Lent II
February 26, 27 2005

The Woman and the Well

In common discourse, we often ask one another, “You are well, I hope?” And we reply, “Yes I am well.” I like to think that to be well is know our inner well, the one that is filled by springs of living water.

We who live in a part of the world where water is plentiful may find it hard to really understand the importance of water. Water in a dry and arid land is a miracle. It is a treasure.

Marilynne Robinson, the Iowa Writers Workshop author of the newly published and acclaimed book Gilead has her main character speak of water as he watches his six year old son and his friend playing in a sprinkler. He is a pastor and remarks in a letter he is writing to his son: “I’ve always loved to baptize people, though I have sometimes wished there were more shimmer and splash involved in the way we go about it. Well, but you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water.”

We are meant to see all water as a symbol for the waters of baptism, for the sacred quality of water that is an outer sign and an inner reality of the Spirit of Christ within us.

If this were a participatory sermon—when I would say “water”—you would say “wow.” And when I would say “Jacob’s Well” you would say “wow wow” and when I would say “Jesus is the living water” your response would be “wow wow wow! ”But I won’t ask you to do this because I know we are shy and reticent Episcopalians.

This story of the meeting of Jesus and the woman at Jacob’s well is really a wow wow wow story!   We read it dramatically so that you could get the full impact of it.

A well is a place where things come together—Jesus, dusty and tired, a Samaritan, a woman, at this place of tremendous significance in the Hebrew Scriptures, Jacob’s Well. It is noon —the hottest time of the day. No one goes to the well at noon ; they come early and at dusk; when it is cooler. Why would she come at noon ?  To avoid other people. This woman is not only a Samaritan and therefore an outcast for all Jews. She is an outcast in her own community. Jews were allowed only three marriages, and so she would possibly be seen as immoral also in a Samaritan community. She has had five husbands and is living with another man. Remember Jews and Samaritans were cousins, worshipping the same God, but the Samaritans did not come to the temple to do it.

This woman is weary and wary. When Jesus asks her for a drink, she is suspicious. She has probably had to defend herself against at least verbal attack in her community. Now here is an outsider setting her up. Jesus, who knew people quickly on a deep level, puts new meaning into the expression, “He saw right through me.” He throws out a line—I could give you living water.

The woman is a literalist. Where’s his bucket?  How could he get any water to give?  She’s thinking real water; he’s offering something deeper and more lasting. She wants real water so she never has to come to the well again. She misses the metaphorical quality of the spring of water that gushes up to eternal life.

So Jesus takes a new tack. He throws a different line to get her deeper attention. Go call your husband. Now she admits she has no husband. One commentator I read suggested maybe she was eyeing Jesus as her next intended!  That’s why she was so quick to admit she had no husband. But Jesus gives her the whammy—he knows she’s had five husbands and is living with a sixth man.

He has her attention now. She is beginning an awakening. She says, “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.” She has dropped to a deeper level, beyond the superficial. She asks a theological question—she shows herself able to get to the heart of the difference between Jews and Samaritans—temple worship or worship elsewhere.

Jesus sees that she has the depth that will enable her to understand what he can offer. He tells her that soon people will worship God in spirit and truth; that God is spirit and therefore can be worshipped anywhere, not just in Jerusalem .

And then, with an uncanny dawning insight she says she knows that the Messiah is coming and he will proclaim all things.

And so now this conversation which started out as a please give me a drink of water has turned into a moment of mighty revelation. Jesus entrusts his true identity to this Samaritan woman. This is the first time in the Gospel of John that he has told anyone he is the Messiah. So far no one has even mentioned the Messiah is coming. The disciples don’t even understand this yet. Jesus trusts this woman and sees into her depth, beyond the muddy surface of her life.

We have no idea what might have happened in the conversation next for the disciples return with food and she runs back to the town to share what she has learned. She doesn’t say, “I’ve just met the Messiah, take that you bullies, you.” She invites them to come and meet a man who knows her history—and has not condemned her. And she wisely gets them to think by asking a question—what a good teacher she has become. She asks them “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 

She plants the seed and they have to come and find out for themselves who this stranger is. First they believe because of her—she must have been so changed that they knew something had happened to her. But then they got to know Jesus himself and became believers because they heard for themselves.

This woman has gone from being an outcast to a theologian and evangelist. She is the same woman—except that she has found the spring of living waters. She has had a break through in consciousness.

She has moved from a literal level, from an ego level, to a deep level of soul.

She has made our journey for us, modeled how one who had far to go made the trip quickly—from zero to sixty in a few seconds. Most of us take a number of years to do this! 

Was Jesus a spring of living water?  Not literally; he was a dusty man sitting beside a famous well. Could he put a spring within this woman—or anyone, literally?  No—of course we are speaking metaphorically.

We are all capable of moving from the literal to the metaphorical, and it is on this level that we understand and receive the Good News of Jesus as the living water. The living water the prophets spoke about. It was not the Aswan Dam or the Jordan overflowing. It is the spring of living water within that is deep within the human person and will never run dry.

There are times when we feel dried up; thirsty with a thirst beyond all quenching. There are times when we settle for the superficial, when we live on the surface of our lives and let ourselves be shallow pools. We stay on the surface because we are too busy or fearful to go down deep. That takes time and intention.

 Yet shallow waters are subject to turbulence when a wind comes by; they are subject to stagnation if living water is not flowing into them. I grew up on the shore of Lake Erie , the shallowest of the Great Lakes , and I can attest to the swiftness of shallow water being whipped up when the winds come form the North. And when the creek next to our home was cut off from the lake by sand, it often became stagnant in its little edge pockets and would stink with decay.

Deep water can withstand almost anything. We read how people who were diving beneath the tsunami were safe, even when the surface was incredibly stirred up. If we know our depth, if we know Christ as the living water that fills the springs of our depths, we have such a reservoir of strength, of life, and of something more that I believe is compassion.

This last weekend I was in Washington DC at a conference for women entitled “Circles of Compassion.” Women from all faith traditions were present and presenters. Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, New Age, all came together on the theme of compassion. You could call compassion the common ground of all the major religions of the world. You could also call it the deep source of living, loving water from within. It flows among us all, connecting us all into one vital mighty flowing water.

There were thirteen hundred of us at the National Cathedral, singing, dancing, sharing, listening. It touched the source within me deeply and I drank thirstily of this water.

No matter what our religious traditions; all people  are called to be compassionate people in the world. And I was reminded again of how difficult it is for people to let this compassion be directed toward themselves. Yet it first must happen within, before we can really let it flow out to others.

Unless we understand the great love of God for us, just as we are, we will find it hard to let that wonderful water well up within us and spill out toward others, all others. Compassion starts in our own hearts, and when we are able to let ourselves drink deeply of the living water within, to splash and play in its fountains, it is hard to let it flow out toward others, all others, as God intends.

Jesus met the woman at the well, and he did not judge her. He opened her. He enabled her to go from a life of fear as an outcast to a woman free to share God’s love with the very ones whom she had feared.   This is what living water can do for us.

Wow, wow, wow.