Living Water from the Font of Many Blessings

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on the 3rd Sunday of Lent, February 24, 2008.

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

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Lent is often thought of as a journey, a time of preparation as we follow the movements of Jesus from the moment just after he was baptized through his travels around Judea and Galilee to the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Lent ends with Jesus introducing the sacrament of Holy Communion, being betrayed by his disciple, dying on a tree, and rising from the tomb. It’s quite a trip, quite a journey, and in the case of our Lord, it begins after his baptism by John when he is called to the wilderness where he fasts.

Following his example, fasting is a traditional activity during Lent. Sometimes the fast is celebrated by giving something up for Lent. Often, that leads to people giving up meat or eggs or dairy during the forty days. For some Eastern Orthodox groups the fast includes giving up fish, wine, and olive oil too.[1] Some fast completely, eating and drinking nothing during daylight hours until sunset when the fast is broken.[2] Each of these Lenten fasting practices is about eighteen hundred years old, so the fast is nothing new.

The breaking of the Easter Fast is even celebrated by us here in the church. On Shrove Tuesday, the day preceding Ash Wednesday, to prepare the household for the fast, all fats and oils are removed from the home. It’s the “Jared from Subway” version of Mardi Gras, literally Fat Tuesday. This is why one of the traditional courses at our Easter breakfast (or Break-Fast, eh?) is pancakes. Because it is wonderful to welcome both the return of the Lord and the return of dairy, oil, leaven, and sugar back to the diet.

While our reading today doesn’t really deal with the Lenten fast, we remain on the Lenten journey. Jesus has left Judea and is on his way to Galilee. Verse four from this chapter of John’s gospel tells us that Jesus had to go through Samaria. While this is true, Jesus had to go through Samaria; it might be more true to say that he chose to go through Samaria. From Judea, they could have gotten to Galilee by traveling east and then north through the Decapolis on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. They could have traveled to the west to the Mediterranean and then sailed north to Galilee. Neither of these paths is direct, but they are viable. Too, they probably weren’t uncommon among the Jews who would have avoided Samaria like the plague.

Still, the gospel said he had to go through Samaria. So if he didn’t have to go through Samaria because that was the way AAA laid it out that way on his trip-strips, then why did he have to go through Samaria?

The reason why follows in our reading. At the well Jesus broke every rule in the book. Jesus was at the well when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus asks for a drink. That’s breaking the rules: Jews would have nothing to do with Samaritans. They were the trashy cousins you don’t want your respectable friends to know about. Our reading says “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.”[3] Another translation says “Jews do not associate with Samaritans.”[4]

But Jesus breaks the rules not only by associating with a woman who is not his wife, he asks her for a drink, to share a common cup. This is not living according to the rules, but I ask, was he breaking the rules?

This scene at the well harkens us back to 1 Kings with the story of Elijah asking the widow of Sidon for a cup of water. Elijah and Jesus both interrupt the women’s daily chores seeking hospitality. It also takes us back to the betrothal stories of Abraham’s servant seeking a wife for Isaac in Genesis and Moses at the well of Midian finding a bride of his own in Exodus. In each of these stories water is used as a sign from the Lord, one a sign of family and the other a sign of new family.

In each of these instances, social conventions were out the window and a new relationship was forged. What Jesus was doing was not new to scripture. It was new again to the mitzvah, the rules established by the Priests, the Pharisees, and the Scribes. This new relationship was dangerous, but of course, new relationships are always dangerous.

The woman responds, amazed to Jesus’ request. After all, Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. Since no Jewish man, especially a Rabbi would share a drinking cup with a Samaritan woman; she curiously asks how he can ask her for a drink from the well.

“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.” At that time, there were two definitions of living water. One is life-giving water and the other is naturally flowing water, like from a spring or stream. If she had known which he had meant, a stunning transformation would have taken place. If she had known he had meant that he was the living water, the source of eternal life-giving water, the rest of this passage would have been unnecessary. Instead, she went for the more common, more plausible meaning.

He corrects her telling her the water that he will give her will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. With his water, earthly thirst evaporates. She is no fool, she wants this living water. She wants to drink of the water that will eternally quench her thirst.

John’s gospel shows her knowledge of the ancient faith and one of the biggest differences between Jews and Samaritans. She tells Jesus that she knows the difference between how their peoples worship. The woman said to him, “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” She continues, “I know Messiah who is called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”

Then, paraphrasing the ancient word for the name of the Lord he tells her in no uncertain terms who he is. He tells her “I AM.”

This is when all heaven breaks loose in Samaria. His disciples return; shocked that he is violating rules of the day speaking with a woman. Oh the scandal he is bringing upon their little brigade. They beg him to eat something but he tells them he has food they know nothing about.

If talking to the woman wasn’t enough, now he’s eating with her too? Can you imagine how these men are losing their minds wondering if their Rabbi had thrown all convention and sense out the window for a little water and a piece of bread?

No, fear not fellow followers, his food is not grain and grape, his food is to do the will of the one who sent him and to complete his work.

Jesus dares us to reconsider what sustains us. What nourishes us and its source. The Samaritans were so interested in finding the answers to these questions that they invited him to stay with them so they could learn more about the word and the work and the life-giving water. Through this not so simple action, because Jesus chose to stay and eat and share with the people he shares nothing in common, many came to testify that he is truly the Savior of the world.

Jesus had to go through Samaria. Not because it was the easiest route, but because it was the most difficult. Jesus touches the untouchable yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Renewed by God through the Holy Spirit we receive the same assurance in this gift of living water, by which the great benefits of life through him in the waters of our baptism are set before our eyes to behold.[5]

Lent is a journey, one Jesus began by fasting. When talking about fasting, we twenty-first century Americans have to take the words of St. Jerome into account. Jerome once wrote, “When the stomach is full, it is easy talk about fasting.”[6] It is easy to talk about giving up dairy products when we have soy milk and egg beaters. It is easy to talk about giving up meat for a month or so when we know that at a moment’s notice, the local store has every sort of beef or pork, fish or fowl we could imagine.

So our fast and what we need to break the fast is not steak and pancakes or chicken and waffles. The drink we need is the life giving water of Jesus, the Messiah called the Christ and the food we need is to do the will of the one who sent him and to continue their work. This is how we are to break the fast of living in the world of humanity and drink the living water from the font of many blessings.

This water, this work this new relationship is dangerous. Jesus showed that himself when he approached the Samaritan woman at the well. But of course, new relationships are always dangerous.

[1] Vitz, Evelyn Birge, “A Continual Feast.” HarperCollins, 1985
[2] Socrates the Historian (Fifth Century), “The Lenten Triodion.” Translated by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber
[3] John 4:9c, New Revised Standard Version
[4] John 4:9c, New International Version
[5] Paraphrase from The Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter XX “Of Holy Baptism,” Paragraph 3, “What it means to be baptized.”
[6] Merton, Thomas, “The Climate of Monastic Prayer.” Kalamazoo, Michigan, Cistercian Publications, Inc.