Lent 3 Year A March 3 in the year of our Lord 2002
Morning Prayer and Sermon at Christ the King
Scripture
Psalm 95
Exodus 17:1-7
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-26 (27-38) 39-42
_Most of the western United States suffers severe droughts in several decades every century. These are times when the grass is brown or there is no grass at all and the land is cracked and broken; times when cattle are forced to gather around broken up bales of hay and creep feeders; when stock tanks dry up and city water supplies run low. The landscape becomes the portrait of a thirsty land and in the Sierra there is fear of fire. These are times when there is little but thirst for living things, plant life or animal. Dryness pervades everything and thirst for life-giving water grows all-important.
Such conditions of drought can provide a powerful image for the inner, spiritual life. This is a metaphor that Jesus used in the encounter told in today's Gospel. Jesus lived in a land that was chronically dry. Every day, every year, it gives an appearance not unlike the pastures of the West in time of drought. Imagining life in a drought-stricken land might help us identify with the people who lived in the Holy Land during Jesus' time. They recognized how critical water is for life-especially when there is not enough -- or when it is difficult to obtain. We identify with them as we remember how good water tastes when we are thirsty. When we are dry -- really dry -- there is nothing like a drink of cool, clear water. Using that truth, Jesus gives us a spiritual lesson based on the common image of water for a thirsty person.
Today's Gospel story takes us to an unlikely setting -- Jesus in a foreign region, Samaria, face to face with a local woman at Jacob's well. Samaria was the region of Israel that had been the northern part of the unified kingdom under Solomon’s son Rehoboam. The foolish young man lost the 10 northern tribes in his arrogance at the beginning of his reign. The northern tribal leaders had petitioned him to not tax as much as his father had done. Rehoboam’s reply to them was:
My father made your yoke heavy, I will make it even heavier.
This was understandably not well received and the northern tribes rebelled and choose another king and called their nation Israel, with its’ capital at Samaria. The southern kingdom would be called Judah, with its’ capital at Jerusalem. From that point the nation was divided. When the Assyrians conquered Israel in the 6th century BC, many Jews were deported to Assyria and non-Jews settled in the lands in their place. Intermarriage between these foreigners and the remaining Jews led to a mixed race of impure Jews in the opinion of the Jews who lived in the southern kingdom. Mount Gerizim had been set up as a worship center by the Samaritans to rival Jerusalem by the Samaritans. Most Jews did everything they could to avoid traveling through Samaria, because contact with the Samaritans would make them ritually unclean. Jesus did not live by such cultural restrictions and the route through Samaria was a shorter route to the region of Galilee. He was going to Galilee to avoid a major confrontation with the Temple leaders early in his ministry.
The scene is one of two people who would be very unlikely to strike up a relationship in the normal course of events-a Jewish man and a Samaritan woman, religious enemies, two strangers of the opposite sex, alone together. This was an unusual event, even in public, at a time and in a place where there was a cultural taboo against women and men speaking if a male relative had not introduced them. In last weeks gospel Jesus spoke with someone his disciples would have considered an appropriate candidate for salvation. Nicodemus was a man, a leader of the Jews whom Christ was trying to reach and a representative of the highest socio-economic class. We can see the disciples whispering to themselves that this was a good political move by the Lord. If Nicodemus is brought on board it will be very good for the movement. The poor woman at the well is both a lowly Samaritan and a shunned woman who had lived with at least six different men and was avoided by other women. Had the disciples been present, they may have thought that talking to her was a complete waste of time. We should not prejudge as share our faith; we cast our nets as his 21st century disciples. We should let the Lord lead in determining who is or is not a good candidate for the gospel.
Returning to our story, when Jesus asked the woman to give him a drink of water from the well, she was naturally startled, and asked, "How is it that you a Jewish man are asking me, a Samaritan women, to give you a drink?" Ignoring the question, Jesus employed his metaphor: if you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying it to you, you would have asked and been given living water.
The confused woman, thinking he meant fresh water from a spring, replied something about Jacob's well not having any such water and wondered where Jesus would get "living water."
Jesus continued with the spiritual imagery, saying:
Everyone who drinks of this water [from Jacob's well] will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty." Still thinking literally, the woman said she'd sure like to have some of that water because it was difficult to draw water from the well.
As the story continues, however, we discover that the woman of Samaria has a deep thirst of a different kind -- a spiritual one. Her life had not been good -- she had married five times and the marriages had ended either in divorce or with the death of her spouse. In the course of the narrative Jesus, remembering normal protocol told her to find her husband and return to the well with him. She answered, “ I have no husband.” Jesus bluntly pointed out that now she was living in an unmarried relationship, after having had five husbands. This is the moment of truth for the Samaritan women. She could have angrily responded. Instead she understands that the only way this complete stranger could know this is if he were inspired by God: I can see that you are a prophet.
When the woman finally discovered who Jesus was and what he had to offer, he took her spiritual thirst and connected it with the life-giving spiritual water that only God can provide. That same power and truth is available to us as well. God provides refreshment for our spiritual thirsts.
There are certainly times when everyone is thirsty in spirit, when spiritual drought makes us especially desperate for the water that can give life to our spirits. These are thirsty times when the creators of our social conventions portray material life goals that are shallow and without purpose, These are times when national and world events are worrisome and leave us with a feeling of deep dryness of the soul. The night before last I had nightmares about American Foreign policy. For such times, Jesus offers us what he offered the Samaritan woman. We can have the living water that Jesus promised if we share with her an honest willingness to admit to being the sinners that we are; and a thirst for the life giving presence of Christ in our lives. The season of Lent is a time of self-imposed drought that can help remind us that our deepest thirst can mark a time for us to yield more to God's spirit, to become Him more active mastery in our lives.
To each of us who comes to him in hope of living water, Jesus, our Christ, not only gives us more than an ordinary drink, he offers us a life where we too become springs of living water. Like him we have the privilege of offering to the world this water of salvation. Jesus said to the woman and he says to us,
Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
The woman was so overcome with the truth and power in Jesus and his message that she braved the probable rejection of her fellow villagers. She spoke with such conviction to the Samaritans that her village begged Jesus and his followers to stay with them that they might hear all that he had to say. The Lord stayed in that village two whole days. And we can be certain that the life of that woman and the life of her village were never the same.
This is our opportunity. We can keep going back to the well, drawing water. We can observe the rituals of our faith and practice but take care to not loose control of our own lives. Jesus invites us to experience more, if you knew the gift of God, you would not hold back but ask for everything I want to give you! No one in this world offers us as much as Jesus does, it is a good move to get on board and follow him!
Glory, glory, glory to the Lord God Almighty
Who was, and is and is to come!
Joseph J. Munoz
Quincy, California
The Collect
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.