5.2.40c 9.3.2022 p.m. How to get Beyond Rejection John 4.1-26

It must have been lonely...

Entice: One of these days, after the pandemic is long behind us, our descendants—children and grandchildren, some yet unborn, will listen to our stories. In the same way that people my age heard our parents or grandparents speak about the great depression, polio, or WW 2 we will be asked to tell our stories about the great pandemic. They will listen with that curiosity that kids have and say something which has been uttered in similar circumstances for generations.

“You must have felt lonely.”

Certainly, some have, For different reasons. I think that when we reflect on this experience, after it is finally behind us, we will realize that the pandemic did not in itself, alienate people. It exposed an alienation already endemic. It exacerbated a latent, cultural loneliness. It expanded a deepening pool of social anxiety and cruelty few expected.

Engage: COVID is still here. I returned from an awesome week of Camp on July 30th. By August 1 I was symptomatic. Mrs. Beckman was diagnosed the 5th A fourth COVID winter will soon be upon us.

The pandemic followed nearly a decade of the expansion of social media. Social Media is certainly not social nor is it a traditional kind of media. To properly use social media requires a discipline that many lack. Long before COVID or Political polarization our own misunderstanding, misuse, and misapplication of social media set the stage for the last 3 years of unprecedented alienation. People cast out overnight.

Trending trends tormenting tender hearts.

Scarlet letters placed permanently and prominently to scar people forever.

The paradox is that

the most connected age ever is infected by rejection.

How can we find relief from this social hell we inhabit? How can we learn kindness, compassion, and goodness? To whom can we turn?

Expand: Once upon a time Jesus met a lady. She had a bad reputation. Social Media guaranteed that people knew her past. Her people were considered half-breeds and she was an outcast, rejected among them, and by them. She came weary and teary-eyed every day to do what needed to be done outside of the view of her pesky, nosy neighbors and their incessant assault upon her dignity. That day, Jesus saw her as she really was. He scrutinized her sins, He took note of the wounds, He spoke love and forgiveness to her scandal and shame. He changed her life. He changed that community. He showed

love & compassion,

toughness & tenderness,

purity & perspective

he even

used humor & humility.

I have sketched the broader strokes, let me read the story for you as John remembered and recorded it.

Once upon a time

John 4:7–26 ESV

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Excite: Jesus’ model of interaction does not require us to be hateful or rude. Jesus shows us how to be firm and kind at the same time prompting those who are foundering to find the answers to their lost condition. He did that by helping them ask the right questions. We live in a society full of people whose access to the Kingdom is barred less by their own sin than it is by social ostracism, personal estrangement, and unwarranted shame.

Let me repeat that. It is an indictment that should make us all shudder.

We live in a society full of people whose access to the Kingdom is barred less by their own sin than it is by social ostracism, personal estrangement, and unwarranted shame.

We need to be provoking and providing the promised answer to the persistent questions of our alienated culture, because...

Whatever The question, Jesus is the ultimate answer.

Explain: He provides answers to questions people don't even know how to articulate. questions like…

1 Why am I So Thirsty ?

Each of us seeks to quench the thirst in our soul. Even when, especially when we cannot articulate it.

And too many people for one reason or another are dropping the

1.1 Wrong bucket , down the wrong well .

We focus on the temporary, physical, and obvious

Rather than the eternal, spiritual, and elusive.

1.2 We don't need a sip …We need the Source .

• We live in an interesting time to be thirsty. In fact, we no longer talk about thirst. Our culture thinks thirst is an unreliable, personal experience. Hydration on the other hand…that’s scientific. It can be researched and refined. Thirst is thirst. Dehydration is treated like a quantifiable malady. One counters dehydration (danger!) With hydration (good!) A person counter’s thirst by the simple act of drinking. The problem with that whole line of thinking is that it is tauro-scatalogical by nature. The human body has a perfectly fine response to needing water. It’s called thirst. I want to break this down a little more because I think it helps to simplify things.

• The relationship between Hydration and dehydration is technically what we call “pretending.” You don’t feel “dehydrated.” You get thirsty. Dehydration is the ideation of thirst.

