Sermon March 27

Exodus 17:1-7 p56
From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” 3But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” 4So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5The LORD said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”






Last week we saw and heard the story of Nicodemus. This week we hear the story of another person’s encounter with Jesus. They could not be more different: Nicodemus is a leader, a Pharisee, a powerful man, who comes to see Jesus in the middle of the night. The woman at the well is a nobody, we don’t even know her name; she is a Samaritan, hated by the Jews, and she is out at the well in the middle of the day. An unusual time to be out, getting water. In the Middle East, water is usually collected in the morning, and again just before sunset. Not in the bright light of mid- day. But that is when the woman is out, and it is where she meets Jesus.
Now, in the Bible, when a man and a woman meet at a well, the story usually resolves in a marriage. Isaac’s future wife, Rebekkah, was identified at a well. And this well is called Jacob’s well, because it is where Jacob met Rachel. But these two, will not be getting married. In fact, Jesus quizzes the woman about her marital status—or rather tells her about her whole history. She has had five husbands, and is living with another man now, who is not her husband. This story is often told this way: that of a woman, a sinful woman, who goes to the well at the middle of the day, because of her shameful past. And her past is full of shame—but not because of her sin. In that time and place, woman had no power, and could be divorced for something as heart rending as infertility, or as small as burning dinner. So this woman has been widowed, or divorced, or some combination of the two, and is now living with a man—it is thought to be a levirate marriage, in which she lives with her brother-in-law, who has refused to marry her. She has, it seems, no male relatives to speak up and protect her. She has no rights, she is helpless in this situation and society. She is an outsider on all sides. And this woman, a nobody, a non-person, is seen by Jesus. Really seen by him.
The text tells us that Jesus was traveling, and that “he had to go through Samaria”. He was traveling from Judea to Galilee- geographically, he did not have to go through Samaria in the north. Faithful Jews did whatever they could to avoid going through Samaria. Jesus had to go there to show God’s love.
And they begin a conversation. Here is the one place this encounter is like Nicodemus’. An ordinary conversation turns into something confusing, and words mean more than they appear to mean. There is talk about water—simple enough on the outside—they are at a well, after all—but then there is talk about “living water”-which can mean flowing water, or fresh water. In the Jewish tradition, the mikvah is the cleansing waters used for purification. And the rabbis still use the same term-“living water”—today. And while the waters of the mikvah are used for purification, they also are used to prepare people when they encounter God—Orthodox men go to the mikvah to wash, every morning, before going to temple for morning prayer.
And whether the woman was prepared or not, she encountered God at the well. Jesus told the woman “all that she had done”—and everything that had been done to her. She calls him a prophet, and begins what is a theological discussion with him. Note how this is different from Nicodemus: his only question was “How can this be?” The woman engages Jesus in God talk. And then, Jesus gives her a gift, for her questioning and her newly springing faith: Jesus reveals himself to her, as the Messiah: I AM, he says to her, the words God spoke out of the burning Bush, to Moses. He reveals himself to a loser, a rejected woman, an outsider—not even a Jew. She goes back to the town, and uses the same words Jesus spoke when he called the disciples to follow him—“Come and See”—and then asks: “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” as if she cannot believe that this is what God is like, as if her life of hurt and disappointment have warned her not to hope. But as a pledge of her new life, her new identity, and her new faith, she leaves behind the water jug at the well. She knows that life will not be the same, now that she has had this encounter.
What is not at first glance apparent to us is how Jesus broke social and cultural boundaries to minister to this woman. In the Middle East, still, men do not speak to women they do not know—they don’t even make eye contact. Ken Bailey, Professor at Pittsburgh Seminary, who grew up and then taught in the Middle East for decades, said that he never, ever, passed that line. Orthodox rabbis do not even speak to their wives in public. It is not done. By social custom, Jesus, seeing her approach the well, should have withdrawn to a respectable distance away. And for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan- well, that might be an even bigger obstacle. The Samaritans were hated by the Jews, were thought to be half-breed traitors, who did not worship God correctly, who joined worship of Yahweh with worship of Greek and local gods. They were outside of the covenant, outside of God’s care.
Last week, we talked about how in John 3:16- for God so loved the world, and the word cosmos, which in the gospel of John is the God-hating world. God loves even the Samaritans, even a woman, even an outsider, enough to go out of his way to meet her. And look what she becomes: she is the first female preacher: She goes and tells. She gives her invitation: come and see- she gives her testimony, her experience- “a man who told me everything” and then she gives her confession: “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” Now, granted……that may not sound like the most solid, affirmative confession of faith. But look at her pattern of growth: she moves from calling Jesus first “a Jew”, then “sir”, then a prophet (and remember, last week, Nicodemus called Jesus rabbi, teacher, putting Nicodemus and Jesus on the same level) to naming Jesus as the Messiah. And we are told that “many Samaritans believed in Jesus because of the women’s testimony”.
The Israelites, traveling through the desert, asked, Is the Lord among us, or not? They were thirsty, and tired, and out in the desert. Is the Lord among us, or not? It is the same question we ask whenever we are troubled, anxious, or grieving. Is the Lord among us, or not? We ask this as people of faith, and we ask this as a community of faith, as a church. After the woman’s testimony, calling people to come and meet the Lord, Jesus stayed with the Samaritans—enemies of the Jews—enemies of God, people who did not worship God rightly, who were outside the covenant. And Jesus, God, the Messiah, stayed there with them. Is the Lord among us, or not? God in Jesus was truly among the Samaritans. At the end of today’s passage, it is the Samaritans, those hated by the Jews, the enemies of God, who confess “we know that this truly is the Savior of the world.”
The world is thirsty. One of the amazing things about thirst is this: you are dehydrated a half hour before you even begin to feel thirsty. The same is true for our souls, our hearts, ourselves, as well, I think. We are dry inside, long before we know that we are thirsty. Jesus is the living water, water that overflows, water that brings eternal and new life.
There is a group called Living Waters of the World, which works in partnership with many Presbyteries of the national Presbyterian Church. They train and develop teams that not only bring clean water technology to needed areas, but also train and empower local people to maintain and develop clean water strategies onsite. On Palm Sunday, we will receive the One Great Hour of Sharing offering, part of which goes to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance—and we heard last week that monies from that fund have already been spent to provide clean, safe drinking water in Japan. Water is vitally important—we will die without it. We, who live so close to the lake, who simply turn on our taps, who hear the falls overflowing onto the roadway, who do not have to walk miles each way to scoop out dirty and contaminated water to bring back to our children—we are far removed from that well in Samaria, and from thirsty people all over the world. But we have been given the gift of living water in Jesus Christ, just like that woman at the well.
You know that Jim and I sometimes do “wondering questions” about the Scripture with the children. This is based on work by Sonya Stewart, who I had the privilege to study with. And Dr Stewart’s understanding is that when we come to Scripture, there are often no “right” answers- we all stand before the Word of God in awe and wonder—that the encounter with God is not something to be learned, and mastered, and then filed away, but is something we wonder about, over and over, because, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is the living Word. I believe that’s what the Samaritan woman’s life must have been like, after—wonder and awe, at her encounter with Jesus. So I’d like us to wonder a bit today, about this story.
I wonder what you are thirsty for? I wonder about living water. I wonder what we do with such a gift. I wonder who is an outsider for us? I wonder who has God come for? I wonder, as the church, the body of Christ—how is the Lord among us? I wonder who are we called to love, and to be poured out for, and who are we called to be living water for?