From Outcast to Witness
This is the sermon that was sent out this week to the people of S t. Timothy Lutheran Church. We are honoring our bishop's request to not physically worship together. However, we are endeavoring to stay connected in other ways. The text was John 4:5-42. We all have different paths that have brought us to faith in Jesus. Some have dramatic conversion experiences from a life of sin and unbelief to a life of faith. Others have a relationship with God from childhood and cannot remember a time when God was not real to them. God meets us wherever we are. Jesus engaged Nicodemus differently than he engaged the Samaritan woman in today’s gospel. He tailored the encounter to the needs of the hearer. Nicodemus was Jewish. We are told his name. He came to Jesus in Jerusalem. The Samaritan woman is a Gentile. We never find out her name. Jesus came to her. Nicodemus could not wrap his mind around a new, spiritual birth, while the woman struggled to understand what it meant to have living ...