WEBVTT 1 00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:10.900 In the name of Jesus. Amen. 2 00:00:14.900 --> 00:00:16.900 Dear brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ. 3 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:21.900 The polarities 4 00:00:23.400 --> 00:00:24.900 could not be more striking 5 00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:28.900 at this point in the week that is 6 00:00:30.100 --> 00:00:32.800 from the gospel of appointed for last Sunday. 7 00:00:33.900 --> 00:00:36.400 From the third chapter of the Gospel of John. 8 00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:42.500 To the gospel appointed for this coming Sunday from the fourth chapter of 9 00:00:42.500 --> 00:00:43.500 the Gospel of John. 10 00:00:44.900 --> 00:00:46.900 From last Sunday's dude 11 00:00:48.300 --> 00:00:50.500 to this Sunday's damsel. 12 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:53.100 From Nicodemus 13 00:00:53.100 --> 00:00:54.500 he was last Sunday. 14 00:00:56.200 --> 00:00:57.200 To the woman of Samaria 15 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:02.600 she is this Sunday and so she is also our focus today. 16 00:01:04.900 --> 00:01:07.400 From the Highly Educated man of letters. 17 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.300 Nicodemus has all of the requisite degrees 18 00:01:13.600 --> 00:01:17.300 and do so highly regarded in the Academy of his day. 19 00:01:19.500 --> 00:01:24.400 That Jesus makes him not a teacher of Israel but the teacher of Israel. 20 00:01:28.500 --> 00:01:32.900 From the high and mighty man of the Pharisees and ruler of the Jews. 21 00:01:34.100 --> 00:01:36.800 So Nicodemus sits on the Sanhedrin as well. 22 00:01:38.700 --> 00:01:41.300 So he is the very model of a modern major-general. 23 00:01:43.500 --> 00:01:46.100 Well, let's just say that in his day. 24 00:01:46.100 --> 00:01:50.000 Nicodemus is as major as it gets. 25 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:58.900 From this model Jewish man and what he represents in his world. 26 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:04.800 To the woman of Samaria and what she represents in hers. 27 00:02:06.100 --> 00:02:08.900 For she has had five previous husbands. 28 00:02:09.699 --> 00:02:12.400 And the one that she is is with now 29 00:02:13.600 --> 00:02:15.000 is not her husband. 30 00:02:16.600 --> 00:02:21.300 From the one then to the other the polarities could not be more 31 00:02:21.300 --> 00:02:22.300 striking. 32 00:02:24.200 --> 00:02:26.100 Great, then is the irony. 33 00:02:26.100 --> 00:02:32.900 Great is the profundity of the moment when she's a damsel the despised one 34 00:02:32.900 --> 00:02:38.400 the model outsider becomes what he the man of letters the dude what 35 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:40.900 he need the model insider does not. 36 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:45.500 Dudes can be such dullards. 37 00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:50.300 Great is the irony. 38 00:02:51.400 --> 00:02:54.600 For an appointed in paradigmatic terms 39 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:58.300 John's depiction of the Samaritan woman 40 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:04.900 and of her manner of responding to the word of the word made flesh. 41 00:03:06.700 --> 00:03:11.900 Is at first rather like but then ultimately is fundamentally 42 00:03:11.900 --> 00:03:17.200 unlike the person and the reaction of her counterpart Nicodemus. 43 00:03:19.700 --> 00:03:23.300 For like the rest of the Samaritans that she represents. 44 00:03:24.500 --> 00:03:28.700 Who previously in their national history have been intermarried on 45 00:03:28.700 --> 00:03:33.500 five separate occasions with five different cultures from the outside 46 00:03:33.500 --> 00:03:38.700 and the one that rules them now is no legitimate heir of his throne. 47 00:03:40.200 --> 00:03:46.600 Like them the Samaritan woman is on the one hand quite like her male 48 00:03:46.600 --> 00:03:51.200 Jewish counterpart and that she too is one whose hope 49 00:03:53.000 --> 00:04:00.800 is in the Patriarchs of Israel and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and in 50 00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:05.000 Jacob's sons, especially Jacob's son Joseph. 51 00:04:06.700 --> 00:04:11.200 For the Samaritans held that they too or that they were the 52 00:04:11.200 --> 00:04:14.600 descendants and rightful heirs of the legacy of Joseph. 