Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The text on which this morning's message is based comes from our Gospel lesson (John 2, the Samaritan Woman at the Well) read earlier.

Mother and Sam are off for the first day of school. Mom's coping with the idea that her little boy is growing up, and her head is filled with details and dreams and dreads about this day. She gets everything ready, crayons, papers, Sam's backpack, loads the car, and climbs into the driver's seat to back out of the driveway. But before she puts the car into reverse, she has this sense that she has forgotten something important. You know the feeling. She turns to the back seat to see if Sam is buckled in – and she realizes what is missing – Sam. Looking up she sees in the window her precious cargo, the reason for her trip, staring back at her like "where do you think you're going without me?" Have you ever been so busy, so consumed in thought that you forgot the main thing you were suppose to be doing? The woman at the well in our Gospel is someone who leaves behind her main task (water gathering) because her thoughts are now consumed with something, someone much greater, the Christ who has offered her "living water."

So (Jesus) came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, …. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. ….

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.)

She is greatly surprised, because most Jewish men would not converse with Samaritans, especially Samaritan women. But Jesus wasn't tied to the misguided religious traditions and sexism of the time.

Jesus engages her in a conversation, in words, and we see the tender skill of the greatest evangelist of all time. We see how our Lord approaches a sinful human woman, a woman badly in need of repentance and God's truth, and he expertly and gently, with the skill of a fine spiritual surgeon, shows her her need for Him, and reveals to her who He is. Like medical students watching a master surgeon in an amphitheater or on videotape, we get to watch our Master Jesus perform his wonders.

Jesus spoke to her and told her of the gift of God He had to give her. She doubts Him, and asks "Where can you get this living water?" "Surely you are not greater than our Father Jacob?" Jesus entices her "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

She misunderstands him, as we all do so often, and wants only the earthly blessing that she thinks He is promising. But at least He has her attention. She wants to know more about what he is enticing her with.

But Jesus tactfully begins to convict her of her sin, to show her the Law, to show her of her need for forgiveness through Him. "Go, call your husband and come back." He doesn't approach her sin directly, even though he could have. He could have said "But wait, before I can give you this 'living water', you must repent of your constant breaking of the 6th commandment about adultery." She was a Samaritan, but Samaritans knew and accepted as God's Word the books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). She knew the commandments and that her life was counter to God's will. "Go, call your husband and come back." And she confesses that she really has no husband, but has been the woman, the "partner" in today's misguided language, for some six different men. She knows that Jesus "has her number." He knows who she is and how she sins and she knows He knows.

Now, you and I aren't omniscient, all knowing. We can't use quite the same skillful technique at convicting strangers of their sin like Jesus could. But then again, we're rarely called to confront strangers. More commonly we might have to confront those close to us, which can be difficult. Ted Kober of Peacemakers, one of the men who came to consult here at Immanuel two years ago, once shared with me a skill at more gently confronting sin in another Christian's life. Instead of quoting a convicting Bible verse to them, Ted suggests sitting down with them in as loving a manner as possible and asking them to read a particular Bible verse. For example, parents could sit down with a disobedient child and, with sincere love, ask them to read the meaning of the 4th Commandment from the Catechism, or Ephesians 6: 1ff "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother"-- which is the first commandment with a promise-- "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth."   After they've read God's Word for themselves, then you can ask them what they think it means in this situation. Assuming you've picked an appropriate verse and presented yourself in a loving and caring manner, many Christians will react with repentance. But be aware parents, if you use this verse, immediately after it Ephesians 6: 4 reads "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."

Jesus has gently confronted then sin of the Samaritan woman, but she tries to sidestep the issue by changing the subject. I don't know about you, but I know that when Christ's word convicts me of my sin, I tend to be like her. Immediate repentance tends not to be my first response. I'm good at changing the subject. "Well yes God, but what about this?" Yes, I know this is wrong and I should repent and resist doing that sin in the future, but ____ and you can fill in the blank with the subject change, the excuse I have because of some empty question about God and his will in my life.

Maybe you don't commonly need to be confronted with the 6th Commandment as the Samaritan woman was. Maybe your sin falls into the 2nd or 3rd commandments, with keeping his name holy and his Word constantly before us. Maybe your sin falls into the 8th commandment, putting the best construction on whatever our neighbor says and does, not gossiping, but improving our neighbor's reputation. For all of us we resist the two great commandments, loving our Lord above all else, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. We can always find good excuses before God for not following His will.

But yet even with her attempt to sidestep, He continues to sensitively, but firmly press His message to her. She confesses that she believes He is a prophet and she knows that the Christ is coming, the Messiah, the one specially anointed by God to come and declare God's message. Jesus comes for her, a "leftover" of the society of that time. He continues to talk with her and tell her about herself and her need for Him. He eventually tells her point blank "I who speak to you am (the Christ)".

She is so startled she leaves behind the main reason for coming to the well in the first place, to bring back water for the day. She leaves behind her water jug. But that is not all she leaves behind. She leaves behind her old evasiveness, her old apprehensions. She is willing to tell the other townspeople "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did." Old barriers are left behind when Jesus comes and speaks to humans. Old barriers like Jew and Samaritan, man and woman, God and man are left behind when Jesus comes and says "I am he." Old water, old ways of living are left behind when Jesus comes and gives us new and living water, literally at our baptisms and every day after that as well as we remember that living water.

Jesus is also looking to strike up a long and ongoing conversation with us. He takes us from our earthly chitchat about sports and politics and taxes and crime, and instead speaks to us about the truly important, the heavenly hope that only He can provide.

Later, in verse 42, even the other Samaritan villagers came to believe the woman's message about Jesus. They came out to Jesus, and he spoke to them, and "because of his words many more became believers".

They then said to her "now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world".

In our Old Testament lesson, the Lord requests that Abraham leave his father's household and go to the land God would show him. Abraham left it all behind. In an even greater way, God the Father requested that His Son leave the Father's household, to go to the land He would show Him. Jesus Christ did leave heaven and came to earth, to speak to people like the woman of Samaria, to you, to me. He came to tell us that He was the one who left behind the joys of heaven to endure the pangs of the cross so that we, his people, could trust him and leave behind the sins and sorrows and stigmas of this world. Today we are reminded by the life of one woman alone on the outside of town that a man who died on the outside of another town leaves no one behind. Whether it's a kindergartner looking out the window, or a woman at a well, or a Pharisee, or a tax collector in a tree, or a thief on the cross, or you, no one gets left behind by Jesus. He, instead gives us the opportunity, every week here and every day in His Word, to leave it all behind. We are given the blessed opportunity to leave behind the sins and sorrows of this world like an empty bucket forgotten on the ground, to be refreshed by the voice of our Savior, and go to tell others of his great love for us all. Amen.

The basic concept and several paragraphs at the beginning and end of this sermon come largely from a sermon suggestion by Rev. Scott Malme published in Concordia Pulpit Resource, February 2002.