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| “The Eyes of Love” Let’s begin with the ending. Actually John’s gospel has two endings: chapters 20 and 21. It’s rather like classical music, you keep thinking it’s over then it goes on a bit longer. Chapter 21 ends with these words, “There are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” And, chapter 20 ends with these words, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” These two endings provide two important pieces of information; (First) that John had lots of information to draw from, enough stories to fill a library so large that the world itself could not contain it. (Second) that the reason John chose these particular stories to include in his book is because they tell us something important about this Jesus that enables us to believe that he is actually the Son of God. So, we have this story of an un-named Samaritan woman occupying a prominent place at the beginning of John’s telling of the Jesus story. It’s a long story. The part we read today is only the first half. We will revisit the story again in next Sunday’s sermon in order to do it justice. This story is what they call in the movies, an “establishing shot.” It gives us a context into which the rest of the story can be read and through which it can be interpreted. In Matthew’s gospel, the establishing shot is the Sermon on the Mount, an interpretation of the Law of Moses so out of the box that even his closest disciples walk away shaking their heads. In Luke’s gospel it is the story of the sermon in Jesus’ home synagogue in Nazareth where his interpretation of the text from the book of Isaiah is so outrageous that the congregation tries to throw him over a cliff. In every case the ‘establishing shot’, story, is there for the same purpose, to show us that this Jesus is not going to be what anyone expected. He has completely redefined the role. Like Johnny Depp playing Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean; no one ever envisioned an actor playing a pirate like that. But if anyone could pull it off, Johnny Depp could and did. So, all of these establishing shot stories in the gospels are there to show us that this is not your father’s idea of what the Messiah will be like - but if anybody can pull it off, Jesus can. This story about the Samaritan woman at the well is exactly that kind of story. According to the lectionary, this reading was supposed to begin at verse seven but that leaves out some essential “establishing” information that is the key to what the story is about and why it is there. It’s not a story about the woman at the well; it’s a story about Jesus and what sort of messiah he is going to be. We will keep a few months up here at the site. As always if you would like a DVD of a service please contact the church office. Thank you for visiting us. Do you just want to read one of the many great sermons from our wonderful staff? We will keep a few months up here at the site. As always if you would like a DVD of a service please contact the church office. Thank you for visiting us. hank you for visiting us. Do you just want to read one of the many great sermons from our wonderful staff? We will keep a few months up here at the site. As always if you would like a DVD of a service please contact the church office. Thank you for visiting us. Do you just want to read one of the many great sermons from our wonderful staff? We will keep a few months up here at the site. As always if you would like a DVD of a service please contact the church office. Thank you for visiting us. |
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