Articles

In many ways I am tempted not to preach to you this morning but to just encourage you to sit quietly and to re-read a couple of times today’s Gospel. Not only is it a long piece to read in a service of worship it also contains things that can turn on its head what we might first think is going on.

At face value we read about Jesus asking for a cold drink from a woman drawing water from Jacob’s well. He’s obviously thirsty. We might be struck, however, by the fact that he has to ask the woman for a drink. Why didn’t she just offer him a drink when she was filling her buckets? It would seem the most human thing to do. It would be but the Jewish Law forbade it!

Firstly, women were not allowed or expected to talk to men outside their family or social circle. Secondly, why is a woman at the well unaccompanied at the hottest part of the day? 

Thirdly what is Jesus doing in Samaria? Not a place a good Jew would be seen in those days. 

The woman seems to have been an outcast in her town. She admits that she is living with a man, who is not her husband and that basically highlights her a a woman of ‘ill repute’. It explains why she is at the well when nobody else is as she would have been ostracised by other women and men in her town. You can read the shock of the disciples when they see what’s going on and they wonder what she and Jesus have been up to. So many taboos have been broken in this conversation and the biggest broken taboo is the fact that Jesus and his disciples are no longer on the Promised Land but in alien territory. 

Samaria was a no go place for the Hebrews because despite the fact that the Samaritans worshiped the same God they did not worship in quite the same way or places at the ‘good Jews’ of the first century did. The Jews so loathed the Samaritans that they preferred to add almost a week to their journeying between different Jewish territories.

To the good Jew, Samaria was a tainted country. The Samaritans worshiped the Hebrew God but they did not believe that he had to be worshiped most especially, in Jerusalem. The Samaritans built their temple on Mount Gerizim in Samaria which to the Jerusalem focused Jews made their worship inferior, (note: inferior not different). The Jews also disapproved of the fact that the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch was in Aramaic not Hebrew and the fact that the Samaritans did not acknowledge the poetic books and prophets writings really put them beyond the pale. 

So in talking to this Samaritan woman Jesus is really defying convention. He is conversing with a heretic woman about the Hebrew faith. He is also challenging convention by talking to a woman any way! For women were not part of God’s chosen people (only free born adult males were included in that gang). And, this woman is also rather questionable full stop.

Yet, it is this outcast woman who recognises who Jesus is. She is one of the first non-disciples to be converted by that knowledge and in her joy she sets out with missionary zeal to convert others:

^28”Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” John 4:28-9

The story of the Samaritan woman follows on from the story of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, a good Jewish male and the two stories are linked to make a point. That point being the fact that Jesus is not for the Jews alone but for all people who turn to him and acknowledge who he is.

In his encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus talked about being ‘born again’ which is something Nicodemus struggles to understand. Likewise the Samaritan woman fails to comprehend what the term ‘living water’ means. Both of them needed Jesus to explain what he meant. 

Jesus recognises in the woman a spiritual thirst and tells her that the water he offers will quench that thirst. He describes the living water welling up inside her and flowing eternally if she can accept his gift of living water, meaning the Holy Spirit. Just as Nicodemus had to be made to realise that being born again was spiritual not physical. 

Jesus is also very canny with the woman in his full acceptance of her, as she is. In no way does Jesus condemn her for her lifestyle. Because of this she is so taken aback and continues to express a deep interest in theology and worship, questioning Jesus again and again until at verse 26 he tells her who he is and why he can make her the offer of living water:

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

This quite literally overwhelms the woman and she is converted by what he has said and wants to tell others. This in itself is remarkable because a woman’s testimony was basically legally worthless, in both Hebrew and Samaritan society and added to that this was a woman of dubious morals. What is amazing is how willing to believe the woman the Samaritans were and that they went on to not only hear but to trust this Jewish Jesus for themselves.

Jesus’ encounter with the woman contrasts enormously with his meeting Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a very good Jewish man, educated and from a good family. The woman was probably uneducated, poor and in the eye of her society, shameful. She met Jesus while she was vulnerable at midday, away from others just as Nicodemus met him at night in secret. By putting both Nicodemus and this unnamed woman side by side in his Gospel account he shows that Jesus treated them equally with concern and respect. To Nicodemus Jesus says:

“I do not care how good you are, you still need to be born again.” 

And to the woman:

“I do not care how bad you are, I still want to give you the living water.”

New birth and living water are both terms for receiving the Holy Spirit, the salvation of God. They are gifts freely offered and given once and for all time after one has repented of one’s past sins. 

Jesus tells us that God’s love is so powerful that it can cleanse us from our past and free us from our addiction to worldly things as well. The only thing we have to be is ‘willing’ to change. Willing to open our hearts to his love and to invite him in. We must follow Jesus’ example and must not prejudge anyone, or be prejudiced against anyone for everybody has the opportunity to receive God’s love. 

It is not for you or me to decide who is acceptable to God or not. We have to learn to let God be the judge. What we have to do is to be willing to share our faith with others, easily and naturally but not in any ‘hard sell’ way that can put people off. I liken this to the way we sometimes entertain angels unaware. When we have conversations that go deep and change us and then never see that other person again. The Samaritan woman entertained the Messiah initially unaware, and the encounter changed her. 

If you only take one thing away from today’s readings In hope it will be the willingness to chat to others and to enjoy where the conversation may take you and them. You, may never know what your conversation might had led them towards or to do. Nor might they never know what it did for you. 

Today’s reading from Genesis, the story of Abram obeying God’s command and setting out on a journey without knowing its destination reminded me of a session we had in Synod in 2017. The topic was the mission and ministry of the church in this diocese. One speaker explained that he instinctively wanted a road map of the journey – the A, B, C & D as he put it – but that he had learned that A was enough and that, if you set out, B, C and D would follow. I warmed to his words because I too have an instinctive desire for road maps and have had to learn that they aren’t always available and that, if you set out in trust, the route will, bit by bit, become clear, though the destination may still surprise you. Abram set out with no real understanding of where B, C and D might be, and only a gloriously general hint of the X, Y and Z that would result: 

“…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”   

The journey would change him, even change his name. Abram is a name which confers high status – in Hebrew it means “exalted father”. God renamed him Abraham, which means “father of many nations”. So there were two senses in which he was being called to leave his comfort zone. Firstly, the geographical:

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you…” 

And secondly the vocational, the calling to move away from a society in which he enjoyed power and prestige in order to become Abraham the father of many nations and confer a blessing on the whole of humanity. 

The link between our reading from Genesis and today’s Gospel isn’t at first obvious but I think that both of them are stories about someone being called to leave his comfort zone. Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. He’s a Pharisee, a religious leader. He doesn’t wish it to be known that he is meeting Jesus and yet he is interested to know what Jesus thinks and believes. He begins by complimenting Jesus:

“We know that you are a teacher who has come from God for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

Jesus’ response is disconcerting:

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

The Authorized Version of the Bible translates that differently.

“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

The difference reflects an ambiguity in the Greek, for the Greek word that the Gospel writer uses can mean either “again” or “from above”. Nicodemus takes Jesus literally.

“How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus responds with a second use of the phrase “the kingdom of God”. 

“Very truly, I tell you, Nicodemus, no-one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.”

Why is Jesus using birth as a metaphor? Almost certainly because he is talking to a person, Nicodemus, who believes that he is a biological descendant of Abraham and sees that as an essential part of his religious identify. And Jesus, who can claim the same identity, suggests that that is very good but he challenges Nicodemus to think about what it means. 

Born of water? Water is cleansing and it changes things in other ways. Water moves things along.

Born of the Spirit? The Gospel writer uses a word which also means wind. That too is about movement and change, for the wind is an unpredictable, powerful element which blows things into different places, as the Holy Spirit can blow people into different ways of thinking and acting. 

And that is what Nicodemus needed – a different way of understanding and living out the wonderful tradition in which he had grown up, a tradition in which he was content and comfortable. Jesus encourages him not to a rejection of that tradition, but to a radical deepening and widening of it. He is reminding Nicodemus that there is something much richer and more generous in his faith:

“Are you, Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?”

He is reminding Nicodemus of his true vocation, the vocation to which God called Abram, a vocation that involves leaving one’s comfort zone. And Jesus makes that point forcefully. Today’s Gospel ends on a wonderfully generous and inclusive note:

“Indeed, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

And those words are both an echo of and an explanation of God’s promise to Abram:

“…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Lent is a good time to reflect on the questions which Jesus was implying in his responses to Nicodemus. 

“What are the deeper truths and the more profound challenges of the beliefs and traditions that I value?”

“Out of what comfort zone might the wind of God be hoping to blow me?” 

“Go on have another one. These chocolates are lovely and what harm will it do any way?”

“Just one kiss won’t hurt and who will know?”

“I know I can’t really afford it but ...”

Life is full of temptations. Every day we are faced with choices between doing the right thing or indulging our selfishness. Today’s readings are all about temptation and the problems it can cause if we don’t resist. Adam and Eve’s temptation by the serpent led to the fall of humanity and it took Jesus’ crucifixion to make things right between the Creator and the creation. Temptation always has a price to pay and sometimes that price is very high and sometimes it is paid by those who did not cave into temptation in the first place; like the abandoned spouse, following that ‘un-harmful’ kiss.

In the reading from Matthew’s Gospel account, Jesus is offered many temptations by Satan, things that perhaps, a purely human man, might have succumbed to. Power and untold wealth are always tempting (you only have to look at the world’s political leaders to see this) but Jesus sought none of these and was thus able to resist the devil’s offers. Jesus could see through the temptations for what they were; short lived, vain glorious trifles. How did he do it? Simply by focusing on the Kingdom of God and not on himself.

I say simply, and Matthew’s writings do seem to make it very easy for Jesus to say “No!”, but I suspect that Jesus did struggle as we do because he was after all human as well as divine. It is, however, his ability to resist the devil and his offerings that shows us his divinity.

We are not divine and we all struggle with temptation. We often give in and fail to live up to the standards we set ourselves but yet we can be assured that we are forgiven when we fail, if we truly repent. We are forgiven because of what Jesus did for us but we have to meet God part way and acknowledge what we may or may not have done.

Today’s readings as we begin our Lenten journey are all about acknowledging temptation and not giving into them. As I’ve indicated it is all too easy to give in but if we do so there are always consequences to face. Life is always going to be full of temptations, it is the way of the world but what we have to do is to continually weigh up whether or not giving into them is actually worth it. 

So what is your Lenten challenge? 

What are you trying to say “No!” to? 

What is your biggest temptation? 

Whatever it is pray for God’s help to resist temptation and to stick to your resolves. If you do slip up and give in, do not despair. Simply acknowledge your failure, learn from it and say “sorry” to God and to any you have hurt and then simply start again.

One often hears some folk described as ‘the salt of the Earth’.  A familiar phrase often used to describe a thoroughly decent, unpretentious person, perhaps a bit rough round the edges but good, nonetheless. To be referred to as ‘the salt of the Earth’ is a compliment and not an insult. 

Salt is a very plenteous chemical. We find it deposited underground, in vast caves; in the sea water covering the globe and within most living creatures and quite a few inorganic objects. It has, I believe, even been found on other planets!

Salt - is simple chemical compound, sodium chloride. NaCl, a combination of the 11^th and 17^th elements on the periodic table. Yet salt is more than just a combination of chemicals, its value is great and its uses myriad. Did you know that: 

Salt is most effective in stabilizing irregular heartbeats; that it is vital to the nerve cells communication and information processing and that it is vital for absorption of food particles through the intestinal tract.

For many years my family was unable to use salt in cooking as my late sister, always had very high sodium levels in her blood. As a result if we used salt at all it was to add to food after it had been cooked. When I began cooking for myself I discovered the effect that using sat in the actual cooking of food could have. How it enhanced the flavours. I also learned to be wary of how much salt I used as too much would always ruin a dish. I learned that salt is and can be good. Jesus was well aware of this. He knew that salt preserves food in hot climates; he knew that it kept the body functioning in the heat and that without it things were never so good. That’s why he says:

“You are the salt of the earth.”

