The love of God poured out
Commentary
Object:
The Old Testament lesson and the gospel for the Third Sunday in Lent tie closely together in that they involve questions about leadership and authority, and the necessity that leaders remain closely tied to God. Moses is ready to tear his hair out over the whining and complaining of the Hebrews. Jesus must educate his disciples as well as a Samaritan woman on the importance of reaching out across social and political barriers to talk with our neighbors so that peace may reign.
Both lessons are also based on stories surrounding sources of water. Water, of course, is of primary importance throughout the scriptures. In hot, dry climates, one cannot survive more than a day without water to drink, and care must be taken that the water one does have does not evaporate before it is drunk. The threat of not having water that is fit to drink is intolerable, and this necessity plays a major part in stories throughout the long ages of the Bible. In the case of Moses, his continued leadership requires expertise in seeing to it that the people have enough water to drink, cook, and wash. In Jesus' case, he uses the need for water to open a woman's mind to the concept of Messiah as the source of everlasting living water.
The selection from Romans 5 is not about these themes, although one might stretch to say that Paul is showing both leadership and authority in what he teaches. This passage is really the heart of the gospel that Paul preached: that Christ suffered for us when we were on the wrong path and powerless to find our way home, so that we might be reconciled to God. For this reason, this passage probably ought to be seen as the centerpiece for our preaching on the Third Sunday in Lent, and the Old Testament and gospel passages as a surrounding motif.
Therefore, we will begin with the Epistle Lesson.
Romans 5:1-11
The Letter to the Romans is the last writing we have from the apostle Paul, and reflects the culmination of his many years of ministry and evangelizing. The fifth chapter is the presentation of what he considers to be the core of the Christian message.
The title on this passage in the NIV is "Peace and Hope," while the NRSV says it is about "The Results of Justification." This represents two rather different interpretations of what Paul wants to stress in the passage. Peace and hope are the result of our being justified through faith. But which is the more important thing for us to understand about this passage? It is the concept of justification.
What does it mean that we are justified? We may think in terms of a court case, where we might say "The actions of this person are forgivable under the circumstances," but this is a mistake. Rather, we should be thinking about justifying our checkbooks, where we make certain all of our bills have been paid and our balance agrees with what the bank says. Or we may think of a workman making a piece of metal or wood to fit into a specific place to prevent or repair a misalignment, wobble, or slippage. A carpenter measures twice before cutting, yes; but then there will need to be a little sanding here or there so a piece will fit perfectly or stand straight. The piece is thus justified.
This is not necessarily a comforting thought. God is going to be sanding our edges? Knocking the corners off our personalities? The answer may be "yes"! We are justified by our trust (faith) in God. We put ourselves into God's hands, so that we may be made fit for God's use in this world. In so doing, we give up our own ideas about what we are capable of, and let God lead us. This is the meaning of gaining access into grace.
We might think about a child taking music lessons. When a small child gets his or her first violin, for example, parents (and the child!) have a hard time listening to the daily practice. The child has to learn how to hold the violin, what notes each string can produce, where to place their fingers on the neck, how to hold the bow, and how to apply the bow to the strings. This is not to mention learning how to tune the violin each time before practice (and halfway through)! The child has all of this to learn before s/he can produce even a simple tune, and a great deal of patience is required on the part of everyone within earshot. But what a difference even a few lessons can make! The student suddenly is able to play a simple tune and have it sound like music rather than a cat being tortured! With perseverance and good teaching, s/he may be able to perform gracefully for an audience and even be rewarded with applause. All of this is necessary for the formation of a violinist; why should we think that becoming a Christian is less trouble?
Becoming justified through faith requires a complete turnaround in our lives. The word for "sin" in the Hebrew means to be turned from the wrong way on a path, or to have missed the mark with an arrow. Paul tends toward the first translation, only more so. We have been on the wrong path, living as enemies of God. Of course, this is the way Paul saw himself, since he had been actively pursuing and arresting those who followed Christ. But all of us have our moments, if not a lifetime, of denying our need to be saved, usually from ourselves. We continue on a road that seems to be going nowhere, despite the signs that tell us we are going the wrong way.
