Bill Stroop Sermon,"A Community of Living Water,"Lent 3, Year A, February 27, 2005

Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95:1-11
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
The Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74^th General Convention of the ECUSA

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor." Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world." (John 4:5-42)

A Community of Living Water
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector

Arthur Miller, the playwright, died about three weeks ago (February 10) of congestive heart failure. Miller who has been described as American theater's thundering prophet, believed that art should change us.[1] Miller is probably most famous for his play Death of a Salesman, although some might argue that he was famous because he married one of the great movie icons, Marilyn Monroe. His standing as a prophet, however, was assured when he was called before the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee. He refused to name names, and did not take the Fifth Amendment. He took the First Amendment instead, and said what he needed to say, which earned him a Contempt of Congress conviction (which was later overturned). His actions dramatized the nation's reactionary hysteria to the threat of communism. In 1953 he wrote The Crucible which was ostensibly a period piece about seventeenth century Salem, but which forever linked the term "witch hunt" with the tactics of Sen. Joe McCarthy.

Drama is a powerful medium. It grabs our senses and our imaginations and propels them to places the playwright takes us. The author of the Gospel of John is a playwright too – as were all of the Gospel Evangelists. Their works and stories, meant to be read out loud. Each of them had their own take on the life and work of Jesus, and how his life had something to say about their time and place in the world. Like Miller's plays, the Gospels spoke to the cultural context of the time, but like all enduring works of art, they also transcend the time and place of their origin to speak to other cultures and generations.

The Gospel reading from John today is a good example of high drama. And as Miller's The Crucible was written with reference to a time and a place, the story of un-named Samaritan Woman at the well was written with reference to a particular cultural setting.

Act One, Scene One. Jesus enters. He is a Semitic man, dressed in clothing typical of a Jewish person descended from the former Southern Kingdom of Judah – called Judea in Jesus' day. He sits next to an ancient well that has historical and cultural significance. The well itself sat at a fork in the road where Judeans on their way to Jerusalem had to pass. This was also an area with deep memories for the people of Samaria and Judea. The land had been purchased by Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the Jews. Jacob had bequeathed the land to his son Joseph, and on Joseph's death in Egypt, his body had been taken back to that place for burial. It was Holy ground.

It is noon time, and a Semitic woman comes to the well to draw water. Although her clothing is similar to Jesus', it is different enough that we can tell Jesus and the woman might be from distantly related tribes. Their opening dialog confirms that they know something about one another:

"Give me a drink." Jesus directs.

"Why do you ask me, a woman of Samaria for a drink?" she replies. John, who wrote his play for a Greek audience, tells them that in case they think this is a story about enmity between men and women, they are mistaken. This is a story about Jews and Samaritans: "Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans," she says.

It is apparent that there is some very deep animosity here. The quarrel between Samaritans and Jews was about 700 years old, dating to the Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom. When the Assyrians captured the lands of the Samaritans, they carted most of the inhabitants away; these are the lost ten tribes of Israel. But not all Samaritans were taken. Those who remained intermarried with the Assyrian invaders (and other peoples). They committed an unforgivable crime; they lost their racial purity.

A few hundred years later, the Babylonians conquered the Southern Kingdom, of which Judea was a part. Like the Assyrians before them, the Babylonians carried off many inhabitants of Judea. But those Jews did not lose their ethnic or religious identity. When the Jews were allowed to return to their native lands through the grace of the Persian King who had conquered Babylonia, they set about rebuilding the Temple. The Samaritans offered to help, but they were rebuked; they had lost their Jewish heritage and their birthright. In response, the Samaritans turned their backs on the Jews, and built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim in the center of Samaritan territory. The Samaritans also rejected the whole Bible of the Jews; they only accepted the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament). The Jews felt the Samaritans were ignorant and misguided, and later attacked and destroyed the temple at Samaria. This embittered hatred had gone on for 450 years before Jesus and the Samaritan woman met at the well of Jacob.

