Reverend Ref +

SERMON - LENT IIIA

What is it about today’s gospel that attracts so many people? Personally, there are many other stories that are more appealing than this one. For me, the story isn’t immediately appealing, but maybe that’s precisely why it is appealing in the first place. We need to work at teasing things out, we need to spend some time digging into this story. So let's dig.

For starters, take the time of day. It was "about noon." Now, that may not strike you as important, but I’ve heard it said that women would normally draw their water in the morning. The implication here is that this woman was not allowed to be part of that morning ritual. She had been ostracized by the other women of the community and was no longer welcome. Maybe those five husbands had something to do with that. Or her live-in boyfriend.

Then there is the obvious issue that this was a Samaritan woman. Samaritans and Jews don’t mix. Like blacks and whites, Catholics and Protestants, English and French, American settlers and Native Americans. Samaritans and Jews despised each other, and you can trace that animosity all the way back to the Divided Kingdom after the death of King Solomon. But here was Jesus, not only talking with a Samaritan, but willing to drink from the same cup. Remember, "Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans." Think about a white person drinking from a black water fountain in the South in 1956. Same thing.

So, she’s a Samaritan, which carries its own problems, but she’s also a woman. Now, Jesus had women around him all the time – his mother, Mary and Martha, Mary Magdalene – so maybe you missed this. But look closer. Look at how Jesus initially treats her. "Give me a drink." That’s not a request, it’s an order. And look at the disciples reaction – they were astonished that he was talking with a woman. Jesus eventually gets to a place where he treats this less-than-second class citizen as a worthy and complete person.

Then there is the issue of living water. "The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." This isn’t surface water. This isn’t water that evaporates. It isn’t water that sits and becomes stagnate and poisonous. It is water that is deep within you. It is water that is under pressure, and that pressure causes us to look for some kind of spiritual relief. That relief, however, can only happen through Jesus. It is he who taps that water, releases the pressure, and it becomes a spring within you, gushing up to eternal life. And it is clean and pure. It satisfies you forever like a cup of cold water on a hot day. And, because it is gushing and flowing, it also has the ability to wash all your sin away.

Finally, there is the issue of Jesus himself. He also is an outsider in this story – a Jew in Samaria. This is one outsider talking to another; and through the course of that conversation, they accept each other for who they are. She eventually introduces him to the rest of the community and after a couple of days, they come to believe Jesus is the Messiah. This is a classic case of hearing the preacher and allowing the Word to work inside you and change you.

So, what’s the common theme here? We’ve got an ostracized woman, Jews and Samaritans, male and female, living water that is in all of us, and outsiders treating each other with respect. As I look at this, the common theme here is acceptance. Jesus accepts the woman for who she is. She accepts Jesus for who he is. There is no name calling. There is no condemning. Jesus doesn’t threaten her with expulsion because of her past sexual indiscretions. She doesn’t belittle him because he has a different idea of where to worship. These people are coming together from different cultures, different backgrounds, different points of view, different everything and having a conversation.

Never once does Jesus say, "You must believe just like I do in order to be saved." Rather, Jesus says, "The water I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." Jesus digs deep within us to find that well of water, and it is not for us to determine who can and can’t have access to it based on their background or their culture or their sexuality or their gender or any other litmus test that we devise. It is our job to tell those around us what Jesus has to offer and then let him do the work of digging for that well to bring the waters of eternal life gushing forth; just as the woman told those in her community and they, the outsiders, came to believe that Jesus was the Savior of the world.

Because, ultimately, if we spend our time creating litmus tests for who can and who can’t belong to the church – if we spend our time creating our own set of purity laws while ignoring Jesus’ example of inviting everyone and meeting them where they are – then we have become not Christians, but 21st century Pharisees.