“Unexpected Grace” 

John 4:5-42 

I am a big U2 fan, and I discovered a story that has become a favorite of mine about Bono, the band's lead singer. He is a Christian, and his faith has led him to become an activist. He has used his celebrity on behalf of the poor and on behalf of those suffering from AIDS. He has met with world leaders, pushed to shape a more compassionate global agenda, and helped raise literally billions of dollars in the process. 

But this story comes from earlier in U2's career, and is told by Mark

Yaconelli. I'll use his words. “The first rock show I ever attended was a U2 concert held in a small theater in Toronto in 1983. When the band was introduced, mayhem broke out. People began climbing over seats, pressing toward the stage. By the second number people were jumping up on the stage, sneaking around the stacks of speakers, grabbing and hugging members of the band. Husky men in yellow jackets appeared from the sides of the auditorium and started dragging people off the stage. Then they leaped into the crowd and began strong-arming people back toward their seats. 

Seeing what was happening, Bono stopped the music and asked the bouncers to go back to the stage wings. He then expressed his gratitude for the effort people had made to attend the concert and asked that we all try to stay calm so that no one would be injured or forced to leave. 

The security men receded, but it took only a song or two before the stoned and star-struck began scampering back onto the stage. Often Bono didn't see them, and they were caught by the concert security guards and hauled outside.

When Bono did notice, he ran to them, pulled them from the guards, hugged them or danced with them, then gently returned the wayward fans to the audience. Soon Bono was alternating between singing to the audience and rescuing people from the bouncers. The concert became so electric and out of control that at one point Bono stopped playing and whispered something to the other band members, who left the stage. Then the lights were cut except for a spotlight on Bono, who brought the crowd to its senses by quietly singing "Amazing Grace."¹ 

In the midst of chaos, it was a story of unexpected grace. 

This is what our story is about, this story of the Samaritan Woman. It is a story of unexpected grace. 

Jesus, as a good Jew, was supposed to avoid Samaria, or more precisely

Samartans. Samaritans and Jews hated each other. Their hatred was rooted in a conflict centuries old by Jesus' time. They had common roots. They were related like long lost siblings, but like Arab and Jew today, the barriers that separated them were high, and founded deep. By Jesus' day, the hatred and separation had been codified in social practice and religious law. Good Jews made their way around the region of Samaria when they traveled. 

Jesus was not supposed to go there, but he did. 

When a Samaritan woman made her way to the well to fill her empty bucket, Jesus, as a man, was not supposed to have any contact with her. It simply was not right. A man did not talk to a woman from another family. Such interactions, or more precisely, preventing them, was highly regulated by social custom and religious practice. Conversation with this woman? Jesus was definitely not supposed to go there, but he did. 

So what is at first blush a simple request, “Could you give me a drink?” was, in the world of the story, a shocking and unexpected boundary crossing.

This is why the disciples' jaws dropped when they returned from the village with their french fries and quarter pounder for Jesus (One historical note: ancient texts are unclear on whether Jesus preferred his burger with cheese or not). 

Even though he was a Jew, and she a Samaritan, - even though he was a

“he” and she was a “she” - Jesus crossed whatever boundary he needed to in order to reach her. Having done so, he offered unexpected grace. 

What follows is Jesus' longest-recorded conversation with anyone in Scripture. Traditional interpretation has tended to present this woman, with her five previous husbands and her current companion who is not her husband, as a sinner extraordinaire. In truth, we don't know if she is a victim or perpetrator of any involved transgression. In fact, since changing husbands was more under the control of males in that patriarchal society, I would guess she is more victim than anything else in her unique history. 

The story reveals this: what Nicodemus didn't get in the dark of night is precisely what is slowly discovered by this bright, open, and honest woman in the light of a noon-day sun. Jesus crossed boundary of gender, culture, and religion, and then he crossed the boundary of all of her past hurts and sin. She received unexpected grace. This woman is not presented as a sinner she is presented as a model of faith. 

