The Third Sunday in Lent, 23 March 2014

“Testing“

The Third Sunday in Lent

23 March 2014

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church

Santa Clara, CA

Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm 95

Romans 5:1-11

St. John 4:5-42

INI

As we read these texts this morning there is one overarching theme that at least links two of them, and that is the theme of water.  It’s an appropriate theme this season, as we look forward to the Great Vigil of Easter and the renewal of Baptismal Vows.  It is however a theme that I am going to set aside in favor of another.  The theme I should like to take on is one that has aspects in each one of our readings, and is one that I think relates to everyday living and life.  Just before I sat down to write this, a young woman from Ethiopia dropped by and wondered if I would pray for her.  She had a four-fold request.  First of all she was going to be taking her drivers test on the day following, was nervous, and asked if I would pray that she might have confidence.  Test 1.  Next she was concerned about her parents who still live in Ethiopia and are Orthodox.  The young woman was concerned that they were not “born again” and that they would not meet the test of Judgment Day.  Test 2.  She told the story of her two brothers who were in failing marriages and were in danger of loosing their children in the courts.  Test 3.  Finally, she had similar concerns for her sister who was married and fearful of loosing her husband.  Test 4.  If you have not guessed it by now, I’d like us to think about testing and being tested.

Testing the times

Following the conversation that Jesus has with the Samaritan woman, which was in reality a session of the one testing the other about how one ought to live a life of faith.  (The woman relied on her Samaritan standards or worship at Mt. Gerizim, and separation from the Jews.  And Jesus was meeting all of her arguments with either the standard Jewish response, or with a metaphor that seemed to go right over her head).  They each are testing one another.  Jesus wants to test her assumptions about life, and suspects that she is a bit of a cynic.  Why else would she have had five husbands – a true test of the Law about Marriage.  He also wants to test the depth of her knowledge of what she truly believe, that which she put trust in (just as we discussed last Sunday – how her faith was creditable, like the faith of Abraham and Sarah. 

The woman, on the other hand, much to John’s delight, is testing Jesus.  What does Jesus know?  How does he know it?  If he is a prophet – what kind?  Might he be the Messiah?  All of this is churned up in her mind as possibility. All of this is fascinating stuff, ripe for a theological gristmill.  Does it, however, meet the test of what we need for today.  That she, a Samaritan, could recognize in Jesus the traits of the Messiah sends us a message about the inclusion of outsiders in recognizing the true value of following Jesus.  That is only a first-stage learning for the day, however.  The disciples in their seemingly perpetual ignorance push the agenda even further.

They are upset.  Jesus is speaking in public with a woman – with a woman who has had multiple marriages.  Jesus didn’t understand the need for social convention.  He was “testing the times.”  What might they permit, and what might they condemn?  Jesus is pushing to the root, to the radix, and being the complete radical he wants the disciples to understand the connection.  He teaches them about the fields “ripe for harvesting.”  Who is the woman, the Samaritan, the Gentile, the outsider, the sinner – who is she but nothing less than the harvest that Jesus has come for?  Jesus tests the disciples to see if they can see the reality that stands behinds Jesus’ mission.  “Test the times,” Jesus says, “and see if they are ripe for harvest?”

Testing God (Exodus)

Sometimes, like Abraham and Sarah, God leads us out into the midst of a place and says to us, “Do my will – do it here!”  And we look around and wonder what that might be?  Israel was in the midst of her flight from Egypt, and she could think of nothing other than getting as far away as possible.  Trouble quickly sets in – a very ordinary and everyday trouble – thirst.  There is no water.  (We can understand this.)  Do they meet this challenge with invention and courage?  No.  They complain.  First they complain to Moses and then they complain to God.  They test God, as Moses puts it.  They test God’s wisdom in leading them there.

I understand this place used to be a farm.  Well, all of the places around here used to be a farm.  The question we need to ask, like Israel, is “Why are we here?”  That’s a bit different than “Why on earth did you put us here?”  Rather we need to explore what God expects us to meet here.  Maybe God wanted them to experience their thirst (and later their hunger) and to discover what they really thirsted and hungered for.  That is what the dialogue with the woman was all about.  What was Jesus’ thirst all about?  Why had the woman come to the well?  Why have you come here this morning?  The test is not for God – but rather the test is for us and our faith.  What will we do for all the spiritual thirst and hunger that is around us?  How will we know unless we go to the well and ask?

Testing ourselves (IInd Lesson)

Perhaps it is not God we need to test, or Jesus, or anyone other at all.  Perhaps it is ourselves that we need to test.  Paul writes to the Romans:

“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.”

Paul knew a great deal about being tested, and he never ceases to relate its trials to his readers.  Here in this passage he highlights the positive development that comes from suffering.  Well, we need to be honest here.  It is not suffering that Paul speaks of here, but rather affliction – something affecting us from outside of us.  Is it God that afflicts us? (Such as the Israelites thought?)  And here the disciples enter the picture again preferring to connect affliction with past sins.  Afflictions are the result of some defect, so wrong act on our part.  Paul begs to differ.  Afflictions lead us to know our need of God. 

The ladder that he describes for us: afflictions (sufferings), endurance, character, and finally hope, are a description of our personal development in faith.  Where was Nicodemus on that ladder, or the woman at the well, or the disciples, or Mary, or Joseph, or you?  Where are you on that ladder, or can you be in multiple places?

Yes sometimes we are placed in the midst of afflictions – and we endure them, and that is what our faith is all about.  Just as Jesus endured both cross and grave, so we are invited to do the same – in our baptism.  Afflictions come and go, but the final results of enduring them, the character of self and the development of hope, endure forever.

Religion is not a magic striking of the rock.  It is rather the understanding of what we think ourselves to be and where we think ourselves to be and then matching that up with God’s will.  “Come unto me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  We will always survive the test – that is the wonder of salvation.  What challenges us now is where do we go once we have drunk the living water and have left the well to go home?

SDG