“Knowing You” – Sermon on March 27, 2011

March 27, 2011

Scripture: John 4: 5-30, 39-42

So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The 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.) Jesus 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.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but 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.’ The 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.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you* say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am, the one who is speaking to you.’
Just 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?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his 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 Saviour of the world.’

Sermon: Knowing You
by Rev. Doreen Oughton

So have you heard the story about the radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland?
Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT’S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. It’s your call.
Now this is an urban legend, floating around in various forms for decades. I like this one because in contrast to many urban legends that are just meant to gross us out or shock us, this one contains a message. It is a message about what we believe about ourselves, what others believe about us, and who or what we truly are. Today’s scripture, John’s story of the woman at the well, is a study in these themes – what we believe about ourselves, what others believe about us, and what we truly are. Let’s journey together through this passage, exploring these themes, and see if there is something we can learn about ourselves, about who we truly are.
The story starts with Jesus stopping, tired and thirsty by Jacob’s well. A woman approaches the well, and Jesus asks her for a drink. What can we tell about who Jesus is, and who the woman is, from this beginning? Jesus has human needs, he hungers and thirsts. He sees the woman as a person who can help him with these needs. Is there anything we can know about this woman from this brief introduction? One clue is that she is coming to the well at noon. The time that most people went to gather water was in the cooler early morning or evening hours. At noon, with the hot desert sun beating down, most people would be resting in the coolness of their homes, or perhaps out in the shaded marketplace. So it would be a good assumption that she is someone who prefers to avoid people. She somehow knows immediately that Jesus is a Jew, and asks how he can request a drink from her. She points out their religious differences. What inferences might she be making about him? Certainly he challenges her expectations of how a Jewish man would act. The text tells us that Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans and the reason is that Samaritans are seen as unclean. In this time and place, it was taboo to drink from a Samaritan cup, or eat food from a Samaritan. One would become unclean in doing so. She also points out that she is a woman of Samaria, and men speaking to woman in public was taboo in both Samaria and Israel. Men didn’t even speak to their wives in public. You know what I find interesting here is that she asked him the question that was on her mind.
Many commentators and preachers characterize this woman as being full of shame, of being an outcast, as understanding herself to be less than. To me, her willingness to question Jesus belies this characterization. True, she may prefer to avoid crowds, perhaps has been the subject of gossip and whispers, but that does not mean she has absorbed and internalized shame. Perhaps she knows what it is like to have someone jump to conclusions about who one is. Perhaps she wants to hold fast to her sense of self and it is easier to do so without the stares, the whispers, the judgment. And rather than jump to conclusions about Jesus, she asks him: How is it that you do this, break this taboo. She is communicating something of herself to Jesus, and asks him to do the same. And so he answers her. He tells her that he is someone who has the means of giving her so much more than what he has asked of her. He is asking of her a drink, and he is able to give her living water that will satisfy her thirst, whatever it may be. He can provide for her an eternal spring of sustenance. He tells her that he is a gift of God. Whew! Some answer! Already he has given her more that she bargained for. But she is not too overwhelmed to go for it. She is not skeptical, not timid. As simply and plainly as he asked her for a drink, she asks him for this water he speaks of. In her asking for the living water, she focuses on physical relief, no more thirst, no more trekking to the well, no more daily reminder that she is not part of the community.
