A sermon
preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 19
March 2017, the
Third Sunday in Lent, by the Rev. Phyllis Wong. The scripture readings that
day were John 4:5-42.
Opening prayer
Holy Spirit, come to us and inspire us to
know your word. May Your Living Word flow in us like the living water that
renews our life and our faith. Amen.
The worship committee suggested a theme for
KUC worship during the Lenten Season this year – “Journey with Jesus through
the wilderness”. We have set up a worship space with a wilderness in the church
– a barren tree and a brown cloth, symbolizing sand and rock in the dessert.
Every week we add in one symbol signifying
the theme according to the gospel reading of that week. The first week Bengseng
put a stone when Jesus was tempted by the devil. The second week a pinwheel was
put when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus on being born again with new spirit. This
week we put a jar as Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman by the well and told
her he was the living water bringing eternal life.
The wilderness is a place and moment we
need to face our temptations, our darkness, our fears, our brokenness, our
failures, our unfulfilled needs and yearning.
At the same time, wilderness could be a place and moment that we
encounter the presence and grace of God. Wilderness could be a place and moment
we meet with Jesus and are transformed by the Holy Spirit.
Today we journey with Jesus by the well, where
we see a wonderful and amazing encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman.
The gospel story
on the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, taken from John 4:5-42,
inspires us to receive the water of life from Jesus Christ that helps us to
accept ourselves and others, and to live a life with honesty to accept who we
really are - Be yourself.
Be yourself
is to accept who you are as God’s unique creation, holy and worthy. Be yourself
is to live your true self according to the will of God.
Be yourself
is to live a life that God has called you to live.
From the gospel
story today we have witnessed how Jesus lived out his true self and did the
will of God in bringing salvation to all people, especially the marginalized.
In Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan
woman, he has broken the boundary of gender, race and religion. He spoke to a
woman in public. This was forbidden in his time. A Rabbi never does it. He has
broken the boundary of race. Jews hated Samaritans and despised them as unclean
people. For Jews, Samaritans were not fully human beings but hybrids. The Jews
and Samaritans were enemies. The Jews destroyed the Samaritan’s temple in the
mountain of Gerizim in 129 B.C. The Samaritan’s temple was considered as a
rival to the Jerusalem Temple.
In midst of religious conflicts and tensions
between the Samaritans and the Jews, Jesus gave a wider understanding on
worship and religious life when the Samaritan woman touched on this topic. She
posed a challenge to Jesus, saying, “Our ancestors worshiped on
this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in
Jerusalem.” Jesus brought the people of different
religious faiths and practice together by emphasizing to be truly faithful
persons to God. He replied, “God is spirit, and those
who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus has broken the religious and cultural norms.
Even his disciples found him not appropriate in speaking to the Samaritan woman
in public. But their voice remained silent. Jesus never allows laws and customs
that prevent him from saving those who are rejected by the community. Jesus
lives his true self.
Jesus does
not only live himself fully as who he is as God’s Son. He helped the Samaritan woman
to live fully as who she was - a person with value and worth. Jesus treated her as a full human being and being
equal so he asked her for water in the first place. He offered to her living
water that quenched her thirst. Second, he pointed out that she had five
husbands and the current one was not her husband. I imagine Jesus’ such direct
conversion could be offensive and embarrassing to this woman. But the woman’s
reply indicates that she took it positively. Jesus’ power to see and know her
so well directed her to say, “Sir, I see that you are a
prophet”. She then moved to discuss with Jesus on
the theology of worship.
Jesus acknowledged
the Samaritan woman’s life, past and present. Although she was a divorcee, he
still respected her. He made no judgement on her. He was not bothered by her
marital status. He only cared for her well-being. He cared for her life and whether she
received the living water he wished to give.
Jesus’ acceptance of her past and her very
being as God’s people had touched her deeply. The way Jesus responded to her
question on worship had enlightened her to understand worship with new eyes.
Her life and faith were changed dramatically after her dialogue with Jesus. Her
eyes were opened to see Jesus was the Prophet and then the Messiah. Her life
was transformed and her
growing faith made her God’s messenger to bring the good news to her hometown.
Her testimony to her people was, “He told me everything I have ever done.”
Jesus’
power of knowing her sent a strong message of his full acceptance to her. With
Jesus’s embrace of who she was, the woman could live with her true self. She no longer rejected her past. She no longer rejected
herself. She no longer hid herself and
isolated herself. She no longer restricted herself to take water from the well
at noon, the hottest time in a day. She left the water jar at the well. The
water jar could be understood as a symbol of her past history. The water jar
could be taken as symbols of her wounds, scars, shame, and things that had kept
her from gaining a new life. She left them at the well. She did not need it as
she had received the living water from Jesus that quenched her thirst for love
and acceptance.
