God meets you in your mess

ME/INTRO

Good morning!!!  My name is Ryan Hanson and I am so glad to be back here with you this week.

This week we’re going to continue our series on the Vision of Together Church.

To start, can I tell you a story? Has anyone seen Oppenheimer, the movie?  My wife and I just watched it and ever since, my YouTube algorithm has been suggesting World War II and Nuclear Bomb related content.  Naturally, as you do, I clicked a few of the videos and one really caught my attention.  After World War II, the government continued to develop nuclear bombs at Los Alamos, NM.  Well, in 1957 the nuclear physicists decided that it was no longer smart to put so much nuclear material in the atmosphere so they decided they should do the testing underground.  The first attempt at this was code named project “Plumbbob”.

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These nuclear physicists’, literally some of the smartest people on earth, idea was to dig a hole 4’ wide and 485’ deep (not sure why they didn’t round up to 500’), lower the nuclear device into it, and blow it up underground so the nuclear material would be absorbed in the dirt.

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Before their first test, named “Pascal A”, one of the scientists thought they missed something.  Hindsight being 20/20 their plan did resemble a gigantic nuclear cannon.

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With all their collective knowledge of these nuclear physicists, the best solution they had to keep the nuclear material from escaping the hole at the top of the shaft was to place a 2,000 lb steel plate on top of it.  They even called it the manhole cover.  Hindsight being 20/20 all they did was add a cannon ball to their nuclear cannon.

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As you may except, this did not go well.  When the blew up the nuclear bomb, their 2,000 lb steel plate shot off and was never found again.  They searched and searched, but never found it.  Many people believe it was the first object ever put into space by humanity.

To test if this plate could have gone into space, they did a second test, called “Pascal B” to measure the speed the steel plate would have been traveling to see if it was faster than the escape velocity of Earth.  When they redid their test, they setup a high speed camera to watch the plate.  They measured the speed of the plate at 125,000 MPH.  Keep in mind the escape velocity of earth is 24,923 MPH.  The best theory of what actually happened to these now (2) objects is that these scientists accidentally made the first explosively formed penetrator with the world’s first and maybe only nuclear cannon.

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WE

If you’re like me, this is interesting, but the series were in is on the vision of Together Church to be a spiritual home and ministry hub for the messy, marginalized, and missional.

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What stood out to my in this story is that it doesn’t matter who you are, even the smartest people in the world make a mess out of things.  In hindsight, nothing about their plan was any good, yet they proceeded anyway.  I’m reminded of a quote by Andrew McCarthy, a contributing editor to the National Review.  He says that “Nobody thinks they’re evil or bad, they think that they’re doing the right thing.”

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I’ve heard this quote said in many different forms, but I think it’s true.  We all have good intentions and do what we think is right based on the information we have.  Sometimes, no matter who we are, we end up creating huge messes in our lives.  Some of them too big for us to clean up ourselves.

Does this ring true for any of you?  Have you found yourself in the middle of a huge mess you created with the best of intentions, thinking the whole time you were doing right?  I know it does for me.

Today we’re going to look at a story in the Bible about a woman who found herself in a pretty big mess and see what we can learn through her story about how we can deal with the messes in our lives.

GOD

Please turn with me to John 4:1-26 as we look at the story of the Woman at the Well.

Let’s start in verse 1

John 4:1–5 NIV

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Let’s stop here for one moment.  I think before we get into the meat of the story we need some context.  There are two things that stand out to me.

First, in V4 Jesus went through Samaria.  The Jews and Samaritans hated each other.  Their hatred for each other started when Israel was conquered by the King of Assyria in 721.  His strategy for keeping people loyal was to destroy their culture by mixing people groups and getting them to intermarry.  The Samaritans were the product of the Northern Israelites intermarrying with the various cultures from the region that the King of Assyria relocated into the region.  The Southern Israelites did not intermarry because God commands them not to in Deuteronomy 7:3.  It says…

Deuteronomy 7:3 NIV

Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,

the Jews considered the Samaritans unclean and over time developed a deep hatred for them.  This hatred was so deep that the Jews considered Samaritans unclean.  They actually used the same word to describe the Samaritans as they did to describe the unclean condition of the leppers.

Because of this most Jews would walk around Samaria when they went from Galilee to Jerusalem.

