Reading: John 4:5-30, 39-42 (The Message)
To get there, he had to pass through Samaria. He came into a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob's well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon. A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, "Would you give me a drink of water?" (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.) The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, "How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (Jews in those days wouldn't be caught dead talking to Samaritans.) Jesus answered, "If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water."
The woman said, "Sir, you don't even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this 'living water'? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?" Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life." The woman said, "Sir, give me this water so I won't ever get thirsty, won't ever have to come back to this well again!" He said, "Go call your husband and then come back." "I have no husband," she said. That's nicely put: 'I have no husband.' You've had five husbands, and the man you're living with now isn't even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough."
"Oh, so you're a prophet! Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?" "Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship God neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God's way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.
"It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people God is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship then must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."
The woman said, "I don't know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When that person arrives, we'll get the whole story." "I am he," said Jesus. "You don't have to wait any longer or look any further." Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked. They couldn't believe he was talking with that kind of a woman. No one said what they were all thinking, but their faces showed it. The woman took the hint and left. In her confusion she left her water pot. Back in the village she told the people, "Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?" And they went out to see for themselves.
Many of the Samaritans from that village committed themselves to him because of the woman's witness: "He knew all about the things I did. He knows me inside and out!" They asked him to stay on, so Jesus stayed two days. A lot more people entrusted their lives to him when they heard what he had to say. They said to the woman, "We're no longer taking this on your say-so. We've heard it for ourselves and know it for sure. He's the Savior of the world!"
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Almighty God, You give the water of eternal life through Jesus Christ your Son. May we always thirst for you, the spring of life and source of goodness; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’ve been thinking about an old gospel song that I used to sing when I was first starting out as a gospel singer. I’m sure a few of you know it. It goes like this: Like the woman at the well I was seeking for things that could not satisfy, and then I heard my Savior speaking: “Draw from my well that never shall run dry.” And I respond: Fill my cup, Lord; I lift it up, Lord. Come and quench this thirsting of my soul. Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more; fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.”
Fundamentally, emptiness is the experiencing of loss. We see it in our scripture today. The un-named woman comes to the well in the heat of the day. Some scholars say that it was because of her shady past that she came at a time when she was not likely to run into anyone. Believe it or not, the scripture does not bear out any notion that she was sinful or promiscuous, or a prostitute. There were lots of scenarios in the complicated marriage laws of the time that could have rendered her living with someone who was not her husband. And, more importantly, unlike Jesus’ interactions with other people he encounters, Jesus does not call her to repentance, or tell her to “go and sin no more”. So, we have no real reason to believe that she was any of those things we may have previously believed about her. No, it would seem more likely that she was lonely, not welcomed for whatever reason to be with the rest of the women who would most certainly have come early in the morning before it got so hot.
So, to this well, comes a sad and lonely person, not looking for anything but a little water to quench her thirst in the heat of the day. You can almost see her shuffling up to the well, perhaps not even aware that Jesus is there until she is almost upon him. And, almost out of nowhere, comes his voice: “Would you give me a drink of water?” This was a revolutionary act and, despondent or not, it was not lost on her. She was a Samaritan, and Jews and Samaritans did not get along. A Jewish man would never, under any circumstances ask a Samaritan woman for anything. What was up with this guy? Didn’t he know the rules? And then we see, Jesus is engaging her where she is—at the well—seeking water. He tells her: “if you knew who I was, you would be asking me for water instead of getting caught up in social conventions and mores.” Not to be thought a fool, she counters him: Why you don’t even have anything to get water with—and it’s a deep well. Who are you compared to our ancestor, Jacob, who dug this well?” Jesus simply says, “The water I am talking about is eternal, the ever-flowing, ever-gushing water that will rise up in you like a spring and you will never be thirsty again.” She is still floundering around, trying to understand: “Give me this water!” she says. “I’m mighty tired of having to come to this well every day.” And we can identify—it gets tiring having to supply our daily needs every day, going shopping, paying the bills, nothing very exciting or life-giving here. But this is not where Jesus is headed, so he tells her to go get her husband.
