A Conspiracy of Grace

It was little league and Carl was at bat. It was the last inning, two outs the bases were loaded, and depending on how Carl did, it would decide the winner and the loser of the game...!

Carl came from a large family and they were there the mother and father, grand parents, aunts and uncles to cheer him on and the opposing crowd was there to jeer Carl. The stakes were high, the energy was reaching an amazing pitch as the pitcher threw the first pitch. Strike one, the crowd really got into it, both yelling support and ridicule.

Carl was going to be the hero or the loser with the second pitch, Strike two. The crow continued the noise as the third pitch came across the plate Carl swung a might swing and everyone saw the ball fly into the catchers mitt. Strike three your out. Not only was Carl out, the game was over and he was the cause of the loss.

The winning team went crazy, their families swarmed out onto the field, everyone having their own kind of celebration. All except Carl’s team. As Carl’s team walked quietly off the field. dejected, they mingled with their families and headed back to their cars in silence.

Carl was still standing at the plate, devastated, alone his head down in disgrace.

Then it happened Someone yelled “Come on Carl, pick up the bat. Grandpa’s pitching.”

Bewildered Car; slowly picked up the bat and swung at Grandpa’s first pitch. He missed, and he missed the next six pitches. On the seventh pitch he got hold of the ball and sent it into left field. His aunt ran, picked up the ball and threw it to first base with plenty of time for the out. The first baseman Mom, must have lost the ball in the sun because it went right through her hands into the dugout. “Run” everyone yelled. As Carl was running to second, the first baseman recovered the ball and threw it. Amazingly Uncle David was blinded by the sun as well. “Keep running!”, yelled someone and Carl headed for third, where the throw went at least two feet over the head of the third baseman. “Keep running, Carl” and Carl raced for home, running as hard as he had ever run. The ball was thrown with deadly accuracy as the catcher, blocking home plate, waited to tag him out, but just as Carl reached home plate, the ball bounced in and out of the catcher’s mitt, and Carl was Safe.”

Before he knew what was happening, Carl found himself being carried around on Uncle David’s shoulders while the rest of the family crowded around cheering Carl’s name.

One person watching this whole thing said “I watched a little boy fall victim to a conspiracy of grace.”

Carl was the loser, the one who struck out, failed his team, disappointed his family went from loser to hero. Carl, who would have been left with the awful memory of his failure, was instead given a memory of grace, love, and acceptance. Just like the woman at the well.

A Conspiracy of Grace - Shared by David Selleck - Sermon Illustrations - SermonCentral.com

John 4:1–42 NIV

1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Two enemy groups—the Jews and the Samaritans—are often viewed on equal footing because both are subjects in the Roman Empire, but the reality is that the Jews hold more social power than the Samaritans, and they look on the Samaritans with disdain. In the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well, he is the one with the power and privilege. His asking her for water can easily be seen as a power move on his part, but then things change. The conversation transforms. Jesus doesn’t elevate himself; he doesn’t lord power over her. Instead, he humbles himself in conversation with her, and her life is transformed, and the lives of those observing and hearing about the interaction are forever changed as well.

This morning, we sit down at the “foot” of Jacob’s Well. This passage from John about Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well just outside of Sychar is rich with messages and lessons for all who seek Jesus. One commentator reflected that this is “a text with it’s own bucket, ready for filling. Let it down again and again, each time it comes up with another sermon of living water, another deep drink from the well that will not go dry.” How very true that is! There’s the message of “living water,” within this passage, there is a message about reaping the harvest (though I did not read this part this morning). This passage is rich in significance for our lives. But this morning, as will be the case for the next several weeks, we are going to focus on the woman at the center of this passage. The Samaritan woman who has come to Jacob’s Well in the middle of the day to draw water, but who ends up having an unexpected, life-changing encounter with a Jew named Jesus.

Extraordinary Circumstances

Most of the time, Jews traveling from Judea to Galilee would avoid the most straightforward path there, which went through Samaria, and would take a longer route so they could avoid going through Samaria. Bible interpreters have disagreed on whether the text emphasizing that Jesus “had to go through Samaria” has a geographical meaning or a theological one. It seems, however, that Jesus has chosen this route for a purpose beyond simply shortening his travel time.

Jacob’s well is an important reference. The mention of the well brings to listeners’ minds the betrothal stories of the patriarchs: Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, who all met their wives at wells.

There were multiple religious laws about men interacting with women in Jewish culture. One of them was that they never spoke alone to women they were not related to. If the first cultural and religious norm Jesus breaks is going through instead of around Samaria, then this is the second. Nobody else is around when he speaks to the woman at the well.

We can see the enormity of Jesus’s decision to cross boundaries when the disciples return and are surprised to see Jesus talking to her. John makes a point to say that none of them asked the questions they must have all been thinking: “What do you want?” (to the woman) and “Why are you talking with her?” (to Jesus). The Jews wouldn’t have anything to do with the Samaritans. They would, especially, not share eating and drinking vessels with them. And yet, Jesus asks this woman for a drink.

A Life-transforming Conversation

Jesus has numerous surprising, one-on-one conversations in the Gospel of John, including with Nicodemus, a male member of the religious elite, and Mary Magdalene in the resurrection narrative, among others. Jesus has a habit of changing people’s very lives in one-on-one conversations.

The conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well is strange not only because it happens at all but also because of what is said.

When he asks her for water, listeners of the story might be reminded of Old Testament stories of requests for hospitality, which casts Jesus as a prophet. If, as we talked about earlier, listeners are also reminded of the well-related betrothals of other faith ancestors, then this story could also be pointing to the eschatological reality of the great banquet yet to come.