53 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:22.000 She to then is one whose hope is in the worship of her forefathers 54 00:04:23.700 --> 00:04:27.300 and in the promise of a prophet like Moses. 55 00:04:28.400 --> 00:04:30.200 In a promise of Messiah. 56 00:04:31.900 --> 00:04:35.300 Actually on the basis of the only scripture that the Samaritans were 57 00:04:35.300 --> 00:04:38.900 prepared to recognize from the five books of Moses. 58 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:45.200 The Samaritans called there Samaritan Messiah the tai hey 59 00:04:46.200 --> 00:04:47.600 or restorer. 60 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:50.600 But the rest 61 00:04:52.200 --> 00:04:53.100 at least on the surface the 62 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:57.800 Jews and Samaritans shared. 63 00:05:00.700 --> 00:05:01.300 However 64 00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:09.200 unlike Nicodemus the Samaritan woman is in virtually every other 65 00:05:09.200 --> 00:05:13.700 personal and socio-economic respect. 66 00:05:14.900 --> 00:05:19.700 The polar opposite of her of the very high the very respected 67 00:05:19.700 --> 00:05:21.200 Nicodemus. 68 00:05:21.200 --> 00:05:25.900 She is in many and various complicated ways 69 00:05:27.100 --> 00:05:30.500 the lowly despised woman of Samaria. 70 00:05:35.100 --> 00:05:39.000 For the faith and hope of those that she represents is according to 71 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:40.600 Jesus a false 72 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:41.600 hope. 73 00:05:43.100 --> 00:05:46.200 Y'all, the verb is plural. 74 00:05:47.800 --> 00:05:50.100 Y'all worship what y'all don't know, 75 00:05:51.900 --> 00:05:53.200 declares Jesus. 76 00:05:54.700 --> 00:05:56.000 Now he wasn't for Texas. 77 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:02.500 We however ask Jesus we Jews worship 78 00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:05.100 what we in fact know. 79 00:06:06.700 --> 00:06:10.900 For salvation is not of the Samaritan's salvation Messiah is of the Jews. 80 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:19.200 Like Nicodemus the Samaritan woman struggles mightily with the 81 00:06:19.200 --> 00:06:23.900 heavenly challenge with the heavenly talk of the earthly Jesus. 82 00:06:25.800 --> 00:06:26.900 Yet, unlike Nicodemus 83 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:35.800 she welcomes the word of the word made flesh and his promise of Living 84 00:06:35.800 --> 00:06:36.400 Water. 85 00:06:37.400 --> 00:06:41.900 Even when she and no way that's yet that is understands what she is 86 00:06:41.900 --> 00:06:42.300 hearing. It's impossible. 87 00:06:45.200 --> 00:06:46.400 Not not not. 88 00:06:46.400 --> 00:06:47.600 No, not yet. 89 00:06:48.900 --> 00:06:52.700 Unlike nicotine, but she speaks truth that are profoundly greater 90 00:06:52.700 --> 00:06:55.500 than she knows who declares the woman. 91 00:06:57.900 --> 00:06:58.700 Kyrios 92 00:07:00.900 --> 00:07:03.100 I perceive that you are a prophet. 93 00:07:05.100 --> 00:07:08.500 Little does she does our know how right she really is. 94 00:07:10.200 --> 00:07:13.900 Unlike Nicodemus, even when the meaning of much of the word of the 95 00:07:13.900 --> 00:07:19.600 word made flesh initially or entirely escapes her she nevertheless 96 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:27.100 pointedly and tellingly takes his entire world to heart and trust that it 97 00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:27.700 is so. 98 00:07:29.200 --> 00:07:34.100 She believes him when he says I am He. 99 00:07:35.700 --> 00:07:38.600 She believes when he says 100 00:07:39.900 --> 00:07:41.500 I am Messiah. 101 00:07:43.400 --> 00:07:44.700 She sees 102 00:07:45.800 --> 00:07:47.700 what Nicodemus in the end does not see. 103 00:07:51.400 --> 00:07:56.000 He in the end perceives nor believes and no way 104 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:59.600 sees in Jesus what must In the end be seen. 105 00:08:04.400 --> 00:08:05.800 My friends in Christ. 106 00:08:08.900 --> 00:08:09.600 What do you think? 107 00:08:11.100 --> 00:08:15.400 What is the Apostle and evangelist John trying to say to his 108 00:08:15.400 --> 00:08:20.300 contemporaries in the last days of the first century when he knows 109 00:08:20.300 --> 00:08:20.700 full 110 00:08:20.700 --> 00:08:25.800 well that his days in this world are numbered and that very soon the 111 00:08:25.800 --> 00:08:31.200 children of God will have to live on in his absence and in the absence 112 00:08:31.200 --> 00:08:34.900 of the rest of the Apostles until Jesus comes again. 