From Mountain -- to Temple -- to the Spirit Gushing Up Within Us
Rev. Finley Schaef, preaching
Park Slope United Methodist Church
Brooklyn, NY
Sunday,
March 10,
1996
Last week we learned the story of the pharisee Nicodemus, how he visited Jesus and Jesus told him he must be ..... "born again." But Nicodemus mocked Jesus. He said, "What do you mean? Do I have to go back into my mother's womb?"
Last Sunday we referred to Nicodemus as a member of the privileged class. Think of him as the symbol of spirit-less existence: dispirited, which means "grim." Last week Jesus said: "The spirit is like the wind which blows where it will." But Nicodemus was the opposite of the wind blowing where it will -- he had been sent to Jesus by conspirators, to trap him in his words. Nicodemus was cunning. It was Nicodemus who laid off 7 thousand workers. Nicodemus cuts down giant redwood trees to manufacture garden furniture. Nicodemus refuses to ordain women. Nicodemus seizes 400 computers bound for hospitals in Cuba.
Nicodemus does not want to be born again nor does he want others to think they can be born again -- into a new way of life; to learn a new consciousness, a new lifestyle, self-confidence. If Nicodemus had been at the well, he would have told the Samaritan woman not to talk to that foreigner Jesus. If he had to, he would have dragged her away.
I hate to be too harsh but we must describe the dispirited spirit-less life, which is symbolized by Nicodemus, to help understand the spirited life. Nicodemus was a self-righteous, judgmental moralist, whose religion consisted of obedience to commandments -- do this and don't do that! Jesus' religion, on the other hand, was a religion of spirit.
* * * * * * *
It took me a long time -- decades in fact -- to warm up to the Gospel of John, also known as "the 4th Gospel." Jesus seems so egocentric in John's Gospel. "I am the bread of life." "I am the living water." "I am the vine." And on and on. "I and the Father are one." He sounds like the boxer Mohammed Ali saying "I am the greatest!"-- but without the sense of humor Ali had.
Then the dawn comes: it hit me when I was reading about Sophia. In one of the writings about Sophia, she talks the same way: "I am the Wisdom of the world!" It was a literary style! These egocentric statements are what the author, John, is saying, not Jesus. Jesus didn't actually talk like that. What John wants us to know is this: "Jesus is the bread of life."
This is John's faith -- "Jesus is living water. Jesus is God." John expresses it by putting the words into Jesus' mouth. The 4th Gospel is an expression of one man's faith. We can take it or leave it but we shouldn't be offended by the style.
This story about the Samaritan woman at the well can be seen as a summary of John's religious experience -- in a sense it is autobiographical. (And it sums up the religious experience of many other Christians since!)
Let's read through it verse by verse. Let's observe the evolution of the Samaritan woman's faith.
* * * * * * *
First a note about these words: "Give me that water so that I won't have to keep coming here to draw water." We who have modern plumbing and flowing water at the flick of a wrist can't fully appreciate what she's saying here. Has anyone here ever lived in a place where you had to get your water from a well or a nearby stream?
Many of the world's women (and children) spend time each day fetching water and carrying it home in buckets or containers which sometimes perch on their heads! In 1986 a young American man was killed in a northern village of Nicaragua -- Ben Lindner -- he became a celebrated martyr. His mission there was to build a simple water pump. He gave his life so that the women of that little town would be spared the onerous labor of hauling water.
* * * * * * *
Now let's peruse the text (John 4:5-42). [The key verses are underlined in the text that the people have before them.]
"How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" "Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob?"
"Sir, I see that you are a prophet."
"Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"
(Townspeople:) "We know that this is truly the Saviour of the World."
Obviously this is the faith of the author John because this statement is repeated many times in similar ways throughout the Gospel.
I now invite every person here to reflect on these stages of faith, and to ask yourself: "Where am I?" [Repeat above.]
* * * * * * *
"God is spirit." (verse 32)
What is "spirit"? In this story Jesus liberates us from centralized organized religion, governed by a hierarchy. The movement of the spirit in this story is from mountain, to temple, to the individual person in whom the living water "gushes up." "Worship" is subtly re-defined as "the spirit gushing up."
We no longer are required to worship God on a mountain as indicated by the Samaritan woman; nor in the Temple which was the Jewish practice. This text allows us to draw the conclusion that it's not even required to go to synagogue or church or mosque to worship God.
