Tag: Samaritan woman

Eternal Joys

Eternal Joys

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Samuel Fanous

Whenever I’ve had a big meal before I sleep, I tend to have a reoccurring dream that night where I’m drinking a lot of water because I’m so thirsty that I’m half asleep, half awake. Funnily enough, the more I drink the less satisfied I am.

This is similar to what Christ is talking about to the Samaritan woman at the well. He speaks to her about living water rather than the water within the well. This seems to be a metaphor for something so much more profound than simple H2O. I think this is a metaphor for the restlessness of the human soul and its constant search for satisfaction. And I don’t think it is a bad thing that humans are never satisfied, it is, in fact, a beautiful thing that leads to the success of the human race. This woman worked hard to come to the well every day, knowing that the water wouldn’t satisfy her for very long. So, this offer of living water from Christ makes her recognise the need in her soul for something that would satisfy her for longer than 5-10 minutes. And the whole purpose of this restlessness of the soul is for us to find God.

Eating, drinking, lust, success, and all else are all temporary satisfactions. That doesn’t mean they are bad things in and of itself but rather they are hints from God that there is something beyond the here and the now. He lays the seeds for us to recognise that if this temporary satisfaction is so good, how much better is the eternal satisfaction of God. The joys and satisfaction of foods or praise of the world are only to whet our appetite for the eternal joys of above. When you finally move into a new house and you finally feel at home and are satisfied, that is only a foretaste of the rest we will feel in our eternal home when our souls rest in God. All these things should increase our desire for the One that can be the fulfillment of all of these joys and needs.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we take the good that God has given us, and we do it to death until it is not good anymore. We take food for gluttony, we take our nice cozy houses and we turn them into an obsession with mansions, our praise from others becomes an obsession and a desire to always be the best, even the intimacy between our spouses becomes an uncontrollable drive that is never satisfied. We tend to want to stay in these temporary joys forgetting that there are eternal joys waiting for us if we just continue to the source of all peace.

St Augustine famously prays;

“Lord, You have made us for Yourself and our heart in restless until it finds rest in You.”

God has given all these good and simple things, let us go to the source of that goodness. Our hearts will never be restless and ever searching until it finds rest in God. It is good to be restless and always want more, but every good feeling on earth exists to remind us that God who gives these feelings can give us so much more.

C.S. Lewis says a very beautiful quote;

“if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

If you find you are never satisfied, it is a reminder that this place is just temporary and is only a foretaste of the glory to come. Let us not mistake God for something much less than He is. Let’s not mistake Him for our success, comfort, happiness, and family; let’s not make these things our God as He is much greater than these.

Even when we find God we should not be satisfied; we should continue searching as God is like an infinite sea and the more, we search in him the more we find. When God is found by us, He fills us completely but there is still more, and we can search for more. This is how we utilise our restlessness. God satisfies us completely but leaves us panting for more.

Psalm 42 says, “As the dear pants for the water, as so my soul pants after You Oh God.”

The aching in our hearts that is always there is God telling us is that all of these joys can be found in Him. So, I think this is the call for us to not look for satisfaction in these temporary joys, so let’s try to start to go deeper into God to taste the living waters that all these things point to.

? Full sermon ?

A Lesson on Worship

A Lesson on Worship

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Habib

The story of the Samaritan woman is one of the most amazing stories of the Gospels. We see how she discovers that Jesus was somebody special. She first infers that He may be a prophet. She thinks it’s a conversation about water but then He says, “I will give you living water!” She inquiries about this water and He tells her to call her husband and He will tell her about this living water. He commends her for speaking honestly but then reveals that she has had five husbands and the one she is living with is not her husband.

Suddenly, lights are going off in her head and she begins thinking this Man is important. At this, she asks her first big question about worship – “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship” (John 4:20).

The Samaritans had left the worship of Jerusalem, they left the temple, they separated themselves from the Israelites, and they became people mixed with the Gentiles, they took some of the Jewish faith, but essentially, they left the worship of the temple.

This is important to understand, because the worship of the temple was everything. You couldn’t worship God outside the temple. God was in the temple – His presence was in the temple. Hence if you wanted to worship God, you had to go to the temple. This idea of personal prayer was not as developed. In the Jewish mind, prayer had a corporate appearance of worship.

She is not asking about personal prayer, she is asking about corporate prayer. She says “We worship here. And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship, so tell me, what do You make of our worship? are the Jews right, and we are wrong? Can we both be right? Can we worship here, and can we worship there?” And Jesus responds in almost the most direct we hear from Him, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:21-24).”

