SERMON: Truly the Saviour of the World

 10:30 am, Sun, March 12, 2023 - JGWhite / FBCA (Psalm 95; Rom 5:1-11; Jn 4:5-42)

Poet John Donne famous wrote No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Yet people keep separating, making life into Us against Them; Insiders and Outsiders; we’re right, they’re wrong. Be it the difference between Amherstonians and newcomers from away, happily housed and the unhoused, mask-wearers and mask not-wearers, or First Baptists and Gospel Light Baptists: we focus upon differences and separateness.

It could be called Tribalism. A wonderful, supportive colleague to me, over the past decade, has been retired Baptist minister John Dickinson, now living back in Ontario. I remember him speaking of the tribalism of humankind that we just can not get away from – yet I think this is what John would say the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. Breaking down the barriers between and among people, and God.

The John 4 story of Jesus and the unnamed ‘woman at the well’ communicates many things; one is the will and the power of Jesus to break down tribalism. He breaks down ‘us and them.’ By the end of the story, as He ends up staying a couple extra days in Samaria, the locals say to each other, “we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.”

The most famous Bible verse for evangelical Christians is from John’s previous chapter. “For God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son…” In the original Greek language, Jesus’ word here for ‘world’ is cosmos. Definitely all people, not to mention creation.

In chapter 4, Jesus is travelling through Samaria, and meets a local woman at an ancient well, still in use. This scene breaks down some deep barriers between a couple of ‘tribes,’ we could call them. Jesus is a Jew; the woman is a Samaritan. Who are these Samaritans, anyway, and why would they and the Jews have nothing to do with one another?

Maybe you got the hint that, way back, they and the Jews were all from one family, one faith. They both look to Father Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. As centuries passed, some of the Jews north in the north remained conservative in some ways. They kept Mount Gerazim as their holy place. They kept only Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy as their scripture. They kept sabbath rules and food regulations more strictly. Perhaps they were some who did not get captured and taken away to Babylon in the sixth century BCE. Today, millenia later, the Samaritans still exist in the Middle East. Two thousand years ago, they and the Jews were not friends.

So Christ surprised His disciples by talking so deeply with this woman of Samaria. Meanwhile, they just shopped for food but had no impact on the city. Jesus was breaking stereotypes. Is that our ministry today? I notice that First Baptist Halifax declares, on their website, they are ‘Breaking stereotypes since 1827.’ I see us, at First Amherst, breaking some stereotypes also, in the name of Christ. What’s next, we could wonder.

In the conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan woman, so much is said. Their patriarch, Jacob, gave them the well, but Christ speaks of flowing water that is of the human spirit, and of divine origin. The life of God can flow out from anyone.

Jesus seems to know all about this woman’s complicated and embarrassing love life. Yet he spends time with her in such a way she is excited and happy and impressed to meet him. She rushes back into town without her water jug, to tell everyone who she met. I believe we can be disciples of this Man whose every sentence sounded like good news.

These two talked about religion: how and where they worshipped. ‘The time is starting,’ Jesus said, ‘when real prayer and praise does not depend upon getting the location right.’ We have a long way to go if we can’t manage to worship together in a place that is not our same, usual seat we always use.

The woman mentioned that they, the Samaritans, expected the Anointed One to arrive one day. Their teachings were surely different from the various Jewish expectations about a Messiah. But Jesus claims to fulfill the Samaritan hopes also, “I am he.”

We develop listening skills that are not a matter of the ears, but of the mind and the heart. Breaking down tribalism, ‘us vs. them’ attitudes, is a spiritual practice, it takes discipline. And it can happen. Here is one dramatic example. Communication expert, Marshall Rosenberg, told this story, from a time he was consulting in the Middle East.

I was presenting Nonviolent Communication to about 170 Palestinian Muslim men in a mosque at Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. Attitudes towards Americans at that time were not favourable. As I was speaking, I suddenly noticed a wave of muffled commotion fluttering through the audience. “They’re whispering that you are an American!” my translator alerted me, just as a gentleman in the audience leapt to his feet. Facing me squarely, he hollered at the top of his lungs, “Murderer!” Immediately a dozen other voices joined him in chorus: “Assassin!” “Child-killer!” “Murderer!”

Fortunately, I was able to focus my attention on what the man was feeling and needing. In this case, I had some real clues. On the way into the refugee camp, I had seen several empty tear gas canisters that had been shot into the camp the night before. Clearly marked on each canister were the words Made in the U.S.A. I knew that the refugees harbored a lot of anger toward the United States for supplying tear gas and other weapons to Israel.

I addressed the man who had called me a murderer:

MBR: Are you angry because you would like my government to use its resources differently? (I didn’t know whether my guess was correct—what was critical was my sincere effort to connect with his feeling and need.)

Man: Damn right I’m angry! You think we need tear gas? We need sewers, not your tear gas! We need housing! We need to have our own country!

MBR: So you’re furious and would appreciate some support in improving your living conditions and gaining political independence?

Man: Do you know what it’s like to live here for twenty-seven years the way I have with my family—children and all? Have you got the faintest idea what that’s been like for us?

MBR: Sounds like you’re feeling very desperate and you’re wondering whether I or anybody else can really understand what it’s like to be living under these conditions. Am I hearing you right?

Man: You want to understand? Tell me, do you have children? Do they go to school? Do they have playgrounds? My son is sick! He plays in open sewage! His classroom has no books! Have you seen a school that has no books!

MBR: I hear how painful it is for you to raise children here; you’d like me to know that what you want is what all parents want for their children—a good education, opportunity to play and grow in a healthy environment…

Man: That’s right, the basics! Human rights—isn’t that what you Americans call it? Why don’t more of you come here and see what kind of human rights you’re bringing here!

MBR: You’d like more Americans to be aware of the enormity of the suffering here and to look more deeply at the consequences of our political actions?

Our dialogue continued, with him expressing his pain for nearly twenty more minutes, and me listening for the feeling and need behind each statement. I didn’t agree or disagree. I received his words, not as attacks, but as gifts from a fellow human willing to share his soul and deep vulnerabilities with me.

Once the gentleman felt understood, he was able to hear me explain my purpose for being in the camp. And hour later, the same man who had called me a murderer was inviting me to his home for a Ramadan dinner. (Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 2003, pp. 13-14)

Jesus challenges us to listen deeply to another person’s experience, to stop correcting others for a while, and simply ask our Master for a fresh new view of that we’d not stopped to see before. And with the Spirit, we have so much flowing water from ourselves to lovingly give to whomever we meet.

There was a Balinese dancer who said, “There’s someone out there who needs you. Live your life so that person can find you.”  Perhaps this happens anew, every single day. Today, you shall be a blessing to someone – even someone you do not expect. And, thanks be to God, this can happen again, on Monday. And on Tuesday.

Someone wrote of Abraham Lincoln, “He makes all mankind just a bit taller.” He is another example of what Christ seeks to accomplish in every age. Surely this ‘Saviour of the world’ will take us, break down barriers, dispel stereotypes, improve everyone, and bring people together in family.

So let us boast, not in being right, in being wonderful, in being the best. We learn, from Romans 5, to boast in our hope of sharing what’s good in God, to boast even in suffering to help others, and boast in Jesus who is actually the way, the truth, and the life.