A, Lent 3 - Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95:6-9, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42 "Water and Word Aeration"

A new town and new experiences.  Not knowing what to expect, one hopes when turning on the tap one will have good water to drink. 

So, the tap is turned, the water seems clean, but there’s a strange metallic smell.  What on earth is this smell?  Suddenly sceptical of the scent, I warily taste the water.  Not great, but not bad either!  One might say, “mediocre”.  I thought to myself, “I’m just going to have to get use to this.”

Later on, I put a load of washing on.  After the cycle finished, there on my clothes was an orange stain.  “Woe is me, what on earth is this”, in all my life I had never seen anything as vile as this.

There was stain all over my clothes and orange gunk in some of the folds.  From where, had it come?  Later, I found out this was normal for the water supply.  The water reservoir was not enough for the city of forty thousand.  And the area where the water was dammed was high in iron, that is, the orange stuff staining my clothes.  I couldn’t believe an Australian city in the late twentieth century could have such an antiquated and disgusting supply of water. 

Three months after I arrived, the grand opening of the new water treatment plant was at hand.  Because I was working in the media, as a camera operator, I had the privilege of videoing the opening and the workings of the new plant.

This new plant did not use excessive chemicals to clean the water.  Instead, it used thousands of tiny air bubbles, pumped through the water, lifting the iron scum to the surface, and cleaning the water of orange metallic substance and smell.  Such a simple process and thankfully from then on, with all the other residents, I had town water that was refreshing, had no smell, and was colourless.  Liked the chocolate Aero bar advertisement, “it was the bubbles of nothing that made the water something!”

In the Old Testament reading today we hear the Israelites grumble to Moses about going thirsty in the wilderness.  Like me they whinged about water.  “Woe is me; we have no water!” 

Jesus in Samaria, likewise, is thirsty.   He asks a Samaritan woman, stained from ill repute, for a drink.

Rightly, “the woman said to Jesus, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,  but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” (John 4:11a,13–14 ESV)

Jesus, like the Israelites, is without water.  He has nothing with which to gain access to the water.  The Israelites in the wilderness have no water.  Why is it that Jesus trusts the Samaritan woman for water, yet the Israelites do not trust God working through Moses to quench their thirst?

The Psalmist says to the hearer, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!  For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.  Today, if you hear his voice,  do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,  when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.” (Psalm 95:6–9 ESV) 

This Psalm together with the account from Exodus seventeen, places a warning before us to realise we need to come before God our Father, trusting he is our Maker, and he will shepherd us through the wilderness of this life.  Indeed, Lent is a time to stop and take stock of how God has sent Jesus to shepherd us in the wilderness of this life.

Jesus came not as the shepherd but as the Lamb of God.  But now, in the wake of his victorious death and resurrection, he is the Shepherd of his people, and he guards us with the Holy Spirit in his Word. 

Yet, we do well to clearly see the picture of Jesus at the well and understand just how lowly a picture this is.  We also do well to heed the warning of testing God, as the Israelites tried him in the wilderness.   But also see just how kept the Israelites were, having been freed from slavery in Egypt, and protected by God through the words of Moses in the wilderness.

Here Jesus has nothing, and he was thirsty.  He was in Samaria, Samaritans were nothing to Jews, but Jesus in all humility asks an adulterous Samaritan woman for water.  She is nothing to a Jew and yet Jesus comes to her with nothing but his Word.

On the other hand, the Israelites quarrel with Moses, they fight with the one through whom God’s word came. 

What is going on, in these two events?  The Israelites saw God’s Word as inferior in Moses and forgot his work.  Jesus trusts the work of God, and therefore his Word works.   

How does this play out practically for you and me?

It’s as simple as the bubbles of air removing the orange iron from the water.  In fact, the issues the church faces at the moment, understanding just what the substance of love and unity actually is, and how it plays out in the church’s cleansing, understanding, and obedience to God’s Word. 

In distinguishing issues of gender equality in the church, apart from society, discernment must return to, and be seen in, the simple process of how the Holy Spirit gives faith and understanding of God’s Word.  Just as the water is made clean with bubbles of air to remove impurities.

The Holy Spirit wells up the purity of God’s refreshing Word in us.  We cannot do this ourselves and nor should we begin the futile exercise of trying!   One will end up sinning against the Holy Spirit if they do!