When I was serving a church, I had a sign behind my desk that said "POWERLESS." It was a reminder for me that I could not solve the problems of those who came to me, that they had to be willing to do the work needed. But one afternoon a man came to talk, and he got quite agitated.
"What's that sign about, anyway?" he asked, pointing at it. I turned to look at it and turned back to look at him.
"What do you think it's about?" I asked, smiling.
He twisted in his chair, turned a bit red, and said, "I don't like it. Take it down."
"No, I need that sign. It reminds me of a profound truth about all of us, all our lives."
Clearly he did not hear what I was saying. "Well, I don't like that sign. I really want you to take it down."
"Well," I said, "I'll take it down and give it to you, if you'll keep it where you can see it."
Of course he did not want to, and he did not. Evidently he didn't want to admit his powerlessness. His behavior was a powerful lesson to me; our fear of being powerless is at the base of most of our trouble, and being unwilling to face that, we engage in all sorts of behavior that is bad for us and for those around us.
It is in those moments, Paul says -- when we are powerless -- that Christ died for us. Paul himself is amazed at this thought. He goes on to say: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die." Yes, it is our human nature to avoid death and suffering. So we usually hesitate before rushing toward a burning building or a car crash in hopes of saving someone's life. Isn't it just for this reason that most charitable organizations use pictures of suffering children in order to move our hearts to share our money? We are programmed to rescue suffering children, but not so much when the sufferer is a grown man. But, Paul says, Christ's death has justified us -- made us fit for God's use.
The next thought is one that is often overlooked. Verse 10 says, "For if... we were reconciled to [God] through the death of his Son, how much more... shall we be saved through his life!" There is great emphasis these days on the power of Christ's death on the cross, to the exclusion of learning how to live through the life of Jesus. We tend to paint God as a god of wrath, from whom we have been saved by Jesus. But this is dangerous business. God is still the God of creation, who made us as the image of God on earth. God loves us, and according to the scriptures, is Love (1 John 4:8; Deuteronomy 7:9; 1 Kings 8:23; Psalm 36:7). So we should know that, despite our destruction of the earth by our misuse, our insistence that "greed is good," and our personal habits that destroy both body and soul, we are loved. And how do we know? We know because God took on human flesh, becoming Jesus of Nazareth. He suffered as we suffer. He had compassion. He reached beyond the "safe zone" (see today's Gospel Lesson). And he was willing to let people torture and kill him to prove that love.
This is the "boast" that Paul refers to, not that God demanded the death of his own son, but that God was in Christ, suffering as Jesus suffered, so that we would no longer be afraid of God. This fear is supposed to be removed "because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit." This new frame of mind is what allows us to "boast in the hope of the glory of God." We hope to be able to see God, to take in God's glory, and be unafraid because we have been reconciled to God.
It is that hope, that reconciliation, that love of God made real and visible that allows us to accept whatever suffering we have to endure. Just as that child learning to play the violin will put up with the production of horrifying sounds, hoping that eventually she will be able to produce beautiful music, we learn to put up with irritation, pain, and frustration, hoping that our perseverance in following Christ's teachings will build Christian character in us. Is this difficult? Yes, but when we persevere, that gives us hope that we will also live in the glory of God.
John 4:5-42
Jesus comes to a town in Samaria called Sychar, where Jacob's well is located. The well is still there, making it a reliable source of water for some 3,000 years, an amazing feat, especially when you know that tourists keep throwing stones in the well to determine its depth, which means that today the well is "only" 85 feet deep. It was -- and is -- mostly covered, in order to prevent large objects from falling into the water and to cut down on evaporation. As Jesus sat down on the cover, a woman came to the well.
