Creekside Church Sermon of March 7, 1999 "The Initiative is His" John 4: 5-42	Rev. David Bibbee
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We all recall instances when we wanted someone else to take the initiative, particularly when an element of risk was involved. I would like to think with you this morning about the matter of initiative in our encounter with God in Jesus Christ. Who breaks the ice? Who makes the first move? Is the initiative all ours? Must we follow an order of prescribed steps before the Lord will make himself known, or answer our prayers or needs? Or does God take the initiative, hoping we will notice the overture and respond?

These are some of the questions which the gospel lesson invites. But before we move into the specifics of it, it is important to make an observation about what makes biblical religion distinct from other religions. The difference is revelation.

Other religions more or less lay it on the line. Here's the ailment. Here's what you can do about it. Here's the eight-fold or eighty-fold path to detachment, enlightenment and contentment, and through this mess we call life. But Christianity is a "revealed religion". In it, God discloses who he is and reveals the extent to which he loves us. God discloses answers to questions it never occurred to us to ask. Works in ways we would have never expected. Moses didn't go looking for a burning bush. Jacob wasn't itching for a wrestling match with an angel. Isaiah didn't go to the temple anticipating a vision of the Lord high and lifted up. Saul of Tarsus didn't say, "Well, I think I'll head down the Damascus Road so that Jesus, whom I persecute, will strike me blind." The disciples weren't parked outside the tomb patiently waiting for a resurrection. It just happened.

Someone said revelation is the difference between, "I found it" and "It occurred to me". For example, "I found out that St. Francis gave all his money to the poor, called them his brother, and preached sermons to birds. But it occurred to me that he must be a saint, or an idiot." God was revealed in Jesus, and it occurred to those who met him that his life was the best life, and to live it with his help was the best life "they" could possibly live. Revelation is God taking the initiative. It is not our reward for looking hard.

Remember this as we look at the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. On paper this meeting should have been a disaster. Jesus was a Jew. She was a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans hated each other. He was a man. She was a woman. Conversation in public between single men and women was taboo. She fetched water at noon, not in the cool, early morning hours with all the other women. The others didn't want to be seen with her. She wasn't like the other women. She went through husbands like Elizabeth Taylor, and was living with another man.

Tired from traveling, Jesus rested at Jacob's well when she came to fetch a pail of water. He made the first move. "Give me a drink," Jesus said without even saying, "please." She reminded Jesus that they weren't supposed to be talking and then they proceeded to have a strange conversation. Rather than talking to each other, it seemed like they talked past each other. Jesus violated all the rules of effective communication. Instead of helping her understand, his responses left her totally bewildered.

"If you knew who asked you for a drink, you would have asked and he would have given you living water." But she didn't know who he was, so why would she ask? "And what is this living water," she asked, "and how will you get it without a bucket?" "Drink the water I give and you will never thirst again." "Wonderful! Give me some so I won't have to draw water from this well anymore." Jesus didn't say, "Apparently I'm not making myself clear...you see, living water really isn't water." Like Nicodemus was confused over being born anew, Jesus was mystifying and confounding this Samaritan woman. Jesus told her how many times she had been married, she said he must be a prophet, and then they talked on about where true worshippers worship.

When Jesus speaks in John's gospel, it seems that he could use a translator. People couldn't make sense of him because he was speaking from a very different frame of reference. Thinking of this helped me remember a conversation at a wedding reception. I had just performed the wedding of my physician Michelle, and a math professor from Notre Dame named Juan. Juan is considered the world's authority in algebraic geometry. Mathematicians from 11 countries came to the wedding.

At the reception I sat next to a young man who looked to be in his mid twenties. "Are you a student of Juan's?" "No. I'm at the University in Sydney, Australia." "What year are you?" "I'm a professor," he said. "Before that I was at M.I.T." "What's it like to be a student at M.I.T.?" I asked. "I don't know. I taught there." "What branch of mathematics do you teach?" I asked. "I'm doing research in a new field." "What is it?" "Topography in the sixteenth dimension." "I see..." I said. "I'm working at defining the nature of a fixed moment in time and describing it in terms of all the properties of form, structure, substance and so on and so on and so on..." And I had absolutely no idea what he was saying. After a pregnant pause I asked, "Have any pets back home?" Then he asked, "Where did you get your education?" "The Romper Room School," I felt like saying.

It wasn't this brilliant young man's intent to impress me with his knowledge. He wasn't haughty or arrogant. Michelle told me, "If you want to go to outer space, go to their annual Math Club picnic." It's a good analogy. The language he used was from a world very different from mine. Confusion would be the inevitable reaction if he introduced me into his reality. He would experience some of the same if I spoke theologically.

The Samaritan woman wasn't looking for living water and she certainly wasn't looking to have her life altered. She wasn't searching...she was the sought. Jesus didn't acknowledge the lines which religion and society had drawn around her. He went out of his way and crossed the lines to draw her into a relationship.

How is it that you are a Christian? What did you do to be blessed by Christ? Describing this relationship with clichés trivializes it. You may recall several years ago that the relationship to Jesus was reduced to a bumper sticker slogan which said, "I Found It". I had to fight the temptation to pull alongside the cars with, "I Found It" and say, "Congratulations on your accomplishment! All your diligence and devotion paid off. You found him!" Coming to faith is not an accomplishment or an achievement...it is the gift of Christ who takes the initiative and blazes a path to us. "I found it" is all wrong. A better bumper sticker would read, "I once was lost, but now I'm found."

After meeting with Jesus, the Samaritan woman, this one on the outer fringes, was mystified and moved and confused. Afterwards she went to town and told everyone, "Come see the man who told me everything I've done. Can this be the Christ?" Not exactly a bold, certain declaration. It was an honest admission. She was in the earliest stage of a relationship with a remarkable man she did not know.

Often I'll hear people say, "I know Jesus." "Really? How long have you been a Christian?" "Six months." At such times I wish I could introduce these neophiles to seasoned seekers who have loved and followed Jesus for decades who would say to these new Christians, "There's much about Jesus I know, and there's much more I don't know." "Can this be the Christ?" The way to know was to draw near to Jesus who had drawn near to her. But based on her report, the people asked him to stay, and he did. And afterward they all said they believed.

The woman at the well has something to tell us. She went for water. Nothing else. But Jesus had more in store for her. He took the initiative to meet the need she did not yet know. People like you don't come to church because you are better than others, or because you have everything nailed down and figured out. You who come each Sunday come because you have needs. You come with your empty water jar to be filled...filled with meaning or resolve or whatever it is you "think" you need, and Jesus comes to you with what he "knows" you need....living water.

A woman had been to see a psychiatrist many times to talk about her problems as she perceived them. At the end of the session he wrote out a prescription, and ordered her not to return until she had used up the prescription. She went to the drugstore and handed it to the pharmacist who handed it back. "I can't fill this, but you can," he said. The order read: "Spend one hour some Sunday watching the sun rise while walking in a cemetery."

Has it occurred to you that you come to worship wanting to get one thing, when something else is needed instead? You hope that after the benediction you'll say, "I've found that..." But you are given a revelation instead. Someone comes to you, someone occurs to you. You don't do it...He does. The desire is yours, but the initiative is all His.

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