Sermon prepared for

The 8:30 & 11:00 AM Morning Promise services

3/3/02, by Gregory S. Kaurin

associate pastor for spiritual care & development.

 

Text: John 4:5-42

“Pooped & All Washed Up”

 

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My overall impression of the woman at the well is that she was tired.  She was tired—not just of all this walking back and forth and hauling water from Jacob’s Well to her home—but tired of life, tired of all the conflict around her, tired of men walking in and out of her life, and tired of all the guilt.

Our slang would be that she was “pooped,” but before anyone gets upset at me for teaching or using a moderately vulgar word, let me tell you that it’s actually a proper word based on the original Latin word, puppis, which referred to the stern, the rear of a boat, the poop, or the “poop deck” is what it’s often called, (and it had nothing to do with seagull droppings or otherwise).  Our earthy use of the word is related, but comes much later.

After some rough voyages, with waves and storm, sailors would point to the wear or minor damage on the rear of the ship and say that she was “pooped,” and it meant that her stern needed maintenance.  Then, they just as quickly say the same about themselves and their own exhaustion.  They’d been through the voyage with the ship and also felt battered and worn, in need of repair, and pooped.

 

In our gospel lesson, there were at least two people that could relate to all this, two very tired people: Jesus and the Samaritan woman.  In fact, Jesus was on somewhat of a retreat when he met her.  He’d just come away from Judea and was on his way home to Galilee.

It wasn’t too long before this that he had been celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem.. There, he saw all the corrupt money changing in the Temple and caused a stir by overturning tables and scattering the wares.  A few days later, he met with Nicodemus.  We talked about him last week.  Then, Jesus went from there into the Judean countryside where he preached and healed, and his disciples began baptizing the new followers as they gathered and grew around Jesus.

All this was causing a stir and upsetting the Pharisees.  And, for Jesus, it had been exhausting.  Jesus decided to get away for awhile and head for home.

It was not unusual to pass through Samaria when heading north to Galilee; Jews used it as a short cut and passed through as quickly as possible.  Except for trade and business, it was very unusual to have any conversation with a Samaritan while you passed through.  It was even stranger for a Jewish man to stop and speak to a Samaritan woman. 

Jesus asked her for water, and then offered living water to her.  It’s especially interesting since Jews wouldn’t accept or give such things from people like her.

Jesus knew all about that conflict.  It was old and had a long history on both sides.  And he purposefully ignored it.  He refused to be ruled by social boundaries or proper guidelines, …because he was tired, …physically and otherwise.  He was tired of the misunderstanding and bigotry, tired of the history and old grudges,

—And he is still tired of the way people continue to use religion and scripture to set up divisions and definitions for purity and righteousness.  Even now, it seems some people are sure that the way to know that you are saved is by defining which groups or what kind of people couldn’t possibly be saved.  It’s an old game, and we all fall into it.

The more I read scripture and study Jesus, the more I realize how much he loved to crash through those barriers.  In fact, if there was a group of people Jesus consistently condemned, it was the pharisaic people—not for being Pharisees—but for trying to condemn others from the presence and love of God.  I think Jesus found it all very wearing, tiring …and wrong.

Every time that we aim to figure out what kind of people God wouldn’t save, I am fairly certain that at the very same time, without meaning to, we end up defining ourselves right out of salvation.  That ultimate judgment is not our job.  Thank God, because, honestly, we stink at it: we always end up condemning ourselves.

 

So, Jesus talked to this woman who others would say was unsalvageable.  Her religion was borderline Jewish, with a bit of other stuff mixed in.  Actually, Samaritan life was full of even more rituals, bells and smells than Judaism.  But Jesus was talking to a woman who wasn’t even a “good” Samaritan. 

She was condemned and ground underfoot by both sides.  She was battered by her own life, and caught between the conflict of these two sibling faiths; she was tired and she was pooped.  For her, life was nothing more than sustenance, trudging back and forth between the well, and between five or six men.  (This last one wouldn’t even bother to marry her, …not a woman like her.)  If there is any hope in cynicism, then she was waiting and hoping for something real, a true drink of life, a messiah.  It was her only way out.

“I know he’ll come someday,” she said to Jesus, “and then at last he’ll explain, and we’ll know and understand all this.  I need that drink of water!”  That’s what I hear her saying to Jesus.  “I need a drink, of this living water—out of my drudgery, out of my pessimism, all this hatred and tedious boredom.”

Jesus even heightened the tension and of her situation, lifted it up and pointed out how far from salvation she was.  He said, “You Samaritans are reaching for God, but you are just wandering around in the darkness.  Salvation is from the Jews,” Jesus said. 

But, then, do you realize what incredible barriers and walls came crashing down in his very next sentence?  He said to her, “I am he.  I am the One—not just that the Jews are waiting for—but I am the One that you’re waiting for.”

There Jesus stood, in the middle of Samaritan country—and he pointed around, and told his disciples—“You see all these people, these Samaritans?  Here is a place where the harvest is ready, because these people know that they are in need of saving.”  What Jesus suddenly said that day was that salvation is not for those who think that they are standing sure in the light of righteousness, worshiping the right way in the right Temple and living right lives.  Jesus came for those who readily admit that we wander in the dark. 

It’s true that Jesus came for the self-righteous, pharisaic and judgmental people, too, since they are also in the dark.  But they get so busy hauling up their own buckets and got their faces so far down in the deep well of personal pride that they ignore and refuse to see the Spring of Life bubbling up right beside them.  In fact, they hate hearing about that Spring and refuse to believe in it, because they can’t stand the kinds of people that God has decided to save. One day, we will all finally learn that only the Spring has the water we need.  The well is empty. 

That’s why Grace is a two-edged sword, because it saves the sinful and—by their own choice—it condemns the self-righteous who reject it.  It is a freedom that you and I have.  We have the freedom to live reborn in grace, or go on dying in self-righteousness.

It is okay, then, to admit that we are like both the Samaritans and the Pharisees, because, admitting it opens our eyes to our need.  Like them, we stand in need of forgiveness and saving.  Like the Samaritans who gathered around Jesus, we take this drink of living water from Jesus—not because we deserve it—but because, like that Samaritan woman, we need it.  We are pooped.  And we need Christ to wash us up.

Jesus told the woman that his living water was different than Jacob’s well.  This is not water that you labor over and haul up.  Instead, Jesus told her that it is a spring and a fountain that gushes up.  All we do is drink it in.  Life.  And in it, we are washed up, and washed clean.

 

A major purpose of Holy Communion is to refresh that promise and washing.  As you come forward this morning for communion or a blessing, dip your hand, or cup it here under this fountain,* and remember your Baptism.  The promise from your Baptism is brought forward from the past and made true for you today.

Let God wash away your anger, your tiredness, and your judgements.  Leave them here in the water.  Let him wash away all your cynicism and definitions; let him wash away the lines that others have drawn against you, all the hurts.  We are equal when we come from this fountain.  We are equal when we eat this feast—equally sinful—equally saved …by the grace and mercy of God alone.

 

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