John 4:5-29
[Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"
---
To be known is to be loved. To be loved is to be known. These are words that capture, perhaps, our deepest spiritual and existential thirst. Under all of the things we strive for, yearn for, work for in this life, is an underlying thirst to feel like we are whole, complete souls, and that even the deepest reaches of our souls, even down to the shadows, are worth being loved unconditionally.
We do so much pretending in life, so much hiding, so much shoving things under the rug. We try to minimize our anxiety or our poverty or our shame or our tempers. We try to look like we have it all together. Because we are sure that this world will love us if we are careful to show only our love able parts. I'm pretty sure that we show up to worship like this, too, feeling pressure to appear to have ourselves all pulled together when we come into the presence of God and of our siblings in Christ. We have gotten so used to assuming that our griefs and our shadow-sides are somehow moral failings, and that our moral failings somehow mean that we are unworthy of love. And so we try really hard not to be fully known, lest we give up the chance to be fully loved.
The woman at the well is thirsty to be known and loved. But there is something about her broken life that makes her believe that she isn’t worth being loved. The world has told her that she isn’t worth seeing. Or knowing. Or loving.
It's why she shows up to the well at noon. Reasonable, well-respected folks would never come to the well at noon. You go to the well in the morning, while it is still cool out. You go to the well in the morning, before the rest of the tasks of the day.
To come at noon means that you want to avoid the crowds. It means that you are lingering on the fringes, by choice or not. It means that you don't want people to see you and know you, because they wouldn't love you if they did. It means that too many people have seen you and known you and have chosen to ridicule and condemn you - and not to love you.
The truth of the matter is that the woman at the well was living a life of shame that was far beyond her own control. In a patriarchy where women had very little control of their destinies, the fact that she's been through five husbands means that she has been disposed of or widowed five times over. It is likely that she was unable to bear children, and that she'd been cast away for not being able to produce an heir. It is likely that this sixth man who she is living with who is not her husband is actually the brother of one of her previous husbands, in a culture where male siblings were expected to take in their brothers' widows.
The truth of the matter is that Jesus finds himself in Samaria not by necessity but by choice. By all counts, Samaritans were outsiders and were to be avoided. But Jesus marches right into the heart of Samaria, and heads for a city, and plunks himself down at the edge of the well, and strikes up a conversation with a single, unaccompanied, Samaritan woman who thought that she was was going to draw water from the well unnoticed. Jesus bulldozes a whole slew of cultural and religious expectations and norms. And he does this to prove a point.
Last week we met Nicodemus at night, who struggled to know and be known by Jesus; who struggled with the mechanics of how to be born into the life of water and spirit that Jesus offered to him. Their conversation ends with those well-known verses in John 3: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
Jesus leaves Judea and heads to Galilee through Samaria precisely to demonstrate that this "For God so loved the world" business really means "For God so loved the world" - all of it, insiders and outsiders and old covenant and new covenant alike. He does so to prove that God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world - all the world! - might be saved.
Jesus offers the woman at the well the living water of salvation and she is at first confused - "The well is deep and you don't have a bucket, how do you get that water?" Jesus says, "I am the one who gives this living water," and she says, "Great, so then give some of it to me, so that I don't have to keep coming back here to draw water every day!”
What she doesn't realize quite yet is that Jesus isn't talking about literal water. When Jesus says, "I am the one who gives this living water," what he really means is, "I am the living water." And when Jesus talks about how receiving the living water means never again being thirsty, he doesn't mean physical thirst. He means that he is the living water that quenches the deepest thirsts of our souls.
Jesus explains all of this to the woman by speaking to her the very truths about her life that she worked so hard to keep hidden. He names for her all the reasons that her soul is thirsty. And so there, under the bright noontime sun, all of her shadows are brought to light and all the skeletons come out of the closet, and the crazy part is that Jesus doesn't speak all this truth and then revoke his offer of living water. Instead, by knowing her darkest truths and loving her fully, not in spite of those truths but because of them, Jesus pours himself out as living water of love, grace, and mercy.
Even though the woman still can't quite fathom what is happening - "he cannot be the Messiah, can he?" - she knows that her rough edges and her fears and her shame and her shadows are now all under water, and somehow, under all this water, she isn't drowning, but instead breathing deeply for the first time in a very long while.