But this story does not begin with Jesus sitting down. It begins with his decision to be in Sychar, to travel through Samaria at all. It is the most direct route from Galilee to Jerusalem, but not usually used by Jews. When he was a child of twelve, his parents had taken him to Jerusalem, but they had undoubtedly crossed the Jordan to travel up the eastern bank rather than going through Samaria. This was because the Samaritans were descended from those Jews who had been left in the land when the upper classes were carried off to Babylon. The Babylonians stationed in Judea had introduced the worship of their gods, which had tainted the purity of Jewish worship that those living in Babylon had fiercely maintained. The result was that the Jews and Samaritans became enemies and stayed that way down to the time of Christ.
So the decision to go through Samaria was certainly a problem for his disciples, which Jesus was apparently ignoring. It being noon, the hottest part of the day, the disciples left him at Jacob's well to go into town to buy food. So Jesus was alone, sitting in the shade, recovering from the long journey and the heat of the day. And then this Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her for a drink of water!
Jewish men at that time were forbidden to speak to a woman in public. It was a protective law, to shield the woman from harassment. In addition, men usually looked close to the ground when they were in an area such as the village well, so as not to seem to be staring at a woman. In the case of this Samaritan woman, there was, therefore, a double reason for Jesus to not speak to her. But he doesn't just speak to her -- he asks her for a drink of water. He has to, if he's thirsty, because each woman coming to the well to draw water brings her own dipping vessel, so there is no public cup he might use. There is a third reason for him not to talk to her: she has come to the well in the middle of the day.
Even the woman is shocked. "How can you ask me for a drink?" Included in some of the ancient manuscripts of this story is the comment that a Jew will not drink from the same cup as a Samaritan. No good Jewish man would do such a thing. Besides, he surely knows that the women make their treks to the well in the cool of the morning and evening. To come in the middle of the day indicates problems. Either there is sickness in her home requiring extra water, or she is avoiding the other women of the town for some reason (or both).
But Jesus turns the question back on her: "If you knew... who asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." Living water is the term for water from a spring or river -- a clean, moving body of water, such as the spring that supplies Jacob's well.
She proves herself to be an unusual woman. She talks back to Jesus. What does he mean by living water? Does he think he's better than Jacob, who dug this well deep and wide enough to provide water for his whole family and all his animals as well as his descendants over a thousand years? This is a normal conversation for a man and a woman today maybe, but not in Jesus' time. A woman was not to challenge a man, question him like this, take an attitude.
Jesus makes her an offer. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst." He promises that the water he gives will "become to them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." This is a very odd sort of water, isn't it? But she is instantly interested. This going back and forth to the well is hard work. She would like to be able to stop doing this! Of course, this is not at all what Jesus meant. But he continues anyway.
"Go, call your husband and come back."
"I have no husband."
And then Jesus pushes her button. He knows. He knows her, her background, her shame. She has been married more times than the law allows. Even under Levirate marriage laws, she is not entitled to more than three husbands in her lifetime. The fact that she has had five husbands indicates either that she has had seriously bad luck, or she is terrifically difficult to get along with. But either way, no man will marry her after all that. The man she is with will not marry her, but she is taking the chance that he will at least stay with her and care for her. But she is very bright. She immediately identifies Jesus as a prophet -- one who is informed by God, not a fortuneteller. So she asks a question that has been one of the basic divisions between the Jews and the Samaritans: "Why is there a problem with us worshiping God where we want to, rather than in the temple in Jerusalem?"
Jesus gives her one of those answers that so infuriate the Jewish authorities. In Luke's gospel Jesus foretells the destruction of the temple, but there is no such warning in John. So we cannot assume she understands that the temple will be destroyed, and that's why God will not be worshiped in Jerusalem; but what about the Samaritan worship on the mountain? There is no explanation. But the kind of worship that the early Christians knew was not tied to the temple nor any other structure or regular place of worship. [This is one of the reasons that we know how late John's gospel is.]
The woman says that she knows that Messiah is to explain "everything." Jesus certainly has not explained everything she might want to know, but his apparent insight into her situation has impressed her enough that she goes to get her husband, and not just him, but everyone she meets. They come, and "many" believe that Jesus is what he says he is.
