Water at the Well

When the Tsunami struck Asia the ironic thing is that those who had been devastated by water crashing into their lives and destroying their homes needed water. It was a case of “water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink.” It was the first thing the relief agencies sent – countless bottles of the stuff. Without it the people who were clinging on to life would die.

We take water for granted because, on the whole, its supply to us is constant – available at the turn of a tap. For many, however, that is not true. At least a billion people have to walk more than 3 hours each day to obtain it and more than 5 million people, most of them children, die every year from illnesses caused by drinking poor quality water.  Perhaps the only time we stop taking water for granted is when we are on a journey and, as our body de-hydrates. If we haven’t had the sense to take a bottle of water with us we are soon thirsty and crave water.

Something like this happened to Jesus as he journeyed from Judea to Galilee. He was wearied  by the journey which took about three days and about noon, when the sun was at its hottest, he arrived at a well near Sychar in Samaria – a well that had been dug long ago by Jacob for his son Joseph.  He had sent his disciples into the town to buy food and sat alone at the well. No doubt he looked down into it, hearing the water below but with no means to get at it.

It was then that he had one of the most significant conversations in the Gospel with the woman who came to the well.  The fact that Jesus spoke to her at all is surprising.  Samaritans and Jews, like oil and water, didn’t mix. They were sworn enemies.  Though they shared a common culture in their following of the Law of Moses, the Samaritans rejected the claim that Jerusalem and its Temple  was the centre of Judaic worship.

So strong was this rejection that they had committed several acts of terrorism and violence on the Jews, such as desecrating the temple and scattering human bones. Similarly, Jewish leaders had burned down the Samaritan centre of worship at Mount Gerizim.  This pattern of attack and counter-attack is all too familiar in our own day and, then as now, it produces hatred, mistrust and warfare between groups of people who in other respects share a common background. I suppose we understand this best if we think of the years of troubles in Ireland.  One thing was absolutely certain as a result – Jews did not talk to Samaritans.

Similarly, Jewish men did not behave with familiarity towards women. The role of women in Jewish Society  was that of subservience though I was reading something recently from a Jewish source which suggested that the place of women was both misunderstood and misrepresented and that there was much more equality than we give credit for. Even so, in the Synagogue service, men still recite a prayer in which they pray “Blessed art thou O God …who hast not made me a woman.” 

Not that we in Christianity can be proud of our own record in the treatment of women. Our current debate about whether women can be Bishops is, for many of us, proof that we have a long way to go in the Church before the place of women is truly recognised.

The important thing with regard to today’s Gospel is that Jesus once again defies convention and once more pushes forward the boundaries (– which is perhaps something General Synod members might bear in mind in their current debates.)  That Jesus spoke to her came as a big surprise to the Samaritan woman and she immediately challenged him.  What then follows is a delightful encounter for a number of reasons.

Not least because the woman shows herself as spirited and not at all phased by this strange Jew who engages her in a witty and lively conversation. Jesus is dealing here with someone of intelligence even if her lifestyle, as it transpires, shows a distinct lack of circumspection!  The initial request for a drink of water – which didn’t seem to result in Jesus actually getting anything to drink – soon gave way to a theological discussion.

As so often in the Gospel, Jesus uses a particular human situation and gives it a new meaning.  The discussion about drawing water from the well became a teaching by Jesus that he can give a different kind of water which slakes the spiritual thirst – that of Living water.  The woman misunderstands and we get one of those cross-purpose conversations. She thinks Jesus is offering her something which will allow her to stop coming to the well whereas, we who are in the know, realise he is talking about Himself and about his gift of eternal life which wells up in the soul of the believer as a refreshing life force.

The conversation then shifts again, this time back to the woman herself. Jesus reveals that he knows all about her life circumstance – the five husbands and the current lover.  This is an uncomfortable moment for her and she does what many of us do when challenged personally – she quickly shifts the conversation away from herself .  Calling him a prophet she latches on to a discussion about the central division between Jew and Samaritan – the position of the two Temples.

Quick-witted Jesus then uses this to tell her that places of worship are less important than the object of that worship – God himself. I suppose this is a reminder to us that church buildings only matter in so far as they help us to find God. Real Worship is centred on God who is both spirit and truth.  Once again the woman engages with this shift in the argument by speaking of the Messiah (the Christ), which shows that she is well versed in the beliefs of her community.   Jesus then uses one of John’s favourite formulas for proclaiming Jesus as God. I AM HE – because I AM is the name God gave himself to Moses.

At this point, the disciples returned with their shopping and the woman departed but she is a very different person to the one who arrived at the Well.  Jesus, in this personal encounter, did what he often does – he converted her.  She rushed back to the city and told her friends about Jesus. Faith which is shared is faith which has taken root and already the woman had received a life-change which compelled her to not only believe but share that belief with others.  They too rush to see him and are themselves converted – no longer by the testimony of the woman but by their own experience.

This Gospel is a perfect one to hear in Lent because it reminds us of the importance of personal encounter with Christ as a basis for faith.  It reminds us too that in any missionary or evangelistic activity we may be catalysts but we do not convert hearts. Only God can do that.

And we are also reminded of something we have actually prayed at the beginning of this service that all our desires, secrets and thoughts are known to God. Jesus looked straight into the woman’s heart and he does the same with us.  But he does this not to convict us of our sin or awaken our guilt. He dealt with the woman’s life-style in a very matter of fact sort of way. At the same time, however, she is left in no doubt that he knows all about her and this knowledge is disconcerting. She quickly deflects the conversation but it is clear from what she told her friends in the city – ‘Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done’ – that she took it all to heart.  What we need to remember – and the woman is proof of this – is that God looks into our hearts not to condemn us but to free us. Letting God into our hearts need not frighten us. Quite the reverse. Only by so doing can he liberate us from things that are not good about us and change us from within. For the woman, as for us, this conversion moment was a moment of Salvation.

Like all conversions it must be an on-going process – along the lines of I was saved, I am being saved, I will be saved.  As Mother Jane (SLG) says in the quotation I have put in this week’s Lent extra – at the end of Lent,

“we do not just thankfully abandon disciplines undertaken for its duration, but hope to go on into the rest of the Christian year walking more humbly and more wholly with God than we did before.”

Not only for the rest of the year but for the rest of our lives. The Living Water which is Jesus is the sustaining, life-giving drink which, like earthly water, we need to partake of daily – and in a quantity that keeps us spiritually healthy.  Only so will the image of God become fused with our human image so that we show Jesus in who we are and in what we do.

Finally, we can be certain that God will use our every day encounters with others as a way of communicating his saving love. Whenever we meet others it is as if we are Jesus waiting at the well. We are given many opportunities to tell others how God has changed our hearts and saved us from within – and not simply conversations but also, and especially, how we deal with others.  Like Christ would deal with them is the only answer.

But there is a little more to this that the Gospel can tell us.  When the woman showed what Jesus had done for her, her friends rushed to see him. When they met him, they too were converted . It was not the woman’s testimony but what they heard and saw for themselves which persuaded them that Jesus truly is the Saviour of the world.

Our faith expressed in our lives can bring others to worship God but it is only when they experience Him for themselves that their hearts are truly converted.  So, we have to make sure that those who come to join us in worship – perhaps for the first time – will not only feel welcomed but also feel and see that Jesus really does matter to us here and that all we do in this place is for His glory. If we really believe in Jesus as our Living Lord, then we must show this with a living faith. Only if our Worship is from the heart, and is Spirit-filled, will the opportunity be created for others to meet Him and be converted by Him.