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The
Woman at the Well
Third
Sunday in Lent: Year A
Preacher,
Father Jonathan Kirkpatrick
[John
4: 5-42]
What
a rich story, full of material for a hundred sermons.
I'll pick out just a few strands and although reading
the pew sheet during the sermon is usually an absolute
'No No', today you may be excused if you look at
the text of today's Gospel.
A
drink of water. As fundamental to human existence
as you can get. No one is refused a drink of water.
Public speakers keep a glass handy to prevent themselves
from at least physically drying up. There are always
glasses of water littered around the chancel, presumably
because the Fijians who are in before us are worried
aobut drying up. How ofen do children get up in
the night because they want a drink of water, how
many of us keep it handy beside the bed? In many
parts of rural Asia a large pitcher of water is
kept by the gate so that passers by, no matter who
they are, might take a dink as they walk in the
heat - the most basic and appreciated act of hospitality.
"Give
me a drink" - the most basic of requests. We
spend a great deal of our time asking God for things,
we are not used to him asking us for something.
But Jesus asks the woman at the well for a drink.
Such was the incarnation, the fact that the mighty
creator God became human that he asks for the basic
of human requirements. And he doesn't just ask anyone,
he doesn't go to the civic dignitaries to be presented
with a ceremonial silver chalice on the steps of
the Town Hall, Rather he asks a woman, and women
had little status, a poor woman, because she's engaged
in agricultural labour and a Samaritan woman at
that, the lowest of the low!
Who
might be the equivalent today? A poor Maori woman
in a remote part of the North Island or a black
servant woman in the Southern USA? Someone like
that!
She
is surprised that he even speaks to her. She doesn't
know who he is but she can see that he is a Jewish
man and that's enough to know where the boundaries
are. She fences "What? You are a Jew and you
ask me, a Samaritan for a drink?" She doesn't
really believe in his request? She knows that she
is dehumanised and she suspects his motives. She
probably expected him to proposition her, such encounters
were not uncommon, she was alone and vulnerable
and no one who mattered would believe her if she
complained, or care very much if they did? She was
easy prey.
Deftly,
and aware of her alarm, Jesus shifts ground still
using the image of water, "If only you knew
what God is offering and who it is that is saying
to you "Give me a drink", you would have
been the one to ask, and he would have given you
living water". Now she has a hint of Jesus'
hidden identity, an invitation to something quite
subtle. The more they talk about water, the stuff
at the bottom of the well, the less they are really
talking about it at all. Its the kind of converation
in which two people start using images and have
to touch base in order to ensure that they are sitll
talking about the same thing. So she does, she returns
Jesus' mind to the stuff in the well. "You
have no bucket sir, and the well is deep" she
is still not quite sure what he is about hence the
sarcastic "Are you greater than our ancestor
Jacob?"
Jesus
is breaking through her defensive shell, the hard
crust of religious suspicion and a poor self image.
He presses on relentless, ignoring her sarcasm.
He knows what her basic needs are, as basic as to
her health as the stuff in the well, and he is determined
to make her the offer of a lifetime despite herself.
"Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty
again, but anyone who drinks the water that I shall
give will never be thirsty again, the water that
I shall give will turn into a spring inside, welling
up to eternal life".
And
with that she drops her defensive mask, this woman
at the bottom of every social heap now encounters
the living God, "Sir, give me some of that
water".
There
are moments in us all when we confess to a longing
we can scarcely admit to having. Most of us can
only do so in moments of great intimacy or vulnerability.
When we do so before God we are enriched beyound
all imagining. Quickly Jesus presses on making the
most of the moment, he talks about what we might
euphemistically call her life-style. He knows that
the succession of men she has lived with and more
importantly her inability to sustain relationships,
is destroying her. She asks him whether she should
worship on the mountain of her own people or in
Jerusalem like Jesus, but she's not asking about
religious trivia, she is saying "where can
I find God"?
So
often people want to know where to find God, and
their question about spirituality is mistaken for
a question about Religion. She's not asking whether
she should be a Methodist, a Roman Catholic or an
Anglican, and if an Anglican what kind of Anglican,
she was at her most vulnerable and her most receptive,
the answer was of course that it didn't matter whether
she worshipped on the mountain or in Jerusalem because
God had come to her where she was, though she still
didn't realise it, or couldn't believe it.
Jesus
encountered this woman at the most basic level of
her humanity, by using his. People who are pretend
people and never allow others to meet the real them
will have great difficulty in encountering God.
God has nothing to do with superficiality. God asked
for a drink of water.
He
asks each of us for a drink from our well. The "well"
is our life, our job, our life at home, our deepest
relationships and our encounters with friends, wherever
we spend our energy. The Christ who encounters us
asks that we consider an inner and deeper meaning
to what we do. Like this woman, when we are at these
wells, we are often wary of being drawn into dialogue
that smacks of religion. We may pride ourselves
on being practical and efficient where it may be
our only defence against something more powerful
and therefore to be feared - God.
The
woman makes one final effort to blunt the piercing
of her armour. Hers is the armour we all don against
the confrontation with ultimate things. "I
know that Messiah, that is Christ - is coming".
The present threat is deflected by placing the issue
in the future. We are so often and so easily "too
busy at the moment" to deal with spiritual
things. There will be, we tell ourselves, a more
suitable time and place. It is of course always
an indefinable time and an unspecified place. It's
no good, for the Samaritan woman or for us. Jesus
is present in the here and now. The name of the
God who encounters us at the well of unacknowledged
thirst is not "I will be sometime", but
as he told Moses he is called "I AM".
Next
time you go to the well, here in church or at home,
work or play, wherever your wells happen to be,
listen out for Jesus as he asks to share your life
at its most basic and profound level. Let him drink
from your well and discover that he has living water
for anyone and everyone, even you.
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