Pleasant Hill Community Church, UCC

Pursuits of Night and Noon

Last week a great leader of the Jews came to see Jesus because he had some questions. “How can someone be born again?”

“How can someone enter the womb a second time?”

“How can these things be Jesus?”

He had some powerful questions for the Messiah.

But perhaps the key to this story lies elsewhere? John 3:1 says this: “Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night…” Nicodemus came to see Jesus on the sly, when no one else would know. For the forth evangelist John, night is used metaphorically for one who is separated from the presence of God. Nicodemus is a learned Jew, but one who is somehow apart from the divine. His encounter from Jesus indicates that maybe he just doesn’t get it.

Our next story in John finds Jesus in a very different place. He is on his way back to Galilee from Judea, but he has taken both a geographical and a theological detour. He is going through Samaria. Samaria is the quickest way back to Galilee but the road is bumpy. Samaria, of course, is where the Samaritans live; that part of the Jewish family who, like Nicodemus, just doesn’t get it.

There has been a split between the Jews and the Samaritans going way back to 721BC when Assyria occupied the northern kingdom of Israel. At that time they took many Israelites away to be resettled in Samaria. It was there that these resettled Israelites began to worship other Gods. Second Kings 17 tells the whole story of the Assyrian invasion and that chapter ends with this:

“So the Israelites in Samaria worshiped the Lord but also served their carved images. To this day their children and their children’s children continue to do what their ancestors did.”

The Jewish/Samaritan rivalry would continue on for years and years.

Five hundred years later around the year 200BC the Samaritans would make two critical decisions that would harden their relationship with the Jews. First, they decided that the Samaritan scriptures would only include the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The Law of Moses would be their scriptures and nothing else. They were arguing over the Bible. Second, the Samaritans would go and build their own shrine on Mount Gerizim which was 30 miles to the north of Jerusalem. They would claim that it would be in their shrine and not the Jerusalem temple where God would reside. They were arguing about who had the truth.

The Jews, of course, would have none of this and in 128 BC they would go and destroy the Samaritan shrine because God lives in Jerusalem only. So when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well we can imagine there is some historical awkwardness in the encounter. There is a long term struggle that has been brewing forever with the Samaritans. And there were other problems too.

A Jewish man did not initiate conversation with an unknown, and if you notice unnamed, woman. A Jewish teacher did not engage in public conversation with a woman, especially one who had five husbands. So needless to say this conversation with a Samaritan woman was a tough one for Jesus. None-the-less, here she comes to draw water and talk to Jesus in the middle of the day. It is twelve noon.

There is a strange new phenomena occurring in the Warren-Miller household. It is the phenomena of the never ending video tape. It is not that movies are on all the time at our house, I just mean that a movie is never watched once in our house. In fact, they are often watched five or ten times. One such movie, which I can now quote by memory, is called High School Musical. It is a Disney film about a group of high school friends.

This film focuses on the romance between the star of the basketball team, Troy, and a cute new student named Gabriella. What we learn about Troy and Gabriella is they both have secret talents. Gabriella is not only new and not only cute but she is also a math whiz. Gabriella is a “brainiac.” Troy and is not only a good looking basketball star (a “jock”), but he likes to sing.

In the course of the movie we find out that all the other students have secret likes and secret talents also. A skateboard punk likes to play the cello. One of the other basketball players likes to bake. A heavy-set, nerdy girl likes to dance. The movie as a whole is not just about a high school romance, it is about youth coming to know and be comfortable with themselves in front of each other. It is a movie that says “This is who we are. Get used to it!”

In the past two weeks the small group visioning process has begun in our church. Early reports are that these small group meetings have been very upbeat and exciting. People are sharing their joys and concerns and hopes for the future. One of the refrains that keeps coming up is a concern for the wider community. It is a two sided refrain in that on the one hand we want to invite more and more of the wider community into our church family. On the other hand we are deeply concerned with what they might think of us. After all, as “The People’s Republic of Pleasant Hill” we have a reputation to keep up. We want new people to join us but we are concerned about what they will think of us. I can appreciate the dilemma.

Nicodemus is concerned with what people will think of him. He comes to Jesus at night. Nobody is going to see him talk to Jesus because he is a Pharisee and his investments are with the Pharisees. He does not understand Jesus and his allegiance is to religious respectability. But the Samaritan woman has nothing to lose. She will sit with Jesus in broad daylight and she will go right to the heart of the matter that divides Jews and Samaritans. Where do we worship?

Jesus says the time is coming when we will not worship here or there. The time is coming when we will not worship in Jerusalem, or Mecca, or Salt Lake City. The time is coming and is right here now when we will worship God in spirit and in truth. In his book The Message by Eugene Peterson he translates Jesus’ words like this:

“The time is coming. It has, in fact come, when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. It is who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth.”

The Samaritan woman, this outcast among outcasts, gets it. She runs back to her town to share the news about Jesus that indeed he is the Savior of the world.

Let us not be overly concerned with what the wider community thinks of us. Let us be like the Samaritan woman, so turned on by the words of Christ, so turned on by our ministry of truth and justice and compassion, so turned on by the gospel that we cannot wait to get to town to tell people. We have something going on here and we want you to be a part of it.

We live in a world that suffers from a deep and powerful thirst. People are thirsty for meaning and for purpose. People are thirsty for forgiveness and healing. People are thirsty for unconditional love and acceptance. People are thirsty for the living water of Jesus Christ. When the Samaritan woman went back to the city to share the good news, did you notice what she left behind? She left her jar behind. The jar that she left behind was empty but it did not matter because she was full. Her thirst had been quenched. Through this encounter with Jesus she would never be thirsty again. She would now be a bearer of living water to others.

Our call is to sit at the well with the thirsty people of the world and to give them a deep drink from the living waters of Christ. Our challenge as a community is to come and to be together and continue to drink deeply and to share this living water and all of its abundance with the world. We have living water. It is God’s gift and it is over flowing. Let us take it out and share. Amen.

2/24/08

Pastor Tom Warren