The Samaritan Woman: A Model of Evangelism on International Women's Day

Thank you for engaging with the homily by Pastor Chill Will from

Chapel Hill. I hope this message encourages you, challenges

you and moves you to go deeper in your faith and enrich how you

love God and love your neighbor in your day to day life.

Just a reminder. Like the scriptures and gospels themselves,

this homily was written for a particular community in a particular,

particular context, time in history. And yet, like our sacred

texts, I hope that these words hold timeless truths about God's

unconditional love and grace. We hope these words speak to you

in a meaningful way.

Hey friends. Welcome to another episode of the homily and

today we have a special special guest on the homily. My co

worker, my co pastor, my partner in ministry here at Holy

Trinity Lutheran Church in Lutheran Campus ministry. Pastor

Katie Elkin Zier, who is the campus pastor who does takes the

lead with our students in our campus ministry here on the campus

of UNC and in Chapel Hill. And she preached a phenomenal sermon

this past Sunday on March 8th on International Women's Day on the

third Sunday in Lent, John, chapter four, the unnamed Samaritan

woman at the well. And I thought she tied in a lot of great

things when it comes to Lent, when it comes to how we identify

ourselves as Lutheran Christians, and then also lifting

up what this text had to say. So I'm bringing her on board to take

the lead on this. You'll hear in the Gospel reading some of our

friends and members here and staff members at Holy Trinity reading

the Gospel lesson. It's a really long one. And then she dives

into the homily. So enjoy. And again, as always, always, if you

have any questions, thoughts, ideas, if it sparked any awe, wonder,

curiosity in you, reach out and let us know peace.

This is the Holy Gospel according to John.

Glory to you, oh Lord.

So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot

of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was

there and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well.

It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus

said to her, give me a drink. His disciples had gone to the city

to buy food. Then the Samaritan woman said to him,

how is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?

Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered

her, 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.

The woman said to Jesus, sir, you

have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living

water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us the

well. And with his sons and his flocks drank from it?

Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be

thirsty again. But those who drink of the water that I will give

them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become

in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.

So the woman said to Jesus, sir,

give me this water so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep

coming here to draw water.

And Jesus said to her, go call

your husband and come back.

The woman answered him, I have no husband.

And Jesus said to her, you are

right in saying I have no husband. For you have had five husbands

and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said

is true.

The woman said to Jesus, sir, I

see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain.

But you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.

And Jesus said to the woman, woman,

believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the father.

Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you

do not know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the

Jews. The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers

will worship the Father and spirit and truth. For the Father

seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who

worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The woman said to Jesus, 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.

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was

speaking with a woman. But no one said, what do you want? Or why

are you speaking with her? 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 they were on their way to Jesus. Meanwhile,

the disciples were urging Jesus, rabbi, eat something. But

he said to them, I have

food to eat that you do not know about. Surely no one has brought

him something to eat.

And Jesus said to them, my food

is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.

Do you not say four months more? Then comes the harvest. But

I tell you, look around you and see how the fields are ripe for

the harvesting. The Reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering

fruit for eternal life so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.

For here the saying holds true. One sows, another wheat reaps.

I sent you to reap for what you do not labor. Others have labored,

and you have entered into their labor.

Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the

woman's testimony.

He told me everything I have ever done.

So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked Jesus to stay with

them. And he stayed there two days. And many more believed because

of his word. Then they said to the woman, it is no longer because

of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves.

And we know that this is truly the Savior of the world, the Gospel

of the Lord. Praise you. You, O Bryce, you may be seated. In the

name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and Lutheran Campus Ministry is a

congregation of the elca. Many of y' all know that already. And

I bet some of y' all even remember when this congregation was

a part of the lca, before the ELCA even existed. But that was also

before I existed. So as long as I have been Lutheran, I have only

known the elca. Anyone know what that acronym stands for? Yes,

some of y'. All. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Right.

But most of those words we can get behind. We are Lutheran. We believe

that all people are imperfect and are saved by God's grace alone

through Christ. We are a church. Yep. And we're in America.

The United States, to be specific. So we got the L and the

C and the A. But we can't forget about the E. The E that stands

for evangelical. Now, that word might make some of us itchy.

Over the last several decades in the United States, specifically

evangelical Christians, have come to be seen as loud, even aggressive.

We might say Bible thumping Christians focused on winning souls

for Jesus while making life harder on this earth for people who

don't agree with them. In 2005, Christian author Philip Yancey

found that for most people, evangelicals were a force to fear.

A gang of moralists attempting to impose their will on a pluralistic

society. That's a quote. So for some people, the word evangelical

brings up way too many negative associations. So there's

even been a movement to try and take the E out of elca. But the

root of the word evangelical is a Greek word, euangelion. And

euangelion simply means good news. Maybe we could change our church

to the good News Lutheran Church in America? I don't know.

