LENT 3A - Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42 - 24 February 2008 -

A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

 

From “My Savior” to “Our Savior”

 

INTRODUCTION - Exodus 17

 

Sometimes it helps to have an annotated Bible, especially when you read the notes. In Exodus 17, as “the whole congregation of the Israelites” continued their wilderness journey, after the Exodus from Egypt, we are told that they camped at Rephidim, where there was “no water for the people to drink.” In my Harper Collins Study Bible (NRSV), one of the notes says that “the Hebrew syntax favors ‘there was not (enough) water for the people to drink.’” No water or not enough water? Either way, some people - a lot of people - were very thirsty. We are told that they started quarreling with Moses. (verse 2) After Moses’ initial response - “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?”- they complain against Moses and say, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (verse 3) It is here that my Bible gives a note: “The traditional Hebrew text has the more personal ‘me... my.’” As in: “Why did you bring me out of Egypt, to kill me and my children and my livestock with thirst?”

 

These Israelites had just seen God so some amazing things. The Nile was turned to blood. There were plagues of frogs and gnats and flies and diseased livestock and boils and crazy thunder and hail and locusts and darkness and finally an awful plague on firstborn children. And then, when Pharaoh relented and let the people go, God led them by a huge pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, and, as if that weren’t enough, when Pharaoh changed his mind and sent an army after them and they got trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the sea, God parted the Red Sea before them and let them pass through, and then drowned Pharaoh’s army. There had already been a time in the wilderness, when they came to a place called Marah, where they could not drink the water, because it was bitter. And the Lord told Moses to put a piece of wood in the spring, and the water became sweet. (Exodus 15:22-25) Then, when they got hungry in the desert, God fed them from heaven, by raining down manna upon them. And it was good and filling.

 

But when they reached Rephidim, and there was no water, or not enough water - despite all the things they had seen God do in recent weeks - they started complaining again. Perhaps we should cut them some slack. If you and I didn’t have any water, or there wasn’t enough to go around - so that some people were getting water and some weren’t - we would probably do the same thing. “Hey, Moses! We’ve got a serious problem here! What are you going to do about it?” But I am also intrigued that when things got tough, they quickly began to use the first person. Why did you bring me and my children and my livestock out of Egypt to die of thirst? Weren’t they being led out of bondage as a group, as a “congregation”? Now it is suddenly every man for himself, or - at most - every family for themselves.

 

THE DISCIPLES

 

How about the twelve who were hand-picked by Jesus? Do you think they were ever tempted to think, “Lord, why did you do this to me? Why did you bring us all this way, and teach us for three years, and get us all excited, and then you let yourself be arrested and crucified? Why did you do this to me?” We know that at least some of them started to rebuke him when we began to tell them, ahead of time, that he must suffer and die. And what about today’s story from John, when they came back to Sychar, and saw that Jesus had been talking to a Samaritan woman. Jesus talking to a woman! And a Samaritan woman! “They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ - [to the woman] - or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’” - [to Jesus]. No, they didn’t say it. But they sure thought it. And Jesus knew that they were thinking it.

 

“Why is my Jesus talking to this Samaritan woman?” Or, if you give them the benefit of the doubt, “Why is our Jesus” - meaning, the Jesus that belongs to the twelve of us - “speaking to this woman?”

 

ONE OF OUR TEMPTATIONS

 

This is one of the temptations that comes to us whenever any of us has a personal experience of God. Don’t get me wrong. God is personal. God wants to have a personal relationship with us. That is one of the key teachings of Christianity. You can have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Why are we here today, if we don’t want to experience God in this personal way? That is the greatest reward of being a Christian, I would say. Yeah, heaven sounds like a great thing. But you don’t have to wait for heaven. You can have a personal relationship with God right now.

 

What is the temptation, then? The temptation we all face, once we know that God is personal, and that we can have a personal relationship with God, is to appropriate God for myself. Suddenly, God becomes “my God”, and if we’re not careful, we start to think that my God is my personal possession, there just for me. Jesus becomes “my Jesus.” We sing that wonderful song by Darlene Zschech called “Shout to the Lord.” There are some wonderful words in that song. In the chorus we sing, “Shout to the Lord, all the earth let us sing...” All the earth let us sing. But the way the song opens does make me pause. I know she is thankful and praising God for the fact that she has come to know Christ. But it still makes me pause. “My Jesus, My Savior” - we sing. It’s the same tension I feel when I say “my son”, “my daughter”, or even “my money”. You know what I mean. I know what I mean when I say that.

