Do You Know the Gift?

Do You Know the Gift?

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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading about Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well. Kind of like oil and water, the Samaritans and the Jews, they didn’t get along. Or you could say like Texas Longhorn fans and OU Sooner fans, the Red River Rivalry. So blatant was this hatred and abhorrence of the other that you can pretend that Texas was where the Jews lived and Oklahoma would be where the Samaritans lived and the Jews were traveling to Kansas, of course, to watch the KU Nebraska game. No, no, no, I’m teasing.

So on their way to Kansas, they would completely bypass Texas, going through the Samaritan area by going around it. So it would be like going through New Mexico and Colorado to get to Kansas or Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri to get to Kansas. But either way, they would never pass through the land of Samaria. That’s how much they hated one another.

So where do we find Jesus today? Of all places, smack dab in the middle of Samaria. And he, a Jew. Not only is he here in Samaria—where no Jews would ever, ever want to be caught in—but he’s walking there with his disciples even. It’s around the sixth hour, the text says, which means it’s around noon. So he stops at the well, Jacob’s well. And there he finds a woman who’s getting water.

Now put two and two together here. If you are running a household as a woman, you would not get water in the middle of the day. Because you need water first thing in the morning. So you would go first thing in the morning to the well, get your water, and then you would have water for the day. So what kind of a woman comes out of this city to get water in the middle of the day? The kind of a woman that is considered a prostitute or a loose woman. Because you can imagine, she doesn’t want to come out at the break of dawn with all the other ladies because there would be all of this about her. She doesn’t want to put up with that. They don’t want to see her.

So of all the times that he would choose, and Christ did choose this, he met her at this well at noon in Samaria, and she’s a woman of ill repute. And he strikes up the conversation. “Give me something to drink.” Thank you. Whether he needed something to drink or not, we do not know. But you know what? He wanted to engage her in a conversation. That was what was important to him—engaging her in this conversation to tell her about himself. That’s how much he loved this woman. That’s how much he wanted to ensure that her soul would be in heaven and that you’ll meet her someday.

Now the woman, when Jesus asks for this water, responds in the very stereotypical way. “What are you asking me for water? You, Jew, have nothing to do with me, a Samaritan and a woman, and a woman of ill repute, no less.” Jesus responds, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is talking to you.” Two important phrases: “if you knew the gift of God” and “who it is that’s talking to you.”

The gift of God of which he speaks is not literal water, but living water—the Holy Spirit’s gift to create faith. Who it is that’s talking to you is God—the God who created you, the God who’s going to die for you on the cross, the God who’s going to rise from the dead for you. The very God who comes to you in human flesh and blood. That’s who’s talking to you.

Now she doesn’t get it. She thinks in terms and looks at things through the eyes of the flesh and not through the eyes of faith. She thinks this water is another well that she doesn’t have to go to so far away. She thinks him to be only another human being and not God in the flesh. So she misses it.

Jesus doesn’t give up. Jesus is literally running after this woman, seeking her soul for his own. She even goes on to explain, “You don’t get it. You’re a Jew. I’m a Samaritan. Here’s where I find God. I find him here in Samaria. I find him at the top of that mountain where we have built. That’s where I find God.” So she doesn’t see him as God in the flesh, and she doesn’t understand this water thing.

Jesus corrects her on how to find God and where to find God. “You find God in the way that He has come to you and revealed Himself to you. Not in a way that you’ve created or have been told and have not tested. And where do you find God? But in the same way where God has shown Himself to be found and not where you have decided to find Him.”

It’s the same thing today, isn’t it? People looking for God will travel halfway around the world to the Holy Land to visit the Holy Land and to get a little bit of water from the Jordan River as if that’s going to do anything different than what’s coming from that book, the Holy Scriptures, or the promise that’s attached to that water and so on. But people do, don’t they? They go to places where supposedly the Virgin Mary has been seen in order to have a miracle in their life. Hmm, doesn’t seem to work, does it? They’ll go to a place that that place is where a vision was seen by someone or a miracle was done so that they can have that done to them, and it doesn’t work.

So then people are looking for him in other ways. “Maybe if I find him in serving other people restlessly, kind of like a Mother Teresa kind of a thing.” Jesus does not say in that scripture that that’s where he’s going to be found. Nowhere in there. So maybe if I align myself with the group of people who claim these wondrous things or do these wondrous things, then I will encounter God. You don’t find it there. He never says that. He doesn’t say that to this woman, does he?

What he says to this woman is, “Here I am. I am your God in the flesh. You are my children.” Now, when he says this, he says this to her in these words: “I who am speaking to you am he.” That shatters her whole point of view. Because here Jesus is God in the flesh. That shatters one thought. Secondly, he’s talking of stuff that I know not. Because she thinks and sees through the eyes of flesh and not the eyes of faith. This living water of which this God in the flesh speaks. And yet, isn’t that like people in this world too?