In English, we read, “salvation is of the Jews.” The more accurate Greek translations is, “salvation is from the Jews,” meaning Jesus Christ came from the Jews, and not that salvation belongs to the Jews alone. Jesus does not leave the issue of living water and move on to a separate topic. He discusses the idea of living water that is eternal life, and we know the living water to be the Holy Spirit that is given to us. He is not speaking about corporate worship, but worshipping in spirit and in truth. God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

It is essential that when we pray, we first understand what we are doing. Too often when we speak about the divine liturgy – what we do here and now – we focus on symbols and we divide it into parts. But we need to look holistically, and not divide the liturgy into little pieces. We must understand the big picture, the direct implications the Eucharist has on our personal lives.  

Christianity is a community of worship. The church is a community of the body of Christ. Our own personal bodies are members of the body of Christ. This is what comes first; before any theology, before any doctrine, any dogma, before any Creeds, before there was anything, that we have now in the church, we are a community of worship.

In the very first church of Acts, they would come together, united in the Spirit and they would pray. They would come together and enter the Spirit of praise and worship. Even immediately after Christ’s Resurrection, the disciples gathered in the upper room. During the 40 days after the Resurrection, and the 10 days between the Ascension and Pentecost, you never hear them say, “Okay guys, let’s get together for our mission statement, what’s our mission statement going to be? How are we going to advertise ourselves to the world, how are we going to explain ourselves to the world? What are we going to do, let’s divide up the tasks, the jobs, and who’s going to be here, or who is going to do this?”

But this is how we look at our service. Our first meetings are to organise tasks, when the early church spent their time together in prayer. The work of the church is to pray, and to be a worshipping community. Ask yourself, how am I part of the church? I may know theology, doctrine, dogma but I am first a worshipper of the church.

As a worshipper in the church, how do I attend the services? How do I participate in the services? How do I come to church? What do I seek when I am coming to church? This directly affects your personal life. Our personal devotion cannot be separated from the church.

“Personal devotion and community worship belong intimately together, and each of them is genuine and authentic, and truly Christian, only through the other.” – Georges Florovsky

When we come together to pray, it presupposes and requires that we pray as individuals. When we come together as a church, we are supposed to come as individuals who pray by themselves at home coming together to pray as a group. This isn’t the only time you should be praying. The church is a gathering of people who pray. Personal prayer itself, is only possible because we belong to the group, the community. Since no person is a Christian except as a member of the body, even in the solitude of our chamber, when we enter into the inner room, we pray as a member of the redeemed community as a church. And that when we worship God, in spirit or truth, we can’t worship in one way or the other.

I can’t say I come to church but my actual worship is when I am alone. My worship at church should reflect my worship at home. The problem is that we put one over the other. And both can turn over to something terrible. When personal prayer become, “I, me, I want this, I asked for this, I need this…” This is not a prayer of the church but a disconnection.

In church, we pray for, “Our fathers and brethren who have fallen asleep repose their souls.” And, “Heal those who are sick. Visit the sick among your people, heal them.” We do not pray on behalf of ourselves but on behalf of the entire church community and it’s important to understand that WE, as a community, are entering the church and pray with the church.

The most important parts of the Liturgy, when the priest calls for the Holy Spirit to come upon the bread and the wine to turn into the Body and the Blood. He doesn’t say “I” ask You. He says “WE” as a community, “ask You, to bring Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these things.”

As much as possible, we must participate fully as a community, to give us this idea that I’m not separate from the body of Christ, but that I’m part of the body of Christ and when I worship, and I worship with the body of Christ.

If we don’t understand the words we still should sing the words because there are three things that happen. First, we sing the words with our mouth. Then we bring our mind to where our mouth is so we concentrate on the words and then eventually our hearts. Our heart embraces the words, but it starts in that order. Don’t wait for your heart, and then for your mind, and then you’ll sing. You sing first and then your mind goes with your mouth, then your heart with your mind. Simple.

Every time the deacon says “let us attend”, or “let us pray”, it means something important is happening and we have to pay attention to what is happening. Even if I might not be in the very spiritual mood, I remember to pay attention to God. We’re in the house of God we’re not in the house of me or any of the other priests.

When you see people coming to church who haven’t been here in a long time, pray that God keeps them in the church. Don’t judge them. If you yourself haven’t come to church in a long time and you’re scared about coming when you just happen to be here today? Come to church with a sincere desire to be a true member of the Church of God, asking God for

forgiveness, which He is willing to give to everyone who seeks this repentance. But we have to actively live the life. You can’t just say forgive me, and then we go do what we want to do afterwards. The church becomes a standard in the way that we live our life. May God be glorified in His church and may He teaches always to worship Him in spirit and in truth now and ever and unto the ages of all ages. Amen.