 

But in another very real sense, Zach is not really my son. Hannah is not really my daughter. They have been given to Julia and me to nurture, to love, to guide, to learn from and learn with - as amazing, amazing blessings. And the final proof that they’re not mine is that, if we do our job well, they depart from us, and become who they are called to be by God.

 

They aren’t mine, or even Julia’s and mine, even though we will always have that very special and amazing bond of parent and child.

 

Similarly, Jesus, in a very real sense, is not my Jesus, if by that we mean something like my individual Jesus, who will do for me what he does for no other. What did we hear last Sunday, according to John’s Gospel? “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17) He came to save the world. Did he come to save me? Yes. Did he come to save you? Yes. But the deeper truth must not be lost on us. He came to save the world. The whole world. Just as God, with some leadership help from Moses, came to deliver all of the Jews out of their bondage in Egypt. God was not about to start picking the most worthy Jews. If they were going to be saved, they were going to be saved as a community.

 

WE AND GOD

 

This is a big deal, folks. In a culture like ours that emphasizes the individual so much, we sometimes lose sight of the importance of community. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he said, “When you pray, say..” and he began with the word “Our.” “Our Father”... “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive...lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...” (Luke 11:2-4; Matthew 6:9-13) And when we say the Nicene Creed in church each Sunday, we begin with “we”. “We believe in one God...” I believe, yes, but there is an acknowledgment, right from the beginning, that I am part of a community of faith, with all of you, and with all those everywhere who profess faith in Christ. There is an acknowledgment that we are saved as a community, that God sent Jesus to save all of us.

 

THE HOLY SPIRIT

 

Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (verse 10) To her, “living water” meant water from a spring or river - moving water - but Jesus wasn’t talking about that kind of living water. He goes on to say, “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (verse 14) What is this living water that he is talking about? He is talking about the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of Jesus, present with us - inside of us - given to all those who believe.

 

While with the woman at the well, Jesus refers to himself as “the gift of God.” In the same way, so is the Holy Spirit. You were given this living water - the Holy Spirit - when you were baptized. All of you were. When Jesus was getting to the end of his life, he said to his disciples, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate [the Helper... the Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you... When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth...” (John 16:7, 13a)

 

Jesus went away. The Holy Spirit - the living water that Jesus told the Samaritan woman about - has been given to all who believe. It’s not my Holy Spirit. It’s not your Holy Spirit. It’s the gift of God to everyone who calls upon the name of God, to anyone who believes that it is God’s deepest desire to save the whole world, and give us new life, life where we are never ever thirsty again for God, because God is only a breath away... because God’s Spirit has been put inside of you.

 

God said to Moses, “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” (Exodus 17:6) Moses did as God commanded. And water came out of the rock. And all of the people drank, and were no longer thirsty. All of them drank.

 

Because of the gift of God, all of us drink of Christ. We have been given the living water that is the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ - alive and gushing up to eternal life.

 

CONCLUSION

 

We are saved together. We are saved as a community.

 

It must have been a very special thing to be one of the twelve. But Jesus did not stop after picking the twelve. He kept looking around. He kept talking to people that others - even other rabbis - wouldn’t talk to. He kept eating with people who other people wouldn’t eat with. He asked for a drink from a woman, when those around him - even his disciples - would not have dreamed of drinking out of a vessel that this woman would have drunk from. He looked around him, and he saw the potential for a great harvest. And he said to the disciples, as he says to us, “... look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.” (John 4:35)

 

Some Christians think that the victory has been won when they profess faith in Christ, and are saved. The truth is, that is just the beginning of our walk with Christ. If I am saved by God, I am only saved because other people loved me, and cared enough about me to say, “Come and see. Come and see what this Jesus fellow is all about.” I am only saved because of who God is, and because of his compassion and generosity.

 

God sent Jesus for all of us. He offers the living water to all of us. Let us not be satisfied just with the fact that we have been given that living water. Let us look around us, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. Let us rejoice, that God sends us out into the world, and asks us to bring others to him. Let us rejoice that he came to save all of us, and does not overlook anyone.

 

“Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7) Yes, indeed. The Lord is among us - among all of us.