Third Sunday in Lent
John 4:5-42
February 24, 2008Chatting with the Messiah
“Give me a drink.”
David Novak, a Jewish theologian, recalls a day back in 1963, when he was walking through a southern town on his way to a synagogue where he was to lead Yom Kippur services. A heavy rain had fallen the night before, and the gutters along the side of the road were full of mud. As he approached an older black woman, she stepped into the gutter to let him pass.
Novak thought to himself that he was the one who should have stepped into the muddy gutter, for the Talmud says, “Before the old you shall stand.”
“So, on the holiest day of the year, when I was supposed to feel that I was being cleansed before God, I felt profoundly dirty, Novak writes, “not for what I had done, but for what I represented” to this woman “who had so debased herself because of my very presence before her.” (Christian Century, February 26, 2008, 8).
The woman at the well does not stand in the gutter to let Jesus pass, but it’s not hard to imagine that his presence before her was deeply unsettling. She says it herself. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?
The bad blood between Jews and Samaritans went all the way back to the days of Babylonian rule, when certain Israelites from central Palestine married colonists from Babylon and other parts of Mesopotamia and Syria. The descendants of these intermarriages came to be called Samaritans. Later, when the Jewish exiles returned from Babylon and began to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, the Samaritans offered to help. Their offer was rejected. Eventually the Samaritans built their own temple on Mt. Gerazim.
So, generally speaking, Jews considered Samaritans to be mongrel heretics, and Samaritans considered Jews to be stuck-up fanatics. Add to the racial tension in this scene the fact that Jesus is male and a rabbi to boot, and you have to conclude that it’s a marvel that there is any conversation at all.
John puts it this way: “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.”
Most surprising of all, it’s Jesus who makes the first move. “Give me a drink,” he says. She nearly drops her water jar.
High noon is an unlikely time of day to be drawing water from the community well. Early morning would have been better -- or early evening. At that time the sun would not be so hot and there would have been opportunities for chatting with the other women of the village. Perhaps that’s the reason this woman comes to draw water at high noon. Perhaps she doesn’t want to talk to other women. Perhaps they don’t want to talk to her.
So, to be addressed by anyone – much less a man, much less a rabbi, much less a Jew – must have been quite a shock. “Who, me? You’re talking to me.”
He is. And it’s a genuine conversation, not just an exchange of pleasantries and comments about the weather. Instead of pointing out the obvious, Jesus tells her, she could have asked him for “living water,” and he’d have given it to her.
You must mean fresh water. You need a bucket for that and you haven’t got one. Were are you going to get this living water? You Jews think you’re such hot stuff. Do you think you’re greater than our ancestor, Jacob, who dug this well in the first place?
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water the will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
Perhaps he’s been out in the sun too long. Perhaps she has. But something about the way he says it, something about the way he looks her in the eye, makes her thirsty for whatever it is he has to offer. “Sir, give me some of this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
As the conversation proceeds, it becomes clear that what Jesus is offering is more than water and what this woman thirsts for is more than an escape from daily chores. She mentions the argument between Jews and Samaritans over which temple is better – the one on Mt. Gerazim or the one in Jerusalem. It’s not about where you worship, Jesus replies, but how. “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.”
When the Messiah comes, he’ll settle all this, the woman suggests. But he has come, Jesus whispers. “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Not only has this woman met a man, a Jew, who is willing to talk to her about important matters. She has met the one for whom both Jews and Samaritans have been longing for generations.
But it is clear from this strange conversation that Jesus is not the Messiah either group has been expecting. He has not come to settle their age-old feud. He has not come to bless their mutually bigotry. He has not come to force one or the other into the muddy gutter. He has come to quench their shared thirst for something more lasting and more real than either group’s religious agenda.
Last week I found myself testifying before the State Board of Education regarding an effort by a small group to sneak their religious agenda into new standards for the teaching of science in public schools. I’m not sure how I got there. It certainly had more to do with my clerical collar than my scientific expertise.
The proponents of amending the standards were extremely skillful, and took care never to show their hand: “We aren’t trying to inject religion into science class – No! We’re simply promoting academic freedom.” If evolution is to be taught in the schools, they argued, then so should their theory of the origin of species.
The struggle played out before the State Board of Education last Tuesday is an old one, and resembles in striking ways the ancient struggle between Jews and Samaritans. Who’s right? Which side is God on? When the Messiah comes, he’ll fix you!
“I am he, the one speaking to you.” And guess what? He doesn’t have a single word to say to us about evolution or Creationism, or Intelligent design, or even about how to stack the Board of Education with people who agree with us.
The Messiah in this story is clearly more interested in crossing the boundaries that separate people one from the other. He’s not interested in taking sides. He’d rather draw us into the light.
Go home and fetch your husband. He needs to be in on this conversation.
I haven’t got a husband.
True. You’ve had a string of them and the man you’re with now is not your husband.
Could this be the Messiah’s agenda? Exposing our past and bringing us to repentance? Perhaps. When you stand next to the light, everyone can see the things you’d like to hide in the shadows. There is no getting round the fact that when Jesus comes close to you, your true self will be revealed.
But there is no hint of condemnation in these words. Jesus is simply pointing out that if it’s living water you’re after, you yourself will have to come clean. No more pretending. No more hiding. He seeks us out, not to condemn, but to save.
Yesterday I was in the choir loft over at St. John’s Church, watching our Choristers rehearse with the St. John’s Choristers for this afternoon’s Service of Evensong. As Betsy Calhoun was putting the young singers through their paces, she heard the odd wrong note. “If you make a mistake, raise your hand,” she told them. “That shows you know you got it wrong, and will get it right the next time. That way, we don’t have to stop. We can go on, and make music.”
Thank goodness it was dark up there in the balcony. No one could see the tears welling up in my eyes.
I don’t know if it was the gorgeous music they were singing, or my admiration for the way Betsy puts her heart and soul into her calling, but I was struck in that moment by the profound theological implications of that simple rule. If you make a mistake, raise your hand. Admit it. Fix it for the next time. The Christian life is not about shame. It’s not about condemnation. It’s about making music that will honor the God who sent Jesus into the world “not to condemn the world, but that the world, through him might be saved.”
The woman in this story does indeed go back into the city. And what does she do? She issues a kind of altar call. Only it’s not an altar call. It’s an invitation to meet Jesus. “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
This makes this woman, the first and, at the same time, the most honest evangelist in Christian history. She doesn’t pretend to pin Jesus down. She doesn’t presume to proclaim more than she knows. She simply tells others how Jesus changed her life, and points them in his direction. “Come and see. He just might be the one we’ve all been waiting for.”
Whom did you come out to meet today? Is it a Messiah who wants to condemn you or one who offers to quench your thirst? Is it a Christ who seeks you out or one who waits for you to come to him, groveling in the gutter? Is it the Jesus of this story, or is it the Jesus you only thought you knew?
Come and see. He just might the one the whole world is thirsting for.
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