"Come and See"
Sermon Transcript for November 17, 2002 By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn
Today’s Scripture lesson is taken from the Gospel of John. It covers several verses, Verses 1–30. I’m not going to ask you to stand this morning; and I’m going to kind of paraphrase my way through here to see if we can draw something of value out of there. The story is the story of the woman at the well. And it begins with Jesus and the apostles making their way back to Galilee. The Scripture tells us that they went through Samaria. And so they came to a town in Samaria called Sychar. And near the plot of ground Jacob and given to his son, Joseph. Jacob’s well was there and Jesus, tired as He was from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink."
Now this is a remarkable story for many reasons. Not the least of which Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi, would even be found in Samaria. You see, the Jews in that day really despised the Samaritans and they would not set foot on Samaritan soil. They would walk miles out of their way rather than do that. Yet Jesus is taking a journey apparently directly through Samaritan territory. Now the second ironic thing about that story is that Jesus is speaking to a Samaritan woman, which again is unthinkable--he a Jewish Rabbi, and she a lowly Samaritan woman. Except that this particular woman was even despised by her own people because of her rather loose life style. As Jesus would tell the woman a few minutes later, she was known to have multiple relationships. In fact, working on her fifth live-in lover. And so she wasn’t very highly thought of by any one. Which makes it even more remarkable that Jesus would ask her for anything.
But Jesus was not there for a usual encounter. Jesus was there telling the woman that He knew exactly who she was, knew exactly what kind of life style she lived. And even so, He did want her to serve Him. Even so, He offered her the water of life and forgiveness. He offered her grace, something she never got in her community. Her response was to say, "Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is Jerusalem." And Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know. For salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming, it has now come, where true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth. For they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is Spirit and His worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth."
Now you see, the woman was beginning to realize just who this was she was talking to. Because even the Samaritans who were a branch of the Jews, an illegitimate branch which was what the grievance was all about, they were waiting for the coming of the Messiah as well. The Prince of Peace, the King who would bring grace from God. Jesus bluntly told her that He was, in fact, the very One that they were waiting for. And here’s the part I want us to remember. Here is what she said, "Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see! A man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?’ And they came out of the town and made their way toward Him." And this is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
And before we go a little further, I just want to invite the Care Ministers to come on up now and pick up those prayer cards that you filled out down the center aisle and on the side over here. If you’ll just pass those to the middle they’ll come and get them now. This Gospel of John is a wonderful word to us about the real nature of Jesus. The Gospel of John helps us to understand that Jesus is God. And the interesting thing is that in the first three chapters of John, he spends a lot of time describing to us the nature of humanity. He tells us a lot about ourselves. In his first four chapters he introduces to us four people who can either be combined to make some we can identify with or they may be each individuals that we can identify with. In either event, see if you can see yourself in here.
The first character that John introduces us to is John the Baptist. Someone who knew that something spectacular was going to happen; someone who knew that Christ would come and who wasn’t ashamed to say so. Who went out of his way to make it clear that we should be prepared for the coming of Christ. Another character is Nathaniel, a good Jew who was a regular attendee at worship and who knew when he met Jesus that this was in fact the one they’d been waiting for. But then, Scripture doesn’t tell us much more about it. The next character we know a little more about—a guy named Nicodemus who was a religious leader of that day, who came to Jesus and talked to Him with respect because He believed He was come from God the Scripture says. But their spiritual blindness kept them from being able to see how the Old Testament was pointing to the very truth that Jesus was the Messiah they’d been waiting for. In fact their spiritual blindness, unfortunately, put them in opposition to Jesus.
And then there’s that unnamed woman of the well. Someone I think that many of us can identify with, a person who was on the fringe of society. The Scripture tells us a lot by implication. You see, she came to the well at a time when she wasn’t expecting anyone else to be there. She came at a time when she didn’t have to worry about suffering the condemnation of her neighbors. The truth is, she was probably not welcome at the well, which was a social gathering place. A place where the women came early in the day to get the water they would need throughout the day. And it was a time when they socialized with one another, caught up on all the news, shared their joys and concern. She wasn’t welcomed there so she came at a different hour.
