November 5, 2006

Changed by an Unchanging God

by Rev. Dr. Jim Carlson

John 4

Trip to Rochester Deli: My skepticism when built. It was downtown. Businesses often struggle here.

Had dinner a couple times there. Great food. I didn’t know if that was enough.

Went to lunch the other day – the place was packed. Despite conventional wisdom and expectations.

Example of people who challenged preconceived notions about where and how businesses should be run.

Similar dynamic in John 4. Jesus goes through Samaria on the way to Galilee to escape trouble with religious leaders. Hatred of Samaritans among Jews.

Jesus sends disciples to buy food. 12:00 noon. Meets woman who is at the well drawing water.

Asks for a drink. Woman criticizes Jesus for breaking rules of professional conduct for Rabbis.

Jesus tells her he’s different from other Rabbis – Living water. Implication – Jesus is all she needs for salvation.

How does he prove it? Asks her to call her husband. She says she has none. He tells her she’s been married five times and is living with someone while unmarried now.

She realizes Jesus is different from other Rabbis. Goes back into town and tells other people about him.

People are convinced that Jesus is the Messiah.

Now what I want to focus on is the tremendous life change this woman experienced. Let’s admit it. Change is hard. In the church, we don’t like it all that much. Churches get to a place they like and they want to keep things that way.

We’re human like everyone else. We like our comfort zone. The only person in the church who likes change is the baby in the nursery with the wet diaper. They love change in that room. And even in the nursery, once kids find a video they like to watch, they want to see it over and over again.

But the nature of life itself is change. Everything from the kinds of cars we drive to the words we use in speech to our buying habits to the appliances we use in the kitchen. So it’s not that we don’t change. It’s that we want a level of control and comfort in our lives. And the perception that somehow things will be like they are for a while helps us maintain that kind of comfort.

But when we read a story like this one, we can’t get around the fact that change is the theme. In fact, change is the theme throughout the gospel of John. Jesus changes the water into wine. He changes Lazarus from a dead man into a live man. He changes a blind man into a seeing man. He changes the weather from stormy to calm.

And in this chapter Jesus’ interaction with this Samaritan woman is the catalyst in her change from being a pariah in her community to being the one who announces God’s salvation and leads many people to salvation. It’s hard from this perspective to see just how sweeping of a change that is for her.

Keep in mind that at that time there was a very clear and strictly enforced chain of command in society. And this woman was at the bottom of the totem pole. If there was anyone in her community who was least likely to have any influence over his community’s understanding of God, it was her.

Think about it: She was a woman, she was a Samaritan, she was unmarried, and she had the worst reputation as a completely immoral person. Think about who would be the equivalent to a woman like that in today’s society. How many people would be willing to listen to the words of a prostitute or a drug addict or a homeless person?

But the people who knew her took one look at this woman and realized something profound had happened to her. She had been transformed. She was a changed person. And everyone wanted to know how this happened.

It didn’t matter that she was at the bottom of the totem pole. In the world of this Jesus guy she met, there was no totem pole. People were no longer defined by their society, but instead by the grace and power of Jesus’ love.

What I want to do this morning is talk about how you and I can claim her story as our own story and experience the kind of transformation she did. Yes, I know, most of us been going to church for a long time. Some of us might be tempted to say, “If I haven’t been transformed yet at my age, I’m not sure it’s ever going to happen. And I’m not sure my body can take it!”

Believe me, I get that. I think the transformation we need to look at is in ourselves as a congregation. Let me approach it from this way. I think one of the most uncomfortable things for people in church is change. Things are the way they are because we like them that way.

Yet in the world, we hear about nothing else but change. Businesses that don’t change with the times go out of business. Schools that don’t update their curriculum get left behind. Professionals must constantly participate in continuing education or their skills will become obsolete.

Most folks in the church get tired just listening to people say these kinds of things. If there was any place in a changing world where things could remain the same, couldn’t it be the church? Why not leave things the way they are? We’re comfortable here.

Believe me, I understand that sentiment. The problem is that this approach goes completely against the grain of what we see in John. If the people who encounter Jesus in John come away from the experience completely transformed as people, why should we expect to be any different?