This unexpected grace is the essence of this season that we call Lent. We often refer to this season as our spiritual journey. But before it is that, we hear this story of Jesus' remarkable boundary crossing and we are reminded that our journey is possible because of God's persistent journey to reach out to us. 

You see, the good news that we are on our way to discovering at Easter is not dependent upon, rooted in, or founded upon what we do. It begins with a stubborn God who loves us. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)” 

This story tells us that there is no human boundary that Jesus will not

cross, there is no human wall that will keep him from being with me...and with you. 

There is nothing that you can do, nothing. There is nowhere that you can go -nowhere, where you can be out of the reach of this God who loves you. No depression can cloud you, no sickness can take away from you, no addiction can bind you, no human prejudice or hatred or pride sin can hurt you so much that Jesus

cannot reach you. Even if it takes the cross to get there, Jesus will find you. When he does, he will hold out his hand and say, “Here, have a drink.” 

When we receive it, we are transformed. That unexpected grace seeps down deep into our soul and turns the driest dirt into moist soil out of which grow sprigs of new life. 

If you are dry this morning, take a drink. If you feel you are beyond reach, think again. 

If you are not feeling particularly thirsty this morning then perhaps you can reflect a bit. Perhaps you will notice areas of your life, or relationships that you did not know were dry. Perhaps you will notice people around you or places in the world that are as dry as can be. Then, perhaps, you will notice a cup of water in your hand. 

God's grace has unexpected power; the kind of power that can't be understood until it is experienced. In this season we all have the opportunity, the invitation, to discover life changing, world changing, unexpected grace. 

I heard a touching story of grace a few weeks ago on NPR's StoryCorps,

and I would like to share it with you:

“Seven years ago, Patricia Nuckles was murdered when she was surprised by an intruder in her home. Her father, Hector Black, came to StoryCorps in Nashville to talk about what he went through after that killing and in the months that followed. 

'We learned about what had happened in bits and pieces. She came home and he was hiding in the closet hoping to jump out the back window and get away. But she opened the closet door and she fell backwards and he tied her hands behind her back. And they had a conversation, in the course of which she told him that he needed to get help with his drug habit. He told her to put burglar bars on the back windows and to always leave the light on. He asked her for sex, and she said you'll have to kill me first. And so he did. We were all just devastated.

Nothing like this had ever happened. I mean, we'd known death but not like this. I'd never been in favor of the death penalty, but I wanted that man to hurt, the way he had hurt her. I wanted him to hurt the way I was hurting. 

But after awhile I wanted to know who it was, what kind of monster would do a thing like this. And I learned a little bit about Ivan Simpson. That's his name. I found out that he was born in a mental hospital, and that when he was about 11 years old, his mother took him and his brother and sister to a

swimming pool and said God was ordering her to destroy them. He escaped, and his brother escaped from her, but he watched while his mother drowned his little sister. 

Suzy and I both went to the District Attorney's office and he was quite upset when we told him that we did not want this man killed. He plead guilty to every charge, and then it came turn for anybody who had been affected by the crime to say how it had effected them. So I read my statement and in the statement I said 'I don't hate you, Ivan Simpson, but I hate with all my soul what you did to my daughter.' 

And I looked in his eyes. The tears were streaming down his cheeks. And before he was led away, he asked to speak, and was led to a microphone, and he twice said “I am so sorry for the pain that I caused.” 

And when I got back to my room that night I couldn't sleep, because I

really felt as though a tremendous weight had lifted from me. And that I had forgiven him.”² 

It was unexpected grace. We are lavished with it by a God who faithfully, stubbornly pursues us. And as Hector black discovered, we offer it to others who need to receive it as much as we need share it. Amen. 

¹ Mark Yaconelli, “Christian Megastar” The Christian Century, (March, 21, 2006, pp. 20-22.)

² Hector Black, StoryCorps 49: A Father's Statement, NPR, 2/8/08. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

February 24, 2008

Rev. Paul Heins

First Presbyterian Church

Logan, Utah