In the name of God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today’s
gospel reading provides no shortage of material for the preacher to consider.
The particular aspect of the story that I’m going to focus on is the idea of
conversion. Following Jesus is something that many of us aspire to, and the
Samaritan woman in this story gives us insight into that process. While this is
certainly a wonderful passage of Scripture, it is one that is full of
references to life 2,000 years ago in Palestine, which makes it harder for us
moderns to grasp. But ironically, this is a story all about misunderstandings.
So perhaps approaching this text from a place of confusion is a good place to
start.
What
is striking about this passage is the number of obstacles and objections that
are raised. Even before we get into the dialogue, the text presents us with a
triple obstacle in the very nature of the person whom Jesus encounters. First,
she is a woman. Women, generally, had no place in public life. There was even
one group of religious conservatives known as the “bruised and bleeding
Pharisees” because whenever a woman approached them on the street, they would
close their eyes, even if that meant walking into walls. For Jesus to strike up
a conversation with an unknown woman would have certainly raised a few
eyebrows. And not only is she a woman, but she is a Samaritan.
Now
we’ve all heard that the Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along, but we don’t
often talk about what fueled the hatred. One commentator said that this woman
being a Samaritan, to a Jewish audience, would have made her a half-bred pagan.
Those are harsh words, but there is a deep history behind them. If you’ll think back to your Bible study,
you’ll recall that Israel was one united kingdom under David. But after the
death of Solomon, the kingdom split into two. The Northern Kingdom has its
capital in Samaria, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah was based in Jerusalem.
Given the prominence of Jerusalem in the faith story, you can guess which
kingdom had more prestige. Then came the Exile to Babylon. Those in Jerusalem
were mostly killed or sent away into captivity, and often they blamed the
sinfulness of the north on the divine punishment that came to everyone at the
hand of the Assyrians. In the north, however, there were fewer threats to the
new rulers from Assyria, so some of them were allowed to remain. And while they
remained, intermarriage with the conquerors happened over the generations. When
the captives returned home, they found the Samaritans that were left behind
living on their lands and Jerusalem was in ruins.
And if
these socio-political issues weren’t enough, there were major theological
disputes. Samaritans claimed that Mount Gerizim, located in Samaria, was the
truly holy mountain of God and should be the home of the Temple. Obviously,
those in Jerusalem thought that the Temple was properly located where it was.
The Samaritans accused the Judeans of changing the Torah to place an emphasis
on Jerusalem over Gerizim. You can even hear this embedded sense of nationalism
in the words of the woman- “Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us
the well?” The Samarians only considered the five books of Moses to be their
Scripture, driving yet another theologian wedge between them and the Jews. There
groups hated everything about each other and blamed each other for all of the
problems that their nation had gone through. Sounds a bit like our Congress,
doesn’t it?
And
the third obstacle is that this woman was of ill-repute. The text tells us that
she was divorced five times and was now living with a man to whom she was not
married. It is just as scandalous as it seems. Though, as we’ll examine later,
she might not have literally had five husbands, but the point remains- she was
an outcast. And we know this because she went to the watering well at noon.
Israel is a desert and the time that you do your outside chores is early in the
morning. Just as we gather at the water coolers today in our offices to talk
sports, politics, and gossip, the water well was the place where those same
conversations happened in ancient Israel. But this woman was clearly not
allowed. Perhaps she was the subject of the gossip. She is a woman, she is a
Samaritan, and she is an outcast. According to the logic of the day, there were
three very good reasons why Jesus shouldn’t have been caught dead speaking to
her.
But
Jesus has never been one to respect boundaries. As so begins their conversation
and the process of her conversion. It is a process full of misunderstandings
and brutal truth. And we really should pay attention to this conversation
because it is the longest conversation that Jesus has with anyone in the entire
Bible.
Jesus asks her for a drink. And she
replies- “you don’t have a bucket; that’s going to be a problem for you.” Wells
often didn’t have buckets attached to them; you had to bring your own, and
Jesus knew this. One of the disciples likely had their bucket, and took it into
town with them. How interesting that Jesus begins this encounter from a place
of need and dependence. He makes himself vulnerable to this triple outcast.
This
text is full of phrases that could be interpreted in multiple ways. Jesus suggests
that he can provide living water, but the Samaritan woman interprets him to be
saying something else. She thought that by “living water” he meant water with a
current. Not just stale well water, but a flowing stream. Access to that sort
of water source, in the desert, would be a great resource to have. But Jesus
isn’t talking about a stream or river. He is speaking, metaphorically, of the
water of life, the water that nourishes our souls. When he speaks of eternal
life given by this water, she thinks it must be some sort of magic water. She
was, like Ponce de León, thinking of something like the fountain of youth. She
doesn’t understand what Jesus means. That is why she says “give me this water,
so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” She
misunderstands Jesus to be referring to two hydrogen atoms and one of oxygen,
but he is speaking of a very different sort of water.