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The second thing that stands out to me is that in V4 Jesus “HAD” to go through Samaria.

John 4:4 NIV

Now he had to go through Samaria.

The reality was that he didn’t.  As we just discussed, every Jewish person going from Galilee to Jerusalem would walk around Samaria.

The word used for HAD is dei, which means divine necessity or religious obligation

Had (dei)

Devine necessity; religious obligation

Jesus has to go to Samaria because this was a divine mission from God.  God had a plan for what was about to happen in Samaria.

This is one of my favorite examples of Jesus living out Luke 19:10

Luke 19:10 NIV

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Jesus went to a place he was not supposed to go as a Jew, to speak with a person he was not supposed to interact with, because God has not given up on her.

I just want you to know, God hasn’t given up on you either.  He will, and is, seeking you out just like he sought out this woman by the well.

Let’s continue reading in V6.

John 4:6–26 NIV

Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 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.) 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.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 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?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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.” 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.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, 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 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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

There is a lot there, but I think we can agree that this woman’s life is a bit of a mess. First, she is drawing water from the well at noon, which was never done.  Noon was the hottest time of day, and it was typical to draw water in the morning or evening.  It is pretty clear she was trying to avoid the other women in the town.  She probably had no friends and was treated pretty poorly by others Second, she has had (5) husbands.  This is a mess, but I think it is worth noting that the passage never mentions that she sinned.  Her husbands could have died naturally.  This could be a real life example similar to Matthew 22 when the Sadducees asked Jesus about a woman who had been married to 7 brothers, seeking to know who they would be married to in heaven.  The Bible commanded in Deuteronomy 25:5 that if a man dies without a son, the brother marries the wife and has a son to keep his family name alive.  This woman may have been the victim of many tragic events throughout her life, none being her fault.  We really don’t know, and John doesn’t think we need to. To add complication to the situation, the disciples didn’t exactly help the situation either.  Continuing with V27 The Disciples Rejoin Jesus john 4.27-38

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.” In defense of the disciples, they were right to be surprised when they saw Jesus talking to this woman.  They were very aware of the cultural tension between Jews and Samaritans.  They were also aware that it was considered inappropriate for women and men to talk in public unless they were related.  The reality was, Jesus entered into a situation He had no business being in to engage with this woman. I think this is a point we need to make again… Jesus is willing to meet you wherever you are, no matter how big of a mess you’ve gotten yourself into because he loves you exactly as you are, but loves you too much to let you stay in your mess.

YOU / WE

I think when studying a passage like this, trying to understand what God is trying to say to us, and seeking to apply it to our lives, the best way to go about it is to put ourselves in the shoes of the characters in the story, specifically in this case the woman and the disciples. I think Jesus is calling us to each take one of two paths.  Maybe you’re like the woman, struggling and feeling like your life is a mess right now.  Maybe you’re like the disciples, looking at a situation that doesn’t make sense and not sure what to do.  I want to explore both paths. I want to start with the woman because I think there is a little bit of this woman in all of us. I’m going to go out on a limb and bet that we’ve all been in messy situations either by our own poor choices (like our nuclear physicists) or because of external factors that we had no control over (maybe the case with this woman at the well).

The challenge with this is that when we get into messy situations, we typically aren’t in the best mental state to make the best decisions.

I want to go back to V13

John 4:13–14 NIV

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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.”

It is here where Jesus confronts the women’s attempts to fix her own problems.  She gets water in the middle of the day to avoid people who judge her.  She’s had five husbands.  She’s living a rough/messy life and doing whatever she can to hold it together.

The Biblical commentator H.J. Blaney summarizes this passage as follows

Jacob’s well water could quench only physical thirst and help to sustain physical life. The water which Jesus offered would quench the thirst of the soul and produce life that would be everlasting. The well water represented the Old ceremonialism; Jesus was bringing in the New era of grace. He offered her life from above—the life of the Spirit

H.J. Blaney

The Gospel According to St John

Isn’t this true of all of us?  We seek after the temporary solutions to our eternal problems.  We seek temporary comfort for the deep longings that we have in our souls.  The old saying, “only Jesus can fill a God sized hole” is true.  Just like this woman, we can seek to put band aids on the symptoms of our problems, but never actually solve the underlying issue.  It is only by fully surrendering our lives to Jesus, repenting of the sins that we are knowingly engaging in, and walking in obedient faith to the leading of the Holy Spirit that the God sized hole in our lives can be filled by that living water Jesus promises.

