Lent III - A
March 15, 2020
The Song of Living
Water
St. John 4:5-42
Jesus
asks for water. Thirsting and the
disciples gone Jesus asks for water at Jacob’s well in Samaritan territory from
a woman. Let’s take that sentence apart.
Thirsting
and the disciples gone – Jesus is alone.
Jesus thirsts. Interesting that
the next time we hear Jesus request for a drink is from the cross surrounded by
women who followed him. But now he
thirsts and he turns toward a woman and asks for a drink.
We
need to backtrack momentarily to paint this scene. In the verses before St. John tells us: he [Jesus] left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria.
The reality is that Jesus
chooses to go through Samaria. He did
not have to. Jews and Samaritans do not
get along for several reasons.
Samaritans hail from the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
After the Assyrian defeated them in 721 BC[E] they intermarried and are not
pure Jews.
They claim Jacob as their
patriarch and established a Temple on Mount Gerizim in Samaria as the only place
for worshipping Yahweh. Jews from the
Southern Kingdom of Judea no only avoided but despised by the Samaritan. When traveling from Southern – Judea to the
north to Galilee a pious proper Jew would travel around Samaria – not through
Samaria.
But Jesus takes his
disciples through Samaria – an intentional crossing of this religious and
ethnic divide.
Jesus is thirsty and asks
for a drink at Jacob’s well at high noon.
This scene is completely riddled with Jesus breaking boundaries. A Jewish teacher like Jesus would not be at Jacob’s
well to begin with much less defiling himself by talking to a despised
Samaritan woman.
This woman has three
strikes against her – her gender, her ethnicity, her barrenness. Notice that I said that she was unable to
have children. Too often she has been
pictured as some floozy being passed from man to man having had 5 husbands.
That, however, is an
inappropriate take on this situation and that culture. Her problem is more likely that she cannot
have children and try as she may – she fails and no man wants her. So out of shame for her barrenness she comes
to the well alone at high noon. By then
most of the village women have gotten their supply of water for the day.
This story is one of the
most shocking stories in the New Testament.
Jesus is thirsty – thirsting for the lost. Jesus is crossing almost
every religious and social boundary of his day.
His very presence at the well marks him as ritually unclean. As a male in his society, Jesus should not be
speaking to a strange woman anyway, yet he does.
This story screams of just
how inclusive Jesus is as he takes the initiative to speak to a Samaritan woman
who is barren and in distress – the ultimate outsider in a country of
outsiders. This woman is nobody – she
does not even merit a name.
Although her community has
turned away from her Jesus turns toward her thirsty heart. Jesus thirsts and he asks for water and the
song of living water begins. The ‘song,’
the conversation between this women and Jesus is the longest conversation
recorded in the New Testament Gospels.
Imagine the longest
conversation by Jesus is with a nameless, nobody, Samaritan, childless, lonely
woman.
However, she has some
chutzpah and is well versed in her faith.
They talk about the three things that people in polite company find
taboo: religion, politics, and sex.
Jesus is thirsty and asks
for a drink. She offers him water and Jesus in return offers her ‘living water’
to which she boldly replies: “Sir, give
me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or having to keep coming here to
draw water.”
She does not yet
understand the kind of water offered by Jesus, but she will as the conversation
moves into her series of husbands.
Notice that Jesus does not condemn her – her serial husbands is not her
fault – instead he identifies her hurt and rejection because she is childless
and being passed on from one man to another.
She recognizes Jesus as a
prophet and confronts him with who really has the truest religion Samaritans or
Jews – who is truly worshipping Yahweh.
Jesus responds by telling
her that the place of worship is irrelevant:
‘true worshipers worship
the Father in spirit and in truth.’
It is as if Jesus is
saying, ‘Don’t get hung up on the externals – the buildings, the temple, the
place of worship – but look for the spirit’s living waters welling up in you.’
The woman begins to
recognize ‘Messiah’ in Jesus and he tells her directly: “I am he!”
She is enthralled and
overcome and runs to the city and invites her fellow Samaritans to come and
see. They come and see and Jesus stays
for two days and is acclaimed by this Samaritan village as ‘the Savior of the
world.’
Great story – but what
impact does it have for us today?
Jesus asks for a drink to
engage us in conversation and in turn offer us the living waters. Like the woman of Samaria – this is an
interesting exchange. Jesus has a thirst
for you and for me and he crosses every boundary to get to us.
God proves his love for us in that while we still were
sinners Christ died for us.
You are given living
waters today. Words proclaimed, sacraments
given – God instills in us a well that springs to life through the power of the
Holy Spirit.
The real presence of
Christ in the bread and wine – the reminder of your baptismal waters as you
return to your pew. The song of living
waters ringing in our ears.
Jesus thirsts for you.
Christ crosses every boundary to find you.
He give you living waters so that you in turn can share living waters
with others.
Poet Christina Rossetti
shares how Christ mends our broken lives and molds us into a cup of blessing. It seems like she may have written this poem
as a response to this story today.
My life is like a
broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing;
Melt and re-mold it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing;
Melt and re-mold it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
Jesus thirsts. He asks for a drink. Here the poet expresses the heart of the
Samaritan woman. After her conversation with Christ she becomes a remolded
royal cup carrying the living waters of Jesus to her people in the village.
From broken bowl to royal
cup for the living waters!
Jesus thirsts for us. He finds us and remolds us into a royal cup that
honors our Lord and satiates his thirst.
Amen.
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