Mount Sterling First United Methodist Church
The Well That Never Runs Dry

  • Hearing God: Listening in a Noisy World

    Last week I asked if you ever had a problem praying to God, knowing what to say, what to think, what or who to pray for. Prayer is our ultimate deep relationship with God, so it is the best way that we can individually and collectively mature and deepen our connection with God. This week we will discuss how to hear God in a very noisy world.
    Hearing God means we are actively listening and in-tune with God’s voice, God’s prompting, God’s encouragement, God’s motivation, and God’s Spirit. Listening is an intentional act of inviting an outside force into your mind that will offer new information, new data, that could possibly change who you are, confirm who you are, and encourage your present day walk.
    Think through your life and how so much has changed, yet one force that has change, and yet remained, is the noise of life. When you are younger, you have the noise of your ever developing body, your parents/guardians, grandparents, siblings, extended family, friends from the neighborhood, friends from school, rules of school, rules of home, rules of the community you live, and the list goes on and on.
    When you get older your noise changes into adult responsibilities. You have the noise of paying bills, the noise of fixing things that are broken, the noise of family, employment, government, neighborhood, other people’s opinions, and the list goes on and on.
    In your retirement the noise changes again but is still present. You now have noises much like when you were younger and your body is doing things that you’ve never experienced before and you may not like it. You also have the noise of hoping you will have enough money to live on, wanting to be available to have fun, desiring to be with family, more medical appointments than you desire, traveling to new places, and the noise of silence as you see more friends start to leave you one by one.

    God speaks in many ways

    In all of noise of life, in every stage of your life, God still speaks. When you’re younger God speaks in a way that is relevant to a youthful age, in your busy adult years God is speaking above, in between, and beneath the cracks of life, in your maturing years of retirement God is speaking in the silence, the mundane, the unwanted, the joy, and the freedom that this life stage provides. God is always speaking but does so in many different ways so that every age and every culture will be able to hear, and hopefully listen.
    So, in the noise of your life, in whatever stage you are in, how does God speak to you? As a United Methodist Christian how does God speak to you? Looking upon our United Methodist heritage, God is said to speak to us through Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience.
    God’s voice is heard through scripture as it is a collection of 66+ books/letters/poems/songs that were constructed to evidence God engaging in relationship with humanity throughout many millennia. Scripture is one of our ultimate guides for reflection of religious interaction with a holy God and humanity on the onward and upward holiness progression of love. Mark Twain said,
    Most people are bothered by those passages in Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand.
    Mark Twain
    For non-Christians scripture can still speak to their existence but other religious or humanistic writings may play a larger role, this is to be expected but for us United Methodist Christians, scripture is still essential in our overall understanding of how God can speak through the generations.
    Tradition is another way God can speak to us. Tradition in the USA in 2024 is going to be different than Tradition in Rome in 1200 or Babylon in 300BC. God will speak through the present day culture in a way that is significant, symbolic, while emphasizing God’s holiness and illuminating human understanding through the ever-present and moving Spirit. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said,
    We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    Traditions can come and go depending on the nature of what is needed and necessary for the people, at the time. Some Traditions can also last too long where no one understands why we do this specific act anymore. Traditions can also be good and deepen a prayerful relationship with God. God definitely speaks through the ritualistic acts that we, as a people, choose to do.
    Reason proclaims the active and ongoing knowledge that humans gain over time. You may have heard the phrase before, “we don’t check our brains at the door of the church”, this should be true of every church that you enter. If something simply does not make sense and new knowledge or data on a certain topic proves otherwise, especially if it speaks against a traditional interpretation of scripture, then reason should be highly considered as more relevant. Francis Bacon said,
    A little philosophy inclines men’s minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy brings men’s minds about to religion.
    —Francis Bacon
    Francis Bacon (Philosopher)
    God speaks through education as we learn more about this world, we do learn more about God and can learn to hear God’s voice in new and exciting ways. Reason is good so don’t easily cast it away when you may not fully understand something new.
    Experience is not new but was an addition from Wesley to the people called Methodists. Wesley added experience to the 3-fold Scripture, Tradition, and Reason from the Church of England. Experience is the active voice of the Holy Spirit in the daily life events, activities, and ever evolving culture of humanity. Humanity must listen to God through experiencing life for the maintenance of old relationships and the establishment of new relationships all consists of new and maturing experiences of life. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said,
    We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
    Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
    God definitely speaks through experiences that are new, frightening, uncomfortable, and confirming.
    Tradition, Reason, and Experience all speak to Scripture, as Scripture also speaks to Tradition, Reason, and Experience. God throughout time has spoken when there was no Scripture, no Tradition, and very limited Reason and Experience.

