Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
It was Sunday, he was in Morocco, and he wanted to go to church. He was a Christian, after all, an Anglican from birth. But the good folks at the English church took one look at his Palestinian face, and their own faces turned stormy. They peppered him with questions until finally, sadly, he turned away. As the service was beginning inside, he sat down, resignedly, on a bench outside.
Pretty soon a Moroccan woman came along and sat down beside him. "Why are you sitting here?" she asked him. He told her he had wanted to go to church, but they didn't want him. "Why do you want to go to church, anyway?" she asked, and he began to tell her about how much it meant to him to worship God, to be a member of Christ's body, to belong to that fellowship of believers. They had a long discussion about theology. Finally she mentioned, sort of off hand, that she could offer him a different kind of community if he wanted it: she was a prostitute. He thanked her, said no, that wasn't really what he wanted, but he was grateful for her taking time to talk with him. As they went their ways, he took with him the memory of her human kindness. Did she remember him, too, as a good man who loved God and respected her? I think so.
When an old friend told me that story about himself not long ago, my mind leapt right away to this story about Jesus and the woman of Samaria. It seemed to me one more example of how the stories in the Bible are not about "once upon a time," but about our own, ordinary lives. Here's Jesus, on the road in a foreign country, heading home after a not-too-pleasant encounter with the authorities of his own religion in Jerusalem (if you remember the story from last week). They had made it plain that they would be a lot happier if he would just go away, back to Galilee where he came from. Tired, hot, thirsty, he sits down beside a well, an ancient well with stories going 'way back in Jewish tradition, but now in Samaria, where people have different ideas about God and how to worship God. The well is deep, and he has no bucket.
But pretty soon, surprisingly, along comes a woman. It's the middle of the day, and ordinarily the women of a village go to the well together in the morning and evening. Nobody goes out in the midday heat. So this woman is a little odd, a little suspect. Does she say anything? We don't know. All we know is that Jesus' thirst gets the better of his good manners and proper religious upbringing, and he asks this strange woman for a drink. She's a little shocked. I don't think she expected a request from him, at least not that kind of request. But she doesn't just hand over the water, silent and submissive like a good woman. She gives voice to her curiosity: you're asking me for water? What's going on here? What's your agenda