The Third Sunday in Lent

John 4:39-42

Were you as devastated as I was years ago when the Federal Trade Commission and the State of Florida filed separate lawsuits alleging fraud against Miss Cleo and the Psychic Network? I mean, if you can’t trust your friendly, local TV psychic, who can you trust? And there are several parts of this whole scandal that are rather bothersome:

First, it was alleged that Miss Cleo’s promise of free psychic readings was not exactly true. The 1-800 numbers given led folks to 1-900 numbers which were billed at $4.95 a minute. And the average customer ended up paying about $60 for a call. That bothers me!

Second, it seems that Miss Cleo used the callers’ own information to begin aggressive telemarketing of psychic services to them after the first call was ended. And even after asking to be placed on “do not call” lists, many people continued to receive up to ten calls a day from an automated message that claimed Miss Cleo had a dream about them, and they should call back right away. That’s kind of bothersome too, don’t you think?

And third, and this is what bothers me the most, if Miss Cleo was really as clairvoyant as she claimed to be, why didn’t she see all this coming in the first place?

But this not a sermon about Miss Cleo and the Psychic Network. This a sermon is about the One who truly knows everything there is to know about us.

Jesus is in Samaria, which is a scandal in and of itself, because Jews and Samaritans are arch-rivals and treat each other with contempt. But Jesus – never afraid to step over boundaries, or to build bridges to outcasts – arrives in a Samaritan city called Sy’char where Jacob’s well is located. His lips are parched under the noonday sun, and he is thirsty after the long journey. So Jesus sits down by the well to rest. Just about then, a Samaritan woman shows up, carrying a bucket.

Jesus asks her for a drink. She is stunned by the question, wondering why a Jew would speak to a Samaritan, and why a man would be speaking to a woman in public. Jesus says she shouldn’t get her dander up over that, because if she knew who she was really speaking to…

And then Jesus says something about his giving people a living water that satisfies their thirst forever. And she says, “I’d like some of that water!”

And Jesus says, “First, go and get your husband.”

And all of a sudden, she freezes. “I – I – I – ah – I HAVE no husband,” gulps the woman by the well.

“That’s right, “ Jesus says quietly. “You’ve had FIVE husbands. And the one you have now is not your husband.”

And the woman begins to tremble. How could he know these most personal, intimate, hidden things about her?  She tries to redirect the conversation by arguing about the religious differences between Samaritans and Jews, but Jesus will have none of it. Faith is not about which mountain you worship on, or how you go about it, Jesus says. Faith is about coming to God in spirit and truth.And a deep truth about this woman has just been revealed!

She begins to weep and to say, “When the Messiah comes, he will know everything about everyone.”

And Jesus says, “I, the one you are speaking to, am he.”

And in our text for this morning, from the tail end of the story of the woman by the well, we learn that many Samaritans came to believe in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I’ve ever done.”

Imagine that! Her life was changed! She began to drink of living waters! Her life started to turn around! Because he knew everything! And she never got an outrageous telephone bill, or a follow-up telemarketing call, or some claim that he’d had a dream about her and she needed to get back in touch with him. There was none of that.

And yet something life-changing happened to this Samaritan woman. She found the start of a life she’d always been searching for.

Because he knew everything!

And he knows everything about you, too!

One of the most central and important elements of the spiritual life is engaging the truth about ourselves. God knows that true healing and change in human lives only comes about when we gain the ability to be completely honest with ourselves. And the only way we can become completely honest with ourselves, is when we become honest with God – when we come to him in spirit… and truth.

Some of you may remember Sophie Zawistoska, the character played by Meryl Streep in the powerful movie, “Sophie’s Choice.” The story is set in New York in 1947. It involves a love triangle between Sophie, a very troubled Jewish woman – a survivor of Auschwitz – her highly dysfunctional and abusive lover Nathan, and a young writer named Stingo. Stingo falls in love with Sophie and wants to rescue her from all the uncertainty and pain of a life with someone out of control. But Sophie will have none of it. Her painful life with Nathan is all she feels she deserves. Her sorrowful relationship with him, she believes, is her punishment for a terrible choice she made.

Slowly we learn of Sophie’s past, the events that shaped her childhood and the horrors she experienced in the war that led to this overwhelming sense of guilt at surviving. The most powerful moment, of course, comes when Sophie reveals the horrible choice she made.

On a beautiful spring night, she whispers, when she arrived in Auschwitz, Sophie was ordered to choose …which of her two children…would be sent to the ovens, the other to be spared. To not choose would be to have them both killed. Sophie had to make that terrible choice! And all these many years later, Sophie can still hear the screams of her little girl as they carried her away to die.

