Sermons and Reflections:

Wednesday after 3 Lent
March 6, 2002
Lutheran Theological Seminary Chapel
Dr. Elizabeth Huwiler

John 4:5-42
(Exodus 17:1-7; Ps 95; Romans 5:1-11)

It’s all about water. Thirsty fearful Israelites in the desert, water from the rock, the memory of that water in the psalm: Oh, that today you would listen to God’s voice! Still water in a deep well, lively water in a gushing stream, living water from the one who brings life, baptismal waters in which we are both bathed and birthed.

The woman in our Gospel lesson, the one we readers know will end up being the needy one, comes to the well with a water jar. She schleps her water at noon, in the heat of the day. It would be far easier in the cool of the morning; but that’s when the rest of them come, the ones she doesn’t want to face. The ones who gossip about her because she has been married five times and is now living with a man who is not her husband.

I don’t want to buy into their system. The woman was a first-time bride once, and must have known hope, and an open future. Her first husband either died or divorced her, and she married another, and he either died or divorced her, and so on until there have been five husbands. She has been left again, whether through death or divorce. Her hope, her social standing, her self-respect died with those marriages.

Maybe she’s one of those mothering types who keeps marrying sickly guys who die, or maybe she’s unpleasant enough that they keep on leaving her. Or who knows? -- maybe some of them died and some of them dumped her. But chances are pretty good, in a patriarchal society, that those five marriages didn’t end because she didn’t want to settle down. And chances are that living with a man to whom she’s not married isn’t her lifestyle choice, but the only way she knows how to survive in this patriarchal world without becoming a prostitute.

And now maybe she has Tamar syndrome. Remember Tamar, the Canaanite woman who married Judah’s son Er? When Er died, Tamar married his brother Onan in the levirate system, only he died of his own fault. Tamar then waited for the youngest son to be old enough for marriage, but Judah never allowed that marriage because he was afraid that his youngest boy would die too: this woman must be cursed. Maybe that’s what this woman of Sychar feels like, or what the townswomen whisper about her when they come to the well in the cool of the morning, when it’s far easier to tote the water jugs home, when this woman is too embarrassed to be present.

She’s at the well at noon, when it’s too hot for the others to fetch water, and a stranger demands a drink.

We readers and listeners perk up. We know about traveling men meeting women at wells. We know the stories of Eliezer finding Rebekah for Isaac, of Rachel meeting Jacob. We are primed for a little romance.

The stranger’s accent labels him a Galilean Jew. The stranger probably thinks himself morally and theologically superior to the folks who reject the woman as inferior.

How is it that you, a Jewish man, ask water of me, a woman of Samaria? You’re lowering yourself, aren’t you, dude? Bet you wouldn’t bother with me if you weren’t thirsty. But I have a bucket and you don’t.

Maybe romance is not in the cards.

Let him thirst a little while. Let him wonder if I’m going to let him use my bucket.

Or maybe romance could still happen.

If you knew who was speaking to you, you could have asked, and he’d have given you living water.

Oh, yeah. Like you’re not the needy one. Sir [I don’t imagine there’s any honor in the title the way she speaks it:] Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Better than Jacob, are you?

Those who drink of the water I give will never be thirsty, says the thirsty stranger. The water I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.

And who knows whether this is where she starts to turn? I’m not sure about the tone of voice in which she says, Give me this water so that I may never be thirsty. Is there still the ironic edge pointing to the thirsty demand of the one who promises no thirst? Or is she sensing possibility? Is a romance coming after all?

See, this is a Lenten reading. Catechumens are preparing for baptism. So in the midst of all this promise connected with water, this woman who is drawn to Jesus but doesn’t entirely get it, this woman who is curious and longing and partly skeptical, is symbolically appropriate for those who are learning about being part of the church but don’t entirely get it yet.

Let’s remember, those of us who take the role of teacher, offering the living water to those who misunderstand: let’s remember that at noon, in the heat of the day, Jesus shows up at the well thirsty. And he has no bucket, and the well is deep. I mean: even those who don’t know what wonders God can do through water and the word may have something to offer those of us who think we do.

Then Jesus says: Go, bring your husband. And the woman admits: I have no husband. Jesus affirms: That’s right; you’ve been married five times, but the one you have now is not your husband. That’s when she knows he is a prophet. That’s all it takes: recognizing and naming a truth of her life. Knowing her. Now the catechesis takes a more traditional turn, with the woman asking about worship and Jesus telling her about God and the future of worship. Jesus does not judge her. He responds seriously to her serious question. No moralizing before theologizing for this one; he knows her thirst and waters it. When she mentions the Messiah, Jesus responds, I AM.

The disciples come back, astonished to find him talking with a woman, but either too stunned or too deferential to challenge his impropriety. The woman leaves her water jar and goes back to town and witnesses. Oh, the possibility for romance has been reshaped. It’s a love story all right: the stranger at the well redeems her future, offers her a "happily every after."

She leaves her water jar. I’ve thought: in the excitement of the moment, of the possibility that she has met the Messiah, of Jesus’ amazing I AM, she is absent-minded. But there’s more to it than that: she abandons the one thing that gave her a one-up advantage over the stranger. And she leaves behind what has become unnecessary, now that the living water of the fountain of life has overflowed onto her, into her, through her, onto those to whom she witnesses.

Come, she says (she gushes, she overflows), Come, see a man who told me everything I have ever done! How tearfully sad it is to read that joyful affirmation! Because what Jesus has told this woman is that she has been married five times, and is now living with a man who is not her husband. In the woman’s own self-understanding, everything she has ever done is summed up in five relationships that are over and one that is illicit. Her whole life has been about love gone awry. It is a thirsty little plant on which the fountain of life has showered possibility. You don’t suppose he might be the Messiah? So tentative the question, so shy the hope -- from a woman who has been through five marriages. And yet: how compelling the invitation: He knows all about me (and this from the woman whose secret life waters their gossip); you don’t suppose . . . Of course they come and see, salivating for confirmation of their salacious fantasies. Of course they want to drink from that bucket.

The disciples urge Jesus to eat something, but he has been feeding on food they don’t know. They are slower than the woman at understanding Jesus’ use of metaphor, and begin to worry. If he talked with a Samaritan woman -- do you suppose he might have accepted non-kosher food? Honestly, you wouldn’t think you’d have to keep this close an eye on a holy man, would you?

And then the harvest talk. Fields are ripe for harvest. Well of course, with the living water nourishing them. But what’s striking is: it’s Samaritan fields that are ripe for harvest. There has been a drought in Judea, and Galilee is still waiting. Nicodemus, the leader who came to Jesus by night, didn’t get it; Jesus is still on his way back to Galilee. The fields in Judea are dried up, and those in Galilee have hardly begun to sprout. But here, in foreign territory, there has been such rain that the grain is heavy and ripe for reaping. The water of life has done its work.

And when the people of Sychar come out and meet Jesus, they believe. They may have come to confirm their gossip about the woman; but when they are showered with the water of life, they know this is the Savior of the world. They taste and see.

Here’s what I still wonder: Does Jesus -- who came here to the well at Sychar tired and thirsty, and without a bucket -- get his drink before he leaves? John leaves that open. For all the water in John’s gospel (water of the other John’s baptism; water at the wedding that becomes wine; water and the spirit from which the faithful are born; water here at the well; water gushing from the belly of the believers; water on which Jesus walks; water in the pool of Siloam, rinsing from the blind man’s eyes the mud Jesus made by mixing the water of his saliva with the dust of the earth; water of Jesus’ tears at the tomb of Lazarus; water to wash the feet of the disciples; water mixed with blood flowing from Jesus’ side), John doesn’t ever mention Jesus drinking water. In fact John doesn’t talk about Jesus drinking at all until the end, and then it isn’t water. And it isn’t the wine of the last supper either; that’s a synoptic tradition. In John, the time when Jesus drinks is when he is lifted up in the glory that is the cross. That’s when he says, "I am thirsty" and they raise a branch of hyssop with a sponge dipped in vinegar, and he drinks, and says "It is finished" and bows his head, and gives up his spirit.

So the story of today’s text, which begins with a thirsty Galilean, ends with the hour of glory, with Jesus lifted up, and drinking, and finishing his work, and dying.

That’s what we need to admit to those thirsty catechumens, those women with five sad marriages behind them, those gossiping villagers who run out to slake their thirst for rumor. That’s what we need to admit to ourselves, thirsty as we are to skip past crucifixion to resurrection.

If John was right, the glory was in being lifted up. And yes, being lifted up on the cross was complemented in being raised from the tomb. But once he had thirsted, and sipped the vinegar, and was ready to give up his spirit: it was finished.

There is a fountain flowing from this text, a spring gushing up with water so living, one who tastes it will never thirst again. There is a river in which you have been washed. There is a torrent which drowns you; there is the water breaking that heralds your birth. It is your love story.

Those who drink of the water that Jesus gives them will never be thirsty. The water that he gives will become in them -- in you -- a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.

Oh, it has flowed over you. It has drowned you and birthed you; and now it gushes forth from you onto those thirsty catechumens. This is their love story too.

The water gives life. It is life. And we live. We live.

AMEN.