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Good Morning, Bethel friends. In case you missed it, last week, we launched a series of sermons to help us understand the place of the church in society today, to help us understand the times that we live in and the Biblical response to all of its challenges. As Al walked us through last week, the ideas and the ideals of the church are being increasingly marginalized in twenty-first century Canadian society. In only a very few generations, the church in Canada has gone from being seen as a source of stability, guidance, truth, and justice to being seen as out-of-date, out-of-style and out-of-touch.
Last week, Al compared our current situation to the people of Israel having been hauled off to Babylon. Their temple had been burnt to the ground. The city of Jerusalem had been sacked. And now they were in a foreign land trying to be faithful to the God Who was largely unknown to the people around them. Their customs were -- at best -- looked down upon. At worst, they were abused for their distinctives.
Now that's a depressing way to begin a sermon... so why am I smiling? Only because this moment in history represents such an amazing opportunity. History is, after all, his story, and it is a story of redemption and deliverance from first to last. This is not the first time or the first place that the church has found itself in this kind of situation. And, believe it or not, feeling exiled in the world might actually be quite a healthy place for the church to be.
Consider, for example, the church in China. Under Mao’s rule, tens of thousands of Christians were sent to labour camps, and perhaps as many as half a million Christians were harried to death (according to an article published in the Economist in 2014). Check out the result:
Many experts, foreign and Chinese, now accept that there are probably more Christians than there are members of the 87m-strong Communist Party. Most [of those Christians] are evangelical Protestants.
That’s about two-and-a-half-times the number of Christians in China as there are people in Canada. Of course, in the same time-frame, the church in Canada, for all its material blessings and legal freedoms, decreased in size. But in China, there has been so much recent Christian influence in the corridors of power that there has been talk of much greater religious freedom for them. But here’s another quote from the same article toward the end:
...one Beijing house-church elder declared, with a nod to the erosion of Christian faith in western Europe: “If we get full religious freedom, then the church [in China] is finished.”
Isn’t that remarkable? When things appear disastrous for the church, it flourishes, but when things appear advantageous for the church, it withers. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with history: describing the lives of the earliest Christians, Rick McKinley writes:
Life for these believers was one of suspicion and persecution. Their newfound faith had nowhere within mainstream culture to rest its head, and their way of life was viewed as peculiar.
Does that sound familiar? If it doesn’t resonate with your experience as a Christian, you might only have to wait a few years. The life of the church today seems to be going in that direction. And yet, in spite of their marginalization, the early church grew remarkably. In his book The Patient Ferment of the Early Church Alan Kreider documents how, in spite of disincentives, harassment, and the occasional persecution, the church came to be seen as a refuge to an empire that was rotten at its core -- the good news of Jesus was attractive because those who held to it clearly had something special, something that the rest of the world was missing. The early Christians were people who lived differently; they were examples of patience, kindness, and generosity in a society longing for all those things. And so the early church blossomed.
But after a few hundred years, everything changed -- what had began as a disruptive influence throughout the Empire became a part of the mainstream. How did that happened? Well, along came this guy named Constantine. And when he became the emperor,
Persecution was over. [T]he faith that was once marginalized was now celebrated in the public square and the halls of government.
Of course, some people cheered that moment. Christians were able to enjoy a place in the sun. Christians were given some respect. Christians were given some freedom. But in only a few generations, the church became as corrupt as the empire was. Instead of Christians being able to define the empire, the empire took the opportunity to define the church.
When things appear disastrous for the church, it flourishes; when things appear advantageous for the church, it withers. Why is that? When the power-structures of society support the church, Christians become tempted to lean on them, and they lose their dependence on God. But when those structures are no longer a support, Christians must return to the only truly reliable source of security: they must once again rely entirely upon God. But the strong temptation among all people -- Christians no exception -- is to want a bigger piece of the pie, and a higher place on the ladder. In contrast, Jesus asks,
what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?
The greatest failure of the church throughout history has been its habit of selling its soul for a greater portion of the world: the respect of the world, a place at the table with the world, some influence in the affairs of the world. Sure: there is discomfort in being marginalized, and it isn’t fun to be mocked or derided. But Jesus also says:
If anyone is ashamed of me and my message, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in his glory....
So we have a choice to make. Are we going to hang onto the things of the world? Are we going to continue to grasp for more of the things of this world? Or are we going to trust in the one who conquered death, and follow the one who has had more of a positive impact in the world than everyone else in history put together?
The challenge for Christians has always been, and continues to be: following Jesus means carrying a cross even as he carried his cross -- it is and remains the only path to the resurrection, after all; it means a willingness to lose this life to find the eternal life that he alone can offer. And to so follow him means to embrace the exile that it implies.