Jesus went on a divine mission to meet this woman in her mess and offer her grace and the living water of the Holy Spirit in her life.

Jesus offers the same thing to me and to you.  We just need to accept His gift.

If you’re in the position of the woman, are you ready to accept the grace Jesus offers as she did?  Are you ready to hand your mess over to Jesus and let the Holy Spirit fill the God sized hole in your soul you’ve been trying to fill with so many temporary distractions?  If so, we’d love to talk to you after the service.

Maybe right now you relate more to the disciples in this story.  You know people are living in some pretty big messes and have no idea how to respond.

Jesus is quite direct on how He expects the disciples to act.

John 4:35b–36 NIV

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.

Jesus is calling the disciples to go out and help people get to know Him and accept the grace that He offers.  Jesus is challenging the disciples to enter into the messy situations of others, just as He modeled with the woman at the well.

Jesus doubles down on this call to enter into the messy lives of others in Matthew 28:19.  Here, in the Great Commission, Jesus says…

Matthew 28:19 NIV

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

This is repeated in Acts 1:8 where Jesus reminds them, maybe of this specific event, to reap the harvest in Samaria.  He tells the disciples…

Acts 1:8 NIV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Who do you know whose life is a bit of a mess?  How is God calling you right now to engage in that mess, and introduce them to the only thing that satisfies…the living water of the Holy Spirit? Who is God calling you to have a conversation with this week?

JESUS

In this passage, Jesus stepped into the woman at the well’s mess and showed her that His love was more powerful than her mess.

Jesus is not afraid of our messes either. He wants to be in it with us and help us in the midst of whatever we are facing. The truth of the Gospel is that God stepped into our messy world to save us and set us free. God didn’t try to just love us from a distance. He didn’t encourage us to clean ourselves up, or command us to try harder and live a better life. By sending Jesus, God ran into the mess for us. Jesus did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.

Jesus is calling each of us to follow in His footsteps and run toward the messes of the people that we know, showing them the love of God, and introducing them to a relationship with the only person that can clean their mess up, Jesus.

That is why I believe in our church’s vision so strongly.  We’re not just called to COME to church every Sunday.  Our vision is to BE the church every day of the week, actively seeking opportunities to follow Jesus’ lead and allow Him to work through us as He helps the messy and the marginalized.

PRAYER

God, we thank you for the story of your Son Jesus, who entered into a place He culturally shouldn’t have been and into a conversation with person He culturally shouldn’t have spoken to.  As we, like this woman, make messes of our lives, we thank you for seeking us out, offering us Love, grace, and the living water of a relationship with You.

I pray for those here who are deep in the messiness of life.  I pray that you make your presence felt in tangible ways this week.  I pray that you put people in their lives to share your love and grace with them.  I pray, like You did with this woman, you help them out of their mess, and fill them with your Spirit.

I also pray for those here who know people who are dealing with life’s messes.  I pray that you give them courage and boldness to enter into conversations as Jesus modeled.  Give them the words and help them to share the good news of Your Son Jesus with them.

Help us this week not just COME to Church, but help us to BE the Church.

It is in the powerful name of Your Son Jesus Christ that we pray, Amen.

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BENEDICTION

Paul writes in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

It doesn’t matter what type of mess you’ve gotten yourself into.  God loves you so much He died on the cross so you could have the only thing that satisfies our deepest longings; a relationship with Him.

This week, let’s stop putting band aids on the symptoms of our messy lives and let’s accept the love, grace, and living water of the Holy Spirit that Jesus offers. Go in peace. SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS Who do you relate to more in the story, the woman at the well or the disciples? If the woman… What are you doing to deal with the mess in your life? Are you placing band aids on the symptoms to your problems? Are you ready to deal with the underlying issue, admit you can’t solve your problems, turn to Jesus and believe that He is the only one who can, and ask for the living water of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promises? If the disciples… Who in your life is God calling you to have a conversation with this week? What fears do you have about having that conversation? How can you pray for the courage to enter into that situation just as Jesus went into Samaria and spoke to a woman when it was culturally frowned upon?