    The Role of Discernment

    This bring us to discernment. We all have the ability to perceive or recognize differences to judge what is right and wrong, good and evil, the voice of God and the will of humanity. Unfortunately, we’ve all come across people who who have very little discernment. There is a quote from an unknown author that says:
    ​
    Little [people] with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.
    Unknown
    In other words, there are some people who simply do not have any common sense to see life with another person’s vision or walk through this world in another person’s shoes. In our 1Kings scripture reading , we have the story of Elijah running for his life after the prophets of Baal were killed. Elijah proclaimed God’s word, held to his cultural traditions, reasoned with his real life circumstances, and experienced God anew in a relational conversation. The bookend of this experience was God questioning Elijah, “Why are you here?” God spoke with Elijah to confirm who he was, confirm his prophetic action, confirm that throughout all the noise around him that God is not in the noise of the world. God is ultimately received and heard in the thin, quiet moments of reflection, discernment, and interpretation while journeying in all the noise of this crazy world. Catherine of Siena said,
    The core of pride is impatience and its offshoot is the lack of any discernment.
    Saint Catherine of Siena
    Discerning God’s voice, while in the noisy moments of life, help us to do what the Psalmist invites the readers on multiple occasions-SELAH, to pause, to sit, to reflect, and then act. When one has a prayer life whose foundation is built upon divine discernment then you will have a pray-er who intentionally seeks God’s will as God’s ambassador not the world’s warrior. When we take time to discern we then will be able to hear the voice of God. John 10.27 says
    John 10:27 CEB
    My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.
    In the stillness of life we are able to be attentive to the voice of our Savior, to hear, to listen, and then to follow.

    God desires genuine relationships

    The busyness of life can be so noisy that we, at times, choose to deny God the relationship of his desire. That relationship is to give and receive love with you. The God/human relationship is one of intimacy in prayer, intimacy in action, intimacy in private, and intimacy in public. God never stops pursuing you for there is not an end point to a relationship. In prayer we continue to communicate with God and time with God is needed especially when the world’s noise can be too distracting. Thomas Schreiner says,
    Love for God cannot be sustained without a relationship with him, and such a relationship is nurtured by prayer.
    Thomas Schreiner
    A deeply held prayer life does not have to be one that is outlandish where you are always the person asked to pray in public settings; don’ worry that is always reserved for the pastor, even if the pastor don’t want to do it. A deeply held prayer life can also be very subtle. A deeply held prayer life can be very private. A deeply held prayer life is true prayer. R.T. France says,
    True prayer is not a technique nor a performance, but a relationship.
    R. T. France
    A true relationship with God must have true prayer from the believer or the seeker of the divine. Prayer enters one into the presence of God. Prayer strengthens the relationship with God. Prayer emboldens the faith of the believer in a noisy world. When you are soaked in prayer then you are transformed into your prayers. Warren Wiersbe says,
    Prayer is not something that I do; prayer is something that I am.
    Warren W. Wiersbe
    As we continue to develop our prayerful skills, we develop our listening skills, which develop our divine loving skills. A prayerful heart that listens to and connects with God is an act of love. Saint Augustine said,
    What you love you worship; true prayer, real prayer, is nothing but loving: what you love, that you pray to.
    Saint Augustine of Hippo
    As we pray to that which we love, our words and our actions will unite together as one. Our relationship with God will grow, the deafening noise of the world will extinguish, the words from our tongue will be praise, and people will see a prayerful life of love in action. So whether we are asleep or awake a life of prayer will guide us and help us to hear God more. John Wesley said,
    The moment I awaked, ‘Jesus, Master,’ was in my heart and in my mouth; and I found all my strength lay in keeping my eye fixed upon Him, and my soul waiting on Him continually.
    John Wesley (Founder of the Methodist Movement)

