Truth Without JudgementMuskoka Lakes Ministry of Knox, Port Carling & Zion, Torrance
Sunday Aug 30, 2020
Sermon Series: The Ministry of Jesus
Message: Truth Without Judgement
Reverend Glynis Faith (705-765-3797) (muskokalakesministry@gmail.com)
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Announcements
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Lectio Divina Thursday evenings at 8pm via Zoom. If you would like to take part contact Rev. Faith to receive a Zoom invitation.
If you would like a ‘socially distant’ visit from the minister, please call or email to set up a day and time.
Zion Session meets at 2pm in the church hall
Knox Session meets at 7pm in the church hall
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Scripture
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John 4:6-30 (NIV) The Samaritan Woman
6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
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Message
“Truth Without Judgement”
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MONOLOGUE The Woman at the Well
I have no idea how this man knew so much about me. Strange enough for him, a Jew, to speak to me, a Samaritan, but for him to know me, and such details about me, and yet not speak to me with judgment.
His words brought me hope – his presence seemed to bring peace. For the time we spoke I felt like a new woman – like someone who mattered.
The people in the village know my story – or at least they think they know my story. People don’t ask, they assume. I hear the whispers and the rude comments. I see the way they move to the other side of the road to avoid making contact with me. Its okay, I have experienced much worse than their scorn.
People look down on me because I live with a man who I am not married to, but it is impossible for a woman to live without a man for protection and provision, and I could never marry again. I just can’t!
My first husband, Daniel, was a wonderful man and I loved him so. My heart still breaks a little when I think back to the day my father came to tell me he had been killed by thieves wanting his camel. Imagine taking a life for a camel. We had not been married long and he owned little more then the camel, so my father took me back into his house to care for me.
My father arranged my second marriage to Ezer. Ezer liked to drink and he was terribly abusive. I rather liked it when he stayed out all night, as it spared me the anxiety and the beatings. It was an answer to prayer when he never came back. I have no idea what happened to Ezer, and I had no desire to find out.
Eventually, I was married off to Ezer’s brother Ephraim. At first he was kind to me, but then he too became physically abusive. I never heard what he was charged with, but I must confess, I did not shed any tears when he was sentenced to death by the Romans. No more beatings for me.
Again, my father arranged another marriage for me. I think he realized what I had suffered at the hands of Ezer and Ephraim, so he married me off to an older friend of the family. Joseph was a kind man who asked little of me. It was wonderful to live in a home and feel safe, but as fate would have it, he died only two years after we wed.
Widowed twice and two abusive husbands – I begged my father to let me remain under his roof. He insisted, however, that I needed a family – a husband and children to make me complete. Like a good daughter I listened and submitted to his fifth choice – Saul. Saul was rarely home, and when he was, I wished he wasn’t. He was a terribly cruel man who made Ezer and Ephraim look like saints.
One day I fled, bloody and bruised, but alive. I moved from one village to another gleening for food and seeking shelter where I could find it.
And then I met Simon. Simon is kind to me. He treats me with respect and he has never raised his hand to me. He is my safe place in this world.
Oh, the village women talk – harlet, they call me. But their words are nothing compared to the loses and abuses I have suffered.
PAUSE
You know, it is almost like this man, Jesus, knew all that. He spoke the truth of my situation, and he spoke it without any judgement. He spoke to me like I mattered.
(HANDS RAISED IN PRAYER)
Oh God of Jacob, grant that I may know this Jesus, and bless me though the truth He preaches.

(Reread verses 9-18)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
MESSAGE
Jesus spoke truth, not judgement. It was fact; the woman had previously been married 5 times, and she was not married to the man she lived with. Jesus states these facts and nothing more – he did not need to. This woman knew her own story, and obviously Jesus did too.
There is no judgement in Jesus’ comments, quite the opposite. Jesus then acknowledges that she has spoken the truth and then continues in sharing the Good News with her.
Ask yourself what images of this woman have come to mind when you have read this story in the past? (pause)
As you have sat in church listening to these words, what thoughts went through your mind? (pause)
Scripture gives no details about her previous husbands. She may have been widowed 5 times for all we know. We don’t know her story, but we often judge her the same way the people in her village did. That is why she came alone to the well. Alone while the sun was at its hottest. Alone at a time when no one else would be there. She came alone to avoid the pain of judgement!
The lady at the well knew what it was like to be judged and talked about – what she did not know was grace, or what it was like to hear the truth without judgement attached.
Jesus calls us to do the same – speak the truth without judgment. Share the Gospel with everyone, not just those we deem acceptable.
Truth without judgement, that was Christ’s ministry and it is our ministry too. - AMEN
Please pray with me: Jesus, you are the Truth, and when we share the Gospel based solely on what you have taught and how you have lived, we are a blessing in this world. Lord, make us a blessing, we pray AMEN