Scripture Text for Neil’s Sermon: John 4:27-42 (Contemporary English Version)

The disciples returned about this time and were surprised to find Jesus talking with a woman. But none of them asked Him what He wanted or why He was talking with her. The woman left her water jar and ran back into town. She said to the people, “Come and see a Man Who told me everything I have ever done! Could He be the Messiah?”

Everyone in town went out to see Jesus….A lot of Samaritans in that town put their faith in Jesus because the woman had said, “This Man told me everything I have ever done.” They came and asked Him to stay in their town, and He stayed on for two days. Many more Samaritans put their faith in Jesus because of what they heard Him say. They told the woman, “We no longer have faith in Jesus just because of what you told us. We have heard Him ourselves, and we are certain that He is the Savior of the world!"

“I have met a man who told me everything about me!  I have met a man who sat with me at the well as I drew water in the middle of the day and he told me everything that I’ve ever done.  He told me everything that I’ve ever knew.  And he did it in such a loving way that I didn’t feel confronted, I didn’t feel punished, I didn’t feel shame, I didn’t feel guilt… but he did it such a way that it penetrated my heart to change my life and to share that good news with the folks that I’ve returned to my village to speak with!”

Windows DSL Video              56k Video                 MP3  

Reverend Neil Thomas: “Back To Basics – Part 1” (January 20, 2008 at MCCLA)

I don’t know about you but if I was in the middle of the day—in the heat of the journey to Samaria—if  I had been ostracized by the peoples who had been ostracized before—the Samaritans… If I had to go in the middle of the day to a place to feed on water, to grab water to take back to my home and a man came along and began to speak with me and to prophesy or to tell me all about my life I’m not sure I would want to sit there for quite a while. 

You know, we don’t like people knowing about us.  Some of us live lives that are in the closet; some of us live lives that are pretty secretive.  And to have someone who you’ve never met come to you and disclose to you everything that you’ve ever done, everything that you’ve ever known, everything that you’ve ever said… for me, that would be an incredibly frightening experience!

But for the woman who sat at the well, that day, this was one of the most liberating experiences because for once she heard her story, she heard her life, she heard her pain, she heard her journey being spoken by someone who had such respect, and such love in his eyes. That in that very moment, she thought, this could be the Messiah.  This could be the One that could be the Liberator!  This could be the One in which we have been called to follow and to find out about and to re-establish a relationship with God through!  This could be the One! 

And she was so inspired, challenged and encouraged by her own life that the immediate response was to return to the place where she came to the people that had perhaps ostracized and wouldn’t allow her to go the well in the beginning of the day, and to tell them all about Jesus.  To share with them that passion about who this man was and who this could be, and “we must all get out there and follow this Jesus!”

We’re beginning a new series of sermons, today, called “Back to Basics:” An opportunity for us to reconnect, to re-establish, to reaffirm our faith and in this complete year as a church, we’re focusing on commitment and faith and loyalty.  We’re focusing on what it really means to be a follower of Jesus Christ!  What it really means to get fired up and passionate towards commitment of our lives to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  What it really means to be a follower of Jesus, the Nazareth!

I think sometimes in our world today everything is just far too comfortable!  Everything is just far too settled.  Look at our churches around the globe and even in our own community as we like to be able to just show up on a Sunday and everything is out there for us. We like to walk in on a Sunday and know that the ushers are going to be at the door, to know that the choir is going to be up there in their loft.  We like to know that the musicians are ready with their music, that hopefully the preacher will have some kind of inspired message for us.  We like to walk in and to know that the multimedia team has everything set up so that everything rolls out just beautifully.  We like a church that is totally comfortable. 

But God is calling us in our “Back to Basics” to get unsettled one more time.  To get unsettled about where we will be and what we will be doing and… who knows… that God might be calling us back to being a “church in a suitcase.”  Those of you who have been around for a long time will know what that feels like: Every Sunday morning having to get to the venue that we’ve been called to have church in that morning and “unpack church,” so to speak….   put up the altar and put up some linens that make it look like church… back to a church in a suitcase, perhaps moving around our community to find where it is where God wants to settle. 

