Introduction
In today’s gospel the Samaritan woman asks Jesus for water, an image of our thirst for God. Jesus offers living water, a sign of God’s grace flowing from the waters of baptism. The early church used this gospel and those of the next two Sundays to deepen baptismal reflection during the final days of preparation before baptism at Easter. As we journey to the resurrection feast, Christ comes among us in word, bath, and meal—offering us the life-giving water of God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Prayer of the Day
Merciful God, the fountain of living water, you quench our thirst and wash away our sin. Give us this water always. Bring us to drink from the well that flows with the beauty of your truth through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
First Reading: Exodus 17:1-7 Because the thirsty Israelites quarreled with Moses and put God to the test, Moses cried out in desperation to God. God commanded Moses to strike the rock to provide water for the people. The doubt-filled question—“Is the Lord among us or not?”—received a very positive answer.
1From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” 4So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Gospel: John 4:5-42 Jesus defies convention to engage a Samaritan woman in conversation. Her testimony, in turn, leads many others to faith. 5[Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
27Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30They left the city and were on their way to him.
31Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” 34Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
Sermon: There is a story told of a little boy who was put to bed, only to ask for a drink of water. And again. And again. And again. Does this happen at anyone’s house? Many parents know this well from when their children are small. Anyway, the dad, finally exasperated, says, “If I hear that one more time, I’m going to come up there and spank you!” Of course, the voice comes again: “Can I have a drink of water?” The dad says, “That’s it!” and starts up the stairs. Out of the dark comes a small voice, “On your way, would you get me a drink of water?” This is our Old Testament lesson of today in a nutshell. ~~~The Israelites have been rescued out of Egypt, and what do they do? They murmur. They mumble. They complain. “Can I have a drink of water?” “Would you get me a drink of water?” “Why did you take us out of Egypt, only to let us die of thirst?” They get their drink of water. There is a lot said about water this morning as we hear that same request in today’s gospel story: Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink of water. ~~~Stories with women at the center don’t happen very often in our scripture. For some reason, we – at least the “we” of history and tradition – want to understand the story as a miniature morality lesson with a woman as the bad example. Take Eve, for example. Eve is blamed as the one through whom sin and death entered the world, and all her descendant sisters – that’s all of the ladies! – bear her stain. Or there is Mary Magdalene, friend of Jesus, one of his first disciples. We know her as a harlot, though none of that comes from scripture. It is tradition designed to insult her. How often have you heard her celebrated as the first witness to the Resurrection, as a teacher of faith, as the first apostle? ~~~~ Women show up so infrequently in our scripture stories, that when they are there, it might be a signal to look closer, dig deeper, wait for the critical message that will be revealed. If we look in a Bible that names stories – you know the kind, it puts story titles on the top of the page -we’ll see that this story from John’s Gospel is often known simply as The Woman at the Well. Sometimes it is known as The Woman of Samaria. Both of these factors are important to the story in identifying who she was: First, a woman. Second, a Samaritan woman. Third, an immoral Samaritan woman. ~~~By anyone’s reckoning, she is a rather poor choice for an illustration of goodness – someone highly incredible as a disciple. And as a witness, one who offers testimony? Not worth considering. In her own time, she was nobody to a Jewish man. This is the longest conversation recorded in the New Testament between Jesus and anybody. There has to be something in this story more important than how many men she had known. ~~~Consider the story. Jesus asks the woman for a drink of water. She expresses her astonishment that he would talk to her. He says to her that if she only knew who he was, she’d be asking him for a drink – of living water. She says, “Okay. May I have a drink of this water?” He says, “Go. Call your husband!” Now, to this point, she’s talking about plain old well water. And while that’s the drink that Jesus asked from her, it is not the water he offers to her. So, still with well water in mind, she engages the conversation and doesn’t call anyone. ~~~After the woman realizes Jesus is the Messiah, after she realizes what he’s been talking about as “living water,” she takes her new and tentative and shallow and not-yet-fully-formed faith and tells someone about it. She went back to the city, the scripture says, and talked to people about her experience. “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony… And many more believed because of [Jesus’] word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.’” That’s the highpoint of this story: the believers! And it all got started when she believed – and when she told someone else of her belief. ~~~Her understanding may have been incomplete; “He can’t be the Messiah, can he?” But it was enough to hook people, to pique their curiosity, to invite them in. “Many Samaritans in that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” This woman, who is often remembered badly in church history for her sexual relationships, who would not have been considered a credible witness, was an early disciple. This woman, whose witness and testimony were only as strong as: “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” brought many to faith. ~~~Now for us: How will history remember you? Will it be for your behavior? Or for your testimony? This woman, the Samaritan woman at the well, is an example to us of discipleship. However strong or weak or confused or partial or new or unclear or even certain your faith—when was the last time you talked with someone about faith so that they might believe? ~~~We sing at Christmas, “Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills, and everywhere!” The encouragement to spread the Good News, to talk of faith and the wonders of God, permeates our scripture and rings in our hymns. That’s what this gospel story is about: not a woman at all, but about Jesus and the living water poured from his hand. Now, as people who do God’s work with our hands, who are called to be led by the Spirit to serve God and share Christs love with all. When we are asked for a drink of water, what might WE offer in Jesus’ name? Amen.
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