3rd Lent
John 4:5-42
“A simple experiment will distinguish two types of human nature. Gather a throng of people and put them into a ferryboat. By the time the boat has swung into the river, you will find that a certain proportion have taken the trouble to climb upstairs in order to be out on deck and see what is to be seen as they cross over. The rest have settled indoors to think what they will do upon reaching the other side. …We may divide all the alert passengers on the boat into two classes,:those who are interested in crossing the river and those who are interested in getting across. And we may divide all the people on earth , or all the moods of people in the same way. Some of them are chiefly occupied with attaining ends and some with receiving experiences. The distinction of the two will be more marked when we name the first practical and the second poetic, for common knowledge recognizes that a person poetic or in a poetic mood is impractical, and a practical person is intolerant of poetry.” Written over a hundred years ago by Max Eastman, a teacher of writing, this experience would be a true today as then. There are those who are poetic and those who are practical.
Our lesson today is superficially a clash of the poetic and the practical. The woman at the well is all about the water that is H2O; water that fills a bucket to wash with or a cup to drink. Jesus is all about the water that fills our deepest needs and sustains us forever. Our woman at the well is a practical person. She likes a predictable, cause effect sort of world. There’s another one of these practical people in the musical The Fantsticks who, lamenting how their children are turn ing out, sings, “Plant a carrot, get a carrot, Not a Brussels sprout. That’s why I like vegetables: you know what you’re about.” Our Samaritan woman wants to plant a carrot and get a carrot. She wants to “cut to the chase” get from point A to point B without a lot of folderol and confusion.
And frankly that’s what’s making her perplexed. She knows all the reasons that this strange man shouldn’t have anything to do with her. First of all, it’s pretty clear that she is a Samaritan and he is a Jew. Now to us, as outsiders, that doesn’t seem to be a huge difference but to the Jews and Samaritans as it is to Sunnis and Shias, ELCA and Missouri Synod Lutherans, Northern and Southern Baptists, well it’s a big deal. We don’t generally get along so it’s better to just stay out of each others way. So why is this Jew asking her a Samaritan for a cup of water? What’s he even doing here when most Jews would cross the Jordan to avoid Samaria on their trek from Galilee to Judah?
And then it’s pretty apparent that she is a woman. Religious Jewish men of Jesus day didn’t talk to women, especially if they were alone, and especially if they weren’t related to each other. The whole encounter might be misconstrued and both the man and the woman would be in trouble. So what was this strange man doing talking to her?
And finally, as her encounter with Jesus moves along, we find that she is, to use an archaic not too charitable phrase, a “woman with a past.” She has had more husbands than Elizabeth Taylor—well let’s just say she’s been unlucky in love. Perhaps she did not dispose of these husbands in divorce. Maybe they died. Which makes her one of the most unfortunate widows ever.
Sowe see a Samaritan, a woman and one of questionable character. What is this man doing talking to her? With her practical, no nonsence, non poetic approach to life it makes no sense. But Jesus wants to know her for who she really is. Jesus ignores all those preconceived notions so that he can bring her the living water that will really quench her thirst. And honestly that’s what Jesus wants to do for us all—to cut away the trappings of society, the confinement of religious restrictions and our own injured selves in order to reach our hearts and offer us grace.
I spent Thursday and Friday at the seminary this past week. I participated in an orientation session for supervising pastors new to the internship program and I interviewed six students who might want to come to Holy Spirit to do their year of training. I interviewed three men and three women, from 26 to 55years old from six different states. In the hour long interviews they were asking questions about our church to try to get below the surface and the superficial forms I had filled out. And I was trying to get to know them behind the page long autobiography they had carefully crafted to present themselves. We were trying to see each other and to understand what we had to offer each other. So after a half hour or so of chatting I asked them “What do you think of rich people? Now I know that in your heads right now you’re all saying, “Rich whose rich? But ,maybe you’re looking at the person sitting next to you in the pew and saying “Well yeah I guess they are rich.” I asked this because there are preconceptions about people who have wealth just like there are preconceptions about people in poverty and those preconceptions can be just as inaccurate and destructive. What I hoped to hear the interviewees say was something to the effect that the gospel, the good news is for everyone and behind the outer accoutrements everyone needs the living water that Jesus has to offer.
Sometimes it is hard to see people for who they really are. Jesus conversation with the Samaritan woman is the longest dialogue he has with anyone in the gospels. In this dialogue he peals away the layers until the woman comes to realize that he really sees her. Being seen. It’s a powerful thing. To know that another human being has truly seen you, understood you, received you for who you really are; that is pure grace. Being seen is what a hungry infant wants when she cries for someone to hold her and feed her. Being seen is what a tired toddler wants when they throw a fit at the mall. Being seen is what depressed teenagers want when they start that self destructive behavior. Being seen is what lonely adults want when they…………Human beings long for communion, for deep connection. When we don’t have it we literally waste away.
You know in a lot of the healings Jesus does he’ll say “Your sins are forgiven” and give the directive “go and sin no more” but in this dialogue with the Samaritan woman her whole life with all its guilt and despair is taken up and surrounded by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It is miraculous. To Jesus we are more than a collection of deeds and misdeeds; we are the possibility of a new creation, n Christ. Being seen means that we are known, and loved and forgiven. It is pure grace.
And her reaction—well she leaves her water jug right where it is and goes to the village to tell them “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. He cannot be the messiah, or is he?”
Amen