I think any congregation that doesn’t continually experience transformation is missing the boat. We can’t claim this woman’s story for ourselves without embracing change in some form or another.

I would also challenge the conventional thinking which says that we’re comfortable with things the way they are. Some of you have expressed a desire to be a stronger witness in the community than we have been in the past. In fact, I don’t know that there’s anyone in the congregation who doesn’t wish us to be more effective in reaching out to the people in our town who need Jesus.

In that sense, I think there are a lot of us who want some kind of change. I’m not saying people want to change our style of worship. I’m not saying people want to replace the organ with an electric guitar. I’m just saying that people in this congregation are not satisfied with the feeling that there are all kinds of people in our community who are not being reached, and who could be reached for Jesus by the ministries of our church. And in that sense, they want change.

I applaud that sense of dissatisfaction. I affirm the desire to reach out to the community and meet people where they’re at and offer people a chance to experience Jesus for themselves. If we didn’t have that desire, I’m not sure we would be right to call ourselves a church.

So why do I bring this up during the season of the year when we talk about budgets and pledges? Well, I think in order for people to be convinced to donate to the ministries of their church, they need to believe that change is possible. If people don’t expect transformation in their lives and in their community, then they lose hope and they look for a more hopeful place to donate.

I hope we can couple our desire to do a better job of reaching out to people with a hope and a belief that Jesus actually can and does change the lives of individuals. I believe that 2007 can be a year of great transformation for us. I think we have all kinds of opportunities to reach out in love and help people experience the one who died so that we could live.

Now I will say this: it won’t be easy. We need to recognize that the church has to contend with credibility issues the likes of which it has never dealt with before in this country. It also has to contend with a society that more and more is rejecting the idea of God’s very existence.

In the past, churches were seen as an honorable institution that helped people and provided a moral compass for the community. Churches were viewed as the place in the community where the poor and the downtrodden could go for help. People who were associated with the church were the most respected people in the community.

But we no longer enjoy that much automatic credibility. We have to contend with the fact that an embarrassing number of churches are in court trying to deal with allegations of clergy sexual abuse. We have to contend with the fact that in our own town people have embezzled money from their own churches. That kind of thing makes us all look bad.

We have to contend with the fact that in many churches people have interpreted the Bible in a way which perpetuates thousands of years of sexism and racism and cultural superiority.

We have to contend with the fact that across the country churches have spent more time and energy trying to fight amongst ourselves over our interpretation of the Bible passages dealing with homosexuality than we have feeding the poor and housing the homeless and liberating the oppressed of our society. And that kind of misplaced energy just turns people against us.

When you consider the kinds of uphill battles we seem to be saddled with it’s very easy to lose hope and being to see ourselves like the disreputable woman Jesus met at the well. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think there was hope. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t convinced that we can undergo a similar transformation at such a late date in our church’s existence.

I believe we can reach out in effective ways to the people in our community. I believe our congregation has something meaningful to say on behalf of Jesus. I believe we can be a place of light and refuge and empowerment and healing for the people of Waukesha. And I believe 2007 will be a pivotal year for us.

Why am I so confident? Well, take another look at today’s story. All of the limits placed on this woman by her society instantaneously became irrelevant when she encountered Jesus. None of what people believed about her mattered. None of her own insecurities and doubts got in the way.

And I think the same thing is true for us. We are not limited by the clergy sex scandals that have plagued so many churches. Our God can overcome that barrier. We are not limited by the fact that financial improprieties have taken place in some churches. Our God can get us over that hump.

We are not limited by the sexism and racism and homophobia and sense of cultural superiority that dooms so many other congregations. We offer no harbor for those kinds of hatred and actively work to challenge those ideas in our community. These are no barrier for our God.

In other words, for us, the sky is the limit. We’re in a community where no one gives downtown churches with old buildings and small parking lots a Rochester Deli’s chance of being successful.

But if we show people we care, if we show them the love of Jesus, if we are willing to have the faith necessary to believe our God can beat the constraints placed upon us by our society, then we can be changed by an unchanging God.