Throughout most of this story, the disciples are absent. First, they are gone for food. Then they are so taken aback at his conversation with this Samaritan woman they don't dare say anything. It is only when the woman is gone into the town that they say anything, and all they are concerned with is that he eat! Jesus turns them down, saying: "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." The disciples are still intent on food, but it is clear to us that this is not what Jesus is talking about. He has more important matters on his mind -- the matter of all these Samaritans who need to know who is the true Messiah in an age where there is a new self-proclaimed Messiah practically every week. And he wants them to come to believe that God is still interested in them, whether the Jews are or not.
One of my seminary professors told a class about his trip to the holy land. His tour group was gathered around Jacob's well at midday. As the tour guide gestured toward the gate of the town, workers came flowing out the gate. They were all wearing headgear in light tan, ochre, and white, and he was struck immediately with Jesus' words at the end of this story: "Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest!"
"And there they were, before my eyes," he said, "looking for all the world like a field of wheat, being moved by the wind, coming in our direction."
We might add that this woman is the first report we have in the gospels of a woman apostle. And as is so often the case, once the conversions are made the people dismiss the prophet. "We no longer believe just because of what you said." Pastors can take some comfort from this. You are not the only one who has introduced people to Jesus as the Christ, only to be told that your role is not acknowledged, or that you ought to give all the glory to God and step aside.
Exodus 17:1-7
In our selection from Exodus for today, Moses is faced with the fact that his followers are terribly thirsty and blaming their situation on Moses. Actually, this is not the first time they have blamed Moses for their situation. Nor is it the first time they have whined, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us... die of (hunger, thirst, the heat)?" Moses may have freed them from their masters, but they still have the mindset of slaves. They long for the good food, the water they have only to walk to the well to drink. They have already forgotten the hard life of a slave.
Moses, on the other hand, apparently had not learned in advance where the oases and springs were, and this is the first thing a desert guide must plan for. The scripture says that they were "traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded." So it's not that the people were just being difficult. They had every right to expect this man who styled himself as the direct representative of the God of Isaac and Jacob to know where they could find water in the desert. What kind of a leader -- indeed, what kind of a God -- leads his people through the wilderness without knowing where to find water?
The desert they are walking through is a wilderness of hard rock surface with sand that has filled the crevices. It is tricky walking and difficult to pitch a tent. The constant pounding of their feet on the rock surface would tire them much more quickly than walking on softer ground. On the other hand, the sand filling in the crevices may hide dangerous pits or sharp stones that can cut open their feet. And it would be subject to the sirocco, the hot wind of the southern desert. And now, to top it all off, they have run out of the grain they had brought with them, and they are nearly out of water, and Moses hasn't a clue where to find some.
Happily, Moses does have the most important quality for leadership: he is not afraid to go to God and ask for help. And he doesn't get flowery when he asks. He simply throws his hands in the air and shouts, "What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me!" And because he does so, God answers him at once.
What is not said in this passage is that Horeb is the place where Moses saw the burning bush (the meaning of the Hebrew is "burning" or "shining," according to translators). It may be the same mountain as Mount Sinai, and the fact that we do not know, despite years of speculation, whether or not they are one and the same mountain is due to difference between the accounts in Exodus and Deuteronomy. It is also due to the reluctance of the ancient writers to divulge the location of Mount Sinai. This latter is probably due to the fact that the Israelites were told not to worship in the "high places," nor were they to establish shrines on the "high places" in the manner of the Canaanites (though in actuality they did so anyway, worshiping at Shechem and Shiloh, and this includes the building of the temple on the highest point in Jerusalem). They were also forbidden to establish shrines at the places that were important in the ancient times, such as the burial place of Moses (which was rumored to be on Mount Horeb), where he was able to see the Promised Land but not to enter it because when God told him to strike the rock in today's passage, Moses hit it twice. Thus the double name Massah and Meribah (testing and quarreling, or as we might say today, griping and whining), though I doubt that the double name means a double spring, it's just that the two words are so resonant -- and pertinent.
Nevertheless, the last words of this passage are really the heart of the matter: Is the Lord among us or not?
