3rd Sunday in Lent
24 February 2008
THEME AND SUGGESTED SERMON TITLE: MYSTERY AND
MERCY: WATER OF LIFE FOR ALL
LECTIONARY TEXTS
Exodus 17: 1-7; Psalm 95; John 4: 5-42
Exodus 17:1-7
From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites
journeyed by stages, as YAHWEH commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but
there was no water for the people to drink. 2The 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 God?”
3But 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?” 4So Moses
cried out to YAHWEH, “What shall I do with this people? They are
almost ready to stone me.” 5God 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. 6I 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. 7He called the place
Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the
LORD, saying, “Is God among us or not?”
Psalm 95
1O come, let us sing to our God; let us make a joyful noise to the
rock of our salvation!
2Let us come into the presence of the Holy One with thanksgiving; let us
make a joyful noise with songs of praise!
3For YAHWEH is a great God, and a great Sovereign above all gods.
4In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains
are his also.
5The sea is hers, for she made it, and the dry land, which her hands
have formed.
6O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD,
our Maker!
7For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep
of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!
8Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in
the wilderness, 9when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof,
though they had seen my work. 10For forty years I loathed that
generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they do not regard my ways.” 11Therefore in my anger I swore,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
John 4:5-42
5So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of
ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was
there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It
was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to
her, “Give me a drink.” 8(His disciples had gone to the city
to buy food.) 9The 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.) 10Jesus 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.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir,
you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living
water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well,
and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to
her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
14but 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.” 15The 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.” 16Jesus said to her,
“Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17The woman answered
him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are
right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had
five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you
have said is true!” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see
that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but
you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when
you will worship neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You
worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is
from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true
worshipers will worship in spirit and truth, for God seeks such as these
to worship. 24God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in
spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that
Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When the Messiah
comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26Jesus said to her,
“I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
27Just 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?” 28Then the woman left
her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,
29“Come and see the one who told me everything I have ever done!
He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30They left the city and were
on their way to him. 31Meanwhile the disciples were urging him,
“Rabbi, eat something.” 32But Jesus said to them, “I
have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33So the disciples
said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to
eat?” 34Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of
the One who sent me and to complete this work. 35Do 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. 36The
reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal
life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the
saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent
you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and
you have entered into their labor.” 39Many Samaritans from that
city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He
told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans
came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two
days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They 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.”
A CALL TO WORSHIP
ONE
Like a fountain, like a fast flowing river;
Are there no limits to your love O God?
Like a babbling brook, like a raindrop in the desert;
Are there no limits to your peace O Christ?
Like tempestuous seas, like spectacular storms;
Are there no limits to your raging against injustice O God?
ALL
God of mystery and mercy
Grant us new life with you
as we seek your water of life during this journey of Lent. Amen
OTHER LESSONS
Flowed Living Water...
by Myles V Saulibio at www.authorsden.com, 2007
Discovery and Enchantment
Lost in care and emptied soul
Astonished
constant water
simple stream of water
Blowing trumpets and announcements
living water
Watered aspirations of things wanted
In the dark shadows of hearts rendered
And hope flowed and elevated despair
I sought your loving embrace and care of tomorrow
An endless sweet kiss and open lips
Like water flowing past the recesses of time
I clenched my fist to reach my cries
For a stone in the shallow depth
of my dreams
Gone for now but not forgotten
Cool comfort, pure, and crystal like
smooth, gentle is your touch
and so serene the smell
Arise in your splendor and beauty!
Through green slippery ribbons
over coils of the spills and foam
clear tossed jets of snarling water
A font never full
Breathless I am led away
though recklessly
Faces of stone still sharing
My Love
No dryness or deadness
I am continued to be filled
through you
A fountain of blessings
OR
Song of the Brightness of Water
by Karol Wojtyla
from; The Place Within: The Poetry of Pope John Paul II
(Random House, 1994), cited at www.beliefnet.com
From this depth - I came only to draw water
in a jug - so long ago, this brightness
still clings to my eyes - the perception I found,
and so much empty space, my own
reflected in the well.
Yet it is good. I can never take all of you
into me. Stay then as a mirror in the well.
Leaves and flowers remain, and each astonished gaze
brings them down
to my eyes transfixed more by light
Than by sorrow.
-1950
MUSIC
Hymns:
For Those Tears I Died, Gospel
When Like the Woman at the Well
#196 in the NCH
Shepherd of Souls, OT
I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say
#489 in the NCH
I’ve Just Come from the Fountain
His Name So Sweet
Shall We Gather at the River
#597 in the NCH
Come, Ye Disconsolate
Choir:
At the River, Aaron Copland.
Gay composer’s perfect setting of one of the greatest American
hymns,
written at the height of the American Civil War with the Union war dead
in
mind.
Pepper SATB 154088, Unison 3274586
SA 4094736. Also available TTBB and SSA.
Just Came from the Fountain, Johnson
SATB a capella, Pepper 6063242.
A CONFESSION
You are, O Source and Well of Life, the One who can tell us
everything we have ever done! And yet you call us to voice, to
speak the confessions of our hearts to you.
And so we confess… that, in our desperate need, we have settled
for wells
that often run dry. We thirst and try to quench that thirst with that
which does not satisfy, all the time forgetting that you’ve
offered us living water.
Our souls are thirsting; give us this water, so that we may never be
thirsty or keep going to other wells to draw that which will not slake
our thirst. Amen.
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