March 19th

Third Sunday of Lent
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
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Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one who knows us. Amen
 
Jesus while traveling sits by a well,
a woman comes to draw water,
Jesus asks her for a drink of water
and they converse
 
and by the time their conversation is finished
they are both satisfied
and no water has been drawn from the well.
 
Man does not live by bread alone,
Jesus told the devil when he tempted him in the wilderness,
here the same holds true for water,
there are thirsts so deep
that water will not quench them.
 
we thirst for meaningful relationships with other people,
we thirst to be known
we thirst for God,
 
The Samaritan woman at the well needed more than water,
Jesus knew that,
he knew that he could provide what she needed
but to do this he would need to establish a relationship with her
 
and so he made himself vulnerable-
he asked her for a drink of water,
he gave the woman power over him,
to either fill or deny his need.
 
And the woman responds,
she knows something is up,
this is an unusual interaction-
in every way Jesus has power over her-
and she calls him on it,
“How is it that you a Jew ask a drink of me a woman of samaria?”  
 
and that is all the opening that Jesus needs to engage her
saying “If you knew who you were talking to you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
Again this intrigues her
and again she responds practically,
“where do you get this living water? You don’t have a bucket and the well is deep?”  
 
“I didn’t mean this water” Jesus says,
“if you drink this water you’ll get thirsty
but the water that I will give will become in people
a spring gushing up to eternal life.
 
“Sir give me this water,
so that I may never be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water” the woman exclaims,
 
now she’s invested in this curious stranger
who has broken social taboos to ask her for water
and engage her in conversation,
who offers her something that would make her life easier,
she wants this water.
 
In response to her desire
Jesus abruptly changes the topic of conversation,
at least it seems abrupt
until we realize that he is revealing the real reason that she is at the well at noon,
the reason she has a thirst that water cannot quench,
 
she is a social outcast,
she is not a woman of illrepute as some have suggested,
the string of husbands probably has something to do with levirite marriage,
the practice where if a man dies without a son to carry on his line
his wife is married to his brother
in hopes of producing an heir for him.
 
Perhaps this woman was married into a sickly family
and husbands keep dying on her,
perhaps she is barren and has been dismissed from five marriages
and it was an act of pity on the part of the man she is living with now
to consent to have her under his roof,
maybe the women have rejected her company
at the usual communal trips to the well in the morning and evening
because they don’t want her bad luck to rub off on them,
 
Whatever the reason for her situation,
when Jesus reveals her past to her
he reveals that he knows her,
he knows her past and her present,
and knowing this still sought her out as a conversation partner
and this empowers her to continue to speak,
to try to figure out who this man is, to know him.
 
“Clearly you’re a prophet” she muses,
“but you’re Jewish,
your people say Jerusalem is the only place to worship God
while my people say this mountain is the only place to worship God
hmmm, what’s going on here?”
 
And this samaritan woman
on the outskirts of her own community
proceeds to have the most in depth theological conversation yet
among the people who have encountered Jesus,
 
she is knowledgeable about what her people believe -
versus what Jesus’ people believe,
Jesus does her the honor of disagreeing with her
about the proper place of worship
saying salvation is from the Jews
 
then goes on to say
that soon, right now in fact
the debate about where to worship is moot
because “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
 
“Well” the woman counters
“I know the messiah is coming,
we at least both believe in that
and when he comes he will proclaim all things to us”
 
and echoing the words from the burning bush to Moses
Jesus says to the woman
“I am, the one who is speaking to you”
revealing for the first time who exactly he is.
 
And the woman reacts by leaving her water jar,
her fears and shame
and rushes back to town
to speak to the people she has previously avoided,
to share her experience and invite them back with her.
And they come!
Being known by Jesus,
trusted as a conversation partner
has empowered the woman to go do what before was unthinkable,
to engage with her community
who had disengaged from her
 
and something in her excitement or words
moves the people she tells
and they come back out to the well with her
and invite Jesus to stay with them
and many people believe in Jesus because of the woman
and after they meet him they proclaim that he is the savior of the world.
 
Two strangers meet at a well,
over the course of a conversation
they come to understand both each other and themselves in new life giving ways.
 
Jesus knows the woman as an engaging conversation partner
who becomes an effective disciple inspite of her past and present,
 
the woman understands that the messiah is before her
and that he is capable of giving new life to those he encounters
as he has given new life to her
in her new purpose in sharing the news about the messiah.
 
Jesus is changed by the conversation as well,
he set out to engage one hurting person at a well
and ended up including a whole nation in his work,
He initially argues that salvation is from the Jews
but in this encounter he realizes that while it may be from the Jews
it is for the sake of the whole world.
 
And it all started because Jesus built a relationship
by being vulnerable and having a conversation.
 
As followers of Jesus
we are called to be in relationship with God and with one another,
that’s even part of our mission statement to nurture those relationships
 
and to be in relationship
means that we have to be vulnerable,
to have conversations with people convention says we shouldn’t speak to,
to risk knowing them and them knowing us,
to risk having our world expanded by the conversation,
to honor the other person by disagreeing with them
and still listening to what they say and responding in kind.
 
And in the course of these conversations,
we may find that our thirst has been quenched
without any water being drawn from the well,
 
that we have been known
and come to know another,
 
that we have been empowered to leave our fears and shame behind,
that we have a new purpose in life,
that we have seen the face of God. Amen