Scientists and water quality specialists spend countless
hours focusing on water. What they focus on is helping water stay clean healthy
living water. Water with the right living organisms in it to promote life:
living water. People who study water have a single-minded focus: good water.
Lent asks us to have a single-minded focus on God. The
stories we get in the Gospel during Lent are riveting. One right after another
they come at us. They come at us like fastballs, and we have two choices: duck
and run, or stay and listen. And hoo boy! It’s easy to duck and run, and much
more pleasant too. Probably why some people stay away from church during Lent: when
your only two choices are duck and run or stay and listen, ducking and running sure
seems easier.
What will we get during these weeks if
we stay and listen? Last week it was God came into the world not to condemn the
world but to save the world. This week we get the story of the Samaritan woman
at the well. Next week we have the man born blind who finally sees. And on the
fifth Sunday in Lent Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.
Palm Sunday gives us Matthew’s Passion Gospel, a
hair-raising account of crowd mentality, violence, and evil. So maybe with that
line-up we should just duck and run.
Forget about all this until Easter rolls around and hope for better weather,
chocolate eggs, little girls in ruffled dresses and pretty hats and little boys
in bow ties and uncomfortable suits.
But, if we’re brave enough to stay and
listen, we get these huge treats from the Gospel. They’re not exactly
chocolate, but they are the treats tucked in between temptation and crucifixion
and the biggest reasons people still seek the church: Jesus welcomes all with
Living Water. And not just all of us who show up regularly, or once a month, or
now and then, but Jesus welcomes all, quenches all thirst with Living Water.
In this week’s Gospel story Jesus
welcomes a Samaritan women in broad daylight. A woman at a well with a water
jar, coming to fill her jug with plain water. She leaves knowing about Living Water
and goes out to tell others about the Living Water she found.
This woman has gotten a bad rap. She’s
been described as an outcast because she came to the well at noon instead of
morning or evening. Scholars used to think women only came to wells in the
coolest parts of the day. Yet more recent scholarship shows filling a water jar
or even two or three jars morning and evening was not enough. Women went more
frequently. If they’d asked us, we probably could have told the scholars that.
How many times do you turn on the tap
or reach for a water bottle at home or work or school every day?
The woman also gets a bad rap because
of her five husbands and that she’s now living with someone but not married. It’s
certainly not mentioned in the text, but the woman may have been a victim of
the Levirate custom of marriage. This custom theoretically existed to provide
sons to care for a woman and carry on the family name. Do you remember when the
Sadducees try to trap Jesus with that hypothetical question about multiple
marriages? The Sadducees described a man who died leaving his wife childless. She
marries her dead husband’s seven brothers one after another.[1]
That’s in Matthew’s, Mark’s and Luke’s Gospels. Maybe that’s what is going on
with this woman. Could she be a victim rather than a hussy?
Perhaps. Perhaps she’s been passed from man to man and no
one wanted her. The customs of the day provided for this, if no brother wanted
her she could be passed along to a cousin or other male relative. Perhaps, in
the end, she was offered food and shelter by a man who refused to actually acknowledge
her as his wife since that was yet another option of the customs. There are
myriad ways in which this woman’s story could be tragic rather than willful or
sinful.
In the end, none of that stuff matters
to Jesus. He wants the woman to know he knows her. But more importantly, he
wants her to know it doesn’t matter who she is. But you’ll also notice – which
supports the idea the woman is not some big sinner – Jesus does not ask her to
repent, does not say he forgives her sins. He offers her Living Water.
What matters most is this: Jesus offered the Samaritan woman
Living Water not because of who she was, but because of who God is. And Jesus
offers us Living Water not because of who we are, but because of who God is.
Living Water for all because of who God is.
Maybe instead of ducking and running, we might stay and
consider these things. What do we need to have our thirst quenched with Jesus’
Living Water? What do we need to know to the depth of our being that Jesus gave
us Living Water not because of who we are but because of who God is? What do we
need to go out and tell someone about the Living Water we found? AMEN.
The
Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2017
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