Jesus uses this phrase to emphasise to his listeners the fact that they are of the very essence of creation, part of its structure and as such part of God. For God he implies cannot be divided from his creation. The idea of us losing our saltiness (which Jesus also suggests) is to warn us that if we do not pay attention to God’s ways then like un-salty salt we might find ourselves removed from creation and therefore outwith the love of God. Losing your place in God’s love is like being a light shining under a bucket – no use to anyone. Jesus tells us too that we are called to shine as lights in the world to enable ourselves and each other to remain salty. To remain within God’s love and kingdom, following his ways and laws.

God is our essence, we are made in God’s image, we are of God. We are the salt of the earth, integral to creation. We can accept, reject or ignore this but if we reject it we step outside the Kingdom of God and can end up wandering the unsalted lands of the unknown. To Jesus’ first hearers that would have been very scary. There was great fear attached to anything outwith the known. So his suggestion that we could lose our saltiness would have been a severe warning. For one of the chosen people to imagine that they could be outside the care of God would literally strike terror in them. 

As I hinted at earlier, Jesus combines his warning of not being salty, with the command that his followers do not hide their light under a bushel basket. He suggests, I think, that being salty means that we have to share our salt with others who do not know the ways of God or do not perceive his essence with in themselves. We should not hide our saltiness but encourage others to discover their own saltiness and connections with God. 

Not hiding one’s light is to be willing to share who we are with others; to be salty in their company. By our example of living we can then hope to enable them to discover their own salty nature and the ‘imago dei’ (image of God) deep in their own body and soul. 

Salt is good, you are good, creation is good and God is good. Choose to be salty, don’t hide who you are and enjoy being a part of God’s kingdom of love.

In the forty days between Christmas Day and Candlemas (also known as the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple) various events in Jesus’ life get jumbled up. We get the visit of the Magi at Epiphany to the young boy Jesus promptly followed the next week by Jesus as an adult being Baptised by John. This is then followed by Jesus calling his first four disciples  and beginning his ministry to the Chosen People. Then all of a sudden we are back with Jesus and his parents in the temple where he, as a baby, has been brought for blessing and his mother for purification. Christmastide is top and tailed by the events surrounding Jesus’ incarnation and the bits in the middle give us a potted history of his life before his death. 

It can appear to be very confusing this dotting back and forth in Jesus’ biography and it can make one wonder what happened in those so called hidden years of Jesus’ growing up. For all we are really told is that on another visit to the temple Jesus goes missing and is eventually found sitting with the rabbis listening to them and asking questions and sharing his own interpretations of Scripture with them. Not bad for a teenaged boy, but awfully worrying for his parents nonetheless. 

In all of this confusion of events Candlemas stands out as being significant. It is a commemoration today that marks the end of the Christmas celebrations (and once upon a time it was when folk took the decorations down) and firmly points us in the direction of Holy Week and Easter. Like John-the-Baptist pointing the way to Jesus as the Messiah, later in Jesus’ life, so today Simeon and Anna point the way to Jesus as Saviour and Redeemer; and like John they too indicate that his journey will not be easy and that it will cause pain to those who love him:

“³⁴Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”      Luke 2:34-35

I have always found those words; “and a sword will pierce your own soul” heartbreaking. One can only imagine what Mary and Joseph felt when they heard those words. They would already be wondering quite whom the child they cared for actually was and then to be told that their hearts would be broken in time to come, must have almost been too much to bear.  Knowing this, I can see why they got so upset when Jesus disappeared when they re-visited the temple in his teenaged years. They must have expected the worse. 

As we know the worse was yet to become but what they did not know was that through the trauma something amazing and glorious would dawn on that first Easter morning.

Candlemas is fully the end of Christmastide. In it we still see the light of the infant Jesus shining in the darkness but we hold alongside it darker undertones of prophesy that point to death and resurrection. Candlemas is thus the feast that unites both Christmas and Easter.