All Souls: Worship & Music: Sermons: February 24, 2008


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Third Sunday in Lent
February 24, 2008
Justin Russell Cannon
John 4:5-42

There’s something that I’ve always seen as quite humorous in this account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. After their encounter, she runs back to the village exclaiming, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!”

The Scriptures recount that “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” But isn’t that testimony an embellishment of the truth, I dare say, a fib? I mean, Jesus didn’t tell her everything she’s ever done, and it’s because of her testimony they believe. I’ve always found this kind of disconcerting. Clearly, though, something happened in this story that deeply impacted this woman. Something in this encounter with Jesus led her to feeling completely and utterly known by him.

Let us visualize this scene for a moment. Jesus, a Jew, is sitting beside a well on the outskirts of this Samaritan city. He’s alone because his disciples went to get food. A woman comes along to get some water, and Jesus says to her, “Give me a drink.” She responds, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?” Already in this story there are at least half a dozen things that have just happened that are totally out of the ordinary, and, in fact, unheard of in that place and time.

The first of these oddities is that Jesus sitting at this well alone. Samaria is a place between Galilee and Judea. Without getting into a complex history of names, dates, and violence, in short, Jews and Samaritans at that time did not get along. For example, on pilgrimages to a festival, Jews would keep close in their group if passing through Samaria, and they surely wouldn’t risk being alone. But here we have Jesus, a Jew, sitting alone in this hostile land.

Second, it is quite odd for this woman to come to the well at this hour. We are told that it was noon, the hottest part of the day. Habitually women would come to the well in the morning or at night to avoid the heat. So clearly, she wasn’t as concerned about avoiding the heat, as she was about avoiding the other women. Perhaps she had grown tired of the well-side gossip, of which she might have frequently been the subject.

The third, fourth, and fifth oddities are summed up in Jesus’ request of her, “Give me a drink.” For one, it was not custom for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan. Second, it was not customary for a man to talk to a female stranger in this manner, or to converse with her as he does. Lastly, it was totally unheard of for a Jew to share things in common with a Samaritan as the Gospel accounts. The implications of these actions alone on Jesus’ part are radical.

It is in this context, that this Samaritan woman feels safe responding as she does. She sees she is talking to a man who is not concerned about his safety, nor social norms, nor religious dogma. She responds, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” This looks like a partial rebuke for his apparent disregard for how things are “supposed to be.” I say part rebuke, because I think she’s also kind of curious about what’s going through this strange man’s mind to lead him to act so absurdly. The last oddity is for a woman to respond to a man in this manner in that time. Something made her feel safe.

Jesus then says that if she knew who he was, then she would have asked him for water and he would have given her living water. Once again, annoyed and somewhat intrigued, she returns to the ethnic issues asking him, “Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well?” and again, Jesus ignores these tensions, and continues to talk about this living water. Then suddenly we find a major shift in the story.

This woman who up until this point had sought only to argue, who has not been able to get past the aforementioned barriers now asks, “Sir, give me this water.” As one commentary I found explains, “The woman is moving from being an argumentative stranger to making a serious inquiry.” Then we have the whole deal about her marital history.

I’ve heard and read way too many Bible studies on this story that seem to portray this woman as promiscuous, a sort of sexual butterfly who has gone from husband to husband, not once, not twice, not three or four times, but FIVE TIMES. And these studies talk about how Jesus is pointing her sin out to her so that she might realize her need for this life-giving water. And these Bible studies talk about how great God’s mercy is that he will even forgive this woman who was “living in sin” and who had lived a sexually impure life.

But do you know how many times the word SIN shows up in this account. Zero. And do you know how many times REPENT shows up in this text? Zero. And guess how many times FORGIVENESS shows up in this text. In the Gospels Jesus did not hesitate to express forgiveness when it was needed. He did not hesitate to tell people, like the adulterous woman, to “go and sin no more.” But he does not do that in this story. And in this story he would’ve if he should’ve, but he didn’t. I am convinced that the Samaritan woman is one of the most misrepresented people in sermons and Bible studies.

In Jesus’ day, and in many traditional cultures women are not allowed to seek a divorce. In fact, this was against Torah. If a couple got divorced it was probably because the man was tired of the woman, or because she couldn’t bear children, or she bore him children of the “wrong” sex. The fact that this woman had had five husbands means that they each either divorced and ditched her, or they died, or a combination of these. She was probably living in the next best arrangement she could manage, as women could not own property in those days.

The fact that this woman had been married five times does not reveal this woman to be promiscuous, but it reveals her suffering, her pain, her loneliness. As one commentary I read explained, “This is not a woman with great sins or great secrets, but rather a great sadness. There is no evidence here that she lived a bad life, but rather a hard life.” Now we begin to understand why she didn’t want to mingle with the other women at the well. Not because she was a sexual outcast, but a social outcast — perhaps rejected by five different men, and mocked by women in the village for that reason.

So, rather than seeing Jesus’ words as a clever trap to trick her into acknowledging her sin, perhaps he is transforming this moment into a sacred space, where he assures her that he knows her struggle and sadness. And he treats her lovingly, revealing to her the mysteries of heaven. In fact, this exchange prompts a fuller revelation of Jesus’ identity than that given to Nicodemus, Philip, or Andrew. When she says the Messiah is coming, he replies, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you,” invoking the name of God as revealed to Moses in Exodus, “I am.”

Perhaps she ran back to the village because his words were words of understanding, not accusation. And perhaps these were the first words of understanding she had heard in years. This feisty, spirited woman who is bound by chains of sadness, who has been rejected and/or widowed has encountered One who understands. And apparently that was all she needed. Perhaps in this story, the living water is a metaphor for just that — God’s identification with and understanding of our struggle, an understanding that could only be fulfilled and complete in God taking on our human nature and walking as one of us in Christ Jesus. One who knew thirst, who knew tiredness, but who could also see the thirst in people’s eyes for freedom from suffering, and witnessed the tiredness of people’s hearts, like this Samaritan woman.

After fifth grade my family moved from inner city Detroit to the countryside. I was just entering into middle school. I was the new kid. I was the redhead kid. The gangly tall kid. The smart kid. The kid with braces who cleaned them in the bathroom after lunch. The gay kid who didn’t know he was gay, and was thus somewhat socially awkward. Each one of these was a good enough reason for being tormented in middle school, and that I was. These were the years I remember as my personal hell, and God was nothing more than a Sunday drone to me, something disconnected and distant. I frequented the counselors’ office where I found little help, and like the Samaritan woman sought solitude to protect myself, begging my parents to drive me home so I wouldn’t have to take the bus.

I understand too well the Samaritan woman’s ability to face the noonday heat in exchange for her peace and solitude from the scorn of the village women. When I was in eighth grade, my family would get together once a month with a few other families for what we called “house church.” During one of these services we were singing this repetitive meditative song that went “There’s an almost, unbelievable goodness, that helps us face the fierce unknown.” It repeated over and over as the cantor sang Psalm 23, “Though I walk, through the valley, of the shadow of death…” It was during this song that I sat back in the lazy boy I was in and said,“God, wherever you are, here I am.” I was flooded in that moment with a feeling of being fully known, inside and out by One who was beyond myself, and feeling loved by that same Source of all love.” Knowing I was both known and loved was enough.

It is my prayer that we might become more aware of the almost unbelievable Good News that God knows us each, and even in that knowledge loves us as who we are, fully and truly. As we prepare ourselves for the Holy Eucharist, I pray that we may each encounter the Living Christ who nourishes us with his companionship, who meets us in those arid parts of our life, and quenches our thirst with the living water of true understanding and love.

Amen.