She’s like a person named Kurt who had an uncomfortable feeling about God. Kurt as a boy seldom went to church or Sunday school because when he did he recognized that his moral standards were different from the people that he was with. When he learned the Ten Commandments they were only a source of grief for him reminding him of all the human failings. And the more he learned and the more he became aware, the more he saw this gap between the life he ought to lead and the life that he did lead. Kurt had all the light that he wanted. All this talk of God just produced flashes of guilt for him and shame. More light, bright light—no thanks; Kurt didn’t need that. It was much easier just to stay away to avoid the condemnation that came from talk of God and sin. It’s no wonder that the Kurt’s are like the woman at the well – they just stayed away. It was less painful.
And yet they could understand that those kind of people would rejoice in the word that John the Baptist gave us about Jesus because he explains clearly that Jesus is the one who brings the light of the full grace and truth of God. Grace is what God brought us through Jesus. The Son of God came to show us Grace. You’ve heard me say it many times; I love being a part of a church called "Grace". It puts us on the list. We have to be a people of Grace. It says it on our front door. And what is grace? Well, according to John the Baptist Jesus came to show us that God was not holding us to the standard of the law, which was impossible to keep. But that He was willing to fulfill the law Himself through an act of unbelievable mercy and grace. He would give His own son to satisfy His loving justice so that we would have a way of grace to be at peace with God.
What is grace? It is what a father gives to an unpleasant daughter. I’m talking from my own experience. I love her so dearly, but she’s twelve. And one moment she is a joy, and no doubt she’ll kill me for this, the next minute she is trouble. And yet I have this irresistible urge to love her anyway. I have an irresistible urge to forgive. But for her sake I have to be just and let her know that these kinds of things can’t go without consequences. But invariably when I administer consequences I give in pretty quickly and offer a way of grace. Sometimes I don’t even know why—my wife sometimes laughs at me for this—but sometimes I even buy her gifts or just do things for her that don’t make any sense at all. And, my friends, I tell you it’s because I just can’t help it. And so when I hear of God’s grace being granted to us sinners, I think it might be a little like that. God can’t help it; but God must be just so God makes a way of grace.
And so that is what the woman of the well is about. Everyone here knows at least twenty people like the woman of the well--at least twenty marginal people. We heard that last week from Duane Skjervem who gave us the message for the Care Ministry. He said it like this, "We all know at least twenty un-churched people." I don’t really like that term. I like to think that we all know at least twenty marginal people. Do you know who marginal people are? They are people who aren’t here, they aren’t there, they are somewhere in the middle. The problem is, when we think about the people that are difficult for us to deal with, they are usually here or there. But today we want to talk about the ones who are in the margins. These are people who need some things as desperately as we need them but they haven’t heard where to find them. These are people who need to be accepted, people who need to be appreciated, people who need to be needed, and people who need to belong. Is there anyone who doesn’t need those things? Yet the mere fact that you are here is an indication that you are probably getting some of those things. But I would bet that at some point in your life, maybe on several occasions, you were like Kurt and the woman at the well. You were looking from the outside in, hungry for acceptance, hungering to be appreciated, needing to be needed, desiring to belong. When you found it, it felt good didn’t it because we all need that. It’s such a basic thing. But whom do we know on the fringe who does not know those feelings? How good it would be for them to experience that.
Let’s go back to the woman at the well for a minute. She was one of those people. She came to the well at an hour of the day when she knew no one would be around. She was a fringe person. Now you might think that she was a either/or, a here or there person. But the Scripture tells us that she went and told some people. In fact I can’t get over the beautiful imagery that is hidden in this Scripture passage. The passage tells to us that she left her water jar and ran to tell her friends, come and see! What friends? Who did she tell? Here was a woman who couldn’t go to the well at the usual time for fear of retribution. Here was a person who appeared to have no friends and yet Scripture says she went and told somebody and that they came because of her telling them. I think what we have to read between the lines here is that she did have friends and associates. As the song says, "She had friends in low places." She had fellowship with somebody because they listened when she said to come and see. I’m pretty sure that if she went to the crowd that rejected her they would have rejected her again. They wouldn’t have believed a word she said. If she’d gone to that crowd of condemnation, I’m sure they would have said, "Well, sure he knows all about you. We all know all about you." What she must have said to her fellow "low life" was, "This guy knows all about me but He offered me forgiveness and grace. He didn’t play by the rules we’ve all understood for years. He did something radically different. He loved me despite my failings, despite my sin."
