Sermon: February 24, 2008

Prayer: Gracious and Holy Lord, You have said that wherever two or more are gathered in your name there you are also. So we ask that you will be with us this day to experience your love and grace and to receive the living water that you also offered to the Samaritan woman at the well and those who come to you with hearts of faith and witness. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

 I have to admit it this morning, and I don’t mind doing so, that when I’ve taught Sunday school, Confirmation classes and Bible Studies I usually learn more from the people who I’m teaching than they do from me. I believe that’s why I like teaching because I usually get more out of it as a teacher than if I was a student. And teaching here at St. John’s has not been any different.

 Just a couple of Tuesdays ago at our Bible study one of our bright and insightful group of learners asked me if I had ever heard of a spiritual concept called “A Thin Place”. Admitting that I didn’t think I had, she said that a Thin Place comes from Celtic Spirituality and is a place where the veil, the distance between heaven and earth is narrow and can be felt, can be perceived. OK, I kind of know what you’re talking about I said. I’ve even had that experience on a couple of occasions without realizing what the name for it was.

 Curious I went to the Internet, of course, and googled the name, and sure enough it’s a concept that comes from Celtic Spirituality as a place or places in which you can sense the real presence and power of God with you. There is even a Celtic saying that states, “Heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even smaller.”

For people of faith these places give you a sense of heaven, paradise, and God’s presence. For others it can be expressed in a darker sense, as the abyss or the unknown. For each of us these places of feeling this sense of a closer connectedness to God are different.

Where I have encountered this thin place, this overpowering sense of the holy, in recent memory, happened several years ago when I was sitting in the Chapel of the Reconciliation at Taize in France, with about 4000 other persons from all over Europe praying and chanting the canons. It was an amazing experience, one in which I could sense powerful presence of God. Another person in my family has said that her thin place can be found on the great prairies of northeastern South Dakota riding a horse to a certain spot on that land. Where’s your thin place? Maybe you have had this experience in a more ordinary setting, of the powerful presence of Heaven and God? Maybe you’ve experienced a thin place and like me you’ve not been able to name it. Hopefully this has helped. I believe that we all have thin places whether we know it or not.

 I was thinking about this concept of “thin places” this past week as I read the Gospel from John about the Samaritan Woman and her encounter and experience with Jesus. As I read and then did my study on this text I couldn’t help but to think initially about the contrast between this Samaritan woman’s meeting with Jesus and our Gospel reading from last week involving the Pharisee, Nicodemus and his meeting up with Jesus. Nicodemus the Pharisee, a Jewish man, a person of great wealth, status, education and experience who tries to figure out who Jesus is and despite Jesus telling him, albeit in a round about way, just can’t seem to see through his own religiosity and sense of righteousness that he’s bound up in, to accept Jesus on Jesus terms and Nicodemus leaves confused and dismayed.

 Then we come to this week’s reading and we’re introduced to this Samaritan woman who will ultimately experience her own “thin place” here at this well. This Samaritan woman meets Jesus at this well in Sychar, a town in Samaria, where Jesus has decided to stop for a rest after a long and hot journey. Jesus begins this engaging and illuminating conversation by asking for a drink of water. And she in turn identifying Jesus as a Jew is surprised that he would ask such a thing from her, a Samaritan. Right off the bat there is a tension that is introduced into this encounter because according to Jewish law and custom no self-respecting Jewish male would ever talk with a woman in public let alone a Samaritan woman and to ask to drink from the same vessel was out of the question because it would have violated the cleanliness laws of the day.

 But as we hear and experience once again Jesus transcends the natural barriers of race, class, and gender and even religion that afflicts the people of his day…not to mention in our day and society as well. Jesus sets an example of dignity and grace for us to follow in our own interactions and association with people who are different from us and who don’t believe as we believe.

