Sermons

February 24, 2008

“Unfolding Truth”

Rev. Phil Blackwell

John 4:5-42

This is the book we are reading for our science-and-religion discussion Saturday morning, Death By Black Hole, by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson is this generation’s Carl Sagan, an astrophysicist who makes it all understandable. He is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

In one of the forty-two essays in this collection Tyson describes the unfolding of the truth about the universe. We once believed that we were at the center of God’s creation and everything revolved around us. Yet, as early as the 3rd Century B.C. Aristarchus of Samos doubted it, proposing that the sun was at the center of our system. It was almost 2000 years later that Copernicus, by publishing his De Revolutionibus in 1543, firmly placed the sun, not the earth, at the center of the known universe. And a revolution it was, turning around our thinking about ourselves.

But, at least our solar system was at the center of the Milky Way. About 100 years ago we discovered that we were not at the heart of the Milky Way, but far off to one side. But, at least the Milky Way was at the center of the cosmos – until a few years after when it was discovered that the Milky Way was just one of a multitude of galaxies that comprise the universe. And it was not very prominent. Tyson puts it this way, the Milky Way was “an insignificant smudge in a multibillion smudge-universe that was vastly larger than anyone had previously imagined.”(p.46)

Unfolding truth that has put us in our place in God’s universe, not exactly at the center of the cosmos as we had claimed for ourselves. The truth often unfolds over time, not all at once, and we must learn to adapt to it. In the case of the stars, it is a truth that unfolds from a tiny self-centered creation of our own imagining to something of God’s doing that seems to be infinite and still growing.

So it is with the Samaritan woman at the well; this is a story of unfolding truth. John the gospel writer is a storyteller par excellence. He is not a reporter; this is not the BBC on the scene of the meeting of Jesus and this woman. Rather, John provides us with a narrative arc that tells us about life, about faith, and about understanding.

The woman walks from her Samaritan village with her water jar to Jacob’s well on the edge of town at noon, the hottest time of day. And there she encounters a man, a Jewish man. And he speaks to her, “Give me a drink.” This is stunning in its own right. A man did not talk to a woman in public. A Jew never talked to a Samaritan. And certainly they never would have drunk from the same cup. Contamination, that is what would result, contamination of the Jew by the unclean Samaritan. So, the first truth for her is that this is a unique Jewish man.

They both are thirsty, and they talk about water . . . the water of the well, and, as we know but she does not, the living water of faith offered by Jesus. It is a conversation that will make sense to her only in retrospect.

“Go back to town and bring your husband here,” and she says, “I have no husband.” Jesus replies, “You tell the truth. You have had five husbands, and the man with whom you live now is not your husband.” This has led centuries of commentators to conclude that this woman was a sinner. Five husbands, and now living with a sixth man. But, Jesus does not treat her as a sinner. There is no judgment in his voice.

Maybe she was a victim of the old levirate system outlined in the scripture where a widow was obliged to marry her dead husband’s brother if the brother so chose. Remember, marriage was not about romance but the economics of the extended family. Maybe she was unlucky to have a series of husbands die, she had to marry the next in line, and now she was down to a brother who already was married but cared for her livelihood. Who knows?

What this part of the story does for the woman, though, is that it unfolds another layer of truth. Not only is this a unique Jewish man, he also is a prophet, a seer, a perceptive character who can detect things that are not obvious on the surface. The woman begins to feel her thirst for knowledge and says, “We Samaritans believe that we should worship on this mountain but you Jews say that everyone must worship in Jerusalem.” And Jesus, at his prophetic best, says, “The hour is coming, and is here now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” It does not matter where you are but that you are filled with God’s spirit and open to God’s truth.

She responds, “I know that the Messiah is coming, and he will make this happen.” Jesus, without a moment of hesitation, claims, “I am he.” Truth unfolding before her very eyes – from unique Jewish man to prophet to Messiah.

Now, the disciples enter the picture. Up till now it had been a discourse of disclosure between the woman and Jesus, but the disciples interrupt it. They are astounded, alarmed, that their leader is talking to this unclean woman, but they have learned not to question Jesus’ decisions to his face. The woman hurries off to town, and the disciples begin to talk about lunch. “We need food and something to drink out here in this god-forsaken place, if you excuse the expression, Jesus.” But, as always in John, Jesus spiritualizes it. “Look, this is not god-forsaken. Here is a field ripe for harvesting. God’s spirit already has plowed, planted, and watered. Now, we are to reap the harvest.” In the arid landscape of the Samaritan settlement there is a harvest to reap. In the concrete cityscape of the secular homeland called “The Loop” there is a harvest to reap.

Back in town the woman has become an evangelist, a witness. “Come and see a man who might be the Messiah!” And the people rush to the site of the well, see and hear Jesus, and believe. They move from secondhand witness to firsthand experience. “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.” The last unfolding of the truth – from unique Jewish man to prophet to Messiah to Savior of the world.