That's an idea. Evangelism just means sharing good news. But

in our desire to distance ourselves from one specific type

of Christianity,

we

elca Lutherans sometimes shrink at the idea of evangelizing.

We don't want to come across as pushy or heavy handed, so we pull

back instead of being bold about who we are and what we have

to offer the world, or rather, what God can offer the world through

us. And that's one of the reasons I love our Gospel story for

today. It's the longest interaction anyone has with Jesus

in the whole Bible, and maybe y' all felt that while we were reading

it earlier, but it also gives us a beautiful, healthy model of

evangelism embodied in the form of a Samaritan woman. It is

noon outside the walls of Sychar when Jesus sits down by Jacob's

well for a little rest. A Samaritan woman comes to draw water,

and Jesus demands of her, give me a drink. Now much ink has been

spilled about who this Samaritan woman was and why she's

drawing water in the middle of the day. But for now, it's enough

to say that she is an unexpected conversation partner for

Jesus, and she's rightly confused by his request for a drink.

She is a Samaritan, Jesus is a Jew, and Jews do not share things

in common with Samaritans. But throughout the course of their interaction,

we find that the Samaritan woman and Jesus are evenly matched

conversation partners. They talk about everything from their

forefathers in faith to their differing worship practices, to what

the arrival of the Messiah is going to look like, and even their

own personal identities. And when this discussion comes to an

end, this unnamed, unashamed, unexpected woman becomes the first

to share the good news, to evangelize to the people in Samaria.

Come and see the man who has proclaimed to me everything about

myself, she says. Can this be the Messiah? Come and see, she says.

Come and see. The Samaritan woman's example of evangelism is

so powerful because it's an invitation. She has encountered the

Savior of the world, and she tells everyone about it. But then

instead of telling everyone that, well, they should just believe

her or that they should believe just like her, she invites

her neighbors along to come experience Christ for themselves.

Come and see, she says. Do you think this could be the Messiah?

Come on, form your own opinions. Come and see. Now I have

to brag a little bit and say that our LCM students are really

good at this type of Invitational Evangelism. They all

have a story about how they got to campus ministry. And for a

majority of them, it's because a friend asked them to come along

for an event or a meal or a Wednesday night worship. And I know

at least a handful of y' all are here this morning because a friend

invited you, too. The good news compels us, like the Samaritan

woman, to run into the world shouting and inviting, come and see.

See what Christ is doing in and through this community of faith.

Come and experience it for yourself. Now, maybe some of y' all

are still itchy about the idea of evangelizing, or maybe you're

all in on inviting folks to come and see, but thinking Lent is

kind of a weird time to invite my friends to church. I mean, we're

not exactly shouting hallelujahs this time of year. Maybe

I'll wait until Easter. But y', all, I actually think that Lent

is a great time to invite new people into a community of faith.

Each Ash Wednesday, myself and the other Protestant campus ministers

at UNC take ships standing outside the undergraduate library,

imposing ashes for anyone who asks. This year, when I got there,

I started out by giving my pretty generic spiel about how the

ashes remind us that our time on earth is finite and the cross

reminds us that God's love is infinite. But towards the end of

my hour outside the ul, I started getting more specific. This

ashy cross reminds us that our lives won't last forever, so neither

will our grades or our papers or our projects or our stress. And

as I said those words to one of the students standing in front

of me that day, she literally closed her eyes and said, oh, thank

God. It was kind of funny. And it was also a tender moment, because

in a culture that teaches us that we are only worth what we produce

in a world that wants us to believe that we can buy a fuller

life in eight easy installments. In an individualized

society that claims that we can be the source of our own living

water, a reminder of our finitude can actually be good news.

Our suffering, our pain, our human limitations are real. There's

no use pretending like there's nothing. And Lent is a season where

we can be honest about our own limitations. It is true that we humans

settle for shallow waters that will not quench our true thirst.

It is true that we are not always comfortable inviting or evangelizing

or talking about our faith. It is true that we are humans and we

have limits. So the good news that we can share today and every

day is that even with our human limitations. God delights in

us. Christ is still at work through us and the Holy Spirit still

empowers us to evangelize, to share the good news and to join in

on God's mission of loving the whole world. Because God's love has

no limits and God's limitless love has been poured into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit. So whether or not we evangelize like

the Samaritan woman, whether or not our human limitations actually

feel like good news, whether or not we want to keep the E in Elca,

Christ's living water is a spring within us gushing up to eternal

life for the whole world. So come and see. This is truly the Savior

of the world. Amen.

Foreign. Thank you for listening.

If there is anything that stood out

for you or if you have a

question or you just want to have a conversation, you are always

free to reach out and contact us.

And remember you are not alone and

that you are loved with a love stronger than death.