Sermon: "Grace"

1st in the "The 5 "G's" of Discipleship" series.
Delivered September 16, 2007 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Theme: Christ followers understand and have received Jesus' saving grace, and desire to extend the unconditional love they've received to others in their community, country, and around the world.

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Well we are beginning a series now on discipleship. The five "G's" of discipleship. We are doing this because the session of the church; now what the session is in a church like ours, the session is the name of the group of elders who make decisions about the life of the church. And this group of elders, the session has recognized that this is an important part of the life of our church. We are always going to be making discipleship. We can't get beyond that. This is the calling of the church. This is the calling of every Christian person to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Now disciple simply means to be a learner. We are all called to be learners from Jesus and in Jesus' time a learner wasn't somebody who went to a classroom somewhere. It was someone who followed a teacher around, and that teacher would teach them; that teacher would teach other people in front of them, that teacher would do things. And so they would see the life and character and service and also hear the teaching of the teacher and be a learner. And so we are going to be focusing in on what it means to be a follower of this teacher Jesus. This is not extra stuff. This is not something just for missionaries and ministers. This is the calling of every single person who says they are a Christian. We are all called to be learners and followers of Jesus Christ. And so we are going to focus in on the five "G's"; grace, growth, group, gifts and generosity. There is a lot of ways that you can summarize what it means to be a disciple. We are just using these because they are easy to understand and we will be going through those across the next few weeks.

Today we are specifically focusing in on grace and that is because grace precedes any other part of being a follower of Jesus. Grace fills every step of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and grace is what brings us to the conclusion. We never get past grace. Grace is the foundational stuff of discipleship. And to look at this issue of grace, I want you to join me in observing a conversation that Jesus had with a woman about 2,000 years ago. The word grace doesn't appear anywhere in the passage we are going to read, but it is a passage that is full of God's grace. It's in the gospel of John, Chapter 4. I am going to begin on the first verse and I am going to read parts of this, talk about it, and we will read bit by bit through this passage. John, Chapter 4, let's pray:

God, we thank you now. We thank you that we can hear from your word for a few moments. We pray that you will open our eyes and our understanding and then we pray that you will open our hearts so that we might respond properly to what we come to understand. For we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

John, Chapter 4, I am going to begin at Verse 1 and go through Verse 9:

"The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, 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. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 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.)"

It says here that Jesus is in Judea. He wants to go to Galilee. In order to go there he has to either go through an area filled with non-Jewish people, a place they called the Gentile area or they had to go through the Samaritan area and Samaritans were people who had a Jewish background, but he Orthodox Jews of the area in Judea and Galilee looked upon them with suspicion, because they had a lot of differences in the way they practiced their Judaism. In particular, there was a long history of animosity over where you should properly worship God. Is it the temple in Jerusalem? Or is it on the mountain that's right there in the middle of Samaria, Mt. Gerizim. It was the place where hundreds of years before their forefather Abraham had offered worship on that mountain. And so for centuries there was animosity and disagreement over where the proper place to worship God was. Now the temple on the mountain had been destroyed quite a while before, but this animosity was still a live issue and made even worse only 20-25 years before this conversation. Some Samaritan people defiled the temple in Jerusalem by bringing in to the temple human bones and this issue was still in the minds of people. Jewish people did not look forward to going through Samaria.

And so it says in Verse 4 Jesus had to go through Samaria. It was the only way they could get there, either that or through the non-Jewish area, the Gentile area. It's about noon and Jesus is tired and it says here that he sits by the well. Perhaps he sits on a little wall that they would often build around wells so that people wouldn't inadvertently stumble in to the well. He sits down and when the Samaritan woman comes Jesus speaks to her. Although Jesus might be sitting on a wall at this point, Jesus has jumped over several social walls in order to relate to her at all. The first is the Jewish-Samaritan split: all that hostility, all that disagreement, all that finger pointing, Jesus jumps over that barrier and addresses her directly. She even remarks on it, "How can you a Jewish man speak to me a Samaritan." The other barrier he crosses is the barrier between men and women, because a Jewish man would not speak to a woman on the street. It was considered the wrong thing to do. And here Jesus steps out and crosses that social barrier and does that.