The answer in both of our other scriptures for today is "Yes!" And if you cannot believe that on the basis of the evidence the prophets gave you, then I, YHWH, will come in the flesh and prove to you that I am in your midst.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
Both lessons are also based on stories surrounding sources of water. Water, of course, is of primary importance throughout the scriptures. In hot, dry climates, one cannot survive more than a day without water to drink, and care must be taken that the water one does have does not evaporate before it is drunk. The threat of not having water that is fit to drink is intolerable, and this necessity plays a major part in stories throughout the long ages of the Bible. In the case of Moses, his continued leadership requires expertise in seeing to it that the people have enough water to drink, cook, and wash. In Jesus' case, he uses the need for water to open a woman's mind to the concept of Messiah as the source of everlasting living water.
The selection from Romans 5 is not about these themes, although one might stretch to say that Paul is showing both leadership and authority in what he teaches. This passage is really the heart of the gospel that Paul preached: that Christ suffered for us when we were on the wrong path and powerless to find our way home, so that we might be reconciled to God. For this reason, this passage probably ought to be seen as the centerpiece for our preaching on the Third Sunday in Lent, and the Old Testament and gospel passages as a surrounding motif.
Therefore, we will begin with the Epistle Lesson.
Romans 5:1-11
The Letter to the Romans is the last writing we have from the apostle Paul, and reflects the culmination of his many years of ministry and evangelizing. The fifth chapter is the presentation of what he considers to be the core of the Christian message.
The title on this passage in the NIV is "Peace and Hope," while the NRSV says it is about "The Results of Justification." This represents two rather different interpretations of what Paul wants to stress in the passage. Peace and hope are the result of our being justified through faith. But which is the more important thing for us to understand about this passage? It is the concept of justification.
What does it mean that we are justified? We may think in terms of a court case, where we might say "The actions of this person are forgivable under the circumstances," but this is a mistake. Rather, we should be thinking about justifying our checkbooks, where we make certain all of our bills have been paid and our balance agrees with what the bank says. Or we may think of a workman making a piece of metal or wood to fit into a specific place to prevent or repair a misalignment, wobble, or slippage. A carpenter measures twice before cutting, yes; but then there will need to be a little sanding here or there so a piece will fit perfectly or stand straight. The piece is thus justified.
This is not necessarily a comforting thought. God is going to be sanding our edges? Knocking the corners off our personalities? The answer may be "yes"! We are justified by our trust (faith) in God. We put ourselves into God's hands, so that we may be made fit for God's use in this world. In so doing, we give up our own ideas about what we are capable of, and let God lead us. This is the meaning of gaining access into grace.
We might think about a child taking music lessons. When a small child gets his or her first violin, for example, parents (and the child!) have a hard time listening to the daily practice. The child has to learn how to hold the violin, what notes each string can produce, where to place their fingers on the neck, how to hold the bow, and how to apply the bow to the strings. This is not to mention learning how to tune the violin each time before practice (and halfway through)! The child has all of this to learn before s/he can produce even a simple tune, and a great deal of patience is required on the part of everyone within earshot. But what a difference even a few lessons can make! The student suddenly is able to play a simple tune and have it sound like music rather than a cat being tortured! With perseverance and good teaching, s/he may be able to perform gracefully for an audience and even be rewarded with applause. All of this is necessary for the formation of a violinist; why should we think that becoming a Christian is less trouble?
Becoming justified through faith requires a complete turnaround in our lives. The word for "sin" in the Hebrew means to be turned from the wrong way on a path, or to have missed the mark with an arrow. Paul tends toward the first translation, only more so. We have been on the wrong path, living as enemies of God. Of course, this is the way Paul saw himself, since he had been actively pursuing and arresting those who followed Christ. But all of us have our moments, if not a lifetime, of denying our need to be saved, usually from ourselves. We continue on a road that seems to be going nowhere, despite the signs that tell us we are going the wrong way.
