Sermon for February 24, 2008

Sermon for February 24, 2008
Exodus 17:1-7, Romans 5:1-11, and John 4:5-42

  Perhaps we should begin with the weather. At this point we simply want the winter to go away. Yet we sense that there may be more to winter than surviving it. It is part of life’s cycle. Suddenly the bright winter sunlight overpowers us with its beauty, and we are opened to new understandings. We sense that the deeper winter of the soul must be addressed. As we do that, we come to know ourselves, what we are made of, and who is walking with us on this journey through seven feet of snow into spring.

Today’s readings begin with the words: “From the wilderness of sin, the whole congregation journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded.”With this third Sunday in Lent we are at the mid-point of our Lenten journey. Again we have three passages from the Bible: a story from the Hebrew Scriptures in the wilderness after the people have been freed from bondage in Egypt, followed by another piece of that complex ancient theological argument we know as the book of Romans, and also the story of Jesus and a Samaritan woman at the well from the gospel of John.

The organizing principle may be found in the first words of the first lesson: “From the wilderness of sin, the whole congregation journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded.” Of course these stages refer to an actual long ago desert journey. And the wilderness of sin is actually a place. But life’s contemporary truth is carried in these ancient words.

As we move through the wilderness created by brokenness and sorrow, we too journey by stages, as the Lord commands. We grow in faith, moving away from the broken wilderness, in stages. We go through stages as we heal, or find reconciliation, or deepen faith.

These stages are found in the lessons today. The first stage of the journey through the wilderness is turning to God for relief from our problems. This is the complaining in the wilderness in the Exodus story. This is the desire to never go to the well again for water, expressed by the Samaritan woman in the last story. In this stage of our faith journey, we want God to deliver us from our burdens. And, as the first lesson suggests, this often happens.

But there is a second stage in this journey out of the wilderness. In this stage, we come to understand our suffering rather than avoid it. Look at verse three of the second lesson, Romans 5: “We know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” In this stage, we come into the spiritual presence of a love that is supporting and shaping us along the toiling way. It is not so much what we are experiencing, but with whom we experience it. Many people never make it into or beyond this stage of the journey through the wilderness of sin.

But there is a third stage in this journey out of the wilderness. It is a breaking open of a rock, or the breaking open of pre-conceptions or the breaking open of the way things have always been.

Moses breaks open the rock with his rod. Jesus actually speaks to and is willing to share utensils with a Samaritan and a woman, shattering social convention, and leaving the disciples embarrassed. As we move through the wilderness, we come to that stage in life when something is broken open.

But there is a fourth stage in this journey out of the wilderness of sin in these lessons. You can see it in the third lesson. After we move through the stage of asking God to take care of things, after we move through the stage of wisdom regarding suffering, after we move through the breaking down and the breaking into new understandings, comes another stage, the stage in which we sense the deeper meaning and purpose of our lives and the way we live.

There is always a deeper meaning in the gospel of John. Things like bread mean not only baked bread, but the bread of life. Birth, in John, means not only being born, but being born anew in baptism or spiritually renewal. In John water is not only that which is needed to sustain life, but also that which is needed to sustain life. This passage is not about thirst, but spiritual thirst and the encounter with the flowing streams of life itself.

In this stage of the journey, we discover the deeper purposes for our life and how our life fits with the lives of those around us. We begin to sense the deeper flow of things. We encounter the author of life itself walking with us in this journey.

But in these lessons there is a fifth stage as well. In this stage, we know ourselves and God. In the third lesson, the woman is amazed because Jesus knows her. In the second lesson, awareness helps us to know and trust in the love of God. We know reconciliation with God, each other, and our own conscience. We find ourselves in deep and humble awareness of ourselves, others, and the world around us, reconciled and renewed.

“From the wilderness of sin, the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded.” After we move through the time of asking God to take care of things, after we move through the time of wisdom regarding suffering, after we move through the breaking into new understandings, after we sense the deeper meaning of our experience, we come to know ourselves. We discover that God knows us. We know that we are loved by the unknowable grace that has sustained us all through this journey with its many stages.

Perhaps we should end with the weather. At this point we simply want the winter to go away. Yet we sense that there may be more to winter than surviving it. It is part of life’s cycle. Suddenly the bright winter sunlight overpowers us with its beauty, and we are opened to new understandings. We sense that the deeper winter of the soul must be addressed. As we do that, we come to know ourselves, what we are made of, and who is walking with us on this journey through seven feet of snow into spring.

 Pastor Ken