He crosses a third barrier as well. The barrier between proper society and improper society (scandal) because there is something wrong here in this woman coming to the well at noon by herself. It was the custom in that day that usually women would go as a group to the well early in the morning or they would go in the cool of the afternoon and it was a social event. People did it more or less at the same time and might have even walked together and here she is alone in the middle of the day. There is some kind of barrier here. But she is out there alone and not with other people from her town.

Let's take a look at Verses 10 to 14:

"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 flocks and herds?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Jesus crosses these barriers for a purpose, because the moment he gets in a conversation with her, Jesus starts talking about the gift that he can give her, a gift of living water, a gift that will lead to eternal life, a gift that will spring up and not only fill her, but will overflow from her, a gift that will make her a well, a spring of living water, a spring overflowing with eternal blessings, blessings that will meet her need and overflow to meet the needs of others. Immediately you can tell that Jesus has a purpose. It's not just that he is thirsty. Let's go to Verses 15 to 18:

"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."

Go call your husband and come back; why does he say this? Jesus had crossed so many walls already. He has been so respectful and kind. He has treated her with such decency. Why does he mention something that almost certainly brings up embarrassment and pain for her? In fact, this is probably the reason why this woman is at the well alone. If there is any reason at all behind it it is most likely this one; five husbands and the person she is living with now is not her husband and this would be considered scandalous. Five husbands; how would something like this happen? Now the first thing is that many commentators look in to this passage and they look and they say that she is a prostitute. That is not what the passage says. I guess its possible, but the focus on the passage is that she has had five husbands and she is living with one person now who is not her husband. It's considered scandalous. It's considered all kinds of problems, but it's not necessarily that issue of prostitution.

Another thing we have to look at here is that at this time a woman couldn't divorce a man; so we are not dealing with Elizabeth Taylor here; wedding number seven or eight, what is she going after now? I mean she is 75-years old or somewhere around there and getting ready to be married again. She had to be divorced and so here we are dealing with a person who has either been widowed multiple times or been divorced multiple times by someone else or some mixture of the two. And it's hard to figure out what could possibly fall in to a background like that, maybe perhaps she is beautiful, but unfaithful and this was realized again and again. Perhaps she is extraordinarily unlucky and has had five husbands die on her or some die and then others divorce her. In the time that Jesus lived it was the responsibility if a brother died, other brothers had the responsibility to wed the wife of their brother to keep the family line going. She might have gone through a whole family of brothers. We don't know. Maybe she is lazy or maybe there is something else about her that has made her difficult to live with. We don't know what's behind it, but what we do know is that it is shameful, it's hard and it's unusual for her to have this kind of history. And she is now living with someone who is not her husband. She can't even manage a sixth husband and she is possibly living with this man simply to stay off the street. And so, Jesus takes this mess, this history and lays it right out on the table.

Why does he do this? Jesus does this so that she will be absolutely clear about the fact that he knows to whom he is offering this gift. If he didn't bring this out in the open and talk to her right square about it, she would walk away thinking "you know, I wonder whether Jesus would have offered me this if he knew what kind of person I really am; if he knew what kind of history I had, what kind of things I have done wrong, the kind of pain and mess and brokeness in my background." He wants to leave no doubt so he brings it right out in front of her not to shame her, but to point to the center of her heartache, to point to the center of her failure and to tell her "I am offering living water to you, to the real you and that is grace."

Verse 19 to 26:

"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, 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 spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in 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 who speak to you am he."

Right after Jesus brings this personal issue out in front of her she begins to talk to Jesus about worship. Where is the proper place to worship? Now again, many commentators look at this and think that she is trying to sidetrack Jesus here. You know, Jesus is getting too close to what's uncomfortable in her life, so let's think of anything, any other controversy and steer him in that direction. I don't think that is what is going on here. There is a tradition in the life of Israel that when a prophet speaks to you, remember she begins 'I see that you are a prophet' and when a prophet spoke to you you had a responsibility to respond and one of the classic responses is to respond in worship. And here she is a Samaritan woman with hundreds of years of controversy; the moment she thinks about responding to whatever this prophet is telling her and when she thinks about responding in worship immediately she has to figure out where is the right place to respond. And so, here's she's got a Jewish prophet with her so she is going to ask the opposition, what's the word on the proper place to worship?

