The Rev. Blythe Sawyer
The Community Church of Sebastopol
The Third Sunday of Lent, February 24, 2008
John 4:1-15
It was in the heat of the noon day sun that she went to the well. She didn't expect to see anyone there. That's why she went when she did, so she wouldn't see anyone else. The other women went in the cool of morning or as the sun was moving low on the horizon, because it was a walk to the well and then a walk back carrying heavy water. The people who do manual labor know that the middle of the day is the time to rest. She must have carried her shame with her, as heavy as the jug of water that she would take back to her house. She'd had five husbands, you know, and the man she was with, she was not married to. She had broken the rules and she was shunned, a non-person in the life of her community. And, so she went to the well. It was a daily task, drudgery, but necessary.
You can imagine how surprised she must have been when she got there and there was a man sitting there. Her's was a culture where men did not speak to women, where it was improper to ever be alone with a man who was not your husband. Yet, she needed that water. I imagine she might have been scared or even just irritated. How would she do what she needed to do with him there? And he, he should have ignored her. They should have ignored each other. You know how that is, when we meet someone a little inappropriate, we just walk on by. He was a Jew, she was a Samaritan. He was a man, she was a woman. He was a Rabbi, she was a woman of suspect moral character. Yet, here was Jesus, a religious leader alone, in a lonely place not only speaking to her, but having a long conversation with her someone who was not even supposed to make contact with her. And yet, Jesus found a way to touch and transform her life.
Jews considered Samaritans to be racially impure, half Jew and half barbarian. The Samaritans were the descendants of the lower class people left behind when the rich and the educated and powerful leaders of Israel had been carted off in bondage to Babylon. The ancestors of the Samaritans had inter-married with the non-Jews, living in the area and had tried to keep their faith alive the best way they could without a temple or a priesthood, passing on the Torah in oral fashion, worshiping at outdoor altars and on mountain tops. When the Jews returned from Babylon, years later, they wouldn't let the Samaritans help rebuild the temple, indeed, they wouldn't have anything to do with the Samaritans at all. So the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim. Eventually tensions between the groups erupted, and an Israeli army destroyed the Samaritan temple, leaving them to worship on a lonely mountain top.
Jesus was a Jew and she was a Samaritan. They should ignore each other. And, there is more, because even if she had been Jewish, the encounter would have been suspect. But, Jesus ignored all this. And at midday, while sitting alone at a well, he asked her for a drink of water. It was nothing extraordinary, nothing profound, just a drink of water. And, she could not have been more surprised if he had asked her to fly. What was said between them was not as important as the fact he spoke to her. He carried on a conversation with her. He treated her like a person who was worth knowing. He treated her like someone who was acceptable. As someone who was touchable. And he touched her life as they spoke. He talked to her about important things, about God and life and worship and love and, most importantly, he did not condemn her as all the others had done. Instead, he offered her the living water of God's love.
A member of a church where I once served, told me a story. She was serving in the military and was a single mother of a 3 year old daughter when she was sent out on a one year tour of duty. One year, on a boat, unable to be with her daughter. I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old and the thought of being separated from them for even a month is more than I can bear. She had no choice, so she coddled together her schedule of relatives and friends who would stay at her home caring for her daughter, and she left. Midway through that year, she was on a short shore leave in Southern California and she went to visit a friend. She was depressed. She was devastated, missing her daughter and not knowing how she would make it through the next few months. The friend, she told me, said to her. "Well, you could pray about it." "What could God possibly do for me? I need more than vague promises. I need out of this situation and God can't help me with that." Later her friend mentioned again, "You know, maybe, Jesus could help you through this." And again Sarah put her off. Throughout the day though, Lori kept gently offering, "We could pray together. You know, when I'm going through the depths, it helps me to call on God." The young mother told me, At some point it got through to me. Not entirely, just a little. This little window in my heart opened." And then, she said, "It was like a flood of love poured in I only had to crack open my heart," she said, "the littlest bit, for God to come rushing in."
That reminds me of Jesus' words in our story today. The water I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. God's love is unstoppable. Let the rushing flood of water we have merely to show up at the well to open our hearts just the littlest bit for that love to flow over us like a gushing spring.
There's more to Sarah's story. She came home at the end of that year changed by the encounter she had with God. She wanted to continue to explore her faith, but at the same time, she and Lori were falling in love with each other. And when they went to church, they were told over and over again, that they were welcome, so long as they changed who they were. They were told that if they prayed hard enough God would change them, would take away their love for one another, and replace it, I suppose, with a more acceptable love. And here's the thing, she knew what she heard was wrong, she knew that discrimination was not God's way and yet in her heart of hearts she kind of believed it. She kind of believed that she wasn't really O.K. That her love was a sign of her sinfulness. And then she came to the UCC and it really took her a long time to believe even that we meant what we said. And an even longer time to believe that maybe we were even right in what we said about God's love and acceptance. But, finally she believed it. Finally she could believe that she was okay and even more than okay, beloved just as she is. She was able to leave her shame behind.
The Samaritan woman left her water jar behind when she went to tell others about Jesus. A good friend and gifted preacher pointed out recently that the water jar and carrying it to the well alone, in the middle of the day (when all the other women went to the well together in the morning), that water jar was a sign of her shame. Of her old life of being a nobody. And when she went back to town without it, it became a symbol that she was leaving that old life behind and starting a new life full of new possibilities.
Since I believe that God comes to us as surely as Jesus came to the woman at the well, and God reaches out to us in love offering the living water that makes all things new, and whether we are carrying a shame as heavy and as seemingly insurmountable as my friend or that Samaritan woman, or whether it is something quieter or smaller some way that we believe we need to improve ourselves, change our ways to be able to be fully known and fully loved, whatever it is, that we're carrying today, there is good news. God comes to us, meets us exactly where we are and reaches out in love. God does not expect us to become different or better to be acceptable. God transforms us into a new creation.
One time, when I was struggling with my relationship with God, a relationship which was feeling dry and unsatisfying, my spiritual director asked if I wanted more? Well, of course I do. All you need, she told me, is the desire. If you have the inclination to turn your heart toward God then God is already in your inclination. So friends, come ye to the water, drink of that ever flowing stream of living water which will satisfy us, not just for a moment, but for a lifetime. Thanks be to God.