Later in John, Jesus will say, "'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water," (John 7) which is exactly what we see with the woman at the well. She runs off, overflowing, to tell others to "come and see." She leaves her water jar behind, the symbol of her old life, her old baggage, her old masks and illusions and fake smiles; because in encountering Jesus, she has been given the only water she will ever need, and she no longer needs to hide herself or pretend in order to fit in.
For the woman at the well, living water means rebirth and new life. Living water transforms her life from one on the margins to one lived safely in God's embrace. Living water means healing for her soul and the gift of a new identity. No longer is she named "widow" or "pitiable" or "barren" or "outcast." Now she is named among the children of the light, all those who have come to see Jesus and know Jesus and love Jesus, even as he has seen and known and loved them.
It is because Jesus knows us that Jesus loves us and does not condemn us. To be known is to be loved and to be loved is to be known, and to know and to love is to have living water that will never run dry. This is the promise Jesus gives to us and to all the world. He isn't just living water for those who are living the good life. He is also living water for those living in all nations. And living water for those who work two jobs but still can't make a living wage. And living water for those whose hungry bellies depend upon meals delivered to their living rooms. And living water for those living as aliens and strangers among us. And living water for all who are living with disease, addiction, or shame. Living water for all the living.
This world so desperately needs streams of living water to flow - streams of truth and love, justice and peace, forgiveness and compassion, grace without bounds.
For this is eternal life and salvation: that in Christ we are known and not condemned; that we are known and shown grace; that we are known and yet loved. In the same way, Jesus calls us to see each other, to know each other, and to love each other because of what we know and not in spite of it. Jesus calls us to overflow with love for those whom we might otherwise pretend not to see, or for those who try really hard to stay hidden out of fear. Jesus calls us to travel with him through the wrong parts of town and to talk to the wrong sorts of people during the wrong time of day. Jesus calls us to see God in the face of the stranger and to be transformed by the encounter. Jesus calls us to drop our old water jars so that we can run unhindered through the villages saying, "We have seen the Lord and the Lord has seen us and known us and loved us! Come and see!"
For to be seen is to be known and to be known is to be loved. And this is the good news of Christ, our living water, the one who quenches our thirsty souls. So come to the waters, drink deeply, and know that you are loved. Come to the waters, drink deeply, and be transformed. Come to the waters, drink deeply, and pour yourself out in the name of Jesus Christ, who is living water for all our thirsty world.
[Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"
---
We do so much pretending in life, so much hiding, so much shoving things under the rug. We try to minimize our anxiety or our poverty or our shame or our tempers. We try to look like we have it all together. Because we are sure that this world will love us if we are careful to show only our love able parts. I'm pretty sure that we show up to worship like this, too, feeling pressure to appear to have ourselves all pulled together when we come into the presence of God and of our siblings in Christ. We have gotten so used to assuming that our griefs and our shadow-sides are somehow moral failings, and that our moral failings somehow mean that we are unworthy of love. And so we try really hard not to be fully known, lest we give up the chance to be fully loved.
The woman at the well is thirsty to be known and loved. But there is something about her broken life that makes her believe that she isn’t worth being loved. The world has told her that she isn’t worth seeing. Or knowing. Or loving.
It's why she shows up to the well at noon. Reasonable, well-respected folks would never come to the well at noon. You go to the well in the morning, while it is still cool out. You go to the well in the morning, before the rest of the tasks of the day.
To come at noon means that you want to avoid the crowds. It means that you are lingering on the fringes, by choice or not. It means that you don't want people to see you and know you, because they wouldn't love you if they did. It means that too many people have seen you and known you and have chosen to ridicule and condemn you - and not to love you.
The truth of the matter is that the woman at the well was living a life of shame that was far beyond her own control. In a patriarchy where women had very little control of their destinies, the fact that she's been through five husbands means that she has been disposed of or widowed five times over. It is likely that she was unable to bear children, and that she'd been cast away for not being able to produce an heir. It is likely that this sixth man who she is living with who is not her husband is actually the brother of one of her previous husbands, in a culture where male siblings were expected to take in their brothers' widows.
The truth of the matter is that Jesus finds himself in Samaria not by necessity but by choice. By all counts, Samaritans were outsiders and were to be avoided. But Jesus marches right into the heart of Samaria, and heads for a city, and plunks himself down at the edge of the well, and strikes up a conversation with a single, unaccompanied, Samaritan woman who thought that she was was going to draw water from the well unnoticed. Jesus bulldozes a whole slew of cultural and religious expectations and norms. And he does this to prove a point.
