Living Water, Lent 3, March 19, 2017

Third Sunday of Lent (Year A)

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Theme: Living Water

Reflection:  Today’s lessons brought me back to a workshop I attended in early 2015, just after I joined our church council. The presenter was Rev. Dr. Eric Law, from the Kaleidoscope Institute in Los Angeles (http://www.kscopeinstitute.org), speaking about sustainable churches – strengthening relationships internally and with the broader communities we serve.

The discussion was just one piece of a day of meaningful worship, planning with new council members, idea-sharing with other churches and fellowship. I returned inspired.

But the one point of the day that stuck with me, and continues to do so, is summed up in four words: Don’t stop the flow.

Eric Law said the Body of Christ needs to support the gifts within the church and in the surrounding area: the flow of resources getting to the right places, the flow of truth allowing leaders to act, the flow of relationship letting people get things done, and so on. Each of these “Holy Currencies,” eight in all, Law said, are part of the kingdom at work.

We stop the flow when any groups of people are left out of the conversation. We stop the flow when sources of funds are left on the table. We stop the flow when facts are not shared that result in poor decision making. And on and on. As we discussed, Eric Law kept coming back to these four words: “Don’t stop the flow.”

Jesus would have liked Eric Law. Paul and Moses and the Psalmist, too.

Moses led the Israelites into the wilderness. The goodness of God provided them with safety, sweet water and manna. Now, once again, the Israelites were grumbling. They were thirsty. Instead of taking heart from a pattern of God’s provision, they were fighting and making Moses feel threatened. He appealed to God, and water and the Israelites’ trust kept flowing.

The Psalmist encouraged the people to keep praising and obeying, rather than becoming hard-hearted. For losing faith in God would stop the flow.

Don’t block the flow by getting hung up on works and differences, Paul told the Romans. Grace is a free gift, accessible to all by faith. God’s love is the supreme “Holy Currency” poured out to all.

And then comes the model of the flow himself – Jesus. His disciples left him at Jacob’s well to go get lunch. It was mid-day and they figured Jesus could use a couple hours of rest. Women, the family water-gatherers, already had come to draw water in the cool of the morning. They wouldn’t return for hours. No one would want to walk miles carrying water in the mid-day sun.

Unless a woman wanted to be alone.

Jesus and the Samaritan woman probably surprised each other. The woman expected to get her water and be on her way. Jesus, resting, expected hours of down time. Seeing a Jewish man, the woman said nothing and began to pump her water.

“Give me a drink.”

The flow would have stopped between the woman and any Jewish person, especially a Jewish man. But not Jesus. He saw the woman, not as an enemy, but as a child of God, yearning to be seen and have a purpose. Jesus engaged her in a conversation about living water, and her life. She was so impressed with her encounter with Jesus that she brought her village, first to meet Jesus, and then to believe in him as the Messiah. John’s first evangelist was a Samaritan woman!

Jesus never stops the flow. Not ever. She’s a woman and Samaritan. To Jesus, that’s not an obstacle, it is a possibility.

Blind? Deaf-mute? Lame? Leper? Dead? None of these stops Jesus from healing them and bringing them into community. Jesus himself, crucified and buried? Nothing stops the flow.

If death itself didn’t stop the flow of life and love for Jesus, what is stopping us from reaching out to our neighbors? Is it money, resources, time, energy, leadership, divisions?

If we truly follow in the way of our Lord, we can overcome any obstacle that stands in the way of loving and caring for our neighbors.

Just don’t stop the flow.

Faith App:  It is easy to get bogged down in our suffering, starting our day with the challenges and “musts” of the day ahead. This week, start each day with contemplation and words of gratitude, as Richard Rohr says, praying “until you come to Yes.”

HYMN/SONG SUGGESTIONS

I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say, ELW 332/611

Glorious Things of You Are Spoken, ELW 647

Praise the One Who Breaks the Darkness, ELW 843

As the Deer Runs to the River, ELW 331

Tree of Life and Awesome Mystery, ELW 334

O Blessed Spring, ELW 447

Crashing Waters at Creation, ELW 455

Guide Me Ever, Great Redeemer, ELW 618

When Pain of the World Surrounds Us, ELW 704

Spring of Life, Kristian Stanfill

In this life we will find

We will be yearning

In this life we will find

The world won't satisfy

In this life we will find

That we will be empty

Without you

Chorus

Jesus you're the well

That won't run dry

Jesus you're the drink

That satisfies

Living water spring of life

Jesus you're the well

That won't run dry

The Well, Casting Crowns

40 Days, Matt Maher

Faithful, Chris Tomlin

Sovereign Over Us, Michael W. Smith

LESSONS

Exodus 17:1-7 Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.

