Third Sunday in Lent

February 24, 2008

Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm 95

Romans 5:1-11

John 4:5-42

            What an incredible story we heard in our gospel lesson today.  An incredible love story, I would say.  In fact, there are so many incredible things about this meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman I hardly know where to begin.  Perhaps the best place to begin is at the meeting place, itself.  Jesus is sitting at a well in the center of town waiting for someone to come along who will give him some water to drink.  But this is not just any well, in just any town.  This town is in Samaria, and no good Jew would be caught dead in such a place.  And this is why.  Samaria is populated by Jews who are half-breeds; Jews who have been intermarrying with pagans since the time of the Babylonian exile.  Jews who chose not to go back to their homeland when the armies of Persia defeated the Babylonians and King Cyrus liberated them and set them free.  They were only too willing to tell their Jewish brethren why they would not return to their sacred homeland. 

           They would stay in Babylon because this land was no longer foreign to them.  They no longer felt like people in captivity, or like the exiles they once were.  Their lives were comfortable and productive, and they were not about to leave their pagan husbands or wives, and their half-breed families to go back to their long lost homes in Judea.  Jews who chose to stay in Babylon were not interested in rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem to practice their faith in such a pure and rarified religious environment.  They were content in the new ways they were practicing the faith of their Hebrew forefathers, and they were not at all bothered by pagan adaptations which became natural to them.

              It is no surprise, then, that in the time of Jesus these Samaritan Jews were despised by their Jewish brethren.  In fact, Jews hated Samaritans even more than pagans precisely because they were half-breeds.  They had made choices which defiled their religious heritage and dishonored the faith of their ancestors.   So it seems incredible that Jesus would purposefully go to a town in Samaria where he fully expects to find a Samaritan who will give him water to drink from the town well.  And we shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus would send his disciples on an errand so he could go this alone.  Good Jews that they were, they would not have countenanced Jesus’ plan.  So it’s a good thing they do not show up until the end of this story because they are clearly so troubled by what they witness.  Seeing Jesus engaged in conversation, with a Samaritan woman no less, is so incredible they can hardly speak. 

              We can hardly blame Jesus’ disciples.  We have to wonder what Jesus’ purpose was for going to this Samaritan town and stopping at this particular well.  Certainly he could have found water to drink in a place more compatible with his religious sensibilities.  It is clear from the beginning of the story that Jesus is thirsty; but we have to wonder if he has gone to this place to satisfy another kind of thirst—like, for instance, a thirst which comes out of curiosity, or desire, or some other kind of thirst.  This is not so far-fetched for us to imagine, especially in John’s gospel.  John is always inviting us to look beyond the reality of the moment to see something more.  He is always urging us to find larger meaning in the words people speak and the actions they take.  And we know that in John’s gospel Jesus always seems to know who he is, what he is doing and why he is doing it.  So why does Jesus go to this well for an encounter with a despised woman of a despised race of people?  What was he really thirsting for?

           Well, at the beginning of my sermon, you might remember that I made a bold statement about this story from John’s gospel.  I called this story a love story; an incredible love story because it brings together two unlikely people who bond with each other in a relationship which goes well beyond human expectation and possibility.  It is clear that John’s story is meant to show us the incredible nature of God’s love and the wonderful things which can happen to us when we are open to receiving it, for returning it and for sharing it with others.  There are many reasons why Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman can be called a love story.  My first clue comes from the fact that it takes place around a well.  But not just any well.  We learn that the well is Jacob’s well; the well where Jacob encountered the love of his life, Rachel, the woman who would bear his eleventh son.  They would name him Joseph.  And if you remember it is Joseph’s love for his family, and the authority he has earned to oversee the land and resources in Pharaoh’s court, that would save Joseph’s family from famine, many years after his brothers left him for dead in a pit over their jealousy of him.  An incredible story in itself.   Incredible, too, that Jesus comes to this same well where saving love is his reason and purpose for being there.  Incredible, also, that Jesus encounters a woman at that well who will be the subject of his love.  She will necessarily be a Samaritan, and there will be nothing commendable about her.  She has also come to the well because she is thirsty, but when she encounters Jesus, she recognizes a thirst which can only be satisfied by water that only Jesus can give.  And in it she finds love for the first time, in true and deep and lasting relationship.

            This is incredible in itself, because this woman is not easy to love.  She has broken every rule of social and moral propriety of her day.  We can just imagine the ridicule and scorn she likely endures living with a man out of wedlock, following five marriages which obviously came to an unhappy end.  We can be certain she has been ostracized from publicly engaging with the people of her town because she has come to the well alone to draw water at the one time in the day you will not find likely find anyone at that well.  It is high noon.  And this is a detail John does not want us to overlook.  The sun is at its brightest, revealing all that it shines upon.  And this Samaritan woman is about to have her life revealed to her by a perfect stranger.  She is surprised that this man even speaks to her, because she recognizes that he is a Jew.  And she is shocked that he asks for water from a Samaritan woman.  She knows that a faithful Jew would go out of his way to avoid even looking upon a woman, no less conversing with her in public.  She has seen such men cover their eyes when they approach a woman, and she has seen them break their nose or suffer other injuries when they walked into a tree or some other obstacle in their blindness.  Even worse, she has heard them cry out in a loud voice, this common prayer of blessing:  “Thank God I am not a woman.” 