You know, we’ve got something pretty special here—very special here. You all travel a long distance to come to this church for many and various reasons. You pass by other churches, even other Lutheran churches, to come here. Maybe it’s family connections, maybe it’s friends, the people that you know. Maybe you come here because we have such an outstanding school and your kids went there, or your grandkids went there, or you yourself went there, so there is this connection. Maybe you come here because there really isn’t a more beautiful sanctuary in the whole city practically. Maybe you come here because of our unique worship style—so different.

Maybe you come here because of the music and the outstanding choir and bell choir. Maybe you come here because of the pastors. Well, at least we know two people come here because of the pastors—our wives. Or maybe you come here because of the teaching. But for whatever reason you come here, you don’t come for any other reason than that you have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ here. Because Jesus Christ has promised to come to you here through these means and in this manner that he has chosen and has given unto us through his Scripture. Right?

So when he comes to you today and says, “I who am speaking to you am he,” he literally means that. It’s very easy for us to take for granted what we’ve been given in this place. It behooves you and me to treasure what we’ve been given here among us in that word. It behooves us to acknowledge this gift that God has given because he’s the one that declared it to be of this fashion and this way.

Here I am. Because here is where your soul has been sought and found, isn’t it? And here is where your thirst is regularly quenched, and you know it. And here is where your hunger is satiated, and you have experienced such satiation. And yet, we don’t marvel at the fact that here God speaks to you. God speaks to you here.

And do you marvel at the fact that you speak to God here? There is a conversation that is going on. God is in the midst. Amazing.

So what kind of people does God then go to? If he loves such a woman as this Samaritan woman, sought her out, found her, called her, made her his own, he does it to people like us. Pastor and I aren’t always as loving and serving as pastors as we should be. To you and to other people, forgive us. You, as God’s children, are not as loving and serving as you should be. We forgive you. That’s the kind of people Jesus gathers around and pulls unto his breast that they may find rest.

Like this Samaritan woman, sinners. Sinners. Christ is here among sinners. Frail men, frail parishioners. Christ is here among sinners. Sinners. And he uses his word spoken by frail men, heard by frail people, to expand and extend his kingdom. Surely, there are other ways to do it than this. Not according to him. This is his way of doing it. Because here, he transforms lives. Imperceptibly, but he transforms lives. Yes. He’s transformed yours, imperceptibly, but he does.

Kind of like fungus, it slowly grows and takes us over. It’s a good thing. Here he illumines you and transforms you—you who do not love and serve as either of us ought. We can never express the gift and the value of this gift that he’s revealed to you and me. We can never fully esteem it, no different than the Samaritan woman could not fully esteem it.

And yet, we must learn from her. She did recognize by the Holy Spirit and did cling to this gift in spite of who she was. She left her water jar there—the very thing she came there to gather—and ran, because she recognized the gift by the Holy Spirit that this gift is Christ in the flesh in front of her. We can take a lot to learn from her. It’s very much in front of our face, isn’t it?

Second, she refused and turned her back on receiving God from her own theory or method as a Samaritan woman. She refused to take Christ as a Samaritan and took him as, well, took him as a sinner, didn’t she? Here in this place Christ has said, “Not as a Samaritan and not as a Jew will I be apprehended. I will be apprehended as a Savior by sinners.”

And that’s exactly what the Samaritan woman did. She took him at that. Finally, her life became a life of being a beggar. Daily she begged him for that water to satiate her soul and to quench that thirst. Daily she begged for the food from heaven, the manna from God, that she would be filled with him who is her Savior as a sinner.

Brothers and sisters, like that goofy song from the 80s movie, *The Urban Cowboy*, people are looking for God in all the wrong places. And you know that. You work with them. They’re in your family. They’re friends. They’re looking for God in all the wrong places and through all the wrong methods and means.

And you know what God did? God took a woman steeped in sin, no different than you and me, and God used her and her imperfect invitation to her fellow villagers in that town to come and see him. And by God’s grace, they did, didn’t they? And she, the town prostitute—go figure. God used this imperfect woman and her imperfect invitation and encouragement to these people to come, and they did. And God used this imperfect woman and her imperfect invitation, encouragement, and introduction to Christ to come. And they did.

But, as it says so quickly, many more believed because of His word, not because of the woman. Take the pressure off your shoulders, brothers and sisters. You’re not that important. You are important in getting in through the door. Let God do the rest, as He did in Samaria. He used an imperfect woman with imperfect methods and means to bring them to him, and his word converted them.

It’s the same way with you today. It’s the same way with you today. He wants to use you and your imperfect abilities, your quirkiness, your eccentricity, your *je ne sais quoi* of why you are who you are, and God will do the converting.

Listen to what they said. They said this to her. They said this to Jesus. They’re saying this to you: “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe. For we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” As it has been, so it will be with you.

In the name of him who redeemed you, a sinner, by being the living water that refreshes your soul and feeds it—Jesus Christ himself. Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.