Hard Water
Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:1-42

February 24, 2008


The right time is often an unlikely time of day. In John the time of day matters: Nicodemus came by night, romantically some think at midnight to discuss with Jesus the matters of his heart. The Gospel never tells us whether he left born again, though by his responses we doubt it. The next chapter finds Jesus having no choice but to walk home through the ghetto and at noon in the village of Sychar by Jacob’s well, a Samaritan woman encounters him over a drink of water. In the middle of the day, this woman catches on a lot more than Nicodemus did in the middle of the night.

Tony Campolo, a noted campus evangelist and preacher, told about the old guy from the backwoods who could always be counted on showing up at the revivals tent meetings in these small towns. At the end of each service when the invitation to come forward was given – the old guy would come down the aisle and get down on his hands and knees – then he would raise his arms to heaven and cry out – “Fill me, Jesus! Fill me! Fill me, Jesus!” Then within a matter of a week or two he would backslide into this old ways of living. But when the next round of revival meetings were held – he would one again go to the meeting and walk down the aisle and pray that same prayer over and over again.

Once he was down on his knees yelling to the ceiling – “Fill me, Jesus! Fill me, Fill me, Jesus!” when suddenly from the back of the church some old lady yelled out, “Don’t do it Lord! He leaks!”

Water is a dangerous thing to drink when you leak. The Israelites free at last from their bondage in Egypt always could find something to complain about. They reached the wilderness of Sin and there was no water to drink. They blamed everyone in sight, especially Moses against whom they murmured murderous threats and of course against God.

Moses was beside himself, “They are about to stone me!” he pleads to the Lord of All. It seems like the acting out of one huge pun for God directed Moses to take his trusty staff that had struck the Nile with plagues and divided the Red Sea so that the water stood up and obeyed him, so that there was no water where they needed to go, and now strike the rock at Horeb/Sinai and water would come out of the rock to quench the thirst of all those thirsty Israelites. He probably had to watch that they did not leak upon drinking for they did not seem to get the point that God was in control here. And get this point, Moses was so ticked off that he named the springs Proof and Contention - they were so arrogant and contentious that they wanted proof - water - that God really existed, but God with unbelievable patience gave them water anyway, even if their souls leaked.

Neither the Samaritan woman nor Jesus belonged at that well at noon. We’ve heard the end of the story before it begins, so already it is known that this Samaritan woman has been divorced almost as many times as a movie star and most societies do not see that as a positive statistic. Women usually gathered for water in the early mornings and evening, but not at noon, hottest time of the day anyway. No one would be there at noon to whisper about her and to throw her way darting glances of disdain - and that’s exactly why she is getting her water at noon. She was not there to meet and encounter anyone.

As for Jesus, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out into the noon-day sun in this part of the world; I guess we should add a Messiah. The woman was aghast at the prospect of this man, a Jew as well, was there, so she certainly wanted to keep quiet and survive and get out of there. This man talked to her first, was she in trouble.

He asks for water and the conversation quickly expands into a theological conversation. She is not unversed in many of the religious issues and prejudices that divide Jews and Samaritans, between men and women, for that matter, and the ideas about the Messiah.

“I have no husband,” slips out and in some fashion Jesus already knew that. But “living water” is still hers. She leaves the well stunned and amazed as a different person who can’t stop talking. “He has told me everything about myself.” Not really everything, of course, but for someone who was ostracized and felt forced to fetch water at noon, isn’t it something that she is talking with those who had previously disdained her. They believe her and go to check out this Messiah for themselves. It wasn’t that Jesus knew everything about her; he told her, reawakened in her the best things about her. He made her someone worth knowing again and there is no knowledge better than that for any human being.

The disciples came back from their shopping trip and were shocked to see Jesus talking with that kind of a woman, and she knew what the look on their faces meant and left. Jesus and the Samaritan woman had been talking about water, now the metaphor turned to food and Jesus continues along the same lines about eating food and harvesting crops that you can’t put on a plate. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus would say that life is more than food and the body more the clothing.

Before we go too far here, there is always a danger of drifting off blissfully into the clouds, thinking of ourselves as one rock group called us, “spirits in a material world.” We do need food and water and clothing and shelter and most certainly the poorest among us need it just as much as you and I who are comfortable. You cannot be desperately hungry and a spirit in a material world. Our bodies and souls cannot be divided as so many spiritual religions think happens.

Yet, this is why this is the Gospel. Perhaps we do not read or hear this story for as much as three years in the lectionary cycle, but I have to admit I had never noticed before a piece of the Gospel left behind. The woman left behind her water jug at the well and instead of going home she went to tell everyone whom she had met and how he had made her feel. I know it is hard to understand this in the middle of a February winter day in Saskatchewan, but in the noon-day Middle Eastern sun it is hot and dangerously dehydrating. One cannot be without water for long there, but there was something more important to her right then than a drink. She didn’t leak; she was filled up by Jesus.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan