Sermon - February 24, 2008: Third Sunday in Lent

Rev. Rob Ruff

It was thirst that brought them together.

The day was hot, the journey was long – and Jesus was thirsty. His followers left to find food. And Jesus went to find something to drink. He arrived at Jacob’s well, and encountered a Samaritan woman there drawing water at midday.

Normally women made their daily trips to the well in the cool early morning hours, where they would greet one another and talk about the news. But this Samaritan woman was alone at the well under the heat of the noonday sun – which signals that she was an outsider, 
an outcast – not welcome at the morning social hour.

I’m thirsty, Jesus tells her. Give me something to drink.

“How is it”, the woman says to Jesus, “that you a man, you a Jew, 
ask a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” Jesus was breaking the rules by speaking to her. She was a woman, alone in public. And in those days, men (who prayed each morning,‘Thank God I am not a woman’) did not speak to, and, in some cases, did not even look at women in public. In addition, this woman was a Samaritan which dropped her stock even lower because it “…made her a half-breed and a full pagan as far as the purists were concerned.” (Barbara Brown Taylor) 

“How is it that you are speaking to me?” she asks the thirsty man. 
Jesus responds, “If you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would ask Him and He would give you Living Water.”

Jesus isn’t concerned with following rules. And he senses that she too is thirsty. Not a physical thirst like his, but a deeper, spiritual thirst. He senses that her soul is parched and dry.

It was thirst that brought them together. 

“If you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would ask Him for Living Water.” Well, of course, she doesn’t understand what He is talking about. I say “of course” because Jesus was so often then 
and is so often now misunderstood. She thinks Jesus is offering her regular water, like the water deep in the well before them.

But he’s talking about a different kind of water: spiritual water, 
holy water, water with the power to quench her deepest thirst
once and for all. “The water I shall give will become in you a spring of living water welling up to eternal life.” “Give me some of that water”, she says “so I won’t be thirsty ever again and so I won’t need to draw water here each day.”She still doesn’t get it. 

So to press his point, Jesus says, “Go, and get your husband.” She answers, “I don’t have a husband.” Jesus tells her, “It’s true, you don’t have a husband. You’ve had five husbands, and you’re not married to the man you’re living with now.” It isn’t clear what happened with her five marriages: Deaths? Divorces? Unfaithfulness? We aren’t told. 

But we are told that Jesus knew the truth about her, He knew about her 5 marriages and about the man she was living with. And this truth was likely the reason she was an outsider – the reason she was alone at the well at noon, the reason her soul was parched and dry.

I expect her eyes opened wide when she heard that Jesus knew the truth about her. “You must be a prophet”, she tells him. The thirsty man, who knew all about her, wanted a drink from her, 
and sensing her thirst, wanted to give her a drink as well. As Barbara Brown Taylor wrote, the intimacy of it all seemed suddenly too much for her: “So she changes the subject… to religion…, trying to draw him…into an argument about Jews versus Samaritans. You can hardly blame her. If he knows about all her husbands, there’s no telling what else he knows about her, and she decided she would rather not find out.” She chooses to “… step back from him and cover herself up again. But it does not work. When she steps back, (Jesus) steps toward her… He will not let her retreat. If she is determined to show him less of herself, then he will show her more of himself. ‘I know that Messiah is coming,’ she says, and he says, ‘I am he.’” (Taylor, “Face to Face with God”, Christian Century, 1996)

It’s the first time he’s revealed this to another human being. 
First he tells the truth about her, then he reveals the truth about him. And with these truths, Jesus pours living water over the woman. Notice that he doesn’t judge her, doesn’t scold her, doesn’t tell her to clean up her act. No he simply tells her the truth – 
about who she is and who he is. And in so doing the thirsty Jesus gives the thirsty woman Living Water.

And what is that Living Water?


It is holy love, the very grace of God, which has been “…poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5) For only the holy water of God’s love has the power to revive dry, 
parched, dying souls. Only the living water of God’s grace has the power to welcome outcasts into the warm embrace of God’s family.
And where do we see God’s love and grace most clearly? We see it on a Friday at noon, when the Son of God hung between heaven and earth, dying in love, at the right time, for all of us outcasts,
while we were still weak. “Here’s my life, you need it more than I do.” he said.

It was thirst, Sisters and Brothers, that brought us together with Jesus. For on the day he died, on that dark, holy day, as he hung on the cross at midday, on that day too Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”

According to theologian Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus’ thirst on the cross “…is nothing less than (God’s) thirst for us. God desires us to desire God.” (Hauerwas , Cross-Shattered Christ) From the thirsty Jesus, we receive living water. From his wounds, we receive healing. From his death, we receive life.

It was thirst that brought us together. Our thirst – the thirst we outsiders have for love, forgiveness, acceptance; Which is our thirst for God – As the deer longs for flowing streams, wrote the psalmist, so longs my soul for you, O God. (Psalm 42:1)

And, praise be, that same God also thirsts for us. Our thirsty God, says, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture says, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ (John 7:37-38) 
So come to the font, my thirsty Brothers and Sisters, dip your fingers in that pool of living water. Trace a wet cross on your forehead in remembrance that you are baptized; then know that you are no longer an outsider but a beloved child of God. Come to the table, my thirsty Sisters and Brothers, eat the bread of heaven, 
drink from the cup of salvation, and thirst for God no longer.

And then what? Then what shall we do?

Then we do well to follow the example of our sister, the Samaritan woman, who after meeting Jesus left her water jar behind and told everyone she met, “Come, see a man who told me all I ever did!”

So leave your burdens behind. Leave behind anything or anyone who would weigh you down or prevent you from following Jesus. Leave your water jar behind. You don’t need it any longer. Then go, follow Jesus and tell everyone you meet along the way, “Come, see the man, come, see the Savior, who showers me with Living Water.” 

AMEN.

TOP OF PAGE