In Philippians, Paul tells us that “our citizenship is in heaven.” Not on earth; in heaven. And in his first epistle, Peter tells us that we are “strangers and exiles [in the world]”, and -- as Al mentioned last week -- Peter addresses us as “chosen exiles according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” In the original language, the fact that we are exiles is every bit as much a part of God’s foreknowledge as the fact that we have been chosen. That is, God is very much aware of the unsettledness of our position. He is quite familiar with the discomfort we experience as exiles in the world. But it is all part of His plan. And God also works in this for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
But how are we supposed to behave as exiles? Well, that’s part of what this sermon series is intended to address. After all, the church has developed all kinds of bad habits over the last many centuries: habits of an institution close to the levers of power; habits that the church has actually acquired from the empire; habits that have got the church into a great deal of trouble as they compromise our message, and undermine our identity as salt (preservative) and light (guidance) in the world.
As ever, the best remedy to the church’s failures are to fix our eyes on Jesus. But we also need to appreciate that even the disciples were often not on the same page as Jesus. In the gospels, when Jesus was threatened, Peter pulled out his sword and took a swipe at a man in the crowd. But Jesus rebuked Peter, and healed the injured man. Sometimes, our instincts may be to fight when Jesus would call us to refrain. At another time, the disciples would have likely imagined (along with the rest of the culture) that the Temple, and all its activities, were sacred. But Jesus made a whip and drove out the animals and the money in order to purify that same Temple. Sometimes, our instincts may be to accept “the way things are” when Jesus would call us to take a stand. If the disciples were so routinely out-of-sync with their master, we need to proceed with great caution and humility.
But this morning, I’d like to focus on a particular encounter in the life of Jesus that can help us understand our role as his disciples in our cultural environment. This event takes place in a remote area. Jesus is far from home. The environment isn’t particularly welcoming. But in spite of that, he asked his disciples to go into town for some provisions -- and he was left all alone. And while he is alone, someone arrives with a bucket to draw water from the well. That’s when Jesus asks her for a favor. John 4:7,9 --
Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ... The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”
Now let’s appreciate that the attitude of the Samaritan woman here represented the society that she lived in. As far as she is concerned, a Jewish man asking a Samaritan woman for a drink is unthinkable. And yet here it is: it is happening right in front of her. Jesus is defying cultural expectations. And that’s the first lesson for his followers:
Don’t let others define you.
Now when the Samaritan woman asked, “How can you ask me for a drink?” she wasn’t trying to be pick a fight. She was simply reflecting the attitudes that she had encountered from Jewish men until now. In the culture of the day, the Jewish men would have had nothing but contempt for Samaritan women. But Jesus was by no means constrained by the attitudes or behavior of others. This is very useful to remember, since the church has made so many blunders throughout history. But we do not need to be constrained by their attitudes or behaviors.
What the woman was really saying with the words “How can you ask me for a drink?” is, “you can’t do that -- that kind of behavior doesn’t fit into the nice neat little stereotype that I have of you.” I imagine Jesus chuckled at her words. And we must not let others define us either. Don’t waste any energy making excuses for other people’s nice neat little stereotypes of you. Just break it. Go ahead: break it. That’s what Jesus did. As followers of the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth, those stereotypes have no power over you.
Instead, you have the freedom to provide dignity where no dignity could have been expected. You have the freedom to speak truth where the truth has gone out of style. You have the freedom to show love where the word “love” has only been a front for exploitation. You have the freedom to deliver hope into the lives of people who have given up hope. Don’t let others define you. Instead, define yourself as a follower of Jesus. Let's see what he says next.
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
With the words “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman,” the woman was reminding Jesus of history. History of oppression. History of abuse. History that would have connected the two of them to opposite poles in the dynamic of oppression. Him: man; her: woman; him: Jew; her: Samaritan. But Jesus isn’t playing that game. And that’s a very interesting point in a day and age in which the history of oppression looms so large. Instead, Jesus recognized this woman was a human being, and as a precious soul made in the image of God, she had needs in common with everyone else -- needs that were vastly more important than any labels. And this is our second lesson this morning. We must look beyond all the labels that we are told are so very important, and
Be sensitive to the need in every individual.
Of course, saying this could get us in trouble -- unless we actually live it. As Cyprian wrote in AD 256, “We are philosophers not in words but in deeds; … we know virtues by their practice ...; we do not speak great things but we live them.”
