The text for this sermon is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. You can read it here.
There’s a theme in the gospel stories which gets picked up by the early church, and especially Paul, and it sits at the centre of Christian community.
It’s the theme of a counter-cultural alternative.
I see this theme threading through pretty much all of Jesus’ teaching and ministry.
He talks to and eats with people who his culture and religious identity tell him he shouldn’t talk to or eat with – tax collectors, women, Romans and Samaritans to name a few.
He touches and heals those his culture tells him he should not touch or heal, and he does this on all the days, including the one day when his religious community forbids it.
He also tells stories that go against the normal values and standards of his time and his people.
The good Samaritan is a counter cultural shocker, as is the parable of the workers in the vineyard who all receive the same – a day’s wage – even when some have worked 8 hard hours and some have hung about doing nothing for most of the hot day and then only worked 1 easy hour in the cool of the evening.
What kind of world is Jesus describing when you can’t hold on to your sense of just desserts or make sweeping generalisations about people based on their ethnicity?
I’ll tell you: a counter-cultural world.
The parable of the forgiving father with the profligate younger son and the prudent older son shows us again this counter-cultural alternative.
You don’t get what you deserve when what you deserve is rejection or punishment, and you can’t earn anything more by good behaviour than what God is already delighted to give you.
I think we all understand and value this idea of a counter-cultural alternative community at some level, because here we are on a Sunday morning, when we could be anywhere else doing any of the other things that are on offer out there.
But we are here. We value this. We are giving time, energy, money, talents and gifts in service to this community, to God, and to God’s mission of healing and reconciliation.
But I believe there are more sides to this counter-cultural alternative than we are comfortable with and some of those aspects are threaded into this story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman.
There is the thread of unexpected friendship.
We like to think we can choose our friends based on what we like, on shared interests or sense of humour or a complement to our natural inclinations – quiet people sometimes like to have very outgoing friends so that they can do all the work of making conversation and connection.
Disorganised people like to have friends who make all the arrangements and take care of details…
But it seems that Jesus is willing to make friends with anyone.
How does that sound to you?
There’s also a thread of a counter-cultural style of evangelism in this story.
A Jewish man and a Samaritan woman connect in a conversation which has layers of meaning that are deep and subtle.
She is honest with him and he is honest with her.
The Jesus we encounter in John’s account of the gospel often has supra human knowledge – knowledge that is beyond human capacity to acquire.
So here, Jesus is honest not just about her situation when he affirms her confession that she has no husband and then elaborates on that truth, but he’s also honest with his own confession about his situation – that he is the Messiah.
It’s this moment of shared honesty – of what was hidden being known and of being given the gift of that secret – which generates the woman’s evangelical momentum.
‘I met a man who told me everything I’d ever done’, she says, although according to our record of the conversation this isn’t strictly true.
Nevertheless, something of deep significance happened in this exchange and a bond was formed that created a set of ripples which still flow out from its centre.
The woman goes back to the city and tells people she has met someone special.
She says to them ‘he couldn’t be the Messiah, could he?’ and the way she asks that question, the answer ought to be ‘no’.
Perhaps because she leaves room for people to come and find out for themselves rather than telling them outright what she already believes to be true,
(and then trying to convince them of it),
the whole town want to meet this Jesus and hear him teach and see what he does.
How does that sound to you?
Lastly, in this story there is the thread of a counter-cultural understanding of family as community which we are so familiar with we don’t even notice it.
Jesus has made of the disciples a band of brothers and a circle of sisters. He has reformed family which incorporates unexpected and sometimes uneasy friendships.
There’s no doubt that this is absolutely intentional.
Jesus states it most clearly in the stories where he is teaching in a house and there are crowds gathered around him and people are going bananas about him, following him and probably speculating mightily about whether he’s the Messiah.
And his family – his mother, brothers and sisters – are getting seriously worried.
They send messages and try to get to him to perhaps give him a pep talk or get him to calm down his activities and be less out there.
And when Jesus hears that ‘your mother and brothers and sisters are asking for you’, he looks around at the people gathered there listening to him and says that they are his family.
He says that family now means something different.
Paul picks up this idea and runs with it, he says there is no distinction of status or of worth. Male and female are equal in belonging, free and slave, a member of God’s chosen people or not – all have a seat at the table, all have a voice in the conversation, all count the same.
And I think we do get that to some extent.
But.
Generally speaking, we still make a big deal of our nuclear or extended family.
Family comes first, we say, and there’s lots that is good about that.
The family home is meant the be the place that, when you find you have to go back there, they have to accept you. It’s meant to be a place where you can’t not belong.
But it’s not always true, is it?
Sometimes, and for some people, family is the place where you are least able to be your self.
You can fit in, if you are willing to hide or deny parts of yourself, but you won’t be – can’t be – accepted for who you truly are.
For better or worse, the family is a system of relationships which forms us.
Each family has different values and so what is normal in one family is weird in another, behaviour that is rewarded in one family might be punished in another.
Really, there is no such thing as Family Values – not in a general way – and Jesus doesn’t come close to fitting the norm of what Family Values is meant to stand for.
Jesus creates and expects us to be part of a counter cultural way of being family.
But we all grew up with an experience of family, and the values and expectations of our family stay with us, often very strongly and also without us being very aware of how particular those values and expectations are.
Your experiences in your family are all different, even siblings can have different experiences of growing up in the same family, and without thinking, we bring those experiences and expectations into our church family.
So, there are three threads to pull here – I suggest you pick one to journey with this week:
Firstly, what does it mean for us as church family to live into the counter-cultural version of community? What are your expectations of this family and do they fit with Jesus’ style of acceptance and belonging? Who might God be inviting you to include, to see and love as a full and honoured member of the family?
Or
Who would you count as an unexpected friend? How might you open your heart to friendship this week? Is there a teeny tiny corner of your blanket you can share, or will you let someone else do something better than you, or will you share a secret only you know, give a freedom to another which you have been holding back?
And/or
What would you say about Jesus – what is the deep significance of your story, your encounter, your bond with Christ that sends ripples through your life?
How might you offer that as a question to others as a counter cultural style of evangelism?
Saint Peters Presbyterian Church 