When I was serving a church, I had a sign behind my desk that said "POWERLESS." It was a reminder for me that I could not solve the problems of those who came to me, that they had to be willing to do the work needed. But one afternoon a man came to talk, and he got quite agitated.
"What's that sign about, anyway?" he asked, pointing at it. I turned to look at it and turned back to look at him.
"What do you think it's about?" I asked, smiling.
He twisted in his chair, turned a bit red, and said, "I don't like it. Take it down."
"No, I need that sign. It reminds me of a profound truth about all of us, all our lives."
Clearly he did not hear what I was saying. "Well, I don't like that sign. I really want you to take it down."
"Well," I said, "I'll take it down and give it to you, if you'll keep it where you can see it."
Of course he did not want to, and he did not. Evidently he didn't want to admit his powerlessness. His behavior was a powerful lesson to me; our fear of being powerless is at the base of most of our trouble, and being unwilling to face that, we engage in all sorts of behavior that is bad for us and for those around us.
It is in those moments, Paul says -- when we are powerless -- that Christ died for us. Paul himself is amazed at this thought. He goes on to say: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die." Yes, it is our human nature to avoid death and suffering. So we usually hesitate before rushing toward a burning building or a car crash in hopes of saving someone's life. Isn't it just for this reason that most charitable organizations use pictures of suffering children in order to move our hearts to share our money? We are programmed to rescue suffering children, but not so much when the sufferer is a grown man. But, Paul says, Christ's death has justified us -- made us fit for God's use.
The next thought is one that is often overlooked. Verse 10 says, "For if... we were reconciled to [God] through the death of his Son, how much more... shall we be saved through his life!" There is great emphasis these days on the power of Christ's death on the cross, to the exclusion of learning how to live through the life of Jesus. We tend to paint God as a god of wrath, from whom we have been saved by Jesus. But this is dangerous business. God is still the God of creation, who made us as the image of God on earth. God loves us, and according to the scriptures, is Love (1 John 4:8; Deuteronomy 7:9; 1 Kings 8:23; Psalm 36:7). So we should know that, despite our destruction of the earth by our misuse, our insistence that "greed is good," and our personal habits that destroy both body and soul, we are loved. And how do we know? We know because God took on human flesh, becoming Jesus of Nazareth. He suffered as we suffer. He had compassion. He reached beyond the "safe zone" (see today's Gospel Lesson). And he was willing to let people torture and kill him to prove that love.
This is the "boast" that Paul refers to, not that God demanded the death of his own son, but that God was in Christ, suffering as Jesus suffered, so that we would no longer be afraid of God. This fear is supposed to be removed "because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit." This new frame of mind is what allows us to "boast in the hope of the glory of God." We hope to be able to see God, to take in God's glory, and be unafraid because we have been reconciled to God.
It is that hope, that reconciliation, that love of God made real and visible that allows us to accept whatever suffering we have to endure. Just as that child learning to play the violin will put up with the production of horrifying sounds, hoping that eventually she will be able to produce beautiful music, we learn to put up with irritation, pain, and frustration, hoping that our perseverance in following Christ's teachings will build Christian character in us. Is this difficult? Yes, but when we persevere, that gives us hope that we will also live in the glory of God.
John 4:5-42
Jesus comes to a town in Samaria called Sychar, where Jacob's well is located. The well is still there, making it a reliable source of water for some 3,000 years, an amazing feat, especially when you know that tourists keep throwing stones in the well to determine its depth, which means that today the well is "only" 85 feet deep. It was -- and is -- mostly covered, in order to prevent large objects from falling into the water and to cut down on evaporation. As Jesus sat down on the cover, a woman came to the well.
But this story does not begin with Jesus sitting down. It begins with his decision to be in Sychar, to travel through Samaria at all. It is the most direct route from Galilee to Jerusalem, but not usually used by Jews. When he was a child of twelve, his parents had taken him to Jerusalem, but they had undoubtedly crossed the Jordan to travel up the eastern bank rather than going through Samaria. This was because the Samaritans were descended from those Jews who had been left in the land when the upper classes were carried off to Babylon. The Babylonians stationed in Judea had introduced the worship of their gods, which had tainted the purity of Jewish worship that those living in Babylon had fiercely maintained. The result was that the Jews and Samaritans became enemies and stayed that way down to the time of Christ.