I know I’ve announced about going to see a building. It is the corporate discernment of our body will be whether this is the right place or whether this is not the right place. And I’m determined—just like you—not to settle just because we feel like we’re in panic mode.  But rather to get back to basics and to pray about what it that God is is calling us to do, and if it’s back to a church in a suitcase then so be it.  Because the church is not the building, the church is the people of God.  The people who have been called together into community, the people who have been called to be followers of Jesus.

When Jesus was around on this earth, He didn’t just walk on to the earth and create a building and say “This is my church”.  I think sometimes we think that the church has always been like this ever since the very beginning of time.  But the reality is that those earlier followers of Jesus were the people that had come to acknowledge Him as Messiah, had come to acknowledge Him in His values, who had come to acknowledge Him as a Representative of God, a  Good Man.  They had started in the synagogues of their day, worshipping Jesus almost on the side.  And it was only later in the times that Jesus’ followers had become disruptive to the synagogues and they were asked to leave to establish some other type of community, some other kind of establishment and it was upon that, that the church was built.

In those intermediate times we know that those early followers met in some very strange places.  They met underground.  They met discreetly in some communities for fear of their very lives.  This was not a comfortable religion, sisters and brothers!  This was a religion that disturbed peoples.  Because the peoples who were disturbing were on fire for what they knew because they had met Jesus, the Christ. 

Sisters and brothers we’re being really challenged in this moment to give up control, to give up what it means to be church in the conventional sense of the word and to get ourselves back to the basics, to be a church of the people, a church that is the people, a church that wherever we gather, we are church!

Yesterday, when we gathered upstairs after a memorial service and we gathered for a potluck... that was church! 
In the forty years history of this congregation, we have met in several places that we have called church.  I remember just listening to the story of Larry as he shared about the 14 different locations that we have been in, in forty years, you know that this means that this building is the longest we have ever been present in one place in those forty years?  No wonder we’re settling!  Forty years!  We’ve met in schools: school auditoriums! 
We’ve met in a sound studio.  There was a sound studio that one from our congregation worked at.  I wasn’t around in those days but I hear the stories, that it was a sound studio that was being used in a particularly popular series that was on television at that time.  Every Sunday we would go in and we would take down the sets that were used for the television show and we would put up a cross or a few drapes or something else that we would use to recreate church.   Recreate the sacred space that would contain the community, contain the body of Christ as we came to worship.

You see, friends, church has never been about buildings.  Church has always been about the people of God.  When I was a youngster I was taught a little hand thing that I’m sure many of you may have heard when you were in Sunday School:  “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors and see all the people”

Let’s do it together:  “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors and see all the people”

No wonder we think that church is all about buildings!  I rewrote that a long time ago.  “Here is the building, here is the steeple: open the doors, and see the church!”  Because the church is about you and me. The church is about individual followers of Jesus Christ who have come together passionate about their faith in this Jesus.  Passionate in the values that Jesus preached, passionate about wanting to do good in the world, passionate about wanting to become the hands and the feet and the heart and the mouth and the life of Jesus in the world.  Passionate about how Jesus has transformed us, how this Spirit of Love, this Spirit of Life and this Spirit of Unity has created change in our lives!  Passionate because nothing else can replace what it is that we believe.  That’s how the early church established itself.  It was people who were on fire, who were passionate, who had suddenly had their eyes awakened to the new Who God was, and who God is.  It wasn’t contained in the rituals of the synagogues, or of the temples, or of the peoples—it was contained in the indwelling fire that was burning within them.  Out of a passion to let people know that God is real, and to let people know that God was healing and God was still speaking and God was the most dynamic Person of their lives. 

Back to basics. Our churches have lost so much “on fire for God.”  We just want to show up and be present and hope to get out within an hour and a half… or less!  We don’t want to be inconvenienced by church.  “What do you mean there’s no parking in the building?” I hear it over and over, again.  “What do you mean there’s no parking?  I couldn’t possibly go if there’s no parking… how dreadfully awful!”  I come from a country where our churches were built so long ago; we didn’t even have cars in those days.  (I try to drop my really good English accent for a moment.)  