And for the rest of her life, Sophie will live in the hellish guilt of that choice.

Sophie Zawistoska.

The Samaritan woman.

You and me.

We all have truths about us that no one else knows, and that we ourselves don’t want uncovered. Painful experiences. Bad choices. Terrible mistakes. Injuries inflicted upon us by others. Injuries inflicted upon us by ourselves. Sad memories. Paralyzing fears. God-forbidden thoughts. Dangerous feelings. Secret sins. Agonizing doubts.

There are hidden parts of us that we never reveal to anyone else, and that we are never able to resolve by ourselves so that we can be set free from them. Though we yearn for healing and strength to overcome those hidden things, the healing never seems to arrive.

But the claim of Jesus Christ is that new life can be found through him. And this story reveals two beautiful elements of healing that Jesus can provide.

First, there is this living water that Jesus will give us. This is not just a metaphor for a thirst-quenching drink. No, living water seems to me to be something that flows into your life – something that soaks into you – something that seeks out all the hidden flaws and cracks and empty places.

In a brand new building we constructed at my last church we were plagued by a water leak. Every time it rained, water would end up on the floor of the Fellowship Hall. Workmen came in – time after time – seeking its source. And they’d fix something. But the next time it rained…! Finally, the leak was found, but it was a good distance away from where the dripping appeared. You see, once under the roof, the water would seek the path of least resistance, and travel to and through all sorts of unseen places, pulled by the strength of gravity.

And I think that same sort of thing is what Jesus was talking about when he said he would give us living water – water that will seep into the deepest parts of our lives, the darkest parts of our hearts, the most secret parts of our souls – revealing the hidden and broken things that keep us from being well.

The Samaritan woman asked for this water, and as soon as she did, her hurt-filled and mistake-ridden life became transparent.

Yes, part of living as a Christian person is letting yourself be engaged by the living waters that reveal the hidden thoughts, feelings, memories, and experiences of our lives.

And then there’s a second element of healing here. As the Samaritan woman encounters the revelation of her own hidden life – which is so terribly embarrassing and humiliating to her – Jesus does not misuse that information. He does not judge or condemn her in it. Instead, he lovingly reveals to the woman that he has come to save her from it – to help her find her way through it. And that’s when Jesus explains that true worship of God is when we bring to God the deepest parts of our inner spirit, and the deepest truths about ourselves. You have to be honest with God about what’s really going on inside.

One of my first encounters with the power of self-disclosure to God occurred when I was still a seminary student and visiting some patients at a local hospital. Ruth had just had cancer surgery, and I could tell from the moment I met her that something was very wrong. She looked so sad and had trouble concentrating. She didn’t even giggle at my various attempts to make her smile. A few minutes into our conversation it became clear what was happening with Ruth. She was afraid. She was paralyzed by a deep and legitimate fear that she was going to die. In fact, Ruth was so afraid of dying that she seemed to have forgotten how to live.

When I finally got up nerve enough to ask her point blank if that was the issue, Ruth melted in a flood of tears. After a few minutes I asked her if she wanted to pray with me, and she said “yes.” And Ruth surprised me because she did the praying. I’ll always remember her prayer which began, “Oh God, I am so scared…!”

A few days later, I stopped back to see Ruth, and her family was with her. And it was wonderful to see her smiling and laughing and truly enjoying the company. Later, in a quiet moment, she pulled me close and whispered in my ear, “Thank you for letting me pray…God and I have had a lot of good talks lately…and I’m okay.”

 Ruth’s outward circumstances had not changed one iota. The cancer was still there. The long road through chemotherapy and radiation was still before her. The possibility of death was as real as ever.

But Ruth found new strength, new resources, new life in opening up her soul to God.

What are the hidden things in your life – the things that no one knows about but you…and the One who knows everything about you? As this Lenten Season deepens, you’ll find it a powerful experience to share these hidden parts of yourself with God. And God will not misuse the information! No, God will begin to show you how to work it through.

I’m told that Martin Marty, the University of Chicago church historian, begins every day with a little ritual done in front of the bathroom mirror. As every good Lutheran should do – he claims – he makes the sign of the Cross upon his body as a visible reminder that there is no part of his life – past, present or future – that is not embraced by the love of Jesus Christ. And with that simple sign to begin each day, Marty feels that he can let God in on who he really is and what he’s truly about. And it makes all the difference in the world!

Perhaps this is the morning when you will open up the hidden places of your life to the One who knows everything!