So the decision to go through Samaria was certainly a problem for his disciples, which Jesus was apparently ignoring. It being noon, the hottest part of the day, the disciples left him at Jacob's well to go into town to buy food. So Jesus was alone, sitting in the shade, recovering from the long journey and the heat of the day. And then this Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her for a drink of water!
Jewish men at that time were forbidden to speak to a woman in public. It was a protective law, to shield the woman from harassment. In addition, men usually looked close to the ground when they were in an area such as the village well, so as not to seem to be staring at a woman. In the case of this Samaritan woman, there was, therefore, a double reason for Jesus to not speak to her. But he doesn't just speak to her -- he asks her for a drink of water. He has to, if he's thirsty, because each woman coming to the well to draw water brings her own dipping vessel, so there is no public cup he might use. There is a third reason for him not to talk to her: she has come to the well in the middle of the day.
Even the woman is shocked. "How can you ask me for a drink?" Included in some of the ancient manuscripts of this story is the comment that a Jew will not drink from the same cup as a Samaritan. No good Jewish man would do such a thing. Besides, he surely knows that the women make their treks to the well in the cool of the morning and evening. To come in the middle of the day indicates problems. Either there is sickness in her home requiring extra water, or she is avoiding the other women of the town for some reason (or both).
But Jesus turns the question back on her: "If you knew... who asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." Living water is the term for water from a spring or river -- a clean, moving body of water, such as the spring that supplies Jacob's well.
She proves herself to be an unusual woman. She talks back to Jesus. What does he mean by living water? Does he think he's better than Jacob, who dug this well deep and wide enough to provide water for his whole family and all his animals as well as his descendants over a thousand years? This is a normal conversation for a man and a woman today maybe, but not in Jesus' time. A woman was not to challenge a man, question him like this, take an attitude.
Jesus makes her an offer. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst." He promises that the water he gives will "become to them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." This is a very odd sort of water, isn't it? But she is instantly interested. This going back and forth to the well is hard work. She would like to be able to stop doing this! Of course, this is not at all what Jesus meant. But he continues anyway.
"Go, call your husband and come back."
"I have no husband."
And then Jesus pushes her button. He knows. He knows her, her background, her shame. She has been married more times than the law allows. Even under Levirate marriage laws, she is not entitled to more than three husbands in her lifetime. The fact that she has had five husbands indicates either that she has had seriously bad luck, or she is terrifically difficult to get along with. But either way, no man will marry her after all that. The man she is with will not marry her, but she is taking the chance that he will at least stay with her and care for her. But she is very bright. She immediately identifies Jesus as a prophet -- one who is informed by God, not a fortuneteller. So she asks a question that has been one of the basic divisions between the Jews and the Samaritans: "Why is there a problem with us worshiping God where we want to, rather than in the temple in Jerusalem?"
Jesus gives her one of those answers that so infuriate the Jewish authorities. In Luke's gospel Jesus foretells the destruction of the temple, but there is no such warning in John. So we cannot assume she understands that the temple will be destroyed, and that's why God will not be worshiped in Jerusalem; but what about the Samaritan worship on the mountain? There is no explanation. But the kind of worship that the early Christians knew was not tied to the temple nor any other structure or regular place of worship. [This is one of the reasons that we know how late John's gospel is.]
The woman says that she knows that Messiah is to explain "everything." Jesus certainly has not explained everything she might want to know, but his apparent insight into her situation has impressed her enough that she goes to get her husband, and not just him, but everyone she meets. They come, and "many" believe that Jesus is what he says he is.
