Latest / St. Paul Podcast / You matter, 3.8.2026

Transcript

You matter, 3.8.2026 · St. Paul Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: Hi everyone and welcome to the St.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: Paul Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: My name is Mark Neethammer, Senior Pastor at St.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_04: Paul Lutheran Church, located in Davenport, Iowa, part of the Greater Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_04: Right here, each week, you will find beautiful music and a message of hope and good news to guide your life.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_04: I am hopeful that this podcast can inspire you and help you on your journey of faith as you grow in love and trust in our God.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're hearing about Jesus and his most unlikely friendship with the woman he met at a well in the middle of the day in the middle of Samaria.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a long story, and I'm reading excerpts from a much longer version of this story.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if you aren't driving or jogging or walking your dog right now, I invite you to read this whole story from chapter four of the Gospel of John.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or just listen now to this story shortened a bit, where Jesus doesn't let anything keep him from connecting to this woman and from demonstrating the expansive power of God's love.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So listen in to John chapter four, beginning at the fifth verse.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sikar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was about noon.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, Give me a drink.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: The woman said to him, Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you get that living water?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flock drank from it?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: But those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: The water I will give them will become in them a spring of living water, gushing up to eternal life.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty, or have to keep coming here to draw water.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come back.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: The woman answered him, I have no husband.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, You are right in saying, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you are with now is not your husband.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: What you have said is true.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: The woman said to him, Sir, I see you are a prophet.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, I am he, the one who is speaking to you.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just then the disciples came.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: But no one said, What do you want?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or why are you speaking with her?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: She said to the people, Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: He cannot be the Messiah, can he?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: They left the city and were on their way to Jesus.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: He told me everything I have ever done.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now, here are some thoughts on this amazing story.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: In 1987, a young graduate student, a man named Robert Flett, studied a human need, something that is essential to human flourishing.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it wasn't water or protein.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't even a roof over our heads or cool air in the summers.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, those things are necessary.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: But additionally, among all the things humans need, not just want, but actually need, is something that flettes, a psychologist, called mattering.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Humans have an essential need to matter, to belong, to be valued.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it's more than just belonging, it's this need to have a purpose, meaning.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's this combination of both feeling valued and trusting that you add value to.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a resurgence in people writing and talking about mattering in recent months, books out and articles made.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big topic, in part because of how essential it is, but also because of how many of us are lacking this sense in our own lives.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: The tree critique is often towards workplaces, where too often people care more about the bottom line and less in creating stability and meaning for employees.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or people point to the isolation and transience of our society these days, or how social media pulls us out of real relationships and connections.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in response to this crisis in mattering, writers and psychologists and all kinds of people have offered advice about how to invest ourselves in community or how we can show others that they value to us.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: But as I've been thinking about mattering, I've been thinking about that Samaritan woman.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: If there ever was a woman who could be the spokesperson for someone who had ceased to matter to many others, it would be this Samaritan woman.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that she showed up at the well in the middle of the day instead of early in the morning when all the respectable women would have come and gathered and chatted, it shows us that she was likely an outcast, marginalized from her community.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: We hear that she had several husbands.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: But this wasn't likely because she was a loose woman or couldn't commit.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's likely because she had been widowed over and over and over again, taken in by someone new after each loss.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And not only all those things, but she was a woman.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: In her day, she would have been expendable.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't matter much.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus shows up at her that well one morning when he's traveling with his friends through Samaria.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Samaria and the Samaritans and Jews of ancient Palestine were enemies.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: They shared this faith in one God, but their practices and cultures were so different.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a discord, uh, despite their closeness, a sort of discord similar to, say, the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland in the middle of the last century.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: This conflict between them where folks didn't talk much.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're enemies, really.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus didn't travel through Samaria those days because it was a shortcut, because his only way to get where he had to go.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: His message of saving grace was for the whole world.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so he chose to go to Samaria, to the Samaritans, to show this grace, even for them.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So on that afternoon so long ago, when Jesus and the Samaritan women show up at the well, she would have figured that she mattered not one bit to him.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: She would have expected to be ignored at best, or perhaps even treated with cruelty or violence.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus started to talk with her.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: From the very beginning, Jesus treats her differently.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: He sees her, he asks her for help.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then they have this long theological discussion about worship and God and the Messiah.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: They talk about her life, about living water.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: As they talk, Jesus gives her full attention, showing the Samaritan woman her worth.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Samaritan woman becomes this conversation partner, a student, a full and complicated human with intrinsic value.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, as Jesus always does, creates a space where she belongs, where she matters.