Psalm 95 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness.

Romans 5:1-11 God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

John 4:5-42 Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.”

Summary of the Lessons:  Everyone endures challenges in this life – it is part of our human condition. Our suffering is not God’s will or punishment or a test. Our maturity as disciples can be seen in our character in our trials: do we quarrel, grumble, or become hardened, or do we keep looking for God’s living water and let it flow through us?

OPENING LITANY based on Psalm 95

L:  Gather round, everyone, and join in the song;

C:  Sing out in worship to our God beyond compare.

L:  Praise to the sculptor of Denali and Death Valley --

C:  Praise to the artist of the Great Plains and Great Lakes.

L:  Gather together, to our Creator give thanks,

C:  The source and supplier of our living water;

L:  Every day, providing all that we require –

C:  Watchful over us as a shepherd with a flock.

L:  Gather and listen, be grateful for God’s gifts;

C:  Not like the Israelites at Meribah and Massah,

L:  Demanding and disobedient, God left them to wander –

C:  Forty years in the desert, outside the Promised Land.

CONFESSION

L:  Lord, how lost we become when our hearts go astray,

C:  When we’re dry in our suffering, alone with our pain,

L:  Bring us to the living water of community and hope,

C:  Send us your presence, the Lord among us again.

L:  Lord, how weary we are when we’re on the outside,

C:  Worn from the journey, yet finding no place to rest;

L:  Bring us to the living water of inclusion and grace,

C:  In your Body show us the Lord among us again.

L:  Lord, we are bitter when we harden our hearts,

C:  Grumbling to the world, and miserable inside.

L:  Bring us to the living water of reconciling and joy.

C: By your love we will know the Lord among us again.

(Silent reflection)

L:  In our confession, we pray together,

C:  Most Merciful God … You’ve never failed to provide everything we need. But leave it to us to quarrel and test you, complaining that you didn’t quench our thirst soon enough, or fill our buckets full enough. So we wander away again and again, running after today’s splashy and sparkly things that leave us empty tomorrow. Lead us back to your living waters, Lord, and satisfy us in body, mind and spirit.

Hear this Good News:  God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. We are reconciled with God through the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Your sin has been forgiven, washed away in the flood of God’s grace.

In the name of…

Amen.

PRAYER OF THE DAY

L:  We pray together, 

C:  Faithful God … Thank you that your grace-filled living water is an artesian spring: pure, refreshing and everlasting. Surprise us with its abundance, God, as you wash us clean and satisfy us, reassuring us that you always are with us. Then send us out, overflowing with compassion for your people and all creation.  Amen.

COMMUNION BLESSING

L:  We pray together,

C:  We give you thanks, most gracious God, for the wellspring of joy in this bread, the fountain of grace in this cup.  Send us out, filled to overflowing from this meal, so we cannot help but let your love flow through us, covering everyone we reach throughout our week ahead. Amen. 

SENDING

L:  Make a joyful noise to the Lord!

C:  Dive deep into Christ’s living water;

L:  Bathe in the pool of abundant grace;

C:  And splash God’s love everywhere!  

L: Go now, refreshed and restored, to love and to serve the Lord.

C: Thanks be to God!

First Reading Exodus 17:1-7 (NRSV)

Setting the Scene: Moses has led the people away from Egypt, and through the Red Sea. God has provided manna to eat and sweetened the bitter water. By now, the Israelites should have gained some trust in God’s provision.

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The LORD said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 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.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”

Second Reading Romans 5:1-11 (NRSV)

Setting the Scene: Paul continues to teach the fledgling church at Rome the basics of Christian beliefs, that works aren’t the way to gain God’s grace.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Gospel John 4:5-42 (NRSV)

Setting the Scene: Our Lenten sojourn into the Gospel of John continues. After Jesus talks with Nicodemus, he and the disciples leave Judea and head for Galilee, taking them through the rival territory of Samaria. But again, Jesus sees people differently.

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."