113 00:08:37.500 --> 00:08:38.799 What is he trying to say? 114 00:08:40.700 --> 00:08:44.900 What must be their focus what must they in no way question? 115 00:08:45.900 --> 00:08:50.300 What must be there only reason for living whether such things are 116 00:08:50.300 --> 00:08:56.100 easily comprehended whether life itself is easily comprehended or not? 117 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:02.100 These things stand written declares the Apostle so that you may 118 00:09:02.100 --> 00:09:05.900 believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God. 119 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:11.500 This than is a word that must be heard 120 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:15.600 so that you may have life in his name. 121 00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:19.400 Therefore 122 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:24.100 by his word and by his word alone the 123 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:31.400 Samaritan woman comes to know the one with whom she is speaking as her 124 00:09:31.400 --> 00:09:33.800 only true husband. 125 00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:40.700 For Spirit brought true worshipers to worship the father in response to the 126 00:09:40.700 --> 00:09:42.100 word of the word made flesh. 127 00:09:42.100 --> 00:09:43.900 Who is the truth. 128 00:09:45.400 --> 00:09:49.500 For there is no opportunity for the human person to Worship in spirit 129 00:09:49.500 --> 00:09:51.100 and Truth. 130 00:09:53.300 --> 00:09:57.300 By h were others to come to believe that day. 131 00:09:58.800 --> 00:10:02.200 At their request Jesus stays with them for two more days. 132 00:10:03.300 --> 00:10:07.300 And even more come to believe they take him at his word. 133 00:10:10.800 --> 00:10:15.100 SS been the case before first with the testimony of the Baptist the 134 00:10:15.100 --> 00:10:17.900 Kingdom chapter 1 then with the first of Jesus disciples. 135 00:10:17.900 --> 00:10:24.600 So also hear a conspicuous repeated hearing stuff. 136 00:10:24.600 --> 00:10:31.400 Otherwise, she alone prompts of believing and the Confessor. 137 00:10:33.500 --> 00:10:36.800 unlike Jesus previous experience in Judea 138 00:10:38.700 --> 00:10:42.300 2 + chapter 3 139 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:48.200 in the homeland of Israel's father's or a prophet has even now no 140 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:52.400 honor unlike that place here in Samaria. 141 00:10:52.400 --> 00:10:54.700 Jesus is celebrated. 142 00:10:55.600 --> 00:10:56.200 hearing 143 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:01.000 the word made flesh. 144 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:03.000 Jesus is embraced. 145 00:11:03.800 --> 00:11:07.600 Play Savior of the cosmos. 146 00:11:11.400 --> 00:11:12.000 France 147 00:11:13.900 --> 00:11:17.100 he promises not but the way will be free of hardship. 148 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.300 Most of us some sort of figured that out by now. 149 00:11:21.500 --> 00:11:22.600 especially these days 150 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:27.900 he promises instead that the way will have who me me. 151 00:11:29.100 --> 00:11:35.000 Direction in a purpose whether such things are easy to perceive or 152 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:35.400 not. 153 00:11:36.700 --> 00:11:43.200 He promises to enliven and protect to empower and sustained guide and 154 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:43.700 keep. 155 00:11:44.900 --> 00:11:48.200 As we live from him and for him in this world. 156 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:52.400 Make a living water of him. 157 00:11:52.400 --> 00:11:58.300 Who is the Living Word of God who comes this day also as living bread 158 00:11:58.300 --> 00:12:01.000 from living and loving father. 159 00:12:02.300 --> 00:12:05.300 Lesson sustain us all and all that we are. 160 00:12:06.300 --> 00:12:07.600 And in all that you do. 161 00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:15.300 I promise day when all the P him just as he is the name of the father 162 00:12:15.300 --> 00:12:17.800 and the Son and the Holy Spirit.