             But Jesus does nothing of the sort.  Instead, he tells the woman he is thirsty.  And she can’t understand why a Jew would ask her for a drink of water.  Especially someone like her.  If only he knew….  But she will soon learn that he does know.  She is astonished that he tells her everything she has done.  And even more astonishing to her, he still wants to talk with her.  He still wants to engage her in important conversation with him about the real things we long for, like living water.  Out of her embarrassment and shame she tries to avoid his eyes and change the conversation, but Jesus keeps coming back to her, revealing more and more of himself until he finally tells her what she most needs to hear.  He is the messiah she has been waiting for.  He has come to satisfy her deepest thirst, her thirst for the living God.  And everything she needs to know about this living God who is present with her in this moment is revealed to her.  She recognizes that regardless of the sin and shame of her life, and the harsh judgment and punishment which has come to her in her human community, she is loved.  And at that moment she is accepted for who she is.  Someone has taken the time to know her and understand her and accept despite all she has done, and perhaps even because of them.  Jesus has been able to see beyond this woman’s human frailty and brokenness to see her as a child of God.  This unlikely woman; this outsider, this half-breed Jewess, this person of questionable morals, this social outcast has been chosen by Jesus to be his first evangelist.  This living water which engenders so much love has liberated this Samaritan woman from shame and regret, and from all the negative energy of her past.  She has received from Jesus the life-giving energy of love and it satisfies more than she could have asked or imagined.  She is ecstatic with joy, and she immediately runs to the marketplace to tell the men who are gathered there that she has seen the Messiah, and she invites them to come and see him for themselves.    

           And did you notice one of the most important details of this story?  Both Jesus and the Samaritan woman come to the well for water because they are both thirsty, but neither one of them drinks the water they came for.  Jesus never does get that drink he asked for, and the Samaritan woman never gets to dip her water jug into the well; in fact, she leaves the jug so that she can run with haste, unencumbered, to share her good news with others. Neither Jesus, nor the woman drink the water from the well, yet both leave that well with a thirst which has been satisfied by the longest and most engaging dialogue Jesus has with anyone in all of scripture.  A conversation which reveals the kind of thirst which both Jesus and the Samaritan woman bring to that well.  A thirst for God.  A thirst that we all have to be loved unconditionally by someone who knows us completely—someone who knows everything we have ever been and everything we have ever done and loves us anyway—someone who would even choose us to be a friend, a companion, even a disciple. 

           I remember when I first came into the Episcopal Church some 17 years ago.  I remember hearing the Collect for Purity for the first time in my first experience of worship.  My experience on that Sunday and every Sunday since has been like meeting Jesus at that well.  Now, as a priest of the Church, I am privileged to say that collect at every Eucharist.  And I never take it for granted:  “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from who no secrets are hid:  Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your name through Christ our Lord.”  Amen…it shall be so.  I like to imagine that our Collect for Purity was written by the Samaritan woman in our gospel lesson today.  I imagine her feeling so safe in Jesus’ love that she is able to acknowledge the transparency of her life before God.  I imagine her being able to satisfy all of her longings in the living water which Jesus promises to her.  I imagine her joy as the Holy Spirit inspires her anew to live a life worthy of God’s love.  And I imagine she is able to worthily magnifying Jesus’ name by her own life as she grows in his love and becomes an ever more faithful disciple of his life and teachings.  This is how the Samaritan woman found love; on that day she encountered Jesus she was found by love.

           But what about Jesus.  Jesus also came to that well thirsting.  And we know it takes two people to make a love story.  But this is precisely why Jesus comes to that well.  Because Jesus knows he also has a thirst he cannot quench by himself.  It is a thirst for us.  It is a thirst which can only be satisfied by people like the Samaritan woman.  People who are willing enough to encounter him; people strong enough to risk becoming transparent to the one who knows us so completely; people who are vulnerable enough to accept his love and to love him back; people who are  faithful enough to take him into our life so that we can take him and into our world as his disciples.  In our Epistle lesson today Paul tells us that Jesus poured himself out for us, and he is ready to satisfy our thirst for true love and real relationship with his living water.  But he cannot make us drink.  Jesus cannot make us drink the living water which alone can satisfy our longing.  Not until we realize that all our thirst, all our longing is a thirst and a longing for God; not until we realize that the longing we have for the things of this world will never completely satisfy or last.

           So Jesus sits at the well and waits, knowing that we cannot become the people God yearns for us to be without him; knowing that he cannot be the savior and redeemer God sent him into the world to be without us.  So like a faithful and patient lover Jesus sits at the well and waits; waits for each of us to come to him; so that we might find him, and be found by him, in our own story of incredible love.