When we are baptised, we are washed with water and the Word.  Like the Israelites, we are cleansed of sin in the water, just as the Israelites were of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, and at the end of forty years were led by Joshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) across the Jordan into Canaan, into a paradise, the land of milk and honey.

But because Israel continued to sin in the land of milk and honey, Jesus reverses the order to fulfil all righteousness.  He comes from paradise, from the right hand of God the Father, is born into the bondage of humanity, baptised into death, and given the Holy Spirit at the Jordan,  and goes into the wilderness of human existence to be tempted, but does not succumb to the temptation.  From temptation he enters the Red Sea of death, where his innocent blood was spilt in bondage on the cross.

Today, we live with God’s Word too, so we might have faith in Jesus Christ.  But what is this faith, how do we get it, how does one believe?  Seeking faith  in oneself, individualism, vainglory, or self-worship are always the reasons for confusion and chaos in the church.  When these occur, the ways of the world invade our thinking, muddying the waters of God’s Word, and stain his church!

Jesus gives clarity in what he says to the Samaritan woman.

“‘But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’  The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’  Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’” (John 4:23–26 ESV) 

Like Jesus, who received the Holy Spirit in baptism, so too do we.  The water and Word are one in baptism.  The water receives its power from the Word.  We receive the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, and we receive the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit aerates the Word of God with in us and separates the sin from the self.  He removes our stained being and gives us faith in Jesus and his Word.  He wills and moves us to place ourselves in submission to God.  Rather than disagreeing with God, returning to the bondage from where we’ve been freed, we bow to God hearing the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ, with the effervescence of the Holy Spirit bubbling within.  

Saint Paul gives us a theological trinitarian summary in Romans five, saying, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God… …and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:1-2,5 ESV) 

Let us come and worship God, not what we love, or think, or feel.  These are the idols and ideologies the Holy Spirit is trying to cleanse from you.  These are not bubbles of nothing, nor are they hot air coming from our own nothingness, puffing, or pumping up our ego.  No!  These bubbles are the loving works of God the Holy Spirit, with the softening waters of God’s Word within.  So, our hearts are not hardened by our goodness or our evil.

Jesus Christ seeks to aerate his Word in us by the Holy Spirit, to bring the muck and stain to the surface to be removed.  Like Jesus, we have nothing with which to get the water, but his Word together with the water are freely given through which the effervescence of the Holy Spirit works, welling up within to eternal life.  The fizz of the Holy Spirit kills and clears the muck, pouring the loving purity of Jesus Christ into our hearts.

Do not let your sin, my sin, or another’s sin harden your heart, so you cut yourself off from hearing the Word of God, hearing God’s forgiveness, and receiving the love of God in Jesus’ body and blood, through which the Holy Spirit unifies and wells us up to eternal life.  Amen.

C, Post-Pentecost 18 Proper 23 - Luke 17:11-19, 2 Kings 5:1–3, 7–15c, Psalm 111, 2 Timothy 2:8-15 "Remember, Endure, Remind, and Give Thanks"

 Remember, endure, remind, and give thanks. 

We remember what our parents taught us, we continue in their practices teaching them to  our children, then over and over again we remind them of what we have taught them.

Say, “please”.  Say, “thankyou”.  We teach our children good manners just as we were taught by our parents.  And we repeat this over and over again in our saying please and thankyou by way of example to our children, as well as reminding them to do the same and discipline them when they fail to follow what we’ve taught.

Imagine that having been taught to say please and thankyou by your parents you teach your children to do the same, but in practise you never say please and thankyou to your children or in front of your children with others!  What do you think they will learn?

This “do as I say and not as I do” lesson will be seen with all the hypocrisy it deserves by the young learners.  And they might just ignore the lessons from your lips, in favour of the practice of not saying please and thankyou.

The readings today focus us on thanksgiving — giving thanks.  Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army, after initially ridiculing Elisha for his direction to dip himself in the Jordan seven times, is convinced to put his anger aside and do as commanded.

We hear, “Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him.  And Naaman said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” (2 Kings 5:15a-c ESV)

Saint Paul calls Timothy to remember Jesus Christ, the gospel of promise that, “If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”  (2 Timothy 2:11-13 ESV)

Here Paul encourages Timothy in the Christian life cycle of death and resurrection — remembering, enduring, reminding, and giving thanks. 

