The Third Sunday in Lent February 24, 2008
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-26, 39-42
When ever I think of the use and importance of water, I think of my father. It really used to bug him when we’d waste water—things like pouring out a half full tea kettle to start fresh or to leave the tap running while you were brushing your teeth or especially if you ran a full tank of hot water as you showered.
He knew water was plentiful, but he grew up on a homestead in the high mountain desert of south Idaho and they had to haul water from a creek about a half mile away.
They had a big old tank rigged up to the bed of a buck board. They’d drive the team of horses over and fill up that tank and then slowly come back because—as you know—water is really heavy.
Using an intentional pun, they established a flow chart for the water’s use. It was a series of containers that determined the order in which the water was to be used.
1.
The first container was for drinking water. There was a big dipper and you could drink your fill, but you didn’t throw out any excess.
The first container was for drinking water. There was a big dipper and you could drink your fill, but you didn’t throw out any excess.2.You poured that excess water into a second container and that was the water they used for cooking.
You poured that excess water into a second container and that was the water they used for cooking. 3.That left over water was put in the next container which was the water that was used for personal cleaning.—brushing your teeth, washing up before meals, and so on. It was also the container from which the water for the Saturday night bath was taken. They had a big old wash tub they would put in back of the stove and everybody got a bath before church the next morning. This was also the water used to clean food before cooking: vegetables, fish, poultry and so on.
That left over water was put in the next container which was the water that was used for personal cleaning.—brushing your teeth, washing up before meals, and so on. It was also the container from which the water for the Saturday night bath was taken. They had a big old wash tub they would put in back of the stove and everybody got a bath before church the next morning. This was also the water used to clean food before cooking: vegetables, fish, poultry and so on.4.All that left over water was poured into a 4th container which was used for general cleaning: scrubbing floors and so on.
All that left over water was poured into a 4th container which was used for general cleaning: scrubbing floors and so on.5.Then all that left over water was collected and given to the hogs and chickens.
Then all that left over water was collected and given to the hogs and chickens.You can see why my father was sensitive about wasting water.
This is my personal reference when I read a passage like the woman at the well in the gospel lesson this morning.
What was it like to haul water in a big old pot from a public well? Did families have a similar system of using water to the one that my father and aunt and grandparents used in their desert homestead?
My guess is, yes. The reason’s simple: hauling water is hard work and you really didn’t want to waste any.
There’s another dynamic here: We all know that hard work is made easier if there can be a social dimension to it. Think of barn raisings or community harvesting. The same principle applies to hauling water in villages.
The scenario in these desert villages is that the women got up early, gathered at the community well to get their water and while doing this they chatted and exchanged gossip:
“How are the kids?”“Did you hear what happened to Sarah?”“Do you know what my husband told me?”And so on.
So we can ask the question: “Why was this particular woman at the Samaritan village of Sychar coming to draw water at noon rather than at the early morning hour with the rest of the village women?”
It’s easy to envision her: Her eyes are squinting against the noonday sun. Her shoulders are stooped by the weight of the water jug. Her feet trudge, stirring the dust of the path. She looks down to avoid the stares of the others in the community.
What we learn in today’s passage from John’s Gospel is that she’s been married to five different guys. If she had been widowed, the scripture would have mentioned it. It was five different divorces; five different beds; and we can imagine, five different rejections. She knows the sound of slamming doors and what it’s like to be abandoned.
It like that line from the Willie Nelson song: “The last thing I needed, the first thing this morning, was to have you walk out on me.”
To make things worse, she’s “shacking up with some guy,” and in that conservative, very structured culture, that was more than shocking.
We can just hear the gossip that went on in the village of Sychor:
“Here she comes, the hussy.”“Have you heard? She’s got another man. Better watch your husbands.”“Shhh. There she is…”Turn to the Gospel lesson and look at the second sentence, please:
“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 …”
I can just see Jesus there, back resting against the well, hands folded; legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, eyes closed. She stops and looks at him, and then she probably does a quick look around. She’s pretty savvy in the ways of men and he’s obviously Jewish, someone to be really mistrusted.
Jesus, opening his eyes and seeing the container asked for a drink and the dialogue begins.
She’s too streetwise to trust this guy, and her intuition was that he was interested in a lot more than a drink of water. She was careful.
As the story develops, we learn that he was a lot more interested than in just a drink of water: He was interested in her heart and in her soul. He told her about living water that would quench not the throat, but the spirit. She’s never thirst again, not at that level anyway.
She misunderstood. “Boy, something magic that would keep her water jug full and she’s never have to come back to this public well again and endure all those hateful stares and sharp tongues: Mmmm, give me that” she said.
About a third of the way down on the second page Jesus said, “Go call your husband and come back.” That statement was telling her that he was not trying to hit on her. But it also was about something else. She decides to ‘fess up. “I have no husband.”
And then Jesus just blows her out of the water: “You are right in saying that you have no husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.”
No judgment. No criticism. No, ‘What kind of a mess have you made of your life” lecture.
It was just a simple, point blank statement that tore away all the pretense and laid bare everything.
The woman was amazed; again, to paraphrase:
“You’ve got to be some kind of prophet, so clear some stuff up for me, will you? Where is God? My people (the Samaritans) say he’s on this mountain and you people say he’s in Jerusalem. Where is he? I don’t know.”
And Jesus makes this profound statement that changes the face of religion forever.
Please look at the Gospel, 12 lines from the bottom. She said, “I know that Messiah is coming…When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
In his book “Six Hours One Friday,” Max Lucado writes:
“Remarkable… It wasn’t with the colonnades of a Roman court that he announced his identity. No, it was in the shade of a well in a rejected land to an ostracized woman. His eyes must have danced as whispered the secret. ‘I am the Messiah…’”
“Suddenly the [sin] of her life was swallowed by the significance of the moment. God’s here. God has come. God cares…for me!”
I think she probably dropped her water jug—she may even have broken it. Perhaps it was symbolic of casting off the old burden she had been carrying. She ran into town, yelling:
“Come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” Many came and believed because of this woman’s testimony.
Now to us: we know what it’s like to have nobody sit by us in the school cafeteria. Many of us have been in love and were rejected and wondered if it’s worth it to be that vulnerable.
The story is told of a woman who taught Sunday School in an inner city church. It was a class of nine year old girls.
One little girl—Barbara—had a life of incredible hardship; violence, drugs, sexual abuse. You could see the haunted expression in her eyes.
She never spoke, never. While the other girls chattered, she sat. While the others sang, she was silent. While the others giggled, she was quiet. Always present and listening, but always silent.
One day, the teacher gave a class on heaven. She told them how they would see God. There would be no violence, no fear. There would be tearless eyes and all the bad things would be defeated and cast out.
Surprisingly, little Barbara timidly raised her hand and asked in a quiet voice, “Is heaven for little girls like me?”
That was a prayer: An honest prayer from the heart, as significant as any prayer in the Eucharist. It was akin to the prayer from the bed in a nursing home or the one whispered fearfully by the alcoholic who desperately wants to quit drinking, but is so afraid.
It is the prayer heard by the one who gives the water of life, the water that quenches like no earthly water. And because it is from God, people like my dad need not worry about hauling it.
Amen.
