Caught In The Fence

Caught in the Fence Jody Winston 27-February-2005

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Sermon

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”1 Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Growing up on a small ranch in South Texas, I became familiar with freeing animals from fences. Maybe a few of you have had to free animals from fences also. Normally what happened on my parent’s ranch was that a calf would try to escape from its pen so that it could reach its mother and in doing so, the calf would become entangled in the barbed wire fence. In order to free the calf from what held it, the calf would have to be calmed down, the calf would need to be cut out from the fence, and once these items were done, the calf could then be set free to live. After extensive research, I have come to the conclusion that Jesus is a rather good ranch hand. I would like to hear if you agree with me because I think that His actions in this story appear to match those of any good Texas ranch hand. As we study today’s Gospel, hear how Jesus calms down the woman. See how He carefully cuts her free from the fence. And notice how He then sets her free to live. It really doesn’t matter why the animal is trapped in the fence because all that really matters is freeing the animal so that the animal can go live again since the animal will die if it stays entangled in the fence. In other words, the ranch hand 1

Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians 1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3. 2 Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians 1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3.

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must go out into the pasture and find the trapped animals because the trapped animals will never find the ranch hand and they will not free themselves. Just like the ranch hand, God goes out and walks the fence line But unlike the ranch hand that can only find trapped animals, God will be there before we are tangled up in the fence. We are mistaken if we think that we can find God out walking the ranch because God’s ranch is the entire universe. It is wrong for us to think that we can extract ourselves from the fence because we cannot see how tangled up we actually are in the wire. Like the trapped animal in a fence, it does not really matter why we are in the fence. What is important is that we will die if we stay there. So, we should not concern ourselves why the woman came to the well during the heat of the day or why she was drawing water from this specific well.3 What matters most to us in this story is something completely different. The Good News is that God is already waiting for us.4 The Spirit drove Jesus to the well and the Spirit will drive Him to us.5 He will be waiting for us no matter where we are. No matter how tired He is from the journey, He will be there for us just like He was there at the well for the Samaritan woman. 6 If we let Him, He will save us. The trapped animal must be calmed down before the ranch hand tries to do anything else. If the animal is not treated with respect, then the animal will be frightened and might hurt themselves or the ranch hand. In this story, Christ’s attitude towards women and Samaritans places the woman at ease. Instead of making a derogatory remark about her racial background or completely ignoring her because she was a woman,7 Jesus simply tells her to give Him a drink of water.8 In this simple action, Jesus shows us that God meets us in our situation. The woman could have tried to run away from God or become angry with God. We can do the same thing when God talks to us and we focus our energy on self-preservation instead of listening to God. The flee or fight response can hurt us. If we try to flee, we will hurt ourselves as we try to pull away from the fence. If we try to become angry and thrash out at God, our actions will cause us pain. 3

John 4:6-7. John 4:4-6. 5 John 4:4. 6 John 4:6-7. 7 S.D.B. Francis J. Maloney; S.J. Daniel J. Harrington, ed., The Gospel of John, Vol. 4, Sacra Pagina Series, (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1998), p. 116-117. 8 John 4:7. 4

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After making the animal feel safe, the ranch hand must place themselves at risk and hold the animal still so they can cut the animal out from the fence. If the ranch hand has forgotten to bring the appropriate tools, the fence cannot be removed from the animal. Four different types of wire trap the Samaritan woman: the binding of birth, the tangle of tradition, the wire of religion, and sin’s fence. One of the ways that birth traps us is that we are either male or female. In the culture of the day, women were property and either their father or their husband owned them. Men were not to speak to women they did not own. Jesus cuts through this legal system and speaks directly to the woman.9 Birth also ensnares us by placing us into a given race. As a Samaritan, the woman would never share anything with a Jew.10 In fact, most Jews viewed the Samaritans as “mixed blood” and because of this attitude the race relations between the Samaritans and the Jews were “hostile.”11 Jesus quickly and carefully removes this wire by asking the woman to give Him a drink from her water jar.12 Tradition has forced the women into a fence. She thinks that no one can be greater than her father Jacob.13 Jesus extracts the woman from this mess by telling her that His water quenches your thirst forever and gives you eternal life unlike Jacob’s water.14 Religion has trapped many people and it has caught the woman. Her religion teaches her that God must be only worshiped on the mountain.15 Jesus strips off this portion of the fence and tells her that God must be worshiped in “spirit and truth.”16 We do not know anything about the woman’s six husbands and it is pointless for us to speculate why she is on her sixth husband.17 But we do know that she is a human and just like every human she has sinned sometime in the past. In her present state and despite her sin, God was there before she arrived at the well and God accepted her. Jesus tells her all she has to do is believe in Him.18 At each of these encounters with Christ, the woman could have refused to let Jesus do what He needed to do. Each of us has the option of remaining where we are and dieing because we cannot get the food and the water that we need. 9

John 4:7 and following. John 4:9. 11 Francis J. Maloney, p. 120. 12 John 4:7. 13 John 4:12. 14 John 4:13-14. 15 John 4:20-21. 16 John 4:24. 17 John 4:16-18. 18 John 4:21-26. 10

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Jesus is willing to meet us in all of our messy situations. Even though we might lash out and hurt Him, He is willing to put himself at risk and He extracts us from our problems. In every encounter with the woman, Jesus brought the correct tools to remove her from the fence. He will do the same for us. He will do anything, including dieing on the cross, to remove us from the fence. Standing in the cut fence does nothing for the calf. The calf needs food and water. The ranch hand must send the calf on its way so that the calf can live. Jesus sent the woman to find her husband and then for them to come back to Him.19 We do not know if her husband did what Christ ordered him to do. We all have that choice of ignoring Christ’s word and dieing where we stand. We do know that the woman not only returned to Christ but also that she told others who found her. Because of her witness, Jesus spent two days with the Samaritans and many of them believed because of His word.20 If the Samaritan woman would have stayed at the well instead of going back to the town, she would have literally starved to death. She listened to Jesus and followed His command to go. When God frees us, we all have a choice to make. We can stand where we are and not leave the place where God set us free. This is a tempting choice for us because we all want to remember our encounter with God but if we stay here, we will surely die. We can go back to our old way of life. This option is easy for us because then we can continue to walk in our old ways even though we know that one day they will take us back to the fence. We can kill the one that set us free because we find that His freedom is too frightening. Or we can take the most demanding choice, going and telling others about how God cut us free from the fence. Jesus wants us to take that difficult option of telling others how God released us. He wants us to invite others to come and see what we have seen.21 Even if our invitations are as weak as the woman’s, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they will produce results, just like the woman’s confession. Where are to go and who are we to tell this story to? Jesus Himself has provided us the answer to this question. Just has He started the work in Samaria and had other people finished it. He is asking us to do the same. We are to lift up our eyes and see how the fields are already ripe for har19

John 4:16. John 4:41. 21 John 4:29. 20

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vesting.22 When we go into the field and help Christ with the harvest, Jesus has promised that we can celebrate with Him.23 I think that you will agree with me that Jesus is a good ranch hand. He goes out and is there before we are trapped. He works with them, to free them from the fence. He sets them free to live. “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

References Francis J. Maloney, S.D.B.; Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., ed.. The Gospel of John. Vol. 4, Sacra Pagina Series. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8146-5806-7.

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John 4:35b. John 4:36.

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