Lent III

Lent III A And the rest of the story


I grew up in a household where self-esteem and self-regard were in short supply. Both my parents had abusive fathers. My mother in particular had a difficult time, with 10 brothers and sisters. Her mother died when she was 8 and a step mother was also verbally abusive, telling her how little she meant in the world, and that she was nothing.

Today we have another woman who most probably had very little self-worth. She was a Samaritan, a member of a tribe that the Jews do not consider very worthy because they do not worship in the approved manner. She is a woman in a world dominated by men, where she has had multiple husbands. There are many theories of why she has gone through so many husbands—some of them may have died, not unlikely in a society where the life expectancy may have been not much past 35, and perhaps 40 for those who could afford good food and shelter. She may have been set aside by husbands if they found she could not have children. All a man had to do was give her a bill of divorcement on the grounds of her barrenness. We don’t know why she had so many husbands, and we don’t know why she was living with a man who was not her husband, but we are certain that a woman could not live alone at that time and make a living. Women needed men and their access to financial security to live.

We don’t know exactly what was going on with this unnamed woman at the well. She is such a contrast to Nicodemus whom we heard about last week. Nicodemus is an educated Jewish leader, this woman is an uneducated outcast of the Samaritan sect. Nicodemus is a man with power in the synagogue, this woman has to come to get water in the heat of the day, as opposed to the other women of the village who would have come in the early hours to gather their water, so we know she was outcast within her village. Nicodemus knew a lot about the faith, but must see Jesus in the night, this woman knew nothing about her faith and met Jesus at noon. We know Nicodemus’ name, we have no idea what this woman was called.

But the one thing that links these two people who have conversations with Jesus , that while they are strangers to him, yet Jesus knows them both. Jesus calls Nicodemus a wise leader of the synagogue, and he tells the Samaritan woman he knows she has had all five husbands and is living with another man.

For the unnamed woman, an outcast in so many ways, this revealing of her situation is a shock. They start their conversation about water, and Jesus tells her she should be asking him, who asked her for a drink, for living water. First she is confused just like Nicodemus is about being born from above. Jesus is challenging the people he meets to think spiritually. Then Jesus talks about her husbands and she is amazed that she is so known by this man whom she calls a prophet.

As they continue to talk about living water and the worship of God in spirit and in truth, and she responds with what little she knows about the coming of a messiah. Jesus then names himself as that messiah. She runs back to her people to spread the word that it is not just a prophet she has encountered but the messiah who told her everything she had ever done.

Note that she there is an implication in her tone and something that is left out but could easily have been said. “he told me everything I have ever done…” and she could have added: “and he loved me anyway.”

This woman is transformed into the first apostle—the first to tell of the messiah, not to believing worshipers in the temple but to Samaritans who worship the wrong way. The Samaritans immediately come to believe because of her testimony.

What a transformation. The outcast woman who most Jews would not have even spoken to, Jesus has folded into his arms of love and understanding, and given the very words that she needed to understand that living water from God was needed for her and all those like her. The woman who could only draw water in the heat of the day has instead drawn living water and the knowledge of God’s great gift in the savior Jesus. The woman who didn’t even have a name has named Jesus the messiah, named the hope of the Jews, not only the perfect ones of Jerusalem, but the messiah of the imperfect ones of Samaria.

Jesus shows us a God who is doing great things. God knows us. God knows the dark things within us and about us, and God loves us not only despite who we are, but because of who we are. God in Christ has shown that God is a God of expansive openness and love, not of condemnation and exile. That while the Israelites wander in the wilderness of dry dust God is ready to give them the water they need, and in Christ God gives water that will quench our thirst today and always.

Such a great God who cares for us and about us may at times seem far away. The Samaritan woman who had been in six different relationships may have felt that no one cared about her or for her, and in fact loathed her and cast her out of their society. God must have felt very far away for her, and yet in her downcast state, she meets the messiah who tells her that she is worthy of God’s living water.

In our feelings of unworthiness, God is trying to reach us. God knows our challenges, and loves us even in the midst of them and perhaps because of them. Do you know how much you are loved by the God of living water today?