The woman points out to Jesus that he is a Jew, which could be the most surprising action of the exchange. It is bold of her—the one with less social power—to point out Jesus’s impropriety, but she could be doing it out of fear. After all, she is alone at a well with a strange man who belongs to a community that has been unkind to people like her. We can also assume she is an outcast in her village because the well is a place to socialize, but she has come at a time when no one else (or few others) would be there.

A conversation about living water takes place. “Living water” could mean freshly flowing water, a rare and precious commodity in that arid environment. But when she is confused because she sees no evidence of this “living water” he offers, he makes his claim again. To be honest, Jesus sounds a little like a traveling salesman here, enticing this woman with claims and descriptions of a special kind of water only he has that will quench thirst forever and even lead to eternal life! The woman is sold! She endures the daily burden of not only collecting water but also doing it by herself, as an outcast. So yes, absolutely! “Sir, give me this water!”

Jesus then tells the woman about her life.

It’s important for us to understand some cultural details about this story. We cannot read about her multiple husbands and current unmarried relationship with a sixth man from our twenty-first-century lens. Women in this culture did not have the power to choose or initiate divorce. It’s possible she’s been widowed five times. Levirate marriage allowed a man to marry a dead brother’s widow. Even if it is multiple divorces, we must remember that men have all the power in that context.

While this story has often been interpreted as one that reveals the woman’s sin, Jesus does not seem to be judging her. Revealing to her that he knows her story demonstrates to her that God sees her and cares about her, which may remind of us another outcast woman God saw and cared for by providing “living water”: Hagar in Genesis 13.

Jesus then reveals to her that he is the Messiah. She sees that he is the one they have been waiting for and then tells others.

Everyone who hears of Jesus is astounded, and they urge him to stay in their village for a while. The outcast woman then becomes the catalyst for the belief of many Samaritans from her community.

Ripe for the Harvest

People’s lives are transformed by the message of living water, but the most transformative thing in this story is the presence of Jesus, who breaks religious and geographical boundaries to demonstrate inclusivity toward someone who represents the cultural exclusions of women (Jewish and otherwise) and Samaritans (women and men).

Being seen and known by Jesus is what truly transforms the life of the woman at the well. Being seen and known without judgment is what drives her to tell others. Love and compassion are transformative.

This harvest for the kingdom of God that springs up in Samaria is unexpected to Jesus’s disciples. Jesus is the expected Messiah, but he is not the Messiah they expected. His way is humble and gracious. He lifts up the overlooked, the outcast, the ridiculed, the oppressed. Jesus is rejecting the idea—and teaching his followers to reject it as well—that the kingdom of God is only for certain people.

Like the disciples, we are sometimes surprised by the movement of the Holy Spirit, and by where the harvest is happening. God often wants to work outside of our human-made boundaries, especially when those boundaries are discriminatory, oppressive, and ostracizing.

Jesus willfully humbled himself, when he had the power to do so. This behavior of his communicates to us, his followers, that in order to have harvest conversations, we have to be willing to be humble, to lay down what we might view as our rights, to set aside our privileges, and to truly see people not with judgment but as the beloved creations of God that they are.

Division has been a reality in the world throughout history. Not just in the Bible, not just in “other countries,” and not just in the past. Humans everywhere have created systems of oppression and boundaries that make outcasts. We even argue about trivial matters. We find it difficult to cross certain boundaries or associate with certain people, as though we will be ridiculed or our reputations tarnished.

Yet our example is Jesus—who broke boundaries over and over again to illustrate just how vast the love of God is. He humbled himself in extraordinary ways in order to bring justice and love to those around him. He demonstrated the kind of people we are supposed to be as well: people who lay down our privilege, who take the time to see and know people, who don’t pass judgment but act with compassion, who cross human-made boundaries to share the love of God with others. This is the season of Lent, and so like Christ, may we be humble. May we confess and repent of when we have allowed human boundaries to divide us and avoided God’s ripe harvest—so we can truly see and hear those around us, that they might know they are also the beloved of God.

TIME OF REFLECTION - Prayer Stations (while music plays in background)

COMMUNION RITUAL

The Communion Supper, instituted by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is a sacrament, which proclaims His life, His sufferings, His sacrificial death, and resurrection, and the hope of His coming again. It shows forth the Lord’s death until His return.

The Supper is a means of grace in which Christ is present by the Spirit. It is to be received in reverent appreciation and gratefulness for the work of Christ.

All those who are truly repentant, forsaking their sins, and believing in Christ for salvation are invited to participate in the death and resurrection of Christ. We come to the table that we may be renewed in life and salvation and be made one by the Spirit.

In unity with the Church, we confess our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. And so we pray:

PRAYER OF CONFESSION AND SUPPLICATION:

Holy God,

We gather at this, your table, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who by your Spirit was anointed to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, set at liberty those who are oppressed. Christ healed the sick, fed the hungry, ate with sinners, and established the new covenant for forgiveness of sins. We live in the hope of His coming again.

On the night in which He was betrayed, He took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, gave it to His disciples, and said: “This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

Likewise, when the supper was over, He took the cup, gave thanks, gave it to His disciples, and said: “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.” Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And so, we gather as the Body of Christ to offer ourselves to you in praise and thanksgiving. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us and on these your gifts. Make them by the power of your Spirit to be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the Body of Christ, redeemed by His blood.

By your Spirit make us one in Christ, one with each other, and one in the ministry of Christ to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

EXPLAIN ELEMENTS

The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, broken for you, preserve you blameless, unto everlasting life. Eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful.

The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, shed for you, preserve you blameless unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful.

CONCLUDING PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING AND COMMITMENT

And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, let us pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.