Lenten Devotional 2017 - Restored: Finding Redemption in Our Mess

Scripture

John 4:5-42 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)[ a ] 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to

him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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."

15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you[ b ] say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26 Jesus said to her, "I am he,[ c ] the one who is speaking to you."

27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" 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,[ d ] can he?" 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33 So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" 34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving[ e ] wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, "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."

Meditation

Tribalism - Tom Wilkinson

Whether I want to admit it or not, I'm a numbers guy. I studied engineering and economics in college and grad school, and worked as a financial econometrician for many years at the Chicago Board of Trade. So I have a certain affinity for numbers, and I am intrigued by how numbers appear throughout the Bible (not just the book but the digits). Genesis 5 tells us that Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. Why didn't the writer of Genesis just round up and make it an even 1000? And seriously folks, does anyone really believe the literal truth of that number? The number 40 pops up here and there - Noah and his motley crew endured 40 days and 40 nights of the deluge; the Hebrew people wandered in the desert for 40 years; Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness; and, even today we are in the midst of the 40 days of Lent. The number 12 shows now and then - Jesus called 12 disciples; 12 tribes comprised Israel - which brings us to the topic for today: tribalism.

We humans have an irresistible urge to group and identify ourselves with "tribes," whether defined by race, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, neighborhood, political affiliation, or even institutional loyalty; for example, Florida or Florida State, Duke or UNC, Purdue or Indiana (sorry, couldn't resist that one today on the NCAA basketball tournament "selection Sunday"). I don't know why that is, perhaps it's a need to live in a simple world -- up or down, left or right, us vs. them, black or white - but it leaves us separated and divided from each other. Jesus calls us to live in the non-binary gray areas, where life happens.

And that's exactly what's going on in the text for today. Jesus confronts our tribal nature head-on, and very personally, when he encounters the un-named Samaritan woman at the well. It's interesting to me that the writer of John goes into great specificity to identify that particular well, Jacob's well, in the town of Sychar, Samaria, but doesn't name the woman. That had to be intentional, and it opens the door for all of us to identify with her and her encounter with Jesus, who calls all of us to drink from the same well, the same fountain, for the living water that Jesus offers to everyone, Samaritan, Jew, Christian or otherwise.

Then notice what she does next, after her encounter with Jesus. She is irrepressible in her recounting of the tale to her kinsmen and kinswomen, and many of them come to faith as a result. What a role model for all of us!

We moderns may be tempted to think that we live in a post-tribal world, but we don't. Consider the plight of a trans-gender person seeking relief at a public restroom in North Carolina. And it's within my generation that "whites only" and "coloreds only" drinking fountains existed throughout our nation, especially in our region. Shameful, to say the least.

Jesus calls us to rise above our tribal instincts and embrace a grace-filled world without walls and obstacles that separate us, and live into a world "with liberty and justice for all."

By the way, "all means all."