THEME: Jesus is the Living Water
Hope can be in short supply when you are wandering in the desert not knowing if or when you will arrive at your destination; when you are a woman shunned by your community, when your community is not listening to God’s voice.
But hope takes many forms—water in the desert, living water at a well, encountering a person who changes your life, knowing a God who has created everything and loves all that has been created.
MESSAGE: 12 March 2023 3rd Sunday in LENT
THEME: Jesus is the Living Water
Hope can be in short supply when you are wandering in the desert not knowing if or when you will arrive at your destination; when you are a woman shunned by your community, when your community is not listening to God’s voice.
But hope takes many forms—water in the desert, living water at a well, encountering a person who changes your life, knowing a God who has created everything and loves all that has been created.
The life changing encounter with Jesus at the well
- 1-6 Establishes the setting
- 7-26 Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman
- 27-30 Return of disciples and departure of the woman
- 31-38 Jesus and the disciples
- 39-42 The Samaritans and the woman
Major tensions between Jews and Samaritans
Jacobs Well
- A typical setting for an ancient “meet-cute”/betrothal scene
- Jacob and Rachel
- Moses and Zipporah
- Isaac and Rebekah
- The well is a place of intimacy.
Encounter with Jesus
- Mutuality -Jesus needs water and she needs living water, he needs her witness and she needs his invitation into a new life
- Scandalous
- man and woman
- rabbi and woman
- Jew and Samaritan
- Jewish Rabbi and Samaritan woman!
- ALONE!!
- Impossible encounter – yet possible with God. God’s love and grace supercedes religious and cultural boundaries
Nicodemus
- Stark contrast between Samaritan woman and Nicodemus
- Named/unnamed
- Jew/Samaritan
- Man/woman
- Night/day
Religious leader/woman who has been married 5 times
- She, like Nicodemus, point out the impossibility in what Jesus is offering – you can’t crawl back into the womb to be born again and you can’t get water without a bucket
- Unlike Nicodemus – she is not coming to Jesus, Jesus is the outsider who has come to her
- Married five times
- Not a moral statement – Not a “five time loser” or a “tramp” – these shame-filled depictions have no basis in this text
- This is not about sexual promiscuity or sin – note there is no forgiveness, not condemnation – only compassion
- This emphasised the horrifically marginalized position this woman finds herself in
I AM
- The first of the “I am” statements in the Gospel of John
- Direct connection to who Jesus is and who God is
- I am – Jesus is God, the Word enfleshed, the incarnation
- A truly mic-drop moment
- John is multi-layered
Water
- Drink and never be thirsty
- Conversation about water quickly turns into something more.
- She wants him to settle an old dispute – pick a side, but he offers a different way.
Jesus says “But the time is coming – and is here – when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth.”
The term forever is easily read in our culture as starting after we die. Here though, forever does not start with death, “This is a continuing theme in John’s Gospel: life in Christ begins now and continues even through death.” (Rob Myallis, LectionaryGreek.com)
Radical Inclusiveness – The way in which it is presented is radical not only in nature, but in who is included in the presentation.
She does not withdraw from conversation, but actually digs deeper.
Becomes an apostle to the rest of the Samaritans, and “many Samaritans in that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s word.” (4:39)
So, water is a strong image this week. Moses provides water for the thirsty Israelites in the wilderness – although their grumbling and hardness of hearts remains a problem throughout their wilderness journey. Jesus offers the living water that only he can give to this outcast, Samaritan woman of dubious sexual history.
In the light of these two stories, the Lectionary calls us to respond to Christ’s offer of life – in the Psalm to reject the Israelites’ hardness of heart in favour of faithful, trusting worship, and in Paul’s letter to the Romans, to embrace and enjoy God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, which is our assurance of God’s grace and presence, and which sustains us through whatever hardships life may throw at us.
The living water is still given for us, and we still face the choice: to receive it with faith, thanksgiving and worship, trusting in our Messiah and the life he offers, or to complain, grumble and allow our fear, self-interest and hard-heartedness to keep us from enjoying this life.