Thirsty?

Lent 3a

March 23, 2014

John 4:5-42

Last week’s Gospel story and this week’s Gospel story tell two very different, and yet similar, stories.  In the story of Nicodemus, we meet a member of the religious elite, a named man, coming to Jesus in the cover of darkness at midnight, and he walks away from the interaction even more confused than when he approached Jesus in the first place.  This week, we meet a Samaritan woman, an unnamed woman, happening upon Jesus in the middle of the day, and she goes away from the interaction with Jesus proclaiming to those around her that she has seen the Messiah.  There is a reason that these stories are told one week after another, but I’m not going to give away any spoilers just yet.

The story of the Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well is a story loaded with details and questions and all sorts of information that would take forever to sort out.  And that’s just in the part of the story that John tells us! The back story involved here has just as much information…but it is important because it lets us in on this story in a way that we might not otherwise pick up on. 

In verses three and four of John 4, the two verses preceding our reading today, we are told that Jesus was on his way back to Galilee from Judea, but that he had to go through Samaria to get there.  But from a geographical stand point, that’s not entirely true.  There was a route that went around Samaria, in fact a route that was preferred by Jews traveling from Judea to Galilee for it guaranteed that at no time would the border of Samaria would be crossed. 

You see, historically, there was a lot of baggage between the Jews and the Samaritans.  Both groups claimed to be descendants of Jacob, and they were.  But while the Jews were of pure ethic heritage and worshiped only in Jerusalem, the Samaritans were of mixed ethnic heritage, having intermarried with the Assyrians when they were under Assyrian captivity.  This inter-ethnic marriage was forbidden in laws contained in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers in order to maintain the purity of the priesthood and to ensure that tribes would not lose inheritance rights.  Also, while the Samaritans held the Torah (the first five books of the bible) as their sacred scripture, and followed in the tradition of the Levitical priesthood, they worshipped on Mount Gerizim and their worship practices were modified from the practices in Jerusalem.

So from the perspective of the Jews, the Samaritans were half-breeds, for lack of a better term.  They were contaminated and to even enter the border of their lands meant that there was the risk that a Jew would become contaminated as well.

But Jesus had to go through Samaria, John says.

And whereas Jesus had been approached by Nicodemus in cover of night, in Samaria he is approached by an unnamed woman at in the middle of the day.  What we notice, knowing what we know about the tensions between the Jewish community and the Samaritan community is that this unnamed woman, who has had a rough life, is courageous.  Like Nicodemus, she engages Jesus in a discussion in regards to worship practices and the coming of the Messiah.  But she does so not as a member of the religious elite, who has formal education and training, but rather she comes to him as a member of an ethnic group looked down upon by his own, and as a woman who has been either divorced or widowed 5 times…making her a person of very low status in the community.  I mentioned in a sermon a couple months ago that it was quite easy for a man to divorce a wife in Jesus’ time.  She could be cast off because she didn’t provide her husband with a son in a set amount of time…she could have been cast off because she didn’t cook his lamb the way he wanted it. A second possibility is that the woman had been widowed 5 times.  And, further, it could be that she was living in a situation of levirate marriage, where the man she was living with was the brother of her deceased husband, in hopes that the brother would provide a son for the dead husbands inheritance to go to.  Whatever the case was, the Samaritan woman did not have a good life and lived a life of shame because of the circumstances in which she lived.

It has become a temptation in the western church to paint the Samaritan woman at the well as a sinful, immoral woman.  But when we take a close look at the interaction between Jesus and this unnamed woman, there is never a scolding for a sin committed, never an exhortation to go forth and sin no more, as happens later in on the Gospel of John with the woman who was caught in adultery.  This woman that Jesus meets at the well was merely a woman caught in a bad situation, living at the bottom of the barrel in the eyes of those around her, and looking for someone to see her for who she really is. 

The Eastern Orthodox Church has taken this woman and not only given her a name, but made her a saint whose feast day was celebrated just this past Thursday.  St. Photina, the holy martyr, who was so taken by the good news in her interaction with Jesus Christ at the well, that she went about spreading the Gospel until she was arrested and executed in Carthage in North Africa.

She is why Jesus had to go through Samaria.

To those around her, she was probably the source of gossip…she probably figuratively was the bearer of a scarlet letter.  She probably heard whispers around her as she walked around town…and she probably went to the well at noon to avoid hearing the whispers as the rest of the women would have gone to the well in the morning to fetch water. 

That didn’t bother Jesus.  He knew about the circumstances of her life, he knew that she was a part of an ethnic group that was considered contaminated by the Jews, he knew that speaking with her in public would be considered a scandal. 

He didn’t care. 

To the person that would have been considered the least worthy to receive it by those around her, Jesus gave love and peace to a person that he saw most needed it.  He saw her for who she really was, a child of God, and in his interaction with her Jesus offers her a sense of shalom, which doesn’t just mean peace, but also means wholeness.  And more than that, Jesus offers her living water, water that will never become contaminated and bring disease, water that gives only life and healing. 

Jesus had to go through Samaria.  He had to go through Samaria because salvation may have been from the Jews, but it was for everyone.  And the woman, unlike Nicodemus, the woman went away telling of the Messiah and bringing others to follow him. 

This past week we learned of the death of Fred Phelps, the founder of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.  Mr. Phelps’ life and his work, from his time as a lawyer in Wichita to his ministry in Topeka, was defined by hatred.  At times when people needed care and concern, Phelps and members of his family spoke of hate, of a vengeful God, and they have caused pain for many around them.  And as he has exited this life and gone on to the next, we are called as followers of Christ to not see labels which a man and his work have placed upon his forehead, but to see a man in need of love and mercy and forgiveness.  We are called to see a man in need of the promise that God hates no one, that even those of us who wound others because we ourselves are deeply wounded can hope in the healing power of Christ’s death and resurrection. That Jesus will approach one of the least desirable members of the human race and offer them living water.  Mr. Phelps needs the invitation to partake of the living water, the Samaritan woman needed the invitation to partake of the living water.  We need the invitation to partake of the living water.  For we all have sinned and fallen short of what God desires of us.  But we know this, that in water we are given physical life, in water we are given new life and are joined to Christ in his death and resurrection.  Not because we are pure, not because we are worthy, but because God knows that we are all a little thirsty.