can’t be the Messiah, can he?”  We don’t even know her name today.  This single, Samaritan woman became the very first of all us later-day church growth and evangelism people.  According to the gospel of John, she is the first person to run and tell others about Jesus.  Did you know that?  She wasn’t looking for God.  She just wanted to get a bucket of water.

The question today is: How did you and Jesus get connected?  Have you been connected?  Were you out seeking, looking, trying to find?  Or was he out looking for you?  Wow!

Ann Lamott, in her wonderful little book, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, describes her encounter with the Spirit of the Living Christ.  Listen to this.  This is awesome.

After a while, as I lay there in my bed one night, I was aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner.   I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I often felt over the years when I was frightened and alone.  That feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment just to make sure no one else was there.  But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus.  I felt him.  I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying right beside me as I write this.  And quite frankly, I was appalled. 

I thought about what everyone would think of me if I actually became a Christian.  It seemed like an utter impossibility.  I mean, simply the thought of it.  I just couldn’t allow it. I turned to the wall and I said out loud, “I’d rather die!”  I felt him, just sitting there on his haunches, in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and with love.  Finally, I fell asleep, but in the morning, he was gone. 

That experience spooked me so badly I thought I was going crazy.  And then everywhere I went, I had this feeling that there was a little cat that was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up and open the door and let it in.  But I knew what would happen if I did that.  You know, you let a little cat in one time.  You give it a little milk.  And then what happens?  It stays forever. 

One week later, when I went back to church, I was so hung over that I couldn’t stand up to sing the songs.  This time I stayed for the sermon.  It was so ridiculous; somebody trying to convince me about the existence of extra-terrestrials.  But the last song was so deep, so rich, so pure, that I couldn’t escape.  I couldn’t escape it.  It was as if the people were somehow singing between the notes.  There was this weeping and joyful sound all at the same time, and I felt like their voices, or something, was rocking me back and forth in its bosom holding me like a scared child.  And I opened up to that feeling.  It just washed over me.  I began to cry, and I left before the benediction.  I raced home, and I felt this little cat that was running at my heels.  I opened the door to me houseboat.  I stood there for a minute.  I just hung my head, and I said, “I quit.”  I took a deep long breath and I said out loud, “All right.  All right.  You can come in now!”

The question today is: Have you and God been playing?  Are you playing some games?

I think some of us and some people we know and love are just too good at this hide-and-seek business for all kinds of sometimes-complex reasons.  We just hide out, don’t we?  We hide so well that nobody can find us.  So let me ask you today, “Is this the day to quit hiding?  Is this the day for you to get found?  Is this the day for you to come in?”

Robert Fulghum, in his great little book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, said, “Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines.”

(Has anybody ever played Sardines?  Somebody played Sardines.  Everybody has played Hide-and-Seek, but not many have played Sardines.  Maybe that’s the problem.)

Fulghum explains: “In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him.  When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him.  Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile.  And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.”

“I think,” says Robert, “old God is a Sardine player.  And [God] will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines – by the sound of laughter of those heaped together.”

Isn’t that a wonderful, healthy description of a vital, faithful church? 

“Olly-olly-oxen-free.”  Do you remember that?  “Olly-olly-oxen-free.”  When we were kids, we use to yell that out, because there were some kids who were such good hiders we could never find them.  Do you remember what “olly-olly-oxen-free” means?  It means, “Come on in, wherever you are.  The game is over.  It’s time for a new game.”  So today, I suggest to you that Jesus may be saying to all of us in this room who are, quite frankly, very good at hiding sometimes, “Get found.  Get found!  Olly-olly-oxen-free!  Come on in.  It’s time.  It’s way past time.  It’s time for a new game.”
And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

Emmanuel, God with us, thank you for looking and finding us even when we are hiding or seeking.  You have us.  Finder’s keepers.  And we all say together, “You’re it!”  Amen.