Jesus takes her seriously and then he pulls her deeper. The first thing he lets her know is that it doesn't matter, this issue of the mountain or Jerusalem is not the issue. The time is coming and has now come when those who worship God will worship in spirit and in truth. Those who worship God will worship in spirit. It's not a matter of place. God is not confined to a place. God can't be localized to a place. God can meet you anywhere, even by a well in a village on a hot day. God can meet you on the street in front of a friend's house. God can meet you in a lunch break. God can meet you in the intensive care unit. God can meet you at a funeral. God can meet you as he met me for the first time in front of the dairy science building on a college campus. God is not confined to a space. God is a God with no walls and that's why we want to be a church without walls, because God and his presence is what makes things sacred. Anywhere God is is as sacred as the temple. It's God's presence that makes it sacred. And she right now in that moment is in a meeting with God.

The time is coming and has now come. The time is coming and now is when those will worship God will worship in spirit and in truth. What is the truth that Jesus is pointing to? Because he doesn't just say truth. He says the time is coming and now is. What is coming and now is that's the base truth that affects our worship, that affects our relationship with God? 'What now is' is that the living God has come in to the world. 'What now is' is that God has become a human, Emanuel, God with us. What now is is that the invisible God has put on a face, the invisible father is revealed in the son. Sin separates and divides. It puts up walls. What now is is that God has jumped over the walls. He goes out beyond just the Jews to all humanity, even to a scandalous, unacceptable woman. The transcendent God has taken up residence in our neighborhood and a woman meets God by a well. God with us, God in us.

'What now is' is that Jesus is going to go to the cross to deal with death, to deal with sin, to deal with our rebellion, to deal with our apathy, to deal with the destructiveness of our lives, to deal with our separation from God. 'What now is' is that Jesus is going to be resurrected. 'What now is' is that in total victory over everything in us and everything around us that can separate us from God, Jesus is going to take all that up in his resurrection. That is what now is. The Holy God has become human sin and its God who declares on the cross; "Its finished. I have done it." Everything, everything that needs to be done to reconcile humanity to God, everything that needs to be done to reconcile us to a holy and pure God has now been done by God and that's grace. We worship in light of 'what now is'. 'What now is' is grace. By grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it's the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one should boast. Worship in English comes from the words worth ship. It means to declare the worth of God, but in Greek it comes from the word "proskyneo", which means to come forward to kiss. And so worship is not only to declare God's worth, but to draw close enough to kiss and to be kissed. And so, what grace means is that the door to God's presence is wide open and we just like the woman at the well are invited to come in.

It says in the Book of Ephesians, "He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to you who are near, for through him (that is Christ,) we both have access to the father through one Spirit." That's grace. It all begins with God. God comes in to our neighborhood; the God who knows who we really are, who knows our evil and brokeness, who knows all the pain we have inflicted on other people, who knows all the damage we have done to ourselves. This God who knows us brings a gift. Eternal life that springs up to sustain us and then to become something that overflows to bless other people. God crosses over the immeasurable distance between us and invites us in to his embrace. We bring nothing. The woman in this story brings nothing to Jesus, but a sad and broken history and that is what grace is all about.

What about you? Do you have nothing but a broken and sad history? Regrets, hurts, rejection, hostility, even arrogance? 'What now is' is that God sits next to you. It might be here that he is sitting next to you. It might be at home. It might be on the street. It might be in the face and words of a friend, but 'what now is' is that God sits next to you and he invites you in to a new life. 'What now is' is that he has paid it all. Grace. Grace enough for a whole world. Grace enough for the real you. 'What now is' is grace.

Let's pray. In a moment I am going to lead you in a prayer and particularly if you have never taken a first step of responding to this grace from God. I invite you to pray along with me to begin a journey with Jesus and to experience this living water, this eternal life he wants to give in grace. Let's pray:

God, you are the God of grace, and we recognize that now, and we want to respond to the grace that you are willing to give us. What we have learned here is that you accept the real 'us' with all the problems, with all the hidden things, not the public 'us', not the presentable 'us', the real 'us'. You saw through the woman's life in to the core, you see through our lives in to the core and yet you still say to us "Will you ask me for living water?" And so, Lord, now we turn from living on our own and we ask now for living water, that you will do a work in us in our hearts that will flow up and overflow in abundance of grace and mercy; to become a blessing that will sustain us through life and then become a blessing for others. We thank you now that we don't have to bring anything. You have done it all. We thank you for grace. Amen.

© 2007, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org