It’s an interesting turn, what happens next. Instead of saying directly that he does not mean water literally, Jesus instructs her to go get her husband. Taken in isolation, this comment seems very strange. It seems he is saying she can have the water as long as she gets her husband. I wonder how she reacted internally to that, knowing that she does not have a husband. Does this disqualify her from getting this living water? But she pulls no punches, tells him the truth, that she has no husband. Again I am struck by the clarity with which she speaks about herself. And Jesus’ response to her here gives us a clue about why he made the request. He is now able to say what he knows about her, not only that she has no husband now, but that she has had five husbands, and that she has a man with her now who is not her husband. In saying what he knows about her, he is also communicating something about himself, his vision, his ability to truly know. He knows of her deeper thirst and seeks to provide a different sort of spring. Her assessment of him as a prophet indicates that his message has been received. I wonder, though, how she knew he wasn’t just passing on gossip he’d heard about her in town. I’m moved again by her openness and trust. She doesn’t assume anything negative. She accepts this deep knowing of his.
In studying this passage I was struck by the numbers of people who, in lifting up Jesus’ acceptance of this woman, his lack of judgment, impose a great deal of judgment and assumption about this woman. Some hypothesized that she was a prostitute, many that she was at least loose, hedonistic, a sinner. Precious few noted the lack of evidence for this characterization. In those times a woman could not initiate a divorce, so if divorce was in her history, it was not her doing. It is also possible, though, that all her husbands died. It was customary in Jewish culture, and possibly in Samaria as well, that a woman should marry her husband’s brother if the husband died without producing heirs. Perhaps she married into a family with many men of ill health. What kind of fear and talk would that generate amongst the people of the village – black widow, a cursed woman. Isn’t it likely that people would want to avoid such an unfortunate person? And as for the man she has now who is not her husband, perhaps he is her dearest friend, the only one not afraid of her, another person who knows who he is, and who she is. Perhaps they are not allowed to marry. Perhaps he is even more of an outsider than she is and she is risking the judgment of others in order to extend care to another. We don’t know. Did Jesus know? If he did or did not, he seems to accept without judgment the circumstances of her life.
And she accepts him as a prophet. In accepting this she takes the opportunity to initiate a theological discussion. In doing so she shows herself to have thought about religion, faith, worship. She wants to get it right. In response to her questions, he again gives her more than she is asking for. She is asking which of the two ways of worshiping is correct, but he stretches her further, giving her a new way of thinking about it. Again, it seems the message is received because she then expresses her faith that the Messiah is coming and will speak truly about all things. And then he gives her the biggest disclosure – that he is the Messiah of whom she speaks. The English translation has Jesus saying “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” But the Greek is different, it leaves off the “he.” “I am, the one who is speaking to you.” This harkens back to an exchange between God and Moses in the book of Exodus. When God speaks to Moses from the burning bush, and gives him his mission, Moses wonders what to say when the Israelites ask God’s name. God says, “Tell the Israelites I AM sent you.” So there is a message here that Jesus is not only the Messiah, but is God, I AM.
And the next thing that happens with the woman is that she leaves her water jar and heads into the city, speaking to all the people about the man she met. This is so fascinating to me. What does she say to try to get the people to come see for themselves? That this man told her everything she’s ever done. He didn’t tell her anything new. She was well aware herself of everything about her that he said. Did he say anything more than what anyone in the city could have told her? What was it about his telling her that shifted things so dramatically? And it was a dramatic shift. She, the woman who preferred to keep to herself, who held fast to her own sense of self seemed to be freed, released. She sought out the people, she was able to get people to listen to her, to let go of their fear of her and seek the same truth that she had received. Somehow without criticism, without giving advice, without trying to strike a bargain, Jesus had this woman changing her course.
I wonder, what might Jesus tell me about my life that I already know but would free me none-the-less. What might he tell you? That you are worry about making ends meet, about staying afloat? That your heart is breaking over the loss of a loved one? That you, like the woman at the well, feel isolated, disconnected? That for all your success in this culture – family, career, respect, still you thirst for something more? That even in your marriage you feel lonely, unseen and unknown? What might Jesus free you from? How might your course be changed? What is Jesus asking of you, and how much more is he willing and able to give you? Perhaps you want to insist that you can’t change course, you have invested too much in the way things are. You have a large ship accompanied destroyers and cruisers and support vessels. Jesus, don’t you see! His response? I am the light and the way. I am the rock. I AM. It’s your call.