Year A Sermon: John 4: 5-42.
How many of you know that feeling, when you are waiting for an operation or a procedure to be performed, and you have to fast: no food or water for at least 8 hours?
You didn’t feel thirsty until you were told you were not to drink! Oh, for that cup of tea!
OR
You are in a car, on a long country road trip. You, or your travelling companion, says “When we next see a shop or a petrol station, we will stop and get a drink.” THEN it seems like forever until you spy that petrol station!
Heat. Thirst.
In 1908 Dorothea MacKellar wrote the poem, ‘My Country’. Portions of two of its stanzas:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
We are lucky here, even in Australia. Most of us do not know what it is to be deprived of water. Droughts remind us never to take the gift of water for granted. Be grateful. We see land, plants and stock suffering, but In Australia humans don’t die of thirst. We also have clean water-we are not going to catch a life-threatening disease from our drinking water.
When people started buying bottled water I remember thinking, “This isn’t a third world country, our water is safe to drink.”
‘Living water’ is like gold. The world is a thirsty place-and the wrong kind of water can be dangerous:
- 1 out of every 5 deaths of children under 5 is due to a water-related disease.
- 783 million people do not have access to safe water (1 in 9 people)
- 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases.
- Half of the world’s hospital beds are filled with people suffering from a water related disease.
Water is the starting point for Jesus’ conversation about salvation with the Samaritan woman who came to the well and discovered more than ordinary water.
Indeed, three of our four lectionary readings deal with the theme of water.
Samaria.
Let’s get the map out in our heads. In the time of Jesus, there were three definite divisions of territory: in the extreme north, there was Galilee, in the south, Judea, and in between there was Samaria. Relations were tense between the Samaritans and the Jews. The Samaritans were a Jewish sect. Unlike the Jews of the south, their ancestors had not been taken into exile into Babylon. Samaritans worshipped on Mt Gerizim instead in Jerusalem and they believe that they preserved the original traditions of Moses. The major issue between Jews and Samaritans was the location of the Chosen Place to worship God: for the Jews, it was on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, for the Samaritans, it was on Mt Gerizim. Indeed, in the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch (there are many differences between it and the one used in Judaism)-there is a uniquely Samaritan commandment to construct an altar on Mt Gerizim. Even the name ‘Samaritan’ is divisive: it means Keeper/Guardian [of the religious texts]. There are about 500 -600 descendants (practicing Samaritans) today, mainly living around the area of the town of Nablus, which is at the foot of Mt Gerizim. Samaria now constitutes the majority of the territory known as the West Bank.
Jesus arrives at Sychar and sits at Jacob’s well. This ground is part of Jewish memory. This land had been bought by Jacob (Gen 33: 18,19).
Jacob, on his deathbed, bequeathed the ground to Joseph. After Joseph died in Egypt, his body was taken back to Palestine, and buried there (Joshua 24:32).
Memories.
John provides us with a rare glimpse of Jesus’ physical well being. He is tired and thirsty from travel. The disciples have gone to the village to buy food. We are not sure why they have all left Jesus-we are not told.
Then the woman arrives, at the well, by herself.
Midday. Hottest, or near hottest, part of the day.
The well was an area where the women caught up with each other. A bit like Melbourne’s inner city cafes. The best time to do this would be either early morning or late afternoon.
She came at midday-in order to avoid the other women.
She had a reputation-five husbands, and living with another man-she would be the cause of much gossip.
So social rejection, being on the outer, would explain her lonely midday walk to the well.
From the outer-to the inner
From thirst-to being quenched.
Jesus’ request for a drink is met with an insult: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan?”
“Jew” was not used here in a complementary manner.
This is about racial relations.
The laws of ritual purity would not have allowed Jesus to drink from a Samaritan’s drinking vessel.
Let’s do into deeper water. This is more than a story about getting a drink!
Jesus moves to a deeper topic, moving from racial boundaries to theology. Jesus speaks of ‘the gift of water’ and ‘living water.’
She is unsettled. She now addresses him in a more deferential manner, using the title “Sir”’.
Jesus looks into her heart…and names her circumstances.
He pours living, gushing water into her thirsty, dried up being.
She drops her water jar and rushes off wondering about him: “Could this be the Messiah?”
This woman, with the big reputation, becomes the first evangelist in the Gospel of John.
(repeat)
She repeats the words Jesus uttered to his first 2 disciples, back in John 1: 39: “Come and see.”
She tells her village to “come and see” this man at the well.
“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!”
(not sure if that would be an invitation we would take up?)
The Samaritans encounter Jesus because of this woman, a woman on the edge, thirsting for human company, for deep relationships, for new life…they come, because of her testimony.
She leaves when the disciples return. They are surprised, unsettled and a little angry. Jesus has broken a societal taboo-talking with a woman in public-and this woman is foreign, a Samaritan whom Jews have problems with.
BUT no one dares to ask: “Why were you speaking with her?”
The well. The site of the Samaritan woman’s acceptance…and homecoming-back to God, and back to her village.
She could have kept this news to herself…but she chose to share it…indeed…the living water was gushing over…how could she contain it for her own use?
The village came to Jesus: racial divisions, and old hostilities were drowned.
Gossip and slander were drowned.
Thirsty spirits were drenched.
Souls delighted in this divine water.
This water, this living, embodied baptism-Jesus-invites us in for a dip.
Perhaps we need to get wet…really wet! Maybe we need to DIVE IN!
In my first sermon, I preached about our Lenten journey. From today’s Bible reading, we can take away 3 questions to ponder over the coming week.
- What encounters have you had that have led to friendships, or given you a different view of something? Would this meeting be classed as a gift from God?
- Jesus offers us ‘living water’. Have there been times in your life when you have felt dry? Perhaps a spiritual drought? Have you felt the refreshing presence of Christ during these arid times?
- Finally, this story is also about acceptance, or reconciliation. How can each of us break down divisions and barriers to allow acceptance of all God’s creatures?
Dorothea’s poem, also contains this verse:
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze …
The gift of water…from dusty, dry drought…to the wetness of new green growth, the colour of hope.
May you fill your cup, your life, with the gift of life giving water this Lent, and always,
Prayer by Ken Gire [see book]
Amen.
Leighmoor UC, 15.3.20
Rev Barbara Allen