    Silent Reflection and Mindfulness

    As we enter into a new week, I encourage you to take time in silent reflection and mindfully focus upon God in prayer. Last week I invited you to pray the open-hearted disciples prayer. This week I invite you to say a prayer that has been said for many generations, The Jesus Prayer.
    Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
    Amen.
  • Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah
  • Jesus, Lover of My Soul

      • John 4:5–26NRSVUE

  • A Road Nobody Traveled
    In Lent, a common theme is to talk about roads we don’t want to travel, for various reasons- discomfort, embarrassment, fear, etc… We know that going down these roads will bring to light things in our life that are not beneficial and we tend to avoid these roads at every possible turn. 
    Most Jewish travelers in the first century avoided Samaria entirely. They’d add miles to their journey just to walk around it — centuries of ethnic tension, religious rivalry, and cultural contempt made the detour feel necessary. Yet, John tells us plainly that Jesus had to go through Samaria. Not because of geography but because of a possible woman at a well who didn’t yet know that everything was about to change.
    This matters for how we understand Jesus. He doesn’t wait for the acceptable people to come to him in acceptable places at acceptable times. He extends himself by crossing borders — ethnic, cultural, religious, gender — with the kind of deliberate intention that makes everyone uncomfortable, except the person he’s walking toward. The road through Samaria isn’t a detour in Jesus’ ministry; it’s the point of his ministry. God’s invitation to abundant life has never recognized the boundaries we build to keep certain people out. My friends, Lent invites us to examine those boundaries — the ones we’ve inherited, the ones we enforce without thinking, and the ones we’ve allowed others to build around us.
    The Woman Nobody Expected
    So, it’s the blazing heat of noontime and a Samaritan woman comes alone to draw water. This detail is significant. Women typically gathered at the well in the cool of morning or evening, in groups, sharing conversation and community. A woman coming alone at noon is a woman who has learned to avoid the crowd. We can ponder that she has been assigned a label, worn it long enough that isolation feels safer than the alternative.
    We don’t know her full story, and honestly, neither does the text. Jesus mentions she has had five husbands and the man she’s with now is not her husband. But the text never calls her an adulteress. It never assigns blame. In first-century culture, men held nearly all the legal power in marriage — a husband could dismiss his wife for virtually any reason, leaving her with nothing. It’s entirely possible that five men dismissed her, or died, leaving her progressively more vulnerable, more alone, more dependent on whoever would take her in. She, most likely, is not a woman of scandalous choices; she probably is a woman of devastating losses, or labeled “not-wanted”.
    What she almost certainly carries is shame. The weight of being dismissed, reduced, and defined by circumstances she may not have chosen. She comes to the well alone because the well doesn’t judge her. The water doesn’t whisper about her past. As she is drawing water, I can start to feel her countenance turning inward as she sees someone walking up to her; she chose this time of the day for avoidance not conversation. And then a Jewish man speaks to her. 
    Clearing the Dross
    Jesus is this man and he asks for a drink. She’s stunned — a Jewish man asking a Samaritan woman for anything was a social violation on multiple levels. But Jesus isn’t interested in the social script. He deepens the conversation, layer by layer, like a refiner clearing dross to find what’s pure beneath. He offers her living water. She pushes back with practicality — you don’t even have a bucket. He speaks of water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life. She asks for it, still thinking in practical terms, and then Jesus pivots: “Go, call your husband.”
    Now, some interpreters read this as exposure, as if Jesus is setting a trap. But read it again through the lens of a God who perceives every possibility and lures rather than coerces. Jesus may simply be asking: Will you be honest with me? Will you bring your whole self into this conversation — not just the thirsty part, but the ashamed part, the abandoned part, the part that comes to a well, alone, at noon?
    She is honest. “I have no husband.” And Jesus doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t shame her. He doesn’t catalog her failures or assign guilt. He simply acknowledges the truth she’s offered and keeps talking. No condemnation. No purity laws invoked. No mention of the shared cup, the cultural barriers, her gender, her history. Just presence. Just invitation. Just a continuing conversation that assigns her worth she may not have felt in years. This is what the Spirit’s luring looks like in human form. It’s those eyes that pierce right through your soul, not to hurt, but to heal.