  Then indirectly, as Jesus had done with Nicodemus, Jesus identifies himself and states to her, if she understood who she was dealing with that she would ask Jesus for the “Living Water” that leads to eternal life. Once again Jesus speaking to this woman uses metaphorical language. Jesus is proclaiming the presence of the kingdom in and through this living water, and once again this phrase “living water has a both earthly meaning and a spiritual meaning as well. To the woman living water meant running water as opposed to still water like in a cistern or like in our baptismal font, but to Jesus living water meant the very essence of new life and a reference to baptism in water and the Spirit. The woman still not totally understanding what Jesus was saying, but undaunted asks for this living water, as if she would receive the benefit of a stream running by her front door, but she is neither intimidated nor dismayed by this conversation and continues to engage Jesus knowing there is something totally different about this stranger, slowly but steadily her eyes and heart are being opened to Jesus and his identity as their conversation continues.

 After further dialogue about her living arrangements, and men in her life, she declares Jesus to be a prophet. She’s getting closer and closer to being fully aware of Jesus, and this spot at the well is getting thinner and thinner for her as each moment passes. The conversation moves on to worship and in another prophetic moment Jesus declares that neither the mountain top of the Samaritans nor Jerusalem will be the final worship center for all people. What Jesus is saying to her is that the walls of separation for the worship of God, for people of all faith backgrounds will eventually in time and history come falling down and we will all worship God in spirit and truth since God is spirit. We will worship with a true sense and spirit of centering our heart and intellect on what God has done, is doing and will continue to do into eternity. And whether or not we are able to physically feel or intellectually embrace the reality of God’s grace, we are confident we still have received in the Word and sacraments that God has come to us with a divine love and mercy even when we don’t feel it.

 The woman’s eyes are just about fully opened. She claims her belief in a Messiah who is coming and will reveal all things. Jesus sensing she is on the edge of faith and witness ends the metaphors and clearly and definitively states to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” I am the Messiah…Gods’ promised Savior and the one who has revealed to you the mystery of life and death. As Jesus disciples return astonished at what is going on, the woman leaves filled with excitement and wonder. She returns to her village and witnesses to her experience with Jesus. Many Samaritans, these people considered outcasts, believed we are told because of her testimony, but they really came to full faith when they returned and heard Jesus himself proclaiming his Word. Their final confession about Jesus…that Jesus truly is the Savior of the world”.

 This morning as we have seen and experienced we have welcomed into this, our community of faith a new member in the body of Christ, a child of Gods’ family, Cole Eidbo, Cole has experienced his own thin place this day, even though he might not yet fully realize it, although maybe he does, that is another one of the mysteries of God that I believe happens in Baptism, the mystery of faith. Cole’s parents John and Kyra, have brought Cole to the living water, the water of new life where God has promised Cole along with his parents the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide and nurture Cole in the Christian life, to receive the forgiveness of sin and eternal life and be confident in all the blessings that God has in store for Cole and for all who are baptized into Jesus Christ. And we are happy and blessed ourselves with the responsibility to help Cole with the promises that his parents have made for him and that he will one day affirm before God.

We as a people of God like the Samaritan woman, come to this place today not only out of habit but with the hope and expectation of a real encounter with Christ. We come here this morning as we do every Sunday to also experience this thin place, this place where we to can have that sense of the powerful presence of God. Maybe it will come to us in the hearing and singing of the beautiful music, or the words of the Gospel, or maybe in the taking of the sacrament or just in the reassuring presence of other people in this community of faith that we worship with, and pray with from week to week. Sometimes it’s hard for us to sense that presence of God, that thin place, because we may have some baggage that gets in the way, the baggage may be doubt and despair, it may be difficulties that we’re having in our lives that’s causing us to not recognize God’s presence or that we just want to encounter and know Jesus on our own terms and time.

 Ultimately if we can put these issues to the side and just open ourselves to Jesus and ask for what Jesus has to give we will not be disappointed? And like the experience of the Samaritan woman maybe through our encounter with Jesus and witness to our neighbors, others will also be stirred to faith. What would the church and the world look like then? Wonderfully and incredibly thin I would think. Thanks be to God. Amen.