Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

This rather long story, the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well, is a smorgasbord for preachers. There’s so much in it! Where to begin? There’s this hot, tired, sweaty Jesus, sitting by a well that the patriarch Jacob had dug 1,500 years earlier, asking a stranger for a drink of water. (Doesn’t Jesus still ask us for help?) And then there’s this wonderful, well-worn, worldly-wise woman seizing the opportunity to mock Jesus, reminding Him how the snooty Jews always looked down their noses at Samaritans (wouldn’t deign even to touch things Samaritans had touched!), but, if they need something from a Samaritan, all that “holier-than-thou” malarkey goes out the window, apparently! (Aren’t we guilty of that same hypocrisy? Don’t we often look down on certain ethnic groups -- until we need our houses cleaned, or our lettuce picked or our landscaping tended?)

Then there’s Jesus seeing something good in this obviously dysfunctional woman, and disclosing huge eternal truths to her even before He disclosed them to His disciples! (Lucky for us, still today, Jesus sees potential in people on whom the world has given up, and often lets them in on things the world refuses to understand. That’s why, from the world’s perspective, the church will always be full of losers.) Then there’s Jesus saying He could give this woman “living water,” water that would permanently satisfy her soul -- and all she can picture is H2O -- “Great! Gimmie some! I won’t have to trudge back and forth to this well every day!”(How often we misunderstand, or dummy down, the teachings of Jesus, receiving them as superficially as we can!)

“Go get your husband.” (Uh-oh!) “Been a bit unlucky in love, have we?” And this tough woman nervously trying to change the subject, “Let’s talk about something else: Where’s the right place to worship God?” (An old argument between Jews and Samaritans…) And Jesus, refusing to bite. “Places of worship, and ways of worship, don’t really count. (Rudyard Kipling wrote, “There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right.’) It’s honesty and simplicity that matter in worship, Jesus told her, and whether you walk the walk. Worship is the Spirit of God engaging the spirits of men and woman. And you can’t bamboozle God. You must simply be yourself when you come before Him in prayer.” And then there’s the woman, eager to escape, starting to walk away, saying dismissively, “Well, thanks for the talk. I guess when the Messiah comes we’ll understand everything.” And Jesus saying, “I am He!” It’s a marvelous story.

The disciples return, are shocked to see him talking to a woman, especially a Samaritan woman. She, so discombobulated she forgets her water jar, hurries back to town and urges anyone who will listen, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did!” (She witnessed to Jesus, testified for him – didn’t preach, just told them about him and what he did for her -- something we too often fail to do.)
This morning let’s think about Worship and Witnessing. When we worship, publicly or privately, we communicate with God. But worship is not just any old communication, like, “Shut the door,” or “Pass the butter.” Worship, according to Jesus, is high-quality, high-test communication. It’s very honest, it’s intense, it’s heart to heart.

Communicating with God (or with another person, for that matter) is a delicate enterprise, and a risky one, too. There’s a lot at stake. We can destroy worship, or any communication, by focusing on meaningless things, or by trying to be something before God, or that other person, that we’re not. Banks talk about “truth in lending;” Jesus talked about “truth in worshipping.” A young man takes a young woman out to dinner…first date. His primary mistake is in trying to impress her. (He probably isn’t very impressive – most of us aren’t, but if he should happen to be, she’ll notice!) He frets the whole time about how he looks, keeps glancing in the mirror and straightening his tie, worries that he might spill something on his shirt, or use the wrong fork, or mispronounce some French word on the menu (like filet mignon), might commit a “fox paw”. He exaggerates his accomplishments. He boasts about what he has and who he knows. Where is that relationship headed? Down the tube, of course. Because he isn’t being honest – not with her, and probably not with himself.

We can see that. But sometimes, in our communication with God, in our worship, we make the same mistake and can't see it. In subtle ways we try to impress God. I mean, you can pray using “Thees” and “Thous” if you want, but chances are God knows you don’t normally talk that way. In public worship, you can insist on a certain way of baptizing, or of receiving communion, or on singing only familiar hymns. but such inflexibility, such concern with the lesser things, will only get in the way of honest worship. Jesus said worship is a heart thing. “God is a Spirit,” he said, “and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Period.

We witness to Jesus by deed and by word. Deeds are important. Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they will see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven!” The Bible, and the history of God’s church right down to the present, is full of Christians doing many, remarkable good things. As it should be. (I’m absolutely convinced that the Christian faith is, and has been from it’s founding, the most powerful influence for good in the world.) But I must always remind myself that as witnesses to Jesus, good deeds alone, have their limitations. First of all, people of all faiths (and of no faith), sometimes do good deeds. We don’t have a corner on goodness. If I might misquote Dwight L. Moody at bit, “Doing a good deed doesn’t any more make you a Christian than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”

Second, good deeds (as witnesses to Jesus), are meaningless unless they reflect the wholeness of our lives. Jesus calls us to much more, but (for starters) He calls us to be good, decent, honest human beings, and to be so in things large and small. Just as we need “truth in worshipping” so we need “truth in witnessing.” For example, if we do great things for women, in legislation and at law, but are unfaithful to our wives – that greatly diminishes any witness we may have hoped to bear. It sets our souls in question. If in public we help the poor but in business we exploit them, our witness is nullified. That’s why when a clergyman abuses a child the offense is so very serious. Because the church has always and does always stand for respecting children, and caring for children, and loving children. And the church’s witness to that effect is sullied when one of its leaders abuses (“ab-uses”) a child. Jesus doesn’t call us to be do-gooders, he calls us to be good doers. And to be such not only on the surface but in every aspect of our lives.

So, because deeds are good but not enough, we must also witness, testify with words. (These words, of course, are borrowed from the legal world. To “witness” in court, or to “testify,” means not only to have seen something but also to speak of it.) This woman at the well (who presumably didn’t command much respect in town, presumably wasn’t known for her good deeds), said simply to her neighbors, “Come see a Man who told me everything I ever did. You don’t suppose He could be the Messiah….” And, based on her words (her personal testimony about what had happened), not on her reputation, they went out to see Him.

It is a major challenge for Christians, in this day, to find effective words for witnessing to Jesus in a world that is so determined to be secular and not to hear, really hear, anything of God. Personal Testimony, word-of-mouth advertising, is still the most effective. We don’t try to be preachers or philosophers. We don’t try to answer all the world’s objections. Instead, like the blind man, we say, “I don’t know about that. One thing I know: once I was blind and now I see.”

Our worship needs to be honest and true. Our witness, both in deed and word, needs to reflect that same honesty and integrity. And then, if we are true (not brilliant, just true), our worship will be real, and our witnessing will be effective. We sang this in Sunday School when I was a kid:

I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care;
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.