Sometimes people will tell us that the truth can be known instantly. It comes in a single moment all at once. I suppose that can be true, but I think for most of us it is like the woman at the well, we see truth unfolded bit by bit over time.

The truth of God’s love unfolded for me in a youth group when I was loved back into the church.

The truth of God’s justice for all unfolded for me when I looked into the eyes of a Sumatran coffee bean picker who had her infant daughter strapped to her back.

The truth of God’s hospitality unfolded for me when a lay woman devoted to a simple life of church work shared all she had in the cupboard in order to feed two very hungry strangers.

The truth of God’s beauty unfolded for me as I sat in a cathedral in Budapest and heard to Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio.”

The truth of God’s courage unfolded for me when a United Methodist bishop was arrested for crossing police lines at a church conference in order to insist that all people are welcome in God’s house, no matter what one’s sexual identity is.

The truth of God’s persistence unfolded for me as I sat with an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s who repeated from memory the Lord’s Prayer with the ease and joy of perfect recollection.

The truth of God’s power unfolded for me over my decades of ministry as I have seen women, African-Americans, Asians and Asian-Americans, Latinos, and people of all sorts who do not look like me, a white male, emerge as true and faithful leaders in the Church.

The truth of God’s abundance unfolded for me as I hiked through the pine forests up in the mountains of Utah and walked on a carpet of pine cones, countless seeds of reproduction, almost as many as the stars in the sky.

The truth of God’s variety unfolded for me as I looked around at the leaders of the city’s Interfaith Thanksgiving Service that we host here in our sanctuary and saw Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Jews, Mormons, Native Americans, and Christians of all sorts.

The truth of God’s forgiveness has unfolded for me time and time again when I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and God has coaxed me back into the fold.

The truth of God, seldom revealed all at once; often shared bit by bit over time. And our first realization that something truthful is about to happen is when we acknowledge that we are thirsty. The Samaritan woman would have missed the truth in Jesus Christ if she had not gone to the well to quench her thirst.

On Tuesday evening I was rushing out of the office to get to a board meeting at Methodist Youth Services when I was met at the door by a young woman dissolved in tears. I recognized her as the person at the front desk who checks me in at the doctor’s office just down the street, and she knew I was a minister here because of talk we had about scheduling appointments.

She said that she had nowhere else to go. Her grandmother was dying, probably that night, and her mother, who has cancer and ought to be at home away from the public, was at the nursing home. She said, “I’m scared, I’m worried, and I don’t have any faith. I know I should, and I’ve been to church, but I don’t believe anything, nothing that helps me now.” So, we went back into my office and talked, and I prayed on her behalf. She is with her family now, and I hope to talk to her in a few days.

She was thirsty, and she had nowhere to turn but to the Church for water of any kind that might quench that thirst. Knowing that we need something is the first truth to be unfolded to us. The woman at the well may have been without understanding, without faith, but she was not without God. God was there by her side, independent of her faith. And so, too, with the young woman sobbing over the death of her grandmother, God was with her even without faith.

We Wesleyans have called that “prevenient grace” over the years, the grace of God that comes to us even before we know it. It is the grace that alerts us to our thirst, to our need, to our readiness to receive the truth as it is unfolded bit by bit over time.

What happens when we begin to see the truth about us? We see our neediness. We are not self-sufficient. We are not self-made. We are not admirable people some of the time, much of the time. We confess that to God.

And the truth that stuns us, that changes our lives radically if only we believe it, is that God forgives us, God embraces us as the loving parent embraces the prodigal child. That sets us free. We no longer have to carry the burden around of having to prove ourselves to everybody all the time. What a weight taken from our shoulders! That means that we can direct all of our energy and attention toward others, toward helping others, toward witnessing to others about the truths we have seen unfolded. Become evangelists, if we can reclaim a perfectly good word misused by some in the Church.

And all of this, extending our Wesleyan notion of truth to its conclusion, is so that we can live a life each day that serves the needs of others, to live a Christ-like life.

This Lenten season let us acknowledge our thirst. That is the first step toward faith. It opens us to the revelation of new truths. Okay, so we went from being the center of the universe to being one of eight planets orbiting the sun to being one of many solar systems to being in a galaxy on the outskirts of the universe to being an “insignificant smudge” in the universe. We can live with that; it will not kill us to know the truth.

But, to go from unique Jewish man to prophet to Messiah to Savior of the world, to go from parched to quenched with a living water that will not run dry, to go from a life of regret and disappointment to a life of fulfillment – now that is an unfolding of truth that gives us life. That is the life that God offers us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. May we drink deeply of that truth. Amen.

Philip L. Blackwell
The Chicago Temple
February 24, 2008