God of Living Water

The third week of Lent

Readings: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Last week, with the story of Nicodemus, the Pharisee who comes to converse with Jesus in the middle of the night, I mentioned how the world is thirsty for the grace that only God can give. The grace that Jesus extended to Nicodemus that night. Now this week we hear two stories from Scripture about real, literal thirst. In our first reading, our ancient Hebrew ancestors are wondering the desert after having followed Moses from Egyptian slavery to freedom. They have been in the desert so long they are becoming impatient for the promised land and they begin to grumble. They ask Moses why the Lord would free them from slavery just to kill them with hunger and thirst out in the desert. They question God’s loyalty and wonder if God is even with them anymore. They are thirsty, literally and physically thirsty. They are also thirsty for the mountaintop high they experienced in their liberation from the slavery they had known. Thirsty for the closeness they felt to their God who clearly showed up on their behalf. Thirsty for more.

Then in the gospel reading it’s not the people who are thirsty anymore, it’s God! Jesus, the Lord in the flesh, tired out from his journey, stops for a drink at a well. He has no bucket, no means of getting water from the well, but low and behold a Samaritan woman appears and he says, ‘Give me a drink.’ God too is thirsty. Here physically thirsty.. but he appears also to be thirsty to know us and be known by us.. thirsty for relationship.. for reconciliation.. for justice and peace.

In both stories, God hears the cries of the people and does not leave them wanting. God hears the cries of the Israelites in the desert and God tells Moses to strike a rock with his staff and there is water! A life source gushing forth for all to quench their thirst! God could have said, ‘Come on you guys, after all I’ve done for you you’re going to forget and doubt me that fast!? How dare you!’ But that’s not who God is.. God responds with patience and grace. ‘You need another sign? Okay.. watch me turn this rock into living water.’ The Israelites were not a perfect people, WE are not a perfect people, and yet God is faithful.. always showing up.. always offering gifts of life.

In fact God took this so seriously that God even physically came to us in the flesh, became one of us. Literally showed up.. no longer using others to work miracles through but preforming them himself.. no longer offering up what the people need in the moment, but what the world will need for the entirety of it’s existence.. his own life. Christ’s own body and blood. For all people. For all times and places. For you and for me.

Is it so crazy to think that God thirsts to know us and to be known by us? That God thirsts for relationship? Here is Jesus, God in the form of a Jewish man, who meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well. I don’t think I have to remind you that Jews and Samaritans were sworn enemies.. and yet here God initiates a conversation, a relationship, with an unlikely subject. Not only a Samaritan, but a woman. Jesus says, ‘Give me a drink.’

She reacts in surprise! Looking around and seeing no one else present, she responds, ‘Who? Me? Are you sure? You’re a Jew, I’m a Samaritan. You’re a male, I’m a female. Do you realize how many boundaries you’re crossing to ask me such a thing!?’ She was right to react in such a way. Plus she came to the well at an unpopulated time, expecting to be alone. Why was she isolating herself? Perhaps her community had shunned her for having had so many husbands. Perhaps she was isolated, lonely, and beaten down by life.. life that had seemingly dealt her a pretty lousy hand. Yet Jesus does not see her for her past or her circumstance. He does not care that she is a woman or a Samaritan or an outcast. Jesus just sees HER. A beloved child of God, blessed descendent of Abraham, full of infinite worth… the perfect vehicle for restoration, reconciliation, restored relationship between two estranged nations.

We are reminded in verse 12 that Jews and Samaritans share the same ancestors. ‘Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jacob, son of Abraham, Father of all nations.. before he is renamed Israel and his children are divided up into the tribes of Israel.. the people were one. United by the same history, shared blessing, same covenant with God. So much time has passed, the people now quarrel over the proper place to worship and they now view each other as enemies rather than siblings.

Jesus and this woman meet at an unlikely place at an unlikely time and share an unheard of encounter. She shows up with a lot of preconceived notions and labels about who she is and what her place is in society. She shows up alone, avoiding the crowds, expecting to find no one at the well and instead runs into God. Jesus then initiates a connection that will reshape how she sees herself and the world. Jesus, by just being who God is, helps her to see who she is. God finds her worthy to talk to. God finds her a worthy person to ask for help. Jesus proves he knows her and still doesn’t care! Jesus names her past not to shame her, but to prove that God sees her and knows her story. There is no chastising or demands for repentance. Rather Jesus just says, ‘I see you. I know you. I am your God. I am your salvation.’ In this way Jesus reveals to her who God is. God is gracious. God is unconditional love. God is thirsty for relationship, to know us and to be known. God is thirsty for justice and peace among all of God’s people.

Now it seems that this shouldn’t even matter to a Samaritan, for they do not share the God of the Jews. Yet what does she say when she shares her encounter with the people in her village? ‘He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ (v. 29) Not only do the Jews and Samaritans share ancestors, but they are also both waiting for the Messiah. Seemingly enemies.. thirsting for the same thing.. thirsting for the same salvation.. the same deliverance. When Jesus comes even to the people of Samaria, this is the embodiment of John 3:16 that we heard last week, that God so loved the WORLD! The WHOLE world! Even the people we think don’t count, the people we think are exempt from God’s love.. Christ died for them too.. and they too are thirsty for salvation – for a Messiah. The reality of our God is that ALL were created in God’s image, blessed through the covenant with Abraham, and saved by the blood of Christ. “God proves God’s love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).” For all of us.. because that is WHO GOD IS. God of grace. God of living water. God of ultimate sacrifice.

I wonder.. when have you encountered this God of grace? When has God showed up at the well and offered you living water? When has God spoken to you, told you who you are, and ignited the flame of hope in your heart? When have you encountered God so clearly and miraculously that you had to go and tell everyone you knew?! Maybe it was a miracle like bread that fell from heaven or water that gushed from a rock.. or maybe it was a more subtle experience.. a faint whisper in your ear of God proclaiming who you are, saying ‘I see you, I hear you, I love you and you are mine.’

In whatever way you have experienced the love of Christ for you, I pray, that just like the Samaritan woman, it left you proclaiming that this truly is the Messiah. The one who has come to deliver you, free you from your sin, your guilt, your shame, your fear, whatever weighs you down or binds you up. The one who has come to show you who you are and declare your infinite worth. For if you were not worthy, why would God have died for you?

Jesus came to physically proclaim your worth, to extend to you grace and living, everlasting water.. to have a relationship with you. Let us remember the ways in which God has shown up throughout history and today in the midst of our very own lives. Let us remember these times especially when we find ourselves wondering like our ancestors, ‘Is the Lord among us or not!?’ May we hold on to the hope, the promise we have been offered, that there IS living water to quench our thirst for salvation.

The messiah has come, he has met you at the well and he has seen you for who you truly are. Lean into your identity, Beloved child of God, for your God is with you always and offers you life.

Amen.

“Jesus makes God known to this woman at the well and, as a result, makes her a co-witness to his work in the world, one whose labor helps bring in the harvest – invites others to their own encounter with Jesus.”

“She responds to Jesus in a way that leads Jesus to reveal his true identity to her; in doing so, she sees her own identity evolve. We learn (from her) that in our own encounters with Jesus, we are not only changed, but what God reveals to us changes as well.”

-Karoline Lewis

“The man who told her everything she ever did… and loved her anyway… is what saves her life. In that moment, she sees God. She receives Christ and leaps up to tell.” – Anna Carter Florence