SERMON NOTES BEFORE YOU BEGIN: BIBLE READING John 4:1-26 (NIV) USE WITH: Film Prayer resource Visual aids

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1 USE WITH: Film Prayer resource Visual aids For many in the mountainous region of south-west Uganda, meeting Jesus has gone hand in hand with improved access to water because of the work of Tearfund partner, Kigezi Diocese Water and Sanitation Programme. In these notes we ll be looking at someone in the Bible who also found Jesus when looking for water, and we ll meet two Ugandan girls for whom the daily provision of water is still a challenge. BEFORE YOU BEGIN: Prayerfully read the key Bible text and consider what God might want you to say to your congregation through these passages. Read through the sermon notes and the visual aid ideas to help you construct a talk, paired with your own thoughts, reflections and illustrations. BIBLE READING John 4:1-26 (NIV) Jesus talks with a Samaritan woman Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink? (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 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.) 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. Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 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? Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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. 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. He told her, Go, call your husband and come back. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, You are right when you say you have no husband. 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. Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Woman, Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I, the one speaking to you I am he. SERMONG NOTES: Page 1

2 Show the film One Big Mountain either on the DVD in pack or by streaming it from: DEFINED BY THE PAST The woman at the well was defined by the past. Circumstances beyond her control dictated her spiritual status. As a Samaritan she was a gentile and unable to worship in the temple. She was despised by Jews. As a woman she was seen as inferior. As a woman who had been divorced many times she was judged and excluded. The fact she is drawing water alone suggests, and at about the sixth hour suggests she was excluded by the women in the village, who would normally have drawn water in the morning or the evening, rather than during the hottest part of the day. As she meets Jesus she points out the barrier it creates between them. She said: You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? As John explains, Jews do not associate with Samaritans. The woman s reaction to Jesus request for water shows that she lived within the confines of this reality. Doreen is a 13-year-old girl living in south-west Uganda. She is also defined by her past. Her birth in the mountainous Kabale District means that she lives in a place where accessing water requires a trek down a mountain and carrying 20 litres of water back up, often twice a day. As a female, she has a lower status in Ugandan culture. This means education of boys is prioritised and and girls are sent to fetch water. These things mean that she misses around three months of schooling a year, drastically reducing the quality of her education and her future options. The past defines Doreen s present. She says: Carrying water is a heavy task because when I put the jerrycan on and I m running fast to report home early and go to school on time, I breathe so heavily. I try to move on and move on until my chest is painful. I rest three times before I reach home. The same is true for Doreen s sister Jouvllet, 11, and many girls like them in the region. In ancient Israel, a woman is spiritually lost and isolated from her community. In modern day Uganda a girl is under the burden of 20 litres of water, the needs of her family and cultural expectations. But the story doesn t end there... PRESENT In the passage, the woman s encounter with Jesus subverts everything. By speaking to the woman (John 4:7), Jesus crosses the boundaries that make the woman think she is not accepted. It was unheard of a Jewish man, let alone a Rabbi like Jesus, to stop and talk to a woman, but Jesus reverses this and in doing so, sends a phenomenal message: she is accepted. Jesus makes the woman an offer she does not yet understand. He offers to give her water that will not leave her thirsty, that will do a complete job in quenching her thirst. She thinks he is talking practically, but he is talking spiritually. Jesus reveals to her that he is the Christ. Because Jesus has crossed the boundaries she thought separated her from true worship the woman knows she has access to the prophet, the promised Messiah. Not only does she know that she s accepted, but she now knows that this is good news for her whole community. Hence her reaction - she goes and tells everyone. Jesus met the woman where she was at, accepted her, and gave her great news. But what about Doreen? How is Jesus meeting her, right now? SERMON NOTES: Page 2

3 Doreen knows Jesus. She has a vibrant faith and is part of her local church. I love God because he created me, he has preserved my life while I see other people die and I m happy that I m still living. I believe I m living because of him. I m many ways, Doreen s spiritual needs have and are being met. Doreen s thirst is practical. But Christ, though his hands and feet on the earth, the church, has met Doreen s practical needs too. Tearfund partner Kigezi Diocese Water and Sanitation Programme is at work in the area, bringing communities together and educating them on good water and sanitation practices - simple things like the location of latrines, handwashing, boiling water before drinking it. They also provide materials and training so that people can build water tanks. These tanks collect and store the water from people s roofs, supplying them with the water they need to run their household; to drink, wash, clean and prepare food. A water tank close to their home would mean that Doreen and Jouvllet no longer need to make the daily walk down the mountain. When the practical and not just the spiritual needs are met, the church sends a phenomenal message to Doreen and Jouvllet: you matter. There is one who wants to meet your needs: not just your spiritual need, but your physical and emotional need for purpose, acceptance and belonging. I love God because he created me, he has preserved my life while I see other people die and I m happy that I m still living. DOREEN LONGING FOR ANOTHER FUTURE After her encounter with Jesus, life looks different for the woman at the well. Jesus promises that a time is coming when things will be completely different. She will no longer be distant from God, but will be a true worshipper, able to worship in spirit and truth. Life can be different for Doreen and Jouvllet too. The work of Kigezi Diocese Water and Sanitation Programme paints a picture of a different future, not just for Doreen and Jouvllet but for girls across their region. And not only for their generation, but for generations to come, as new practices are handed down. The future impact of access to water changes things for the whole community. Because Tearfund and their partners work through local churches across the world, the solution is never about hand-outs which create dependency, but about going to where the need is greatest and releasing potential. The church help people address more than just physical needs in this case, water and sanitation but alongside that helps address people s spiritual and emotional needs. The woman at the well was born into a time where she met Jesus and understood something of his mission on earth: opening up the way for people to worship. She could foresee a better future where Samaritans could worship truly and freely. Doreen is alive in a time when the church around her is gearing up to make a difference. In and around Doreen s village, Tearfund partner Kigezi Diocese Water and Sanitation Programme is working to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Because of this, Doreen can see a better future, where she doesn t have to miss school or endure a difficult walk, where she can have a good future. She says, I want to train to be a headteacher because they get an opportunity to teach others and pass knowledge to them so that they can also have a better life. When I teach them they will get better paid jobs and money and establish their homes with a good income. Can you, like Doreen and the Samaritan woman see a better future? SERMON NOTES: Page 3

4 WHY THE CHURCH? If not the church, then who? The church is at work, and is making an incredible difference as it follows Jesus where the needs is greatest. In his book, Africa: Altered states, ordinary miracles, Richard Dowden says In most of Africa the churches have delivered more real development to people than all the governments, the World Bank and aid agencies combined. Africa s network of priests, nuns and church workers are one of Africa s more effective organisations. When states like Congo, Ghana, Angola, Mozambique and Uganda itself collapsed, the self-sufficient parishes used their moral authority to provide protection. Like the monasteries in Europe during the Dark Ages, they kept civilization going. Reverend Reuben Byomuhangi, is an Anglican vicar in the Diocese of Kigezi, south-west Uganda. He is the water and sanitation programme organiser with Kigezi Diocese. He said this: In the communities where we work someone will come and say: Now I realise what the church is. Action and preaching word and deed, must go together. And it is. And it s changing lives, it s changing people. People like Lillian. Lillian lives in Kagarama, a village in the Kabale District, the same area Doreen and Jouvllet live. Before the intervention of the Tearfund partner, Lillian lost one of her children to dysentery, contracted by drinking dirty water. She had to spend all her income on hospital fees. This meant she could not afford food or to send her children to school. The intervention of the water and sanitation programme meant that Lilian learned that boiling water makes it safe to drink, preventing her family from contracting diseases. The partner not only delivered a water tank to her home, but taught her how to construct the tank, along with others in the village, teaching them skills and giving them real ownership. It also introduced Lillian to a real living God. She said this: We were only eating one meal a day, I had no house, no land, I couldn t send my children to school. Now we are able to eat three meals a day and I can pay school fees for all my children. I used to feel inferior before I would have not even spoken to people like you. I had no confidence and felt irrelevant. But now I have self-esteem. I feel empowered by the skills I have learnt. I feel able to lead others and I feel worthwhile. I did not go to church or have much of a faith in God. It has changed my life. I now go to church, I can give to the church and I love God. Tearfund partners operate through local churches, grounding any development or aid work in biblical principles and an approach that brings whole communities together. SERMON NOTES: Page 4

5 SERMON NOTES THE CHURCH MOVING MOUNTAINS This is the church in action; the church as God s hands and feet. The church across the world is busy. Lives are being changed. Childhoods are being redeemed. God is working through his people. Are you part of what God is doing? The present will define the future. Can you see a different future for Doreen and Jouvllet, and for girls like them? We can stand alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ working to bring the Good news of Jesus, representing him in word and deed. Join us in praying for and giving to Tearfund working through partners like the Kigezi Diocese Water and Sanitation Programme. If you want to partner with the work of Tearfund, bringing transformation to lives in Uganda and across the world, you can. First of all, please pray! Secondly, please give. It costs just 7 to give one person access to clean water, transforming a life like Doreen s: full of potential. Please give. Please use the envelopes provided to give. If you re a taxpayer, please tick the Gift Aid box! This makes your gift worth even more. CLOSE IN PRAYER. USEFUL LINKS: Theory of poverty: Click here to watch an entertaining and informative animation telling the story of everything. SERMON NOTES: Page 5