When we die with him, we live with him.  Daily dying to self, letting the pride die, to confess sin, to serve sinners with the love of Christ, bearing the cross that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have set aside for you to bear, even before this world was created.

By enduring in this “death and resurrection cycle”, comes the promise of reigning with Jesus Christ.  When we are reminded of Jesus’ covenant made through his death and resurrection, we remember the many big and small deaths and resurrections we face in this life is a preparation for the great day of resurrection that awaits our final death.  This final death reminds us and causes us to remember our first death and resurrection, when we were baptised into Jesus’ death and resurrection outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago.

Paul then says, “if we deny Jesus, he will also deny us”.  Denial here is a refusal to endure, a rejection of remembrance, and stopping all means of being reminded.  It’s here we look at the ten lepers. 

Lepers are ritually unclean.  They cannot come into the presence of God in the temple until they are made clean (Lev 14:1-32).  Jesus sends the lepers to the priests after they say, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” (Luke 17:13 ESV)  They say, “please”.  But only one returns to say, “thankyou!”

This thankful healed leper is a Samaritan.  The other nine are assumed to be Jews.  Can you hear the levels of irony here? 

For the cleansing of leprosy, the priest goes to the leper, but here the lepers are sent to the priests by Jesus.  They plead for mercy and Jesus commands them to go.  Did the other nine realise they were healed on the way?  We are not told.  We are only told of one Samaritan who returns having been healed and is called by Jesus to, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:19 ESV)

To where would he rise and go?  Jesus is going to Jerusalem, he has sent the other nine there as well, to the priests in the temple.  This cleansed Samaritan is told by Jesus, “go your way.”  This is the way of faith.

One would  hope after the nine went to the priests in Jerusalem, they would have witnessed Jesus’ death and resurrection and with the Samaritan would have acknowledged Jesus as Lord.  In this way they would die with Jesus and be raised to life.  They then having died to self would have been strengthened to confess Jesus Christ in the face of denial, rejection, and death at the cross.

However, we know Jesus had no support at the cross.  All denied him.  But having been raised from death we now are one with him in his death and resurrection.  Denying him now, puts us on slippery ground knowing he has been raised.  Continuous denial of Jesus Christ is serious stuff, especially when we hinder the Holy Spirit’s work of our death and resurrection in Jesus Christ.

Saint Paul warns Timothy of the seriousness of denying Jesus’ death and resurrection having died to sin and enduring in our resurrection through him.  But even in the face of denial, Paul tells Timothy of Jesus’ faithfulness.

While we are alive, while we remain in the death and resurrection of our baptism, Jesus will continue to be faithful to us despite our faithlessness.  This is good news, as the way of death and resurrection always remains open for us, to be returned to our baptism into Jesus Christ, and the Christian cycle of death and resurrection.  This return is enacted by the Holy Spirit also because of  Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We are reminded here we are always remembered by Jesus Christ; he is faithful to us despite our forgetfulness and faithlessness.  This is why he sends the Holy Spirit as our helper, our reminder, the one who endures with us, setting up events, bringing lepers into our lives to remind us of Jesus’ love and faithfulness, despite the leprosy of our sin.

We are tempted to deny Christ, deny our sinfulness, and deny our subsequent salvation in these times.  Ridicule, being treated with contempt for revealing sin in others through our confession of Christ, being despised and mocked for our faith, tempts us to deny Jesus Christ.  We say, “please save us”, but find it difficult to say, “thank you Lord”, especially before others and the world.

Like Naaman, the leper, and the Samaritan leper, we are reminded of the leprosy of our sin and caused to remember our healing in Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit calls us out of denial and unfaithfulness into remembrance, reminding, and endurance. 

Jesus has healed you and says to you, Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.  We are reminded that our faith is faith given to us in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  We remember his promise that the Holy Spirit will guide us on our way through death to eternal resurrection.  This way causes us to give thanks and praise.

Like Naaman and the Samaritan leper we who see our healing and the way of death and resurrection are faithfully given words by which we too can say, thankyou God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, for reminding me of your faithfulness and remembrance of me, despite my sin. 

Therefore, let us daily thank him for his daily faithfulness to us in our death and resurrection in the words of Psalm 111…

Praise the LORD!  I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.  Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.  Full of splendour and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.  He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and merciful.  He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.  He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations.  The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.  He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever.  Holy and awesome is his name!  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.  His praise endures forever!  (Psalm 111 ESV)

Amen.