With this freedom, she was able to share
courageously her testimony and brought her people to know Jesus the Messiah,
and to drink the living water from him that shapes them into a new life with
eternal meaning.
The Samaritan woman is the first
evangelist to spread the gospel in Jesus’ time. She can be taken as Jesus’
disciple although she has never been officially recognized. Women have played a
significant role in Jesus’s salvation plan and spreading the good news.
I would like to share another reflection
on ‘be yourself’ – be mindful of our own values and prejudice.
The Samaritan woman went to take water at
noon: this is rare for people living in the Mediterranean region because it would
be too hot. There are commentaries suggesting that this woman was an immoral
person and so she has to isolate herself. Jesus said to her that she had five
husbands and the current one was not her husband. Jesus was only giving a fact.
The reasons for this woman to have five husbands were not mentioned. If people
think this woman was not a good woman because of her marriage failure, why was
she the one to blame? Could she be a
victim of domestic violence? Could she have been abandoned by her husbands
because she was barren? Could she be too intelligent and her husbands could not
stand it in a male dominant society? When we read the scriptures, we need to be
mindful of our own interpretations which are very much affected by our own
values and experiences in a particular context.
We need to be mindful of this as well. Quite
often people have to hide from the past and cannot live their true self because
of other people’s labels, stereotypes and prejudice.
I would like to share with you about a
story of a friend. I called her Angel.
Angel is a lesbian and she is a pastor.
She knew her sexual orientation and identity since she was a teenager. She was
born in a Christian family and her father was a pastor. She was brought up in a
church and society that are homophobic. She thus tried her best to change
herself. She even got married and gave birth to a daughter. By doing this, she
thought she would be a ‘normal’ woman engaging in a heterosexual marriage. It
did not work out that way. After struggling for years, she decided to divorce
her husband in order to live a life being true to herself. You can imagine the
blame and criticism that she has received. She has been under immense pressure.
Her family members and her home church were angry with her and rejecting her.
The situation was the very worst in the first few years when she came out from
her closet. By God’s grace, she managed to find some Christians that understand
her and accept her as who she is. In her struggles, she finds that God is
present in her life and graciously embracing her.
In her faith journey of ups and downs,
Jesus in his words and deeds has opened her eyes to see how he warmly and
openly received social minorities and sinners defined by the society. She then
experienced God’s healing. The living water from Jesus renewed her life. She
has gradually accepted her past and graciously embraced who she is as God’s
unique creation and God’s beloved children with a special calling.
When Angel is able to live her true self,
she is liberated. She has channeled her new energy to minister those who have
been struggling with gender identity crisis. Like the Samaritan woman, she
gives her testimony to Jesus’ salvation for all including gays, lesbians,
transgender and all sexual minorities. She has been able to embrace these people
with God’s unconditional love. As she receives the eternal living water from
Jesus Christ, she is able to become the living water that brings people
especially those who are marginalized and considered problematic by the
mainstream, back to God.
The Samaritan woman and Angel, both
socially and religiously rejected by the mainstream, are called by God to
reveal his glory and power. From them we
can see God’s unlimited imagination, unconditional love and boundless grace.
Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “But 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.”
Sisters and brothers, in receiving the spiritual water given by Jesus
Christ, may you be cleansed and refreshed, and live freely as who you are. In
being your true self, you are able to reveal God’s holy image and bring people
close to the God of love and freedom.
For the challenge this week, I would like to invite
you to do the following. You may choose one or do them all.
1) Pray to God for any part in your life that is
difficult for you to face and accept. Seek God’s grace to live authentically
and to live with honesty.
2) Share with a friend and convey your respect and
acceptance to him or her, and let him/her to live freely and authentically as
who he/she is.
3) Share a story about your faith journey with
someone. When you share it, see how it helps you and your friends draw closer
to God.
I would like to
sing you a song that I learned from the Plum Village – “Breathing in and
breathing out”.
Breathing
in, breathing out; breathing in, breathing out;
I am blooming as a flower; I am fresh as the dew.
I am solid as a mountain, I am firm as the earth; I am free.
Breathing
in, breathing out; breathing in, breathing out;
I am water, reflecting what is real, what is true,
and I feel there is space deep inside of me;
I am free, I am free, I am free.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, March 19, 2017