⛪️ Full sermon ⛪️

The Samaritan Woman

The Samaritan Woman

by Shery Abdelmalak

TEXT: JOHN 4:1-42

27 days into Lent. You’ve made in halfway. Things start to get a bit tough here. Or worse, you forget why you’re even fasting. Lent is a marathon of a fast and so, it is vital that you keep focused on the reasons why we fast, and not on the fasting itself. Why are you still depriving yourself of food that you love? There really is no point to giving up food if it’s not replaced by food for the soul. Do not starve your soul as well as your body. Eventually the desires of the body will become too much to bear if there is no replacement.

As we progress through the Lenten Gospels, we see the Love of Christ that runs deeper. What could be better than a father that runs out to greet his son that had left him for prodigal living? A God that actively seeks His children before they even know they need Him. For while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ pursued the Samaritan woman while she was still in sin to implore her to repentance through His Love.

The major thing we can take from the interaction of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman is the gifts Jesus offers to us all and the way we should respond to Him. After a long day of baptising the nations, Jesus was on His way to Galilee but there was one of His flock that He still had on His mind. From Judea, He detoured through Samaria on His way to Galilee. A Jew traveling from Judea to Galilee would generally go along the Jordan Valley (right) or along the coast (left). The third way was to go straight through the mountains of Samaria. This was not ideal because of poor relations between the Jews and Samaritans, but Jesus had a purpose for going on this specific journey. This was the way He needed to go to reach His beloved.

Jesus arrives early to the well, around the sixth hour and waits for the Samaritan woman. As she arrives, He asks for a drink. This would have come as a surprise to her for three reasons:

  1. GENDER: it was unusual for the time for a man to start a conversation with a woman he didn’t know
  2. RELIGION: to the Jews, Samaritans were unclean half-breeds
  3. STATUS: the very fact that she went to the well at the sixth hour, in the heat of the day suggested that she was of low status and had an immense fear of judgement

Why would Jesus choose her? What was special about the Samaritan woman that Jesus would go out of His way to see her?

She was humble.

To receive the message of faith, one cannot be puffed up. She was the perfect candidate. The Samaritan woman questioned Jesus, not to belittle Him, but to understand His message. Jesus, in His wisdom, walks carefully, gives us only as much as we can receive. For as long as we are puffed up, He distances Himself.

“God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Not because of any disgust or disapproval of our arrogance, but because He has no entry point. He cannot fill what is already full. We receive blessing through open hands, not clenched fists. The Samaritan woman may have been living in sin but she was open to receiving the Word. She did not think anything of herself, she chose to draw water in the heat of the day than risk facing another person. She was empty – and while living in this world this led her to despair and self-loathing. We aspire to empty ourselves first and foremost, to be filled with Christ through daily renewal in repentance.

Why is it that in the third world you can stand in the middle of a market place and preach and be heard but would never try that in Sydney CBD? Who would listen to you in Sydney? Try in a country like Kenya where they have so little to depend upon and nations are brought to Christ. It is in these countries that people are open to receiving the Word. They receive blessings and they receive them in abundance because they are ready to receive. The third world really does represent the modern-day Samaritan woman.

Without Christ, there will always be an emptiness of the soul, a void that cannot be filled. To alleviate this emptiness, we turn to other sources – to social media, to alcohol, to medications – anything that will temporarily fill the void. All this does is stop Christ from reaching us. He is sitting at the well waiting to meet with you, but we get lost along the way. We look to be filled but we look in the wrong places. For the Samaritan woman, it came in the form of male companionship. St Augustine says,

The five husbands represent the five senses since she has surrendered her soul to her physical senses. These could not satisfy her as they do not lead her soul to eternal life. They just satisfy temporary and short lived feelings. The one with whom she is living now, and who is not her husband, represents the mind (that is not sanctified) and that does not lead her to the Word and the Truth. Rather, it leads her to sin, and offers her incorrect knowledge. She needs the Bridegroom of her soul who will lead her to wisdom, truth, and fulfilment.

Christ could only fill the void these men had in her life through her honest admission in that she had no husband. At that point, she was ready to give it all up and be filled with Christ. Having received the Word, she leaves even her water pot behind and preaches the Messiah to the Samaritans. The same woman that could not face another human being was out proclaiming the message of Christ.

May we pray to empty ourselves like the Samaritan woman so that we can put to death all things of this world that fills the void that only Christ can rightfully fill. May we be resurrected in Christ and put on the new man that was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22).