“Laying Aside What Holds Us Back”

John 4:3-29…Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4 But he had to go through Samaria. 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.)  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 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, 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, can he?” 

HOMILY

Whenever someone truly encounters Jesus, invariably something gets left behind.

Peter and Andrew left their nets behind James and John left their boat behind.  Matthew left his tax booth behind . Blind Bartimaeus left  his cloak behind.

And here in the gospel lesson for this morning, we learn that the Samaritan woman leaves her water jar behind.

It may sound insignificant—a simple clay jar—but it was the very reason she had come to the well. She still needed water for drinking and cooking. Yet John tells us that when she met Jesus, she forgot about it. In his own words, John says……

“Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people. ‘Come see a man who told me everything I have ever done!’”

She came to the well looking for water. She left the well bearing a strong witness about Jesus.

That is what happens when Christ enters our life. Things we once carried with us everywhere suddenly become less important.

John Bunyan tells a wonderful story in “Pilgrim’s Progress”, a book he wrote while he was in prison for preaching the gospel. The main character, whose name is Pilgrim, travels with a terrible burden strapped to his back.

Throughout his long journey, day after day, night after night and mile after mile, Pilgrim is weighed down with this heavy burden. Alas he comes to the cross; and suddenly the straps break and his burden rolls off his back and tumbles down the hill never to be seen again.

Perhaps some of you have read Bunyan’s wonderful book.

Others of you may remember the old gospel song which was inspired by this part of his story.  And I quote. …….

“I remember when my burdens rolled away, I had carried them for years both night and day…When I sought the blessed Lord, and took Him at His word,  Then at once all my burdens rolled away”.

Sometimes life is like that. We carry things so long we hardly notice how heavy they really are—until the moment we finally set them down at the cross.

And so we are left with the question:  What are the water jars we carry?

Some of them are burdens—bad memories, regrets about the past, anxieties about tomorrow. Some are habits of the heart; things that slowly but surely weigh down our human spirit.

And sometimes the jars we carry are the things we hold tightly in our minds—our arguments, our opinions, our need to be right.

We live in a time when voices around us are loud. We hear people far and near touting partisan politics and tightly clinging to opinions and arguments about who is right and who is wrong.

Before long these arguments and opinions can become another proverbial water jar which we carry with us everywhere we go. And if we are not careful these opinions and arguments begin to define who we are more than our faith defines us.

We are wise to pay attention to what the woman does after Jesus tells her about Living Water.  She did not run back into town and say…“Come see a man who settled all our arguments.”

She did not say to the town’s people “Come and see a man who has endorsed all of my opinions”…….NO. Again I say NO.

She said, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.”

Her identity changed. She was no longer defined by the debates of her village. She is no longer concerned about where, when and how Samaritans or Jews are suppose to worship God.

She is not worried about the burdens of her past or the anxieties of her future. She no longer cares whose opinion is right or wrong.  Her identity is no longer wrapped up in her water jar.  She has a new identity; and it is all about Jesus.

And that is the quiet miracle of the church. People who may disagree about many things still gather around one well, one Lord, one well of living water.

I must confess I have had a few proverbial water jars which God has called me to leave behind.  When the session asked if I would come out of retirement and serve the Holmes Church, I had grown quite fond of my woodworking shop. I enjoyed the quiet hours working with tools and shaping pieces of wood with my own hands.

But then it occurred to me that long before Jesus preached a sermon or healed a sick person, he himself once worked with tools in His own carpenter’s shop.  But when the Father called him, he laid all his tools aside and walked another road. What he held tightly to, he left behind to follow the call of His Heavenly Father.

Remembering that Jesus left his carpenter shop, made it easier for me to leave the shop which had become my own man-cave for 12 years.

I could tell you of other proverbial water jars that have very narrowly defined me. There are still a few that I haven’t yet let go of.  But as I find the spiritual courage to let go, just like the woman in our story, I find myself drinking from a deeper well.

Isaiah prophesied about this deeper well; and Sharon rehearsed his words just moments ago. Allow me to read them once again.

“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food.  Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.”

Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

When we truly meet Christ at the well, we may discover there are things we no longer need to carry so tightly; some weight, some habit, some fear, some heavy burden…..something we need to leave behind.

And the question for us this morning is simple:  What is the jar we are still carrying? What might Jesus be inviting us to leave behind today. What can we let go of that will help us more fully follow Him.

I hear his call. Do you hear his call.  He knows all about us. He knows the heavy burdens we are carrying. He knows we are tired. He desires to refresh us. He desires to fill us.

So here is my charge to myself and to you. Let us leave every jar that weighs us down. Let us cast off everything that leaves us unsatisfied. Let us listen to the witness of the Samaritan women. Let us drink from the living water which Isaiah promised and which Jesus fulfills. And then let us run and tell the whole world so that they too can drink and be free. Amen.