Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42
March 12, 2023
- Facing the truth about ourselves.
Are there places in Farmville that you would be careful to avoid? That is actually something of a tricky question as on the one hand, we are called to love our neighbor, any of them and all of them, but on the other hand, there are situations and places that might seem less neighborly for whatever reason. Like every town, we have struggled to be good neighbors through the years. However, even if you feel perfectly at ease in any place in Farmville at any time of day, I have a feeling there are certainly places in Richmond you might be careful to avoid. I can tell you it was exactly the same in Jesus’ day, and that is exactly where we are going.
If you wanted to go from south Israel to north Israel back then, the shortest route was to go through Samaria. The only problem with that was that people in Samaria hated Jews and Jews hated Samaritans. You might be beaten, attacked, or just treated poorly. It was even worse than Democrats and Republicans today. The Samaritans thought they were the true faithful people, and the Jews thought they were the true faithful people. It was a situation that was only going to end poorly. So, if you were Jewish, you did NOT travel through Samaria heading north and south unless you needed to. You took the longer way and avoided those difficult, heathen Samaritans… unless you were Jesus.
Jesus specifically took that route with his disciples. I imagine they were nervous, but they were a bunch of guys. They specifically ended up in the area of the capital of Samaria. Even more, they ended up at a very old well that Jacob himself had made. I have been there myself. It is a deep, deep well into which you had to lower a bucket a good ways. Today, there is a hand crank that lowers a little silver pail lower and lower. It is in the basement of a church that was built on the sight. Without the pail, though – then or now, you’re not getting water. To top it all off, Jesus is there at midday, the worst time of day to go draw water from the well because it was too hot. The only people who might show up then were the people who were, let’s just say….the people of ill repute. They came when no one else would be there.
That’s when Jesus picks up a conversation with this random woman – and not a respectable woman based on what I just said. Jesus only makes it worse. A man did not talk to a woman in that time, not in public. Some Jewish men would not even talk to their wives or daughters in public. Some Jewish religious leaders known as the “Bruised and Bleeding” would shut their eyes if they even saw a woman in public, and yes, they would run into walls or stumble and fall in their attempt to avoid contact with women in public. Jesus, on the other hand, does the complete opposite. He invites conversation with a woman, a Samaritan woman, a dishonorable Samaritan woman. He speaks to her as a person, as someone deserving care and the opportunity to know God’s love. He even offers her living water.
One of the challenges even today in places where there has been a disaster, like in Palestine, OH, is trying to find good water. Flint, MI, is not too far in memory, either, with its lack of drinkable water for a long time. If you are ever worried about the water, you are going to choose water that is flowing from somewhere over water that is just sitting there, hands down. Flowing water beats stagnant water any day. You would be more inclined to draw water from a stream than from a pond. Well, “moving” water is “living” water. It is water that has expression and energy and activity. I used to love going to streams up in the mountains with the gurgle and brightness and beauty of that water. What Jesus is talking about calls to mind that kind of water. However, Jesus in John’s Gospel is always playing on words, so when he is offering the woman living water, she is thinking a stream, but Jesus is thinking spiritual water – the ultimate living water. Enjoying the water of life, the water of the Spirit, true water from God, we will never thirst again.
Water was also at the heart of the passage from Exodus today. The wandering Jews were thirsty, apparently, thirsty enough to stone Moses. And they began crying out to Moses, complaining about the lack of care and support. Complaining might not be the best term since they are threatening murder. We might be past the complaining stage. He looks to God to provide help, and God does. This is where the story becomes very interesting. He strikes the rock and the water flows forth. Yes, this is living water, too, but this story is reported in two other books of the Bible – in Psalms and Numbers. In those passages, it goes even worse for the people and especially for Moses. Here is the rest of Psalm 95 that we used for the Call to Worship:
O that today you would listen to his voice!
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.”
Therefore in my anger I swore, “They shall not enter my rest.”
As if that is not hard enough, in the Book of Numbers, Moses and Aaron call out water from the rock in such a way that Moses is condemned to never enter the Land of Promise. He is never allowed to go into the land waiting for them but is only allowed to glimpse it from afar because of how he struck the rock. It is hard to appreciate the true difficulty tied to finding water in these stories.
Here is the thing about water, however. Water is life giving and essential for life, but it is also reflective. A pool of water can be like a mirror. We can only imagine those people who were so irate at Moses that they threatened his life eventually found themselves looking at their reflections in the water that had pooled before them in that place of quarrel and bitterness. They had to see themselves for who they were. God provided even in their shameful unbelief. In the same way, Jesus confronts the Samaritan woman with who she really was in that conversation about living water. There at the water there is truth. Important and powerful things happen at the water all through Scripture. Just at wells on two separate occasions, Jacob and his father Isaac find their future wives.
Here in John, Jesus challenges this woman about her husband and relationships. You heard how stunned she was about hearing Jesus tell her the truth about her right there at the water. The townspeople who she later brought were also astounded by Jesus’ words and his amazing perception, but the greater miracle is what happened to the Samaritan woman through all of this. That unworthy, undignified, disreputable woman of no character became the very first apostle of Jesus to the Samaritan people. Jesus offered HER living water, and her desire for this grace anointed her as God’s messenger to her people. It is amazing and astounding that the same woman that polite society would have shunned was offered Jesus’ own living water and the message of the Christ to go to the Samaritan people. The disciples did not know what to make of it, but John shares their hearts that they wanted to challenge her and rebuke her. It was so unseemly for that conversation to take place, but Jesus was clearly invested in her and a new life for her among her people.
I hope you have had those conversations that are so engaging that the time just flies. Before you know it, time has passed, but the sharing was so good that it does not matter. This is the goodness that happens to us when we allow ourselves to connect with one another and be in the moment with each other. It was so exciting for the Samaritans to have Jesus among them that he stayed for days. We can only imagine what they talked about, but there must have been lots of talking, and later in the Book of Acts, Samaria is identified as the second home of the gospel after Jerusalem. I cannot help but wonder how many people began following Jesus through the sharing of this unnamed but loved woman. She was loved by God and given living water. That Samaritan woman continues to be valued and celebrated to this day by some.
Some, but not everyone appreciates her place in our biblical story, in our family of faith, in our history as God’s people. Even though Jesus valued her, there are plenty of people today who do not give her a second glance. That’s why we come to the well today. That’s why we come to the rock with our own thirst for the truth. The truth is that as we serve the Lord in real, lifegiving ways, we are also fed. Jesus was so excited about what he was doing that he could not even stop to eat. I love the idea of being that excited about our work in the Lord. When the Samaritans can hear the good news and welcome Jesus, we know something great is happening. When the disciples see the love of God for the Samaritans, something great is happening. When we follow our Lord and drink from the living water with all of our neighbors, we know something great is happening. To God be the glory. Amen.