So now, John, our playwright, has set the stage for us. Two people with deeply held suspicion and hatred toward one another meet at high noon at a sacred site in the shadow of a mountain regarded as holy by one of them. Samaritans and Jews would be loathe to speak to one another under the best of circumstances, but in the first of several departures from social convention, Jesus breaks through the barriers that separate people. It is Jesus who speaks first. According to strict Jewish law, a Rabbi was forbidden to speak to a woman in public – oftentimes including his own wife and daughters.[2] For a Rabbi to be seen speaking to a woman in public was the end of his reputation, and yet Jesus spoke to this Samaritan woman.

Act One, Scene Two. We know, and Jesus knows that the normal time women draw water from the well is in the early morning. And yet this woman appears at high noon. This is John's dramatic way of telling us that this woman is not welcome in the company of the other women of the town. She is an outcast among her own people probably because of her many liaisons with the town's men folk. And yet, Jesus speaks to her, a Samaritan woman, of ill-repute. And in this scene, he tells her something extraordinary. Instead of bringing up the 400 year-old hatred between these people over where God should be worshipped – on Mt. Gerizim or in Jerusalem – Jesus told the woman that the time has come for a new vision. Jesus told her that it was time to recognize that God can be found everywhere, and that true worshippers will find God in every place.

Jesus compares this vision with living water. Living water had several specific meanings to Jews. The water used for purification rites was living water – that is it was drawn from moving bodies of water, not from collecting cisterns. The Jews also spoke of the thirst of the soul for God; and they spoke of quenching that thirst with living water. Although this is language that the Samaritan woman would have understood, Jesus also used it to make a messianic claim. "When Jesus spoke about bringing the men to the water which quenches thirst forever, he was doing no less than stating that he was the Anointed One of God."[3]

Act Two, Scene One. The woman is seen running into the town of Sychar. When she arrives, she excitedly tells the townspeople all that Jesus has said and done. And it was precisely at this point that another extraordinary happens. It is then that the water of the well becomes living. It is in the telling of her encounter with Jesus. It is in the woman's experience that the spirit of Jesus the Christ takes on life. It is in her testimony that the water of the well becomes living water that nourishes the soul.

We do not know what she might have said, but it was astonishingly compelling, because the Samaritan townspeople believed in this itinerant Jew. The still water of the well came up from the dark to give life in the light. The Scottish preacher John Barclay once wrote, "The Christian life is based upon the twin pillars of discovery and communication. No discovery is complete until the desire to share it fills our hearts; and we cannot communicate Christ to others until we have discovered him for ourselves. First to find, then to tell, are the two great steps of the Christian life."[4]

Act Two, Scene Two. Some of the people of Sychar are convinced by the power of the woman's testimony to toss aside 400 years of animosity and visit with Jesus themselves; the living water of the Samaritan community had returned to its source, and many more believed as a result of their own personal encounter with Jesus.

Water is a powerful image for us. It is the stuff of creation, and the symbolic means by which we, like Jesus himself, are born into a new life. But that new life is completely dependent on community. It is impossible to be a solitary maverick Christian; Christianity is dependent being in communion with one another. It is how the still water of the well, or the baptismal font, becomes the Body of the living Christ.

Arthur Miller believed that art should change us. Apparently, the author of the Gospel of John did too. He wrote this dramatic story to tell us of Jesus' extraordinary power to break social barriers and create a broader, inclusive community. He asked his Jewish disciples and his Samaritan converts to forge a new community of worshippers where God's will would be done on earth.

God calls to us. God beckons us to look into our own hearts and to draw out the living water of the well in ourselves in order to refresh and nourish our community.

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Exodus 17:1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?" But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?" So Moses cried out to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." The LORD said to Moses, "Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink." Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

Psalm 95:1-11

1 O come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

3 For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.

4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.

5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and the dry land, which his hands have formed.

6 O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!

7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
O that today you would listen to his voice!

8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,

9 when your ancestors tested me,
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they do not regard my ways."

11 Therefore in my anger I swore,
"They shall not enter my rest."

Romans 5:1-11

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

John 4:5-42

The Collect of the Day for Lent 3

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.