We like everything to be on a plate for us.  And yet the reality is that church is about communities coming together, people like you and me who know Jesus Christ helping others who are perhaps struggling in their faith.  Helping others who perhaps want to know if this Jesus can be real.  Helping others to feel the same spirit within us so that they can feel it within them. To know this God of healing and of grace and of truth.

And it shouldn’t really matter if we meet in a tent, or in the meridian of Santa Monica Boulevard, or in a storefront, or in some other venue that that day we get to call “church” that day we get to be the sacred space that holds the Body of Christ.  The church is about you and I changing the world, bringing ourselves back to a passionate and purposeful people who want others to sense that true freedom and adoration. 

That’s what the woman at the well felt that day.  She felt church happening in her life.  She felt the purpose of God transforming her so that she was able to go back and be a disciple of Jesus.  She was able to go back and tell her story of a man who she had met that day and had told her everything that she knew, and He did it in such a way that He didn’t condemn her, He didn’t make her feel bad, but He compelled her to change her life, so that she could be different, and she shared it in a wonderful, wonderful way that inspired others to come and find out for themselves. 

I want to invite us to become a people of God who are “on fire” a people of God who are passionate about their church.  You know, when Larry came up and said “Are you committed to the ministry?” and we all said “Amen” I sensed some commitment and some passion in saying “Amen!”  Now of course we get to test that out.  We get to test it out and to see if really, we are committed, or if our next move is going to a little inconvenient because we might have to drive 2 or 3 miles. Or because we might have to park on the street and have to walk a couple of blocks.  Or we might have to not park in the parking lot so that people who are differently abled and who are new to our congregation get a chance to park for the first time, on site.

Church is about building people up, in community and in faith. This past week we gathered for prayer, and it was one wonderful prayer meeting, I tell you.  I know you can’t help but tell from my accent that I come from England.  When we have prayer meetings in England it’s an hour of silence.  That’s what prayer means: be quiet for an hour.  Sit very quietly, hands folded… maybe on your lap with your hands up… This was no prayer meeting I had ever been to.  They were shoutin’ and hollerin’, and singin’ prayer and joy… it was a wonderful spiritual moment in the life of our church.  And what was so wonderful about that was that it wasn’t just the 15 or so people that were able to get to the building and pray on the 2nd floor, but I had emails from people—as I had asked you to let me know if you were praying for us—I had emails from people in Mexico, England, Australia, San Clemente, San Jose, in New York, people from around the world who were holding us in prayer as we prepare ourselves for the journey.

Isn’t it a wonderful, wonderful knowledge to know that we’re not alone!  That our extended community is also praying with us, and praying for us! 

Back to basics… a people who are purposeful.  A people who are on fire.  A people who are passionate about what they believe and what it means. A people who are ready to be community—not just community when its convenient, not just community where everything is laid out on a plate for us, but a community when we all have to pitch in and do something.

I look forward to it.  I’m excited about it.  I’ll be honest with you, there have been moments of complete “freak out” for me, and there have been other moments of complete calm, knowing that the more I let go of control, the more God is able to speak and direct and to lead us. 

From my personal and prayerful life, it is for us as a church to experience this journey together, and in experiencing this journey together to become a much stronger body of Christ that is committed not just to a building in West Hollywood, but to one another. To really live out what it means to be Jesus Christ in the world today.  I believe that’s what happened for the woman at the well, and I believe that’s what happened to the early Christians as they began to gather together, as they began to realize that the Spirit of the Anointed God was upon them to bring good news to this world.

So our challenge is to stick together, to become that purposeful, passionate people of God and to commit with one another to the journey that’s ahead. I pray you are. I pray that you are passionate about this church, committed to this church, committed to the people that around you as we gather in this morning.  Committed in such a way, that as we lead ourselves back to the basics of our faith—prayer, purpose, passion—that the God that we believe in will acknowledge it, and will send us a double portion of the Holy Spirit, that we’ll see people with that HUGE smile on their face—not the fake smile, you know that one we can put on, on Sunday mornings, but that smile that’s from ear to ear that says to people around us “I love Jesus, and Jesus loves me”  That smile is infectious and will call people to faith.

May the spirit of the holy touch the words that have come from my mouth and may they inspire, challenge and lead and bring to us a sense of community as we return ourselves to the basics of our faith—the people of God.