Do we know anybody who needs that? Do we know anybody who needs unconditional love, grace, an irresistible desire to give people something that they may not deserve? Well, we can look in the mirror to start with. And then we can go from there. I want to urge you today to be thinking about those marginal people that you know. I want to urge you today to invite them to come and see what you have found. What if Grace Church was a place where grace abounds? What if Grace Church is a place where people can get what they are looking for? What if God is at work in this place? What if miracles can happen here every week? And they do, you know?
Well, what I think we ought to be telling somebody about it. And you know what, you don’t have to tell people who don’t want to listen. This wonderful story tells us plainly that she didn’t go to people that wouldn’t listen to her otherwise nobody would have come back. She went to the people who needed to hear it, the people who embraced it because she was accepted by them. She went to the people who were hungering for the very thing she found. And could tell by her countenance that they could get something real. Now, who do you know like that? We’re coming up on a time in the life of the church when people are most prone to come back to worship. As we enter in to the Advent season and Christmas and New Years—the only other time is Easter. As a matter of fact, Duane Skjervem said last week those people are called CEO’s—Christmas and Easter Only’s. This is the time when people come back to church or at least they want to. It’s a time when they think about coming back.
You are so blessed to be a part of the church that wants them. You are so blessed to be a part of a church that will do, as a staff, as a ministry team, as ministry ourselves, all that it takes to be instruments in God’s hands. We will preach God’s Word, we will sing God’s Word, we will read and study God’s Word, and we’ll live it. We’ll look for innovative ways to communicate something radical and life changing to our marginal friends. An example is the sermon series that we will begin next week and then in earnest throughout the Advent season, From Humbug to Hallelujah. Sounds like a wonderful series—I’ve been accusing Mike ever since he mentioned it of making it about me because I am a bit of a humbug at Christmas. I see Sandy over here; she’ll say that was an understatement. But I am looking forward for this series for my own personal growth and fulfillment. I think something marvelous is going to happen. And I know that if it can help me it can help anyone that you know who might feel a little marginal at Christmas time but yet wants to be back in the house of God.
In your bulletin I have included a card like this. Now these are actually two cards with the same thing; they are just a little different from each other. They are the same on the top and the bottom. I’d like you to go ahead and get those out now and take a look at them. I was joking with Sarai this morning about being someone who flies on the seat of their pants. The beauty of that is it gives the Holy Spirit a lot of opportunities. I need to have order in my life to get done the things I want to get done. So in that spirit I created this card for us to use to help us keep track of a commitment we want to make today to those friends in the margin. Here’s a wonderful time of the year that we can join with the Lord in the harvest in bringing in those that He has called. It is important for us to understand what that means. If we are to help God bring in the harvest, that implies that God has already prepared the soil, planted the seed, watered, and given sunshine to it so that it grew in a place where it could be harvested. God asks us to help bring in the harvest. That means to go ask people to come and see and understand that if God is at work in their lives your invitation should be easy to give. You are not being asked to do something hard. I hope that you find this to be easy because there are things here at Grace Church that you know will help your friends to come in to that saving relationship with Jesus that is so essential to happy, fulfilling life and eternity even in the midst of our tragedies.
So I am going to ask you today to take a few minutes and write down the names of some friends on this card. Now you will notice that on one card the blue section is on the left and on one card the blue section is on the right. I have a very scientific reason for this because I want you, after you have filled in both cards with the same names, to tear them apart and put one in your left hand and one in your right hand. And when you leave here today I want you to take the one in your right hand and drop it in the basket that the ushers will be holding by the door. Don’t let go of the one in your left hand because if you do you might lay it down and forget about it. Take it right home and put it on your refrigerator, or on your desk, or by your telephone, by your TV, by your computer—someplace where you can remember it--on your night stand. Pray for those people, invite those people to come and see what you have seen. The other cards will be placed in a harvest basket and put up here by the altar so that we can altogether pray for your friends. And believe me when I tell you that if you will participate in that process, God will grant your request. Prayers will be answered. I want you to take just a minute to do that. I’ll wait for you, just jot down a name or two. Do this before you leave today. If you’re like me and you don’t do it now, you’ll likely to forget. That’s how I am.
This isn’t about filling pews believe me! Our open desire is that people’s lives can be changed for the better. And our open desire is that Grace Church is a place where that happens, where God works through His people. Let us respond to what God has said to us now by standing and singing our closing hymn, "I Come With Joy". We’re going to sing versus 1, 2, 4, and 5. Please stand and make these words your closing prayer.
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