March 12, 2023, Healing History, John 4:1-30 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ March 12, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click the link above. Below is an outline of the sermon.

1. A little history lesson:

930 b.c.e. – After the death of Solomon, the people rebel against his son, Rehoboam, who is a fool and tries to lay heavy burdens on the people; and God’s chosen nation, Israel, divides into northern (Israel) and southern (Judah) kingdoms; Omri, who becomes king of Israel, built his capitol on the hill of Samaria

722 b.c.e. – the Assyrians conquer the northern kingdom; they make Samaria their provincial headquarters and carry off many of its inhabitants; leave behind farmers and poor people and bring in new settlers who intermarry with them. The worship of Yahweh, the true God, becomes mixed with the worship of the idols of these foreign people from Mesopotamia and Syria.

597 b.c.e. – the Babylonians conquer the southern kingdom and carry them off into exile

538 b.c.e. – Cyrus of Persia, who has conquered the Babylonians, allows the Jewish exiles to return home and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple; in their eyes the northerners, Samaritans, are half-bloods and idolaters and won’t let them have any part in the re-building. The Samaritans retaliate by making trouble for the returning Jewish exiles.

450 b.c.e. – the grandson of the Jewish high priest, Eliashib, marries the daughter of the governor of Samaria, Sanballat. Nehemiah, appointed governor of Judah, accuses Eliashib of defiling the priesthood by marrying a “non-Jew” and drives him out. So Sanballat builds his own temple on Mount Gerazim (this is the proper place of worship that the Samaritan woman is talking about).

108 b.c.e. – the Samaritans side with the Greeks to attack Judah (Maccabbees); the Jews destroy the Samaritan temple

0 – A band of Samaritans desecrates the Jerusalem temple by scattering human bones in it.

30 c.e. or a.d. – Jesus sits down to rest at a well in Samaria, meets a local woman, and strikes up a conversation

2. …and their conversation is freighted with all this history, all these remembered wounds, all this inherited hostility and suspicion – a whole millenium of firmly-established enmity

The woman’s conversation is laced with it: “What is a Jewish man doing asking me, a woman, and a Samaritan, for a drink of water?” “So you think you’re better than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well?” “Our ancestors worshiped right here on this mountain, but you Jews say we’re supposed to worship in Jerusalem.”

3. But Jesus breaks through all of this; he starts talking kind of crazy – at least the woman thinks it sounds crazy – about some kind of “living water.” Jesus meets this woman who has no use for Jews, whose life is a little bit of a mess….. and he offers her the Holy Spirit. Not only that – he tells this Samaritan woman that he is the Messiah. The only person in all of the gospels.

And Jesus says to the Samaritan woman: “the time is coming – in fact, the time is already here, now – for us to worship together, not each in our own little group, in our separate place, in our own separate way, but to worship the Father together, in spirit and in truth – in the one Holy Spirit that indwells all his people, and in truth, not human tradition

4. This is the story of the conversion of a woman – and it’s also the story of the conversion of a whole village – But it’s so much more – this story is a declaration that a thousand years of hatred and hostility, a thousand years of separation were ended. The hour is here, Jesus says, Now is the time, for the true worshipers to worship the Father, in spirit and truth.

Not in division, not in enmity.

Not you in your Temple and us on our hill.

And the truth is, God’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church in our day is nothing if not divided – into an ever-increasing number of parts – by race, by economic class, by gender, by nationality, divided into denomination after denomination. Like the Jews and the Samaritans, the body of Christ is weighed down by a long, long history of division and suspicion and self-righteousness – racism and abuse and intolerance -we are all so sure that weare the one true church

But more than 2000 years ago, Jesus said “The hour HAS COME to worship the Father, in spirit and in truth.

5. Last Wednesday, it was our turn to host the Lenten luncheon here at St. Philip’s. We had more than sixty people here – these pews were nearly filled! We were Catholic and Methodist and Episcopalian and Free Methodist and non-denominational and who knows what else – and we prayed together. And we raised our voices to the Father in song. It was wonderful.

It was just the smallest step. But it was a step. There are so many old wounds and misunderstandings, so much pride and stubbornness still weighing us down, keeping us divided. But the hour has come – now is the time – for us to worship the Father together, as one body. Let us pray:

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all
of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.