Good News:

John 4:4-30 Common English Bible and The Inclusive Bible

4 Jesus had to go through Samaria. 5 He came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, which was near the land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from his journey, so he sat down at the well. It was about noon.

7 A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 8 His disciples had gone into the city to buy him some food.

9 The Samaritan woman asked, “Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.)

10 Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.”

11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and the well is deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 Surely you don’t pretend to be greater than our ancestors Leah and Rachel and Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it with their descendants and flocks?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The

water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will never be thirsty and will never need to come here to draw water!”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, get your husband, and come back here.” 17 The woman replied, “I don’t have a husband.”

“You are right to say, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus answered. 18 “You’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn’t your husband. You’ve spoken the truth.”

19 The woman said, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you and your people say that it is necessary to worship in Jerusalem.”

21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you and your people will worship Abba God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You and your people worship what you don’t know; we worship what we know because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the time is coming—and is here!— when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth. Abba God looks for those who worship God this way. 24 God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that the Messiah – the Anointed One – is coming and will tell us everything.”

26 Jesus said to her, “I Am—the one who speaks with you.”[a]

27 Just then, Jesus’ disciples arrived and were shocked that he was talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 The woman put down her water jar and went into the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see someone who told me everything I have ever done! Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to see Jesus.

Reflection: “Baby Steps to Living Water”

This Sunday falls neatly between International Women’s Day on Mar. 9 and World Water Day on Mar. 22 and today’s reading from the gospel of John highlights both themes: women and water.

Only 93 women have speaking parts in the Bible, and only 49 of them are named. Today we are privileged to witness a conversation between Jesus and one of the 44 unnamed women, the one simply identified as “a Samaritan woman”. We listen as these two meet as strangers but move deeper and deeper through layers of truth towards the deepest truth of all.

Most of the artwork depicting this encounter shows a typical well, with a circular stone wall around it and a crank for lowering a bucket to the water below. But when I picture this scene, I always see a big pit with tiny uneven steps spiralling down to the precious water far below. I don’t know where that image came from. The closest thing I could find in an online search were photos of wells in India and Peru, not the middle East.

But please allow me a bit of creative license, and picture that well with me now. Picture the rough steps circling down and down and down, no handrails, maybe slippery with moss or sand, worn smooth in the middle by many feet. Imagine resting at the top, your legs aching from the many miles you have walked through the rough countryside. The hot sun is at its highest point in the sky. You can almost taste the sweet water at the bottom, but you have no bucket and you can barely summon the energy to stand let alone walk down those many steps and back up carrying the water.

You are content to rest for a moment as the breeze dries the sweat on your brow. Then out of the shimmering heat haze walks a woman, come alone to the well to draw water. And from your exhaustion and your thirst, you simply say, “Give me a drink” and she says, “Who are you, to ask that of me?” And so begins the dance of dialogue, careful step by careful step, baby steps across barriers and boundaries, down and down to the very depths of each other’s longings and true identities.

I choose this image because it illustrates the many potential dangers, the possible miss steps, that lurk below the surface of this conversation. It is not a safe conversation. A man and a woman, alone together, breaking gender and religious and cultural boundaries by even speaking to each other. Jesus, the Jewish teacher, risking his reputation. The unnamed Samaritan woman, reputation probably already in tatters, risking anything from snide judgement to physical assault from this stranger. What prompts them to venture step by slippery step together through these minefields?

It’s a very different conversation from the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in an earlier reading this month. Nicodemus, a learned and powerful Jewish leader, comes looking for Jesus in the dark. The Samaritan woman, an outsider in every possible way, comes upon Jesus unexpectedly under the noonday sun. One week Jesus is having a secret midnight meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The next week it’s a chance encounter at the water dispenser in a highway truckstop with a woman from the nearby reserve where

there is a boil-water order. Nicodemus brings doubts and a reluctance to fully commit to Jesus. The Samaritan woman brings honesty, curiosity, a deep longing for something she can’t name, and a bit of a feisty attitude.

Jesus offers the water of new life to them both, but he understands their differences and adjusts his teaching accordingly. With Nicodemus, he gently chides him for relying so heavily on logic and learning. He urges him to move more completely out of his comfort zone into the full immersion of baptism, of conversion, of being reborn through water and the spirit.

But with the Samaritan woman, Jesus takes a slower route. Baby step by baby step, they work their way towards understanding. Baby step by baby step Jesus walks her down to the Living Water that he offers, the Living Water that he is.

His first step is to ask her for a drink, revealing his own humanity and need, and letting her know that she has something of value to offer. She responds by pointing out the huge disparities between them. He tells her of the living water that he can offer to her, and at first she questions him on a literal basis. He can’t give her water, he doesn’t have a bucket. But she starts to see that the water he offers is more than the water at the bottom of that dusty well. It is water that will quench a deeper thirst, and the longing for that water begins to grow inside her.

The next step is a step of radical truth-telling. Jesus encourages the Samaritan woman to tell the truth about her life. Some see this as a confession of her sins, but if we listen carefully there is no shame in her words or shaming in Jesus’ response. “I have no husband”, she says. “What you have said is true!” Jesus responds, and hearing him describe her life the woman understands his prophetic role.

Truth-telling is so crucial to this encounter. There is truth in the way that Jesus and the Samaritan woman name their needs and their differences. There is truth in her frank account of her personal life. And after a bit of theological debate about the disagreement between the Jews and Samaritans about where to worship, Jesus says that where we worship is not important to God. What is important is truth. It’s such an important point that it is repeated. “…true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth. Abba God looks for those who worship God this way. 24 God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth.”

Truth telling is a hard, hard discipline. It requires a great deal of courage and strength tempered with kindness and tact. But truth is necessary for spirit to work. Truth clears the air, truth clears the decks. Truth may be painful in the telling, but it opens up the wound for spirit to begin the work of healing.

Telling Jesus the truth allows this woman to hear the truth from Jesus. Jesus says to her, “I Am—the one who speaks with you.” I am the Messiah, I am the Living Water.

In many cultures, only moving water is considered to be living water – the water that burbles in the little brook or flows past in a mighty river, or rushes over a precipice in a dramatic cascade. Living water is constantly renewing itself, mixing with the air and ground through which it travels, journeying from source to ocean.

The Living Water that Jesus offers lies deeper than that. It is the source water, the spring in the desert. It is accessed and fed by truth-telling, by uncovering the sandy layers that we use to try to hide our true selves from ourselves, from each other, and from God. This is the water renewed and nourished by God’s deep, abiding love. This is the water that we can go to again and again, taking those baby steps down to the source of our being, worshipping in truth and spirit.

It is both a Lenten journey through the wilderness of untruth and self-deception, and a journey for the rest of our lives. Like the Samaritan woman, we can drink from that well of love and grace and revelation again and again, and be strengthened and nourished to joyfully share that gift with our communities and with all creation.

I’d like to close with a prayer adapted from “A Contemporary Celtic Prayer Book” by William John Fitzgerald:

The woman said to Jesus, “Give me this water.”
The holy wells of Ireland and Wales! The holy wells of Scotland! The holy wells of Samaria!
All openings to the womb of Mother Earth!

Jesus, sometimes we feel alone at life’s well.
We feel alone drawing the waters of sustenance, of refreshment.

Are we alone drawing water that nourishes the soul?
“No, my child, you are not alone.

I sat with the woman at the Samaritan well.
I had time for her and then sent her with good news.

Drink from Brigid’s Well with blest people of all ages.

Drink from Patrick’s well with blest people of all ages.

Drink from the Samaritan Well – with me!

Then take life-giving water to others who are alone.”

Amen.