And when Jesus said "If you knew who it is that asks you for a drink." -- that is, if you knew him. "you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." Not only does Jesus recognize the need in this woman, but he knows exactly what it is that could fulfill that need, and is ready, willing, and able to supply it. But let’s read on:
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
Please notice that while Jesus found a way to agree with what this woman said, he did nothing that could be described as “affirming” her choices? Some folks seem to imagine that it is impossible to love someone without affirming everything about them. Clearly Jesus thought otherwise. And, as followers of Jesus, this is something that we need to learn, too. We must love people without having to affirm everything about them.
But please also notice, that while Jesus did nothing to “affirm” this woman’s lifestyle, he did nothing to condemn her either! Perhaps we also need to learn to avoid being so quick to condemn people, too. Of all the people Jesus ever met, this woman was likely high on the list of those that he could condemn. But he didn’t. He continued to dignify her with conversation, and let her immediately change the subject.
“Sir,” the woman said, “... Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
Having just been called out over the fact that she had been with six different men, the woman diverts the conversation toward a controversy that she feels certain to “win.” After all, she has heard countless times how wrong the Jews were in this regard. Similarly, folks today have heard the media or the academy tell us countless times how wrong the church is in so many respects. And you may have experienced conversations suddenly veering toward controversies yourself. Some people today are convinced that making reference to American politics, or scandals in the Catholic church, or the Spanish Inquisition, or the Crusades will immediately give them the upper hand in any conversation with a Christian. But please pay careful attention to how Jesus responds. The woman jumps for what she thinks is a window of opposition, but Jesus immediately turns it into a window of opportunity.
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem -- [a time] when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.”
The woman thought that by invoking an historic wedge issue, she could put Jesus on the defensive and save some face. But Jesus wasn’t playing that game either. Instead, he takes her chosen topic and uses it as an opening into which he speaks wisdom and truth. And that’s our third lesson today:
Don’t let others trap you in controversies.
Whenever we waste our time caught in the vortex of controversies, the enemy is quite content. It really doesn’t matter how correct we are. It really doesn’t matter how much in error the other guy is. That time is wasted. Jesus didn’t go around giving the final answers to all the controversies of his day. If anyone could, it would have been him! But he knew better! Instead, he was content to be continually asking good questions. Read the gospels and you will see for yourselves: his example is a master-class in avoiding controversies.
Do you remember when the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus? “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar,” they asked him. They thought there was no escape. If he said “yes,” he would look like a wimp and a traitor to the people. If he said “no,” they could report him to the authorities as a subversive. Instead, he asked for a coin, and asked them whose picture and inscription was on it. Of course, the answer was “Caesar”, and so Jesus rose above any controversy with his famous answer, “then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s.”
Please also note that Jesus’ answer to this woman implies that “his people” haven’t got it all together. As far as she is concerned, Jesus would have been expected to argue for Jerusalem as the place of worship. But he doesn’t. There is a higher Truth. Jesus doesn’t defend Jerusalem. Jerusalem is just a shadow of the reality to come. This is a principle that shows up in Paul's writings, too (Col 2:17):
For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality.
And as we follow Jesus, let us not get hung up on the shadows -- such an 'empire' thing to do -- but may we receive a clear vision of higher Truth that brings us back to Jesus. Here’s the end of their conversation:
The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
And that’s the final lesson for us this morning:
Jesus is the answer.
Now while this lesson might sound like the easiest one, it really is the most difficult. Sure: it is an answer that every Sunday School child might be able to repeat, but until Jesus becomes the answer in my life -- the answer to my hopes, the answer to my worries, the answer to my failures, the answer to my aspirations -- why should anyone listen to me if I tell them that Jesus is the answer in their life?
In the conversation we’ve just considered, Jesus first broke down a number of barriers. He avoided being defined by others. He recognized the needs of the woman as a human being and he brought her to the place where she was willing to acknowledge her need. He didn’t get trapped in controversies. Rather, he turned a window of opposition into a window of opportunity, and then -- and only then -- the woman was ready to hear that truth that she so desperately needed to hear -- that Jesus was truly the answer.
And in this conversation, we see a miniature of what Jesus would like to do for each of us. Just like he was willing to share in the woman's story, he wants to share in each of our stories, and bring us to the point where our story converges with his story. Then, he would love to give us that living water that wells up inside us and changes us from the inside out.
Jesus is the answer, but Jesus is smart enough to recognize that it is an answer that is really difficult to receive from a place of power. Rather, it is a message that is best received from a place of exile. Our Savior left his throne and came to walk among us and to be born as a baby into a poor family and into a marginalized community. Our Savior was willing to die the death of a criminal in order to get the message through to us.
Sure, there is discomfort in exile. It can be messy. It can be dirty. But exile is the soil in which the gospel can grow the best.
