March 15, 2020

Helen Jacobi

Lent 3     John 4:5-42

Cast your mind back to last week’s reading – about Nicodemus.

Nicodemus comes to speak to Jesus at night; he is educated, a man held in high esteem; a leader and an insider in the Jewish world, and he does not understand what Jesus is trying to teach him.

Today’s passage which follows after the Nicodemus passage in John’s gospel is like a mirror opposite.

The Samaritan woman has no name; she meets Jesus in the noon day heat; she has no education; she is an outcast in her community; she is a Samaritan (hated by the Jews of Jesus’ time).

Jesus initiates the conversation and at first she has no understanding of what he means but by the end of the story she is gathering her neighbours to hear this man. “He cannot be the Messiah can he?” Two contrasting stories about two encounters with Jesus.

Back to our unnamed woman. She had come to draw water, at noon, the hottest part of the day, and she had come alone.

Women usually gathered at the well in the cool of the morning or the evening, and they went as a group. They went as a group to protect themselves from the embarrassment of meeting a man by accident alone; and to help each other lift their water jars onto their heads once they were full.

This woman comes alone and at noon when no one else will be there because she is not part of the group – she has had “five husbands”, so the other women will want nothing to do with her.

And Jesus, a Jewish teacher speaks to her, breaking all the rules of propriety and crossing the traditional line of enmity between Samaritans and Jews. Jesus is thirsty, and he has no bucket to draw water.

She is surprised and shocked. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” Instead, he mysteriously offers her living water.

“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.”

What kind of water can that be? She wants some of that, but how, and what is it?

This water is like the waters of creation at the beginning of time, 

like Noah’s flood washing away the sins of the people, like the waters of the Red Sea parting for the people to cross to safety, 

like the storm on the Sea of Galilee stilled by a word from Jesus,

like the river of life in the Garden of Eden and in the book of Revelation, like the river Jordan where John the Baptist called people to a new beginning.

It is like the first drops of rain a farmer feels on his skin after a drought; it is like a hot shower after a long day’s work;

it is like a waterfall in the middle of the bush; it is like the sea at your favourite beach on a summer’s day; it is a water tank or well built in a village in Fiji or in Tonga;  it is like clean drinking water brought into people following a flood; it is a cool cup of water drawn up from Jacob’s well in the heat of the noon day sun.

Jesus offers this water to our nameless Samaritan woman and when she has tasted of this water which quenches the thirst of her soul she rushes to get the whole village.

She no longer cares that they think she is a woman of loose morals; she forgets the accusations and the gossip and the ostracizing looks.

She rushes to tell them. “He cannot be the Messiah can he?”

And they come and he stays two days and they also believe.

They also drink deeply at the well.

Are we thirsty? Are we parched? Do our bodies and souls cry out for water? For living water that never runs dry?

Today on this first anniversary of the Mosque shootings in Christchurch our souls have been fed again by the example of our Moslem sisters and brothers and their example of compassion and forgiveness. Their compassion quenches our thirst.

One of our book groups are reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s book Holy Envy.  “Holy Envy” is when you look across at someone else’s religion and wish you had some of that – like the Muslim commitment to prayer, or the Jewish commitment to Sabbath.

BBT says instead we need to learn from each other and strengthen our own faith as a result.

The book group reading her book noted her use of water as an image when describing sitting alongside people of other faiths.

“I do not imagine two separate yards with neighbours leaning over a shared boundary.

I imagine a single reservoir of living water, with two people looking into it. One might be a Muslim and the other a Christian, but there is nothing in their faces to tell me that. I see two human beings looking into deep waters that does not belong to either of them, reflecting back to them the truth that they are not alone.” [1]

As the world deals with the Covid 19 pandemic it is very tempting to give into anxiety, paranoia and panic.

Instead we need to sit together and reassure each other we are not alone. We need to listen carefully to sources of information that are trustworthy and to listen carefully to each other. How are we doing?

What do we need from each other? How we can drink of living water and not the poisoned well of misinformation and xenophobia.

On Friday we had a gathering of some of our pastoral carers in our congregation and we made some plans for how we can stay connected and support each other as we weather the Covid 19 storm. We will keep working together and journey together.

When Stephen and I were in the US a few years ago we travelled to Arizona to go to the Grand Canyon. We drove from Las Vegas to the Canyon via a bit of a loop through the Arizona desert. It was only the beginning of June but the forecast was for 40 degree heat and we had read the warnings about taking plenty of water even on the main highways. We were very glad we did indeed buy many litres of bottled water and copied some people we saw at a gas station getting ice and chilly bins to keep their water cold.

The Arizona desert is I think one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, incredible colours and rock formations spreading as far as the eye can see. On our way up to the Canyon we stopped at an ancient Pueblo Indian village and stepped out of the airconditioning into the most searing heat; we managed maybe 20 minutes walking around this fascinating place, drinking every step of the way, but you could feel your body dehydrating as you went. How the original inhabitants survived there is a miracle.

Standing in that heat that day and desperately wanting cold water, not the hot water in my water bottle, is the nearest I can come to understanding how thirsty the Samaritan woman was, when she met Jesus that day by Jacob’s well.

Are we thirsty? Our world is thirsty.

“Everyone who drinks of this water in the well 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.”

Drink deeply today and then offer to help another find their source of water, of strength, of hope; sitting alongside them and looking deep into the waters that belong to none of us and then drinking together from the well that is God.

[1] p 80