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: In this interaction with Jesus, the Samaritan woman finds the fulfillment of a need that is just as necessary as water for her living.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: She matters.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when the sh disciples show up, the Samaritan woman leaves her water jar at the well.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like she leaves behind her need to be filled up with the opinion and the esteem of others.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: As she leaves behind her jug, she lets go of those false stories.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: She fully trusts that she needs only the living water of Jesus, the truth he has given her in her mattering.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else will disappoint, always.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else will always make her thirsty again.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: But this Samaritan woman does more than just trust in her value.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: She goes on to become a valuable witness.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: She tells everyone about Jesus.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: She becomes the first person in the Gospel of John to declare Jesus as Christ, the Messiah.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: This woman goes from being invisible to being a witness, a preacher, a proclaimer of hope.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just before this trip to Samaria, Jesus had told his new friend Nicodemus those words we talked about last week, those words John 3.16, which say, For God so loved this world, this whole world, by the way, even those awful Samaritans.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: God so loved this world that God gave God's only Son, that all those who trust in him would not perish, but have eternal life.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: God's reign of love becoming known here.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so we could say, for God so loved this world that Jesus came, so that all who trust in him might know they matter, that they really matter, that they are valued with deep purpose and meaning.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to trust this, especially if we when we like that Samaritan woman have so many voices that tell us otherwise.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: We might feel cast aside or like we are invisible, or we feel like something we've done is just too awful to ever be seen as valuable again.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe some disease or circumstance or just time has taken away our abilities or our opportunities to so that our combin contributions are not what they once were.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are countless reasons why we might feel like we don't matter.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm here to tell you because of the story we know of the Samaritan woman, because of who Jesus is, you do matter.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless of all those things that society deems as a measuring stick of our value, even with all you've endured, despite the fullness or the emptiness of those jugs in which you carry the esteem or judgment of others, the Samaritan woman story points us to the truth that we are valued.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And not just that, but we add value to this world too.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Each one of us has something to bring, to give, to tell.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: One of our St.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Paul people loaned me this book, a novel called Theo of Golden.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've read it.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the most charming and heartwarming books I've read in a while.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it tells a story of this elderly man.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Theo, who shows up in this fictional town of uh in Georgia, a town called Golden, which is why it's called Theo of Golden.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So Theo, on his first day in this little town, shows up at a coffee shop, and in that coffee shop on the wall are these pencil-drawn portraits of random, everyday, ordinary people in town, done by a local artist.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so Theo begins to purchase these hand-drawn portraits and puts them back into the hands of their rightful owners, the people who are portrayed in these drawings.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as Theo delivers these drawings to the people, a story is told and a friendship is born and a life is changed.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in one of those stories, Theo meets with a journalist.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Catherine, and when Catherine looks at this pencil-drawn portrait of herself, she is struck by how beautiful she looks.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Never before has she seen herself as beautiful.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Catherine tells Theo about her childhood growing up in poverty, having to wear clothes that not only were out of style and ragged, but never fit.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: How she was bullied and teased because of her looks and her clothes and where she lived, her size.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And as they talk, Catherine says, I've spent my whole life being a little girl in those two small clothes in that rundown trailer park.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's the picture of myself that is stuck in my head.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look at all like that portrait.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so Theo responds, then I propose we make a trade.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Give me that old picture in your head and take this new one home with you.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like school children, they acted out as a sort of mime.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then she raises her hand, fingertips together to her temple, and pretends to pull out an object from her mind.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she held her hand over Theo's and opens up her fingers and drops that hostile mental image into Theo's palm.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Theo closes his hand around it and tucks it into his coat pocket.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then he hands her this intricately drawn pencil portrait of her.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Theo says to her, Catherine, do not forget that you are a work of art.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Today, as you receive communion, as we worship, as we sing, and as we pray, I hope that you can let go of those hostile images that diminish you.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Leave them with God.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like that Samaritan woman left her jar behind.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like Catherine removed that picture from her mind.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Leave them.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Trust that grace-filled portrait that shows how we are valued.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: We are works of art.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And even the most unlikely ones of us can be witnesses to Jesus' love, reminding others of this truth in Jesus we matter.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Each and every one of us, always, no matter what.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: And all your people single We bad We Bonnie Your Grace is enough.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now we turn to God in prayer, saying those words Jesus taught us in the Lord's Prayer.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Give us today our daily bread.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, friends, never forget.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: You are a work of art.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: So go now in the blessing of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be a witness to the powerful, transformative, and life-giving love of God.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_04: I hope you've enjoyed this podcast and thanks for your support of the ministries of St.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_04: Paul Lutheran Church.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_04: Our commitment to endeavors that lend hope to other people stretches across the country and around the world.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_04: We hope that in a good way you feel a part of that reach.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_04: Tune in next Thursday for another edition of the St.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_04: Paul Podcast.