Perhaps you all are not aware that the United Methodist General Conference will be held in Denver next month. General Conference meets every 4 years and decides the major rules and issues for the denomination as a whole. This year it looks like they are going to give more power to the Council of Bishops. 93% of the delegates have indicated that they favor establishing "the Council of Bishops as the body to provide vision and direction for the UMC."
I am flabbergasted. This is exactly the opposite direction in which Jesus moves in this story about the woman at the well. "Not at the mountain," he says; "nor in the Temple. Where the people are gathered and moved by the spirit -- that is where the vision will gush forth like a fountain! And the direction will be laid down by the people following their vision. The spirit moves bottom up. "Top-down" means "power-over" and it's no way to go! It's the way Nicodemus would want us to take.
Just last week our own Bishop James Mathews called the clergy together and gave us a paper on early Methodism in the U.S. Methodism flourished in the 1st half of the 19th century, moving from an insignificant religious body after the Revolutionary War to the largest denomination by 1850. Why? Because the preachers got on horseback and rode to where the settlers lived. There was a saying that you no sooner got the covered wagons unloaded than a Methodist preacher rode up on horseback. He preached about freedom and responsibility in Christ and after a few days rode on, leaving what we would call a "Fellowship Circle" behind him to carry on. A month later they were still on their own -- no bishop rode into town to give them vision and direction. They created their own under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And that's why the church grew by leaps and bounds. There was no Council of Bishops to dream their dreams and point them in the right direction.
Jesus' vision was so radical that people committed to the church cannot really understand it in its depths, because it threatens the institution of the church itself. Jesus says: "The hour is coming, and now is, when we worship in spirit and truth" -- that is, wherever we are. We are "church." Of course we still come to our little church on the corner here because we love being here, and we love the people in it, and we love the minister. [Laughter.] And I must say, after spending a few hours with him, we love our Bishop too! Our little church is our community, our piece of the spirit-movement.
What is "spirit"? Jesus said it blows like the wind. What is the opposite of spirit?
[Here the congregation offered these answers: Law. Thinking (rationality). Doldrums (cf "horse latitudes"). Status-quo. Ego. Apathy. Compulsion (closed-ness; no freedom). Control/domination. Machine.
There's a popular book out called COURSE ON MIRACLES which many people are studying, and it raises "spirit" to a place of central importance -- which is good -- but it lowers the physical world to a place of insignificance. What we need to understand is that the opposite of spirit is not flesh or body or matter. The spirit and the body are one. The spirit enlivens and energizes the body. The 2 go together.
When I fast, as I am doing now [see note in bulletin], it only works for me when I feel 2 things: that I will help my body and I will help other people through some cause. The combination of body and spirit give me the strength to do the fast. If I were to fast only in order to lose weight, it wouldn't get past the first day. If I were to fast to only to support the mission to Cuba, it wouldn't get past the first day. I need both body and spirit. The two are one.
No, the opposite of spirit is not body or flesh. The opposite of spirit is death! God is life. God took the dead dust and blew the spirit into it and it became alive as Adam and Eve.
There's a wonderful verse in one of the Psalms: "I believe that I shall see the Lord in the land of the Living." That's where we see God -- in the land of the living.
Now think for a moment. The spirit "gushes up like a spring within us." When do you feel like that?
[At this point the people shared experiences of feeling the spirit "gush up." Most of them were about experiences with children.]
At these moments in your life, when the you feel the spirit gushing up within you, you are "worshipping God in spirit and in truth."
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WELL A source of water created by digging in the earth to find available water. In the semiarid climate of ancient Israel, the availability of water was a constant concern, the Bible contains many references to the sources used for obtaining it. Several Hebrew words are used in different contexts to denote these sources, making it sometimes difficult to know which English word to use in translation.
The Hebrew word most commonly translated "well" is beer (Gen. 21:30-31).
Beer also occurs in several place names indicating the location of important wells: for example, Beer-sheba (Gen. 21:31).
The digging of a well could be a time for celebration (Num. 21:17-18), but wells were also fought over as different people tried to control the precious resource (Gen. 21:25-26). Wells were located wherever a water source could be found. This included fields, towns, and the wilderness.
"Well" is also used figuratively of a harlot (Prov. 23:27 NRSV) and of a wicked city (Jer. 6:7). Elsewhere it is used as a metaphor for sexual pleasure (Prov. 5:15).
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