• In High School I played a couple of years of Football. This was 1976—>77. We rarely took drinks. When we sidled up to the water hose, there was often a coach standing over us who said… “Don’t swallow! Just swish your mouth out or you’ll get sick!” It’s kind of hard to create a multi-billion-dollar hydration franchise like that. I remember when my grandfather gave us our first Gatorade which he had purchased at an auction-sale. No one knew what it was! Stokely made pork & beans. It tasted (to be absolutely honest) like urine. Gatorade redefined and marketed something humans had always been feeling, FOREVER.

• I sort of hate to tell you this, however the information is out there. Hydration is a made-up concept invented to convince people that they need to fix something that “ain’t broke”. Thirst is the signal to drink,

• Ever since the invention of Gatorade in the 1960s they’ve quoted and commercialized the science behind their product. All of it is captive science done for marketing purposes—the athletes they recruit for endorsements, the purported benefits of sports drinks, bottled water, and gluten free/sugar free/caffeine-free sodas--all of it is designed to get people like you and me to DRINK WHEN WE ARE NOT THIRSTY!

The spiritual corollary? Generations of people have been taught (often by us) to ignore their spiritual thirst. That thirst is what prompts each of us to go out stand by the community wells where our spirits are broken wishing for just a sip from the right well.

The water of life is what our thirsty culture needs.

Jesus did not end the conversation at that point. This lady had other issues. Jesus let her ask the questions. The next one?

2 Why am I so Lonely ?

If I really wanted to abbreviate this message, I’d blurt out something like

“People are jerks.” Since I’ve come this far perhaps, I should elaborate further.

There are a lot of lonely people because

2.1 Every group has ins and outs .

Even the Samaritans had "undesirables".

Mostly we humans form our assessments, attractions, attachments, and affections based upon difference rather than similarity…we are exclusive more than we are inclusive. Before we can integrate we segregate. That selfish, fearful process hurts everyone.

She went to the well by herself because the ladies of the town did not want to associate with “her kind.” Maybe they were afraid of some kind of contamination. Maybe they just liked having someone else to despise. Whatever the reason she was excluded.

Once excluded it is nearly impossible to get included.

Beyond the merely human factor the plain fact is that…

2.2 Sin cannot deliver what it Sells

Big, impressive promises yield small, continual humiliations.

Do you really think she wanted to be a serial monogamist? In that patriarchal culture? Were her parents dead? Did her father know, when he made that very first match that he was setting up his daughter for a lifetime of lonely desperation?

Sin is the issue. Sin is a liar. It tells you you’re not thirsty. It tells you your not lonely.

Guilt and shame are always the price of vice.

One more question...

3 Why am I so Confused ?

Perhaps it's because you

3.1 Change the subject rather than address your own sin.

Conversation and inquisitiveness cannot bridge the gap created by sin.

God is not easily distracted nor is He surprised by our defense mechanisms.

Many people are confused because sadly...

3.2 Sometimes Godly People value conflict over consensus .

The subtext is clear. Jews and Samaritans worshipped differently. They fought over virtually every defining characteristic of Mosaic Religion. Assuming each party was sincere only makes it worse. They valued their conflict over the thirsty, confused, lonely people all around them.

Ok, yes religious people, good people have real disagreements about the “details.” Not all religion is the same and the details matter. There is a time and place to discuss theology. Too much conflict has spilled out around our cultural wells where the thirsty gather to be filled and the lonely gather to be loved.

Two facts to consider:

We must own the fact that for us our conflict is comforting because it is a substitute for offering a drink to the thirsty.

We must own the fact that for many seekers our conflict is comforting and reinforces indecisiveness.

All those Christians do is fight. Why would I want to be a part of that.

Finally, we must insure a proper focus

3.3 True faith focuses not on principles or processes but a person .

That person is

Jesus

The central issue is not

" what are you looking for?"

But

" Who ?"

Are you Thirsty ?

You don’t need a

better bucket …

You need to draw from the

right well

This is God’s word, spoken to us September 3 2022.