She responds “I don’t have a husband.” And then, Jesus tells her something she cannot ignore. “Well, that’s one way to put it—I have no husband—you have had 5 husbands, but the man you are living with now isn’t your husband—you have spoken truthfully.” We can see the surprise because he knew all about her and she thought she was safe in her anonymity. She believed that her loneliness and despair made her invisible. But Jesus has “seen” her, known her what who she is, knows her loneliness, her set-apartness. In the Gospel of John, seeing is often equated with believing. So when she says, “I see you are a prophet”, she is saying that she believes him. And so, knowing that he is a prophet, she immediately asks a question, a question that had divided the Jews and Samaritans for years and a question that shows she understood the second-class nature of her Samaritaness. She says, “our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews have determined that you have the only access to God in Jerusalem, isn’t that right?”—the indignation for the life-long spiritual put-down perhaps just starting to surface. And he takes her by surprise again. “Doesn’t matter where you worship—that’s not the important thing now at all—doesn’t matter what you are called or where you go to worship—it’s all different now!”
He goes on, “It’s who you are in your heart and how you live your life that matters to God. Worshipping is a spiritual thing—your spirit connecting with God’s spirit in adoration, praise and understanding.” He’s getting a little over her head at this point, and I believe that most of us would have found ourselves in a similar place—maybe we still do. So she counters again: “Well, I don’t know about that, but I know that a Messiah is coming and then we’ll know everything!” Jesus says to her and he says to us, “I am the one you are looking for. Stop looking elsewhere, stop waiting, start living now—right here and now!”
And so the disciples come back from their shopping trip and cannot believe what they see. Jesus is doing it again—breaking the rules. Their disbelief showed in their faces even though they had learned not to voice their disapproval out loud. But the woman, used to taking her cues from the looks on men’s faces, quietly slips away, so amazed by what Jesus had told her that she doesn’t even remember her water jug.
This is how she describes Jesus to all who would listen: this is a man who knows the real me—is it possible that he is the Messiah? Many of the Samaritans were so moved by her story and what Jesus said to them himself that they became believers. Many have called this un-named woman the first evangelist in the New Testament—the first one to know what it was to have her heart understood and loved by Jesus AND to tell others—the first one to understand what Jesus had to give—and the first one to take it to others.
How does all this fit with emptiness and living water? This lonely, Samaritan woman comes to the well, looking, it would seem for mere water. She leaves a changed woman, a loved and woman. Why? Jesus has “seen” her and instinctively known of her dependence in a world that was not kind to her. And he has offered her something of ultimate value—because she is valued by him, cared about by him, something no one else has ever done. Speaking of her past with compassion and not judgment, Jesus allows her to understand through the power of that compassion and love, that he is a prophet and, indeed, the Messiah. Jesus starts with us where we are—if we are looking for water, he starts with water and leads us into a deeper understanding of who he is, and who we are.
Mother Teresa has said, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” This is emptiness at its most painful—and many folks have been there at some point along the way. Perhaps you are there today. Helen Keller speaks of the emptiness that pervaded her life before Annie Sullivan came along. “Once I knew only darkness and stillness…my life was without past or future…but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.”
I pray for all of you that you will come to the well—looking for whatever you are looking for and that you will stay awhile and chat with Jesus—that you will allow him to be that little word pervading your emptiness. He knows all that you are and all that you want to be and he longs to share real water—water that shall quench your thirst forever and set your feet running out to tell others. As we say every week, “come, taste and see!”
And now a *blessing for the Journey into Emptiness: May the days that beckon the journey open a space between what is and what will be, a space of emptiness waiting to be filled. May the things that sit at the edge of revelation move silently into that emptiness. May they be noticed with attention and claimed as gifts given from the holy hand of heaven. When the gifts have been offered and received, may your soul be filled with gratitude to God who initiated the journey and provided the blessing. Amen and Amen *From exlplorefaith.org
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