Throughout most of this story, the disciples are absent. First, they are gone for food. Then they are so taken aback at his conversation with this Samaritan woman they don't dare say anything. It is only when the woman is gone into the town that they say anything, and all they are concerned with is that he eat! Jesus turns them down, saying: "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." The disciples are still intent on food, but it is clear to us that this is not what Jesus is talking about. He has more important matters on his mind -- the matter of all these Samaritans who need to know who is the true Messiah in an age where there is a new self-proclaimed Messiah practically every week. And he wants them to come to believe that God is still interested in them, whether the Jews are or not.
One of my seminary professors told a class about his trip to the holy land. His tour group was gathered around Jacob's well at midday. As the tour guide gestured toward the gate of the town, workers came flowing out the gate. They were all wearing headgear in light tan, ochre, and white, and he was struck immediately with Jesus' words at the end of this story: "Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest!"
"And there they were, before my eyes," he said, "looking for all the world like a field of wheat, being moved by the wind, coming in our direction."
We might add that this woman is the first report we have in the gospels of a woman apostle. And as is so often the case, once the conversions are made the people dismiss the prophet. "We no longer believe just because of what you said." Pastors can take some comfort from this. You are not the only one who has introduced people to Jesus as the Christ, only to be told that your role is not acknowledged, or that you ought to give all the glory to God and step aside.
Exodus 17:1-7
In our selection from Exodus for today, Moses is faced with the fact that his followers are terribly thirsty and blaming their situation on Moses. Actually, this is not the first time they have blamed Moses for their situation. Nor is it the first time they have whined, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us... die of (hunger, thirst, the heat)?" Moses may have freed them from their masters, but they still have the mindset of slaves. They long for the good food, the water they have only to walk to the well to drink. They have already forgotten the hard life of a slave.
Moses, on the other hand, apparently had not learned in advance where the oases and springs were, and this is the first thing a desert guide must plan for. The scripture says that they were "traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded." So it's not that the people were just being difficult. They had every right to expect this man who styled himself as the direct representative of the God of Isaac and Jacob to know where they could find water in the desert. What kind of a leader -- indeed, what kind of a God -- leads his people through the wilderness without knowing where to find water?
The desert they are walking through is a wilderness of hard rock surface with sand that has filled the crevices. It is tricky walking and difficult to pitch a tent. The constant pounding of their feet on the rock surface would tire them much more quickly than walking on softer ground. On the other hand, the sand filling in the crevices may hide dangerous pits or sharp stones that can cut open their feet. And it would be subject to the sirocco, the hot wind of the southern desert. And now, to top it all off, they have run out of the grain they had brought with them, and they are nearly out of water, and Moses hasn't a clue where to find some.
Happily, Moses does have the most important quality for leadership: he is not afraid to go to God and ask for help. And he doesn't get flowery when he asks. He simply throws his hands in the air and shouts, "What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me!" And because he does so, God answers him at once.
What is not said in this passage is that Horeb is the place where Moses saw the burning bush (the meaning of the Hebrew is "burning" or "shining," according to translators). It may be the same mountain as Mount Sinai, and the fact that we do not know, despite years of speculation, whether or not they are one and the same mountain is due to difference between the accounts in Exodus and Deuteronomy. It is also due to the reluctance of the ancient writers to divulge the location of Mount Sinai. This latter is probably due to the fact that the Israelites were told not to worship in the "high places," nor were they to establish shrines on the "high places" in the manner of the Canaanites (though in actuality they did so anyway, worshiping at Shechem and Shiloh, and this includes the building of the temple on the highest point in Jerusalem). They were also forbidden to establish shrines at the places that were important in the ancient times, such as the burial place of Moses (which was rumored to be on Mount Horeb), where he was able to see the Promised Land but not to enter it because when God told him to strike the rock in today's passage, Moses hit it twice. Thus the double name Massah and Meribah (testing and quarreling, or as we might say today, griping and whining), though I doubt that the double name means a double spring, it's just that the two words are so resonant -- and pertinent.
Nevertheless, the last words of this passage are really the heart of the matter: Is the Lord among us or not?
The answer in both of our other scriptures for today is "Yes!" And if you cannot believe that on the basis of the evidence the prophets gave you, then I, YHWH, will come in the flesh and prove to you that I am in your midst.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
