The Third Sunday in Lent --- 23 March 2014

John 4:5-42

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 

The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 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." 

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, "I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 

The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" They left the city and were on their way to him. 

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor." 

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world." 

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.

• Today is a special day. Not only are we having our monthly “by-request-hymn-sing”, it is, for me at least, “silly question day.” So, who here has ever pealed an onion?
• Many layers, for sure! So it is with John's Gospel. It is possible to peal away layer after layer in many of Jesus' discourses in John's writing, many of which need some explanation or clarification.
• We'll go with the obvious first. In this passage from John's Gospel, Jesus asks for a drink of water from a Samaritan woman and this encounter becomes far more than it might have appeared. First, Jews and Samaritans would never speak to each other. The Samaritans lived in an area north of Judea, called, naturally, Samaria and tranced their ancestry to two of the tribes of Israel. They shared a lot of their religious observance with the Jewish people, but said that God was to be worshipped on Mount Gerizim, a mountain in Samaria, rather than Jerusalem. That difference alone would cause a separation from the Jewish people, but the Jews also accused the Samaritans of being pagans and worshipping false gods. These two people didn't like each other -sometimes with violence, would not speak, and would not set foot in each other's lands. As with so many people of the ancient world, their speech and their dress made it obvious which group they were from. Here Jesus asks for a drink from the ritually impure bucket of the Samaritan woman, a scandalous thing.
• On another point, in those days men and women, even husband and wife, did not speak in public. For a rabbi to discuss theology with a woman was even more unusual. And to speak and discuss such things with a woman who's marital record might cause the pious to avoid her... that would be beyond the Pale!
• When asked for water, the woman takes Jesus at his word and is shocked that he, a Jew, would speak to her and ask for a drink from her bucket. Jesus responds with a teaching about “living water.” In ancient times, what was called “living water” usually meant fresh, flowing water as opposed to water from a cistern, a catch-basin, or even a puddle. As often happens in John, the woman takes Jesus literally, asking where he'd get this water since the well is deep and he has no bucket. To us, it's obvious that Jesus is not talking about well water, but about something beyond all that, but to the woman, standing at the well with some sort of water container, this could be confusing, especially when he says that HE would give HER water! In a sense, he turns that tables on her and offers her a drink from his “Jewish” bucket. By the end of this part of John's Gospel, the woman Jesus met at the well has become an evangelist to her friends and neighbours.
• There is a lot more in this story – Jesus' knowledge of the woman's history, Jesus' teaching on worshipping in “spirit and in truth”, the exchange with the disciples over food, and the response of the Samaritan villagers – enough for a lot of preaching, but today we'll stay with two or three things we can take home with us.
• First would be how Jesus receives the Samaritan woman, something we would want to continue to do. Going against the custom of his day, he sees the woman as a person, not as an enemy, not as an object, not as a lesser, unworthy being, and not as someone to be shunned or pitied or condescended to. This is how Jesus accepts us; he knows us through and through, warts and all, and he lived to bring us the Good News, he died to bring us new life, and he rose to lead us to this new life. He lives still and what he said to the woman holds true for us.
• I'm referring here to our second take-home point - the 'living water': The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. Whether we take this 'living water' to be faith, grace, the Holy Spirit, or the presence of Jesus himself in each of us, he has taken us as we are, washed us, and continues to quench our thirst with the 'living water', whether we find that thirst to be a thirst for meaning, forgiveness, hope, inspiration, or someone to count on.
• Later, in Chapter 6 in John's Gospel, Jesus calls himself the 'living bread' and a whole new controversy erupts. Still for believers he is the source of living water and he is the living bread; he is the one we cannot do without, just like we cannot live without water or the sustenance bread symbolizes.
• Finally there are those Samaritans, especially the woman at the well, who become the first believers. The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." Jesus reveals himself to this outcast woman, someone even his disciples can't imagine him speaking to, and she leaves her water jar at the well and goes to tell everybody else. Not gossip, but GOSPEL! Not rumour, but GOOD NEWS! To those who touched by the living water, to those who see their own reflection in the living water, to those who seek in spirit and truth, Jesus has and will reveal himself. He has revealed himself to each of us, in his Word, in his Sacraments, in his disciples, and in the circumstances of our own lives.
• You never know who you will meet at the well. The woman Jesus met there found more than she ever expected. It was so much she had to tell others. And they eventually said to her "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."
• So we have the good word to the outcast and the left-behind. We have the living water, and we have the words of Jesus “I am he.” There is so much here in John's Gospel; we've barely scratched the surface. If we thirst and hunger and itch for more, we've encountered Jesus. Everyone who drinks of this water (from the well) will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.