Last week we met Nicodemus at night, who struggled to know and be known by Jesus; who struggled with the mechanics of how to be born into the life of water and spirit that Jesus offered to him. Their conversation ends with those well-known verses in John 3: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
Jesus leaves Judea and heads to Galilee through Samaria precisely to demonstrate that this "For God so loved the world" business really means "For God so loved the world" - all of it, insiders and outsiders and old covenant and new covenant alike. He does so to prove that God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world - all the world! - might be saved.
Jesus offers the woman at the well the living water of salvation and she is at first confused - "The well is deep and you don't have a bucket, how do you get that water?" Jesus says, "I am the one who gives this living water," and she says, "Great, so then give some of it to me, so that I don't have to keep coming back here to draw water every day!”
What she doesn't realize quite yet is that Jesus isn't talking about literal water. When Jesus says, "I am the one who gives this living water," what he really means is, "I am the living water." And when Jesus talks about how receiving the living water means never again being thirsty, he doesn't mean physical thirst. He means that he is the living water that quenches the deepest thirsts of our souls.
Jesus explains all of this to the woman by speaking to her the very truths about her life that she worked so hard to keep hidden. He names for her all the reasons that her soul is thirsty. And so there, under the bright noontime sun, all of her shadows are brought to light and all the skeletons come out of the closet, and the crazy part is that Jesus doesn't speak all this truth and then revoke his offer of living water. Instead, by knowing her darkest truths and loving her fully, not in spite of those truths but because of them, Jesus pours himself out as living water of love, grace, and mercy.
Even though the woman still can't quite fathom what is happening - "he cannot be the Messiah, can he?" - she knows that her rough edges and her fears and her shame and her shadows are now all under water, and somehow, under all this water, she isn't drowning, but instead breathing deeply for the first time in a very long while.
Later in John, Jesus will say, "'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water," (John 7) which is exactly what we see with the woman at the well. She runs off, overflowing, to tell others to "come and see." She leaves her water jar behind, the symbol of her old life, her old baggage, her old masks and illusions and fake smiles; because in encountering Jesus, she has been given the only water she will ever need, and she no longer needs to hide herself or pretend in order to fit in.
For the woman at the well, living water means rebirth and new life. Living water transforms her life from one on the margins to one lived safely in God's embrace. Living water means healing for her soul and the gift of a new identity. No longer is she named "widow" or "pitiable" or "barren" or "outcast." Now she is named among the children of the light, all those who have come to see Jesus and know Jesus and love Jesus, even as he has seen and known and loved them.
It is because Jesus knows us that Jesus loves us and does not condemn us. To be known is to be loved and to be loved is to be known, and to know and to love is to have living water that will never run dry. This is the promise Jesus gives to us and to all the world. He isn't just living water for those who are living the good life. He is also living water for those living in all nations. And living water for those who work two jobs but still can't make a living wage. And living water for those whose hungry bellies depend upon meals delivered to their living rooms. And living water for those living as aliens and strangers among us. And living water for all who are living with disease, addiction, or shame. Living water for all the living.
This world so desperately needs streams of living water to flow - streams of truth and love, justice and peace, forgiveness and compassion, grace without bounds.
For this is eternal life and salvation: that in Christ we are known and not condemned; that we are known and shown grace; that we are known and yet loved. In the same way, Jesus calls us to see each other, to know each other, and to love each other because of what we know and not in spite of it. Jesus calls us to overflow with love for those whom we might otherwise pretend not to see, or for those who try really hard to stay hidden out of fear. Jesus calls us to travel with him through the wrong parts of town and to talk to the wrong sorts of people during the wrong time of day. Jesus calls us to see God in the face of the stranger and to be transformed by the encounter. Jesus calls us to drop our old water jars so that we can run unhindered through the villages saying, "We have seen the Lord and the Lord has seen us and known us and loved us! Come and see!"
For to be seen is to be known and to be known is to be loved. And this is the good news of Christ, our living water, the one who quenches our thirsty souls. So come to the waters, drink deeply, and know that you are loved. Come to the waters, drink deeply, and be transformed. Come to the waters, drink deeply, and pour yourself out in the name of Jesus Christ, who is living water for all our thirsty world.
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