Lent 3A

The differences between last week’s gospel and today’s gospel are literally night and day.

We are in John’s gospel again but this time, Jesus is the one on the move. In Jerusalem, the Pharisee named Nicodemus had found Jesus at night to ask the questions he had.

Now Jesus has gone to Samaria, and he is at the public well in the middle of the day when he encounters a woman there, and it’s Jesus who speaks first, asking the unnamed woman to give him a drink.

As it unfolds, this story embodies the verse that ended last week’s gospel: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.”  (John 3:17)

Although the Evangelist said Jesus had to go there (4:4), Samaria wasn’t actually on the route from Jerusalem to Galilee, so the route wasn’t born out of geographical necessity. Jesus went to Samaria because God was up to something.

John makes sure we know how unusual this scene with Jesus and the Samaritan woman is when he writes, “Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.” (4:9) Their animosity was grounded in six hundred years of feuding. While the Jewish people were descended from the people who had returned to Jerusalem after the exile, Samaritans were descended from the colonial powers who conquered the region and the Israelites who had stayed. This was a centuries old irreconcilable division, even more serious than which barbecue or basketball team is best.

And then there’s this woman. We don’t know her name, and while you may have heard sermons preached about her immorality, it is just as likely that she had been abandoned for being barren, or she had been widowed, or both. Importantly, as it is with so many people we meet, we don’t know the rest of her story. It is hidden from us.

Meeting Jesus for the first time, both Nicodemus and the woman realize that what Jesus isn’t speaking to them the way others do. And what he says to them doesn’t fit with the teachings and assumptions they’ve held throughout their lifetimes. It is a time of disorientation and reorientation.

And, just as Nicodemus asked Jesus, “How can these things be?” (3:9) when Jesus spoke of being born of water and the Spirit (3:5), when Jesus tells the woman about living water, she asks him, “Where do you get that living water?” (4:11)

We don’t hear more from Nicodemus until later in John’s gospel (Ch. 7 and 19) But when the woman at the well hears Jesus declare that he is the Messiah, she immediately goes and tells her neighbors, “Come and see the One who knows everything I have ever done….”

The woman’s testimony sparks my curiosity.

I wonder if she realized how deeply she longed to be known. I think of how easy it is to go through the motions of our day-to-day responsibilities without thinking too deeply about what we need. It is a mark of privilege to be sure that we don’t have to think about whether we will have food or water or a roof over our heads and shoes on our feet.

As I heard the Samaritan woman’s story again, I remembered another story of living water. This one comes from Malawi in southeastern Africa:

In the late 1990s, the people in Malawi experienced drought, their crops failed and there was famine. An earnest young teenager who could not afford his school fees spent his free time reading in the village library, looking for ways to help his family and community. The story of “the boy who harnessed the wind” tells how the young man built a windmill from scrap metal and bicycle parts to create electricity that could pump water and irrigate the land, generating living and life-giving water.

Today a woman in an African country may spend 660 hours a year collecting water and every day tens of thousands of people die from diseases caused by contaminated water. ELCA World Hunger supports water projects across the world. These projects provide clean, safe water for drinking, growing crops and sanitation. Instead of gathering water from far away or from compromised sources, women can work and earn money for their families and children can go to school and get an education and secure better opportunities for their future. As we continue our month-long appeal to raise $5,000 for ELCA World Hunger, we can know that our gifts provide living water for our neighbors around the world.

I wonder as I reflect on the stories of the woman and of that young man, “What does living water look like for you?”

Sometimes, it is the cascade of a spring rain that rinses away all the pollen and grime and makes the grass sparkle;

Other times, it is the refreshment of icy spring water in a glass;

And still other times,

it is the flowing river of grace that washes over us;

the waters of baptism poured on our heads that gives us new life;

the endless well of mercy where God meets us and knows us.

And like Nicodemus and the woman, I’d bet that sometimes we don’t even know that we need that living water - we don’t know what we don’t know – and yet, God shows up where we are with what we need, drawing us again into conversation and relationship, and into communion with God.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for showing up where we need your life-giving presence.

Thank you for sustaining us with grace and mercy, with living water that restores us to relationship with you.

Help us invite others to come and see,

to be witnesses to how you so love the world.

We pray in Jesus’ name.

Amen.