The Third Sunday in Lent - 27 March 2011
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5;1-11
Saint John 4:5-42
 |
| St. Elias |
BACKGROUND: Background: The Books of Moses IV
The second of the strands that formed the Five Books of Moses is the E strand, which stands for the Elohist. This editor uses another name for God, Elohim, which is usually translated as “God” in most English Bibles. The E tradition is a northern tradition. After the Davidic kingdom split, around 922 BCE, a whole effort at reconstituting the national religion took place in the north as well. Here, however, the religion was practiced in the context of the Canaanite religious cult, and we see an emphasis in E about removing temples, images, and the cultus of other gods. The strand is focused on the period following Abraham, who is guised as a prophet. God is not seen as the one who walks in the Garden in the evening so much as the God who speaks from clouds, dreams, or fire. The major theological moment in E is the covenant that God makes with Israel, and this is cast in the form of a treaty with a suzerain (overlord to vassal) with all the blessings and curses that accrue to such a formulation. E is not interested in the monarchy (David) but rather an idealization of the ancient story and journey in the desert. Thus we are treated in E to a succession of stories of the patriarchs, many of which are located in the northern part of Canaan and the ancient patriarchal sanctuaries.
Exodus 17:1-7
From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?" But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?" So Moses cried out to the Lord, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." The Lord said to Moses, "Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink." Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, "Is the Lord among us or not?"
 |
| Moses strikes the rock. |
Placed over this particular story, and others like it, is a legal pattern called a riv, or a “dispute”. This seems a little strange as we follow a nomadic people fleeing in the desert. It seems almost too sophisticated. The dispute is indeed legal, and it is based on the covenant between God and Israel, a treaty or contract, if you will, in which the people have a complaint against the overlord. These stories are called the “murmuring stories” and involve either the lack of water (2 times) or food (1 time). The name of the place “Meribah” is derived from this notion of dispute and contention. Moses is very clear. The contention is not with him, or even possibly Aaron, his brother. The contention is with God. And now in a sort of Stockholm Syndrome, the people look back on Egypt as a place of plenty and comfort. The situation is miraculously solved with Moses’ remarkable staff, but that is not the point of the story. The point is that God and God’s people are in contention and testing – the whole focus of this journey through the desert. That is what makes this a remarkable reading during Lent.
Breaking open Genesis:
- Do you ever have disputes with God?
- How do you handle them?
- Does God test you? How so?
Psalm 95 Venite, exultemus
Come, let us sing to the LORD; *
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *
and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.
For the LORD is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands have molded the dry land.
Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the LORD our Maker.
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!
Harden not your hearts,
as your forebears did in the wilderness, *
at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,
when they tempted me.
They put me to the test, *
though they had seen my works.
Forty years long I detested that generation and said, *
"This people are wayward in their hearts;
they do not know my ways."
So I swore in my wrath, *
"They shall not enter into my rest."
 |
| Michelangelo - The Creation of Adam |
Those of you who pray Morning Prayer regularly will be quite familiar with this psalm, The Venite. It comes from a collection of Psalms (93-99) that seem to be celebratory in nature, an action of the public rather than by individuals. Also remarkable is that the psalm comes from a time when YHWH was seen as over-and-above all other gods, not just the one God, “and a great king above all gods”. Though some see this as a “coronation psalm” (God raised above all others) the focus seems more clearly set upon Creation. From this theme the psalm becomes more pastoral with the imagery of shepherd and flock. The choice of this psalm can be seen in the closing verses that make reference to the situation recounted in the first reading from Exodus. What is contrasted is a God who is both great and comforting, and a people who continue to complain.
Breaking open Psalm 95:
1. What does creation teach you about God?
2. When, during the day, do you pray? What postures do you effect in your praying?
3. What does God think of you?
Romans 5:1-11
Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person-- though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
 |
| The Suffering Christ |
Both the first reading (Exodus 17:1-7), and the Psalm (95) set up a pattern of contention and dispute between God and God’s people. In the reading from Romans Paul attempts to counter with a theme of reconciliation and peace. This is not to say that the difficulties of the desert journey are not without value. Paul produces a list of effects, “suffering produces endurance…” Paul becomes even more radical about the life and death of Jesus by claiming that Jesus died for the ungodly as well. There are a few fundamentalists that I would like to have wrestle with this notion. Christ is seen the ultimate proof of God’s good intentions, and of our ultimate benefit – a benefit which is worthy of our boasting.
Breaking open Romans:
- Do you have peace with God? How do you know this?
- Do you think that Paul is right? Does suffering really produce endurance?
- Would you die for a really good friend?
Saint John 4:5-42
Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 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.) 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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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." 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."
Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, `I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 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." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."
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?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" They left the city and were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 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. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, `One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. 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."
 |
| Jesus meets the woman at the well |
Ignored in my comments on the first reading, is the water that is so desperately sought by the Israelites. It is water, however, that connects the first reading to this morning’s Gospel. The scene is in the northern kingdom, Samaria in particular. The Samaritans are always suspect in the eyes of the New Testament, largely from their “impure” blood. Following the conquest of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians in ca. 720 BCE, the Assyrian policy was to displace the conquered population with peoples from other lands. Thus the descendants in the north were dismissed as mongrels by the people of Judea and the south. Jesus is in a tough place – and the woman he meets will take him on about what she supposes his attitudes are toward her and her people. Jesus obliges her, having a brief argument about the temple. This, however, is neither his point nor the point of John who preserves the story.
As a Jew, Jesus creates a remarkable set of relationships as he talks to a woman, a Samaritan, and a sinner. In such a dangerous and unfashionable conversation Jesus is able to disclose himself as a prophet who’s knowledge does not dissuade him from the Good News of forgiveness. He, in his musings on both water and temple is able to uncover what other more ancient prophets had taught – the worship due God “in spirit and in truth”. John wants us to understand the distinctions that Jesus makes, and so the argument is repeated, this time with the disciples. The woman repeats her story, and the outsiders (see Paul’s comments on the “godless”) come to believe.
Breaking open the Gospel:
- Are there “outsiders” in your Church?
- How can you tell them, what are they like?
- What would Jesus have to say to what you have described?
After breaking open the Word, you might want to pray the Collect for Sunday:
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment