Sermons

ABCs of Faith: Confession

BY THERESA MCCONNELL | FEBRUARY 24 , 2008 (Lent)
John 4:5-42

It was going to be a great day - her daughter’s wedding. The new sanctuary had just been completed, filled with white pine pews, vaulted ceilings. Everyone was so excited about the upcoming wedding. As a life-long member, very involved in the life of the church she was thrilled that the new sanctuary was ready in time. Yet, here at the wedding rehearsal finding that the altar rail was too close… but the pastor insisted that once the railing was in place it could not be moved. It wasn’t easy, but they managed to work around it.

A few weeks later a popular music group came to the church to perform and in the process of setting up they moved the altar railing. Nothing was said. She couldn’t believe it. Here she was a life-time member of the church, who helped make this church what it was, and the altar railing could not be moved for her daughter’s wedding, but this music group had no problem having it moved! She could no longer even enter the doors without having the hurt well up inside of her. She just could not let it go. The resentment grew. Her husband talked her out of leaving the church because they had so much history with the church but it was never the same for her again. Never the same.

We know a bit about people being treated “differently” according to who they are. That was the issue between the Jews and the Samaritans – both Jewish people by the way. The Jews maintained certain “ways of doing things” – ritual laws- the way they cleaned a cup or what type meat could be eaten or not. This was a way to honor God. The Samaritans not only no longer held to these traditions after the exile, but they intermarried with non-Jews. The issue was religious tradition. Some were being looked down on by others; a great hurt growing into hatred over the years. Like an alter railing that could not be moved. Centuries of being shamed, shunned. We know something about shame.

He hoped the floor would open up and swallow him, so he intently dug the toe of his sneaker into the same spot. The farmer had reached his parents on the phone.

"Yup, pulling the ears off the corn plants in my field...can't even eat them, not ripe yet..."

The little boy wondered, "Will my parents still love me?" The tips of his own ears burned with shame.

The cleaning lady's eyes were red-rimmed again and her hands trembled as they passed over the familiar places, trying to work but not quite getting out the dirt.

Today's hours would pay off the debt from when her stove had broken down last month, but what about her house payment? The little house, over extended in mortgage debt, was the only thing that kept her going sometimes, but now she was two payments behind. Who could she ask to help her this time? No matter how hard she worked it seemed as if she was never out of debt. She never had enough to make ends meet. She felt unworthy, having to go begging again.

No one in his family had ever divorced before. He was sad alright, but more than that was the pang of insecurity he felt way down in the pit of his stomach. He had this gripping sense of self doubt...what was he going to say to people? He'd always done everything right, the right schools, the right career, even the right wife. But now she was gone. What had been so bad about him that she had to leave?

She had taken to going to the well at off hours. She missed the gossip that way, the pointed looks from the women who knew her livelihood was not as respectable as theirs. She missed the small amount of camaraderie some of the women offered her, but it was the price she paid for avoiding the shame.

Lately she went to the well at the sixth hour. It was sure to be deserted then. The daily task of filling the water jar for the needs of the household was difficult enough, but at the sixth hour lugging the heavy jar with the sun directly overhead, what had been a taxing, tedious task, became an exhausting test of endurance. It was worth it though because she didn't have to face her life reflected in the harshest of lights. It saved her from despair. It saved her from feeling shamed. (The Power to be Filled, Pamela R. King Palmetto Presbyterian Church Miami, FL, www.sermonmall.com/TheMall/08/feb08/022408s.html)

Jesus is exhausted and sits at the well, while his disciples go on into the city to pick up lunch. As the woman approaches the well, Jesus asks her for water to drink. She is shocked by his request because of the long-standing religious separation between their peoples. “You, a Jew… ask of me a Samaritan.”

‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’

Literally “running,” “flowing” water as opposed to stagnant water (Boring &Craddock, The People’s New Testament Commentary, p 300).

‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?’

She stays with literal conversation and avoids Jesus’ deeper invitation.

Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?

Now she’s offering a religious argument, rather than responding to Jesus’ offer of life.

We know what it is like to avoid what Jesus is calling us to do, right? We know what it is like to enter the church and focus on our hurt from the days of the unmoving altar railing.

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband.”

Jesus side-steps the argument about religion and gets to the heart of the matter – her heart and SHE CONFESSES the truth about her life to him.

To confess is to “admit who we are,” to “own up to our actions,” to “come clean” (English Thesaurus).

It is this honesty before God that helps us come into relationship with God. God is always reaching out to us, seeking us, but we don’t receive the clean, running, water of new life because we can’t get past the altar rail memory, or the shame of stealing, or the hurt of divorce, or the shame of not having enough. We can’t get past it because we are not honest before God. We ask along with the boy in the corn field, “Will my parents still love me?”

Confession is part of trusting God. Will we trust that God can love us even with the truth of our lives before him? But God already knows all about us, so honesty before God is really truthfulness about ourselves.

The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he,* the one who is speaking to you.’

In our honesty before God Jesus reveals himself to us. Confession means honesty before God, and that honesty allows the relationship that God has always wanted.

And just as she is understanding Jesus’ gift to her, the disciples return and intrude. Seeing the looks on their faces --- she leaves, BUT IS NOT STOPPED, for she begins CONFESSING to all the people of the town. She Confesses to them: makes known, declares to them…the gift of living water she has discovered.

Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,* can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

It is in knowing ourselves through God’s eyes that we are freed from our bondage. Being freed in this way we have something to share with others. It is through this confession that we are then freed from that altar rail that holds us back. We are freed to tell others what a wonderful thing God has DONE for us.

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony,

Isn’t it wonderful that God used her incomplete knowledge to bring others to him… oh, she knew he was a prophet and that he told “all she had ever done.” But it is the others who hear the word from Jesus as he stays with them a few days who proclaim that he is the Savior of the world.

The question for us is, “What confession does God require from you and me?” “Do we need to be honest with God about who we are and what we have done?” “Do we need to tell others about the freedom that God has given us?” “Do we need to start with a time of prayer that we might release the altar rail memory so that Jesus’ love might enfold us?” Confession is an act of faith that helps us grow in relationship with God and one another. May it be so with us.

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