Third Lent
John 4:5-52
So where did you two meet? That's generally the first question I ask as couples come for pre-marital sessions before their weddings. So where did you two meet? In my case it was at a doughnut shop, maybe for you it was at the Laundromat, Other answers-- sat next to each other in Parkander's world lit class, she was my swimming instructor, believe it or not a blind date and more frequently these days--the internet. If there's not at least a little giggle, a sly smile, a coquettish nod I begin to wonder. For most couples in love retain their wonder at the fact that somehow somewhere out of the entire world they happened to meet this person. And meet them under the most ordinary of circumstances in places they had been a hundred times made special by just this moment.
She was at the well. In Jesus time if people heard that, they half expected the beginning of a relationship. Young women happily brought their flocks to water at the well remembering that the handsome Jacob and the graceful and beautiful Rachel had met there.(Gen. 29:2-9) Little girls fell asleep dreaming of the servant who came to the well to water his ten camels and upon encountering Rebekah gave her two gold bracelets and a gold nose ring because he knew instantly that she was to be the intended of his master Isaac.(Gen: 24:10-61) By the well the virile outlaw Moses defended the seven daughters of Midian when shepherds came to drive them away from watering their flocks and so one of those daughters became his wife. (Ex. 2:15-21)
He met her at the well. He asked for a drink. An ordinary simple request--will you use your bucket to get me a drink. A connection has been made. But before it goes any further let's be quite clear there are some obstacles. "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me a Samaritan woman?" We're from different worlds. We have nothing in common. We're different religions for heaven's sake. Like Romeo and Juliet our families are feuding. Love between a Montague and Capulet will only end in tragedy. So let's cut this off right now before anything develops. You have a nice smile, you seem to be a friendly enough person but there are too many barriers to this relationship so I will resist.
But he will not be put off. Romance is full of the double entendre, the cagey repartee, the flirtatious sparing. "If you knew who I am, then you would ask me for living water." But she is ever the practical one parrying his attempts to take their encounter to another level with practicality. "You have no bucket, where will you get this water?"
Now the conversation takes a turn. Jesus takes the encounter out of the range of flirtation to something much more serious. "Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."
She is engaged, she is believing, she is desirous, She is drawn in "Sir give me this water."
But Jesus is no snake oil salesman handing out the quick fix or the magic pill. "Go get your husband, and come back." The truth telling of her comment "I have no husband" allows Jesus to touch her deepest need, her innermost hurts and injuries. Later she will say "He told me everything I have ever done."
There is no question that this is a love story, perhaps not the one we expected at the start. Not the romance we had prepared for but this is a love story. This story is our story--our encounter with the living lord.
We don't expect to find Jesus at the well. To our mind, Jesus belongs at the places of worship--in church. But the truth is he's on the loose. He's at the well, at the soccer field, in the office, the classroom, the kitchen table.
Surveys say that only 17% of people meet Jesus by a conscious decision to come to church. That leaves 83% met Jesus when they sat next to someone on an airplane, or got into a conversation at a dinner party or read a recommended a book. Jesus isn't stuck on the mountain or in Jerusalem Jesus is coming to us out there where we live in the ordinary, everyday places where we can be taken by surprise, caught off guard.
Like the woman at the well we may want to throw up all kinds of obstacles. We don't seem the kind of people that Jesus would be attracted to. We might think Jesus is looking for really good people or people who think they're really good, people who have it all together, churchy people, people who can sing. I don't know what particular obstacle you're hanging on to before letting Jesus close but I'll bet there is one.
The thing about this love story, Jesus isn't put off. The obstacles don't matter. The barriers that we construct aren't important. Jesus really wants to give us that living water and our coy, demure protests just don't put him off.
Even when he knows us thoroughly, even when Jesus sees those nasty warts and sins we try to cover up and hide from the world, he still loves us. The psalmist wrote just such a beautiful love poem O, Lord you have searched me and known me, you know when I sit down and when I rise up, You discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day for darkness is as light to you."
All those hidden thoughts and feelings that we shove into the dark corners of our lives are known and in spite of them, we are loved and accepted and appreciated.
But that's not the end of our story. Once loved our woman at the well wants to tell the world. She leaves her jar and rushes to the city. "He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" Toughened by a rugged world she is afraid to admit the possibility, but no..she is open and willing to consider. A first step, a courageous willingness to be shocked, surprised, addressed, intruded upon. She was not only a woman willing to be addressed by a strange man whom she didn't know, but also a Samaritan willing to consider the possibility of a Messiah she didn't know.
So thanks to this Samaritan woman, I've got a definition for you. Who is a Christian? A Christian at least this Sunday is someone who is willing to be open to the possibility that something's afoot, that the risen Christ is not only enigmatic and elusive but also flirtatious and revealing; that even thought you may not have the time or inclination to go looking for God, God in Jesus Christ might just be looking for you.
People tomorrow at work, when you take in hand a bucket, or a keyboard, a book or a Bible, keep looking over your shoulder. Something's afoot. Odd things occur. Strange inexplicable coincidences.
This can't be the Messiah? Is he?
Amen