    Worship Beyond the Mountain
    The woman tries to redirect to theology — which mountain is the right one for worship? It’s a genuine question, not evasion. Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim; Jews insisted on Jerusalem. Centuries of division encoded in geography. But Jesus lifts the conversation off the mountain entirely: “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”
    Consider for a moment what may be happening beneath this exchange. This Samaritan woman, in some readings, symbolically represents the nation of Samaria itself — the Northern Kingdom, long estranged from the Southern Kingdom of Judah. And Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, is deliberately crossing into that estrangement to initiate conversation, to invite reunion. “Worship the Father in spirit and truth” isn’t just personal spiritual advice; it’s a vision of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms finally re-gathered under one Creator God — not through conquest, not through one side winning the theological argument, but through Spirit and truth. The well, it becomes holy ground. The estranged become invited. The divided become one. No longer Jew or Samaritan. One God and Father of us all.
    Temporary Measures and Permanent Springs
    Jesus tells her: “Everyone who drinks of this well water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the spiritual water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” This is the heart of what Jesus offers. Temporary measures satisfy temporarily. We know this. We return to the same wells — approval, achievement, substances, relationships, status — because they satisfy for a moment and then leave us dry again, making the walk back to the well feel inevitable.
    The gift Jesus initiates is different. It doesn’t just fill — it transforms. It becomes a spring inside a person, welling up, self-sustaining, never needing to prime the pump again. This isn’t about a single dramatic conversion moment; it’s about a deep interior transformation that keeps generating life from within. The woman who came alone at noon leaves her water jar behind and runs back to the city — the same city whose crowd she’d been avoiding — because something has shifted at her core.
    This is the objective of Lent. Not just giving something up, but allowing God to replace the temporary with the permanent. Fasting from the societal expectations and cultural labels that have kept us coming back to the same evaporating wells, and opening ourselves to the spring the Spirit wants to release within us.
    The Reconciling Love That Walks Through Chaos
    When Paul write the letter to the Romans, he kind of holds all of this stuff together. He writes that we are justified by faith, and through Christ we have peace with God. But then he goes further — we also boast in our sufferings, because suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
    Now, I do not believe that this is triumphalism. Paul isn’t saying suffering is good. He’s saying God doesn’t abandon us in it. The chaos of the world distracts, pulls, and exhausts — but God walks through the chaos with us, luring us toward abundant life rather than leaving us to find our way out alone; you know, the part of Psalm 23 that mentioned walking through the darkest valley. While we were still weak — while we were still stumbling to the well at noon alone — Christ came. While we were still sinners. Not after we cleaned up. Not after we figured it out. While.
    That reconciling love doesn’t turn a blind eye to what breaks us. It brings unity, recompense, peace, and inner transformation. It meets us at the well we’ve been visiting in shame and tells us our thirst is not a failure — it’s an invitation.
    Fasting from Labels, Receiving Worth
    This week’s Lenten invitation is to fast from the labels — the ones society has given you and the ones you’ve accepted as permanent truth about yourself. The woman at the well had been defined by loss, by dismissal, and by isolation. Jesus didn’t redefine her with a new label; he invited her into a relationship where labels dissolve in the presence of living water, no goop leftover — completely washed clean.
    What wells have you been returning to? What labels have kept you walking alone at noon? God’s Spirit perceives every possibility in your life right now — not to expose your shame, but to clear the dross and reveal the pure intention beneath. The invitation, my friends, is the same one the woman received: bring your whole self, be honest, and discover that Jesus, who meets you there, has no interest in condemning you. He’s interested in giving you an eternal spring that never runs dry. Amen.
Mount Sterling First United Methodist Church
sterlingfirstumc@yahoo.com
(740) 869-3577
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