Living Water

March 27, 2011
Third Sunday in Lent
John 4:5-42

Last week in our Gospel text we witnessed the famous encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus the Pharisee…you know, the one that’s quoted time and time again on posters brought by fans to sporting events. What people don’t tell you when they quote John 3:16 on their poster boards at sports arenas is the rest of the story, how it took place at night amid whispers…and how Nicodemus, a very well educated man and an authority on matters of scripture and faith, comes to Jesus and acknowledges that he is one sent from God but then cannot quite grasp the notion of how one can be born again, even if it is the spiritual birth by water and the Sprit that Jesus tells him about…and on some rational level Nicodemus’ lack of grasping is quite understandable.
Then this morning, we were just witnesses to a less famous, but equally as important, exchange between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob in Sychar, a city of Samaria. It is an encounter that takes place during the day, probably around lunch time since the disciples had gone to get food. And the encounter Jesus has is with a nameless woman from Samaria, a group of people that Jews did not interact with…to the Jews, the Samaritans were folks “from the other side of the tracks,” outsiders. And it is during this encounter that we not only learn about the courage of this woman, for even though she knows Jews and Samaritans are not supposed to interact, she engages him in relgions debate in regards to worship and the coming of the Messiah…but we also witness the love of Jesus for a woman he did not know, a woman who was nameless, from a group of outsiders and who had led a rough life. In telling this woman about her life, he names the pain that she has experienced and offers her dignity, life and living water.
This past week, I stumbled on to some interesting information about the woman featured in our Gospel text this morning. The Samaritan woman that Jesus met at Jacob’s well in Sychar is a Saint in the Orthodox church. After consulting a source from the Russian Orthodox church, this is what I found.
The holy martyr Photina (Svetlana) ... was that Samaritan woman who had the rare fortune to speak with the Lord Christ Himself at Jacob's Well in Sychar (John. 4). Coming to faith in the Lord, she then came to belief in His Gospel, together with her two sons…and five sisters…They went to Carthage in Africa. But they were arrested and taken to Rome in the time of the Emperor Nero, and thrown into prison. By the providence of God, Domnina, Nero's daughter, came into contact with St. Photina and was brought by her to the Christian faith. After imprisonment, they all suffered for Christ. Photina, who first encountered the light of truth by a well, was thrown into a well, where she died and entered into the immortal Kingdom of Christ." (Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic, The Prolog from Ochrid / Ohridski Prolog)
The Byzantine church even wrote a hymn in honor of her saint day, which is February 28th: By the well of Jacob, O holy one, / thou didst find the Water / of eternal and blessed life; / and having partaken / thereof, O wise Photina, / thou wentest forth proclaiming Christ, the Anointed One. (Megalynarion for St. Photina, according to the Byzantine usage.)
The western church hasn’t been as kind to the Samaritan woman as the Orthodox traditions. There have been and are still many sermons preached about this woman where she is painted as a sexually immoral woman, having had 5 husbands and living in sin with a 6th. But if you look at the text itself, there is no mention of the woman’s sin or need for repentance…what is more likely is that this woman has had a hard go of it, probably having been widowed or left by husbands 1-5 with man number 6 being her care taker, possibly a brother of a former husband. Whatever the case may be, the Samaritan woman at the well needs one thing…someone to see her for who she really is and to love her for who she really is, sinner or saint or both.
And that’s what Jesus offers her. As tired as he is, he sits with this nameless woman at the well of Jacob, a Samaritan woman none the less (both the Sarmaitan part and the woman part being no-no’s, by the way) and lets her know that when he looks at her, he doesn’t just see a woman from the other side of the tracks, he sees someone who has had a rough past and is in need of healing. In the rest of her life, she was probably seen as a very unlucky woman to have lost 5 husbands and to need the help of a guardian. Or was she even seen at all, did she matter to her community?…and if she was seen, did they really know what she had been through? or was she walking through town and out to the well holding this pain inside of her, buried where no one else could see it? Regardless of how she was seen, at the well of Jacob, the Samaritan woman has an encounter with someone who truly sees her, who names her pain and who, by naming her pain, helps her to heal and frees her by letting her know that she matters.
But he doesn’t just do that, he also offers her living water…water that satisfies even the greatest thirst…and not a physical thirst, but a spiritual thirst and in receiving this water she receives wholeness…or “shalom”. And that’s not all! In this encounter at the well it is made known to the woman that she is in the presence of God. When we hear the words “I am he” in English, the Greek is skewed a bit. What it says in the original is “I AM,” the name of God as revealed to Moses through the burning bush. No wonder the woman forgets her water jar when she runs back to the town and tells those she meets about her conversation with Jesus. No wonder she urges them all to come and see, to have the experience that she has had with the Messiah.
I love this story. I love it because of the courage the woman had to challenge Jesus, I love it because of her excitement after meeting Jesus, and I love it because it is a story about us too. Put yourself in the place of the Samaritan woman standing at a well in the middle of the desert that we call life. Is there some thing you hold inside of you but don’t want to admit to anyone else? Are there any pains that you have experienced that you are hiding? or that the world knows about but pretends to ignore? Are you experiencing a thirst that no amount of water could cure? Are you experiencing a hunger that no amount of food could end? These are realities of life lived as sinners…there are pains we experience, and sometimes life leaves us dry, aching for something to quench our thirst or end the hunger that our hearts are experiencing. It is in those moments that Jesus comes and finds us and he offers us a wonderful gift. No matter how hard we try to hide these pains from the world, Jesus knows them and Jesus is ready to name the pains that plague us, name the realities that we live in and then say…it’s ok, leave those pains, those secrets with me…leave them with me and I will wash them away for you. You are mine and more than anything else you matter to me. You matter to me so much that I want to give you water that will quench the thirst of your heart and food that will end the hunger of your soul…and then I’m going to do something more...for the simple fact that you matter to me and are loved by me, I am going to die for you and release you from the sin and the pain that have tied you down so that you can be free to live your life to the fullest.
As we stand with the Samaritan woman at the well, we have this gracious invitation to take all the baggage we bring with us and leave it with Jesus, let him wash it all away with living water. It is news worthy of leaving that water jug at the well and running to our friends and neighbors exclaiming, “Come and See!”