Next,
Jesus asks her to bring her husband to the well. This, again, is a
misunderstanding. Jesus’ words and her hearing of them are two ships passing in
the night. The word that would have been used for “husband” is ba’al, which is a word that can mean
“husband,” “master,” or “god.” Jesus is saying, “show me your god,” and she
thinks that he is asking her to call her husband. Five was an important number
to the Samaritans. Their system of belief is built of five tenets- that God’s
one holy mountain is Gerizim, that there is one God, that Moses is the one
prophet, that the Torah is the one holy book (itself with five books), and that
there will be one last day of judgment. But they were also criticized by
outsiders for a perceived defiling of their religion. In 2 Kings, the
accusation against the Samaritans was that, as they comingled with their
captors, they adopted other religious practices and deities from the
Samaritans. It was said that the Samaritans had five false gods; but depending
on how you hear that word, Jesus could have been talking about husbands. In the
process of conversion, Jesus calls us to leave behind the baggage and idolatry
of our past. If you are to follow Jesus, what needs to be left behind?
She
recognizes in him that he is cutting right to the core. Even if she’s
misinterpreting him, she realizes that he is offering some sort of magic water
and is seeking to purify her religious beliefs. And she call him a prophet- not
because he is some sort of soothsayer that knows the secrets of her heart, but
because he is speaking truth to power in her life. He is calling her towards
repentance and conversion, and so he is a prophet.
Recognizing the debate over God’s
holy mountain that I mentioned earlier, she says “Our ancestors worshiped on
this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in
Jerusalem.” But again, Jesus is speaking on a deeper level than we are hearing.
She’s talking about physical locations and doing things by the book. Jesus is
talking about dedicating one’s life to God. He says “believe me, the hour is
coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem... But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers
will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” True worship isn’t as simple as
showing up at the right place at the right time. No, it’s about spirit and
truth.
She
is, perhaps, starting to get Jesus’ message. But she’s not sure if she can buy
into it. She blurts out- “Well, I know that he Messiah is coming and he’ll
clear all of this up and then I’ll know if what you’re saying has any merit or
not.” And Jesus responds, for the first time in the gospel narrative, that he
is that Messiah they are waiting for. When Jesus says “I am he,” he is using
the same name that God gave to Moses back in Exodus- “I AM.”
Now
something happened in that. All of those objections and misunderstandings that
she had melted away. She now saw that Jesus was talking about the water of
life, that he was talking about dedication to the one God, and that worship
isn’t about rote rituals, but rather truly giving our spirit over to God. She
was converted, she was saved, she was a disciple. And we know that she was
converted because of a short line in the text that would be easy to read over
quickly- “Then the woman left her water jar.”
She
left her jar because she didn’t need it anymore. She didn’t need well water;
she had the living water. Perhaps she planned to leave the community that
treated her like dirt, now realizing that her spirit was holy, and so she
wouldn’t need to visit that well ever again. Maybe she became one of Jesus’
disciples at that moment and joined the crowds that followed Jesus during his
Galilean ministry. But the point is: she left her jar.
What
is the sign of your conversion? It doesn’t necessarily need to be something bad
that you left behind, perhaps a decision that you made. Was it the first time
you realized that your budget truly reflects your priorities and you made your
first pledge to the church? Was it when you volunteered at the homeless shelter
and pledged to never again turn a blind eye to hungry? Was it when, like this
woman, you recognized the grace of God in Jesus and decided to be confirmed or
baptized? Spend some time reflecting on that this week- have you been
converted? And how did it happen?
As the
encounter concludes, the Samaritan woman goes back to the city, to the people
that had excluded her and forced her to go to the well in the heat of the day,
and tells them to “come and see.” The first convert in the gospel quickly
becomes the first evangelist. When we are converted, we are transformed. When
we turn our life over to God, things change. If you think that you’ve had an
encounter with God but didn’t find any differences your treatment of other
people, in your schedule, or in your budget, then perhaps it really wasn’t God
that you encountered. Baptism is not the end of the faith journey, so even if
you’ve been baptized, this episode shows us that actions follows salvation.
When God’s spirit infuses your own, it naturally flows from you- like a living
stream of water. Conversion leads to evangelism; “you are the Messiah” leads to
“come and see.”
Now I
realize that evangelism is a scary word for some people. I’m not asking you to
knock on doors or hand out pamphlets. I recently heard a story about a preacher
who serves at a church filled with recovering drug and alcohol addicts. One day,
during the sermon, she said “raise your hand if you’re in recovery from your
addictions; if you’ve gotten your life back after a struggle.” Most of the
hands went up. She said, “You know, some people have trouble with the Bible and
understanding the miracle stories. But your raised hands are the only evidence of
a miracle that I need for my faith to make sense.” Come and see.
Some of you have a similar story of
overcoming addiction and obstacles. Others of you have experienced some sort of
healing in body or soul. Maybe you’ve found forgiveness. Perhaps you’ve found
your voice through the strength and love of God. Many of us, like the Samaritan
woman, have had the obstacle of misguided beliefs before us in the faith
journey. At times, we misunderstand and misapply the words of Jesus. But story
shows us the tenacity of God to keep coming for us, to beckon us towards
worshipping in spirit and truth. In the Eucharist, which we are about to
celebrate, the lines between Heaven and earth are blurred as we receive the
saving and refreshing Body and Blood of Christ. We will remember the sacrifice
of his death and the glory of his Resurrection. I hope that when you come to
the altar rail that you are aware of the miraculous power of this most holy
meal.
Whatever miracle it is that you’ve
experienced in your life, however you’ve encountered the grace of God- don’t
let it just transform you, let it transform our world. Invite others to come
and see. Come and see what great things God is doing. Next, we’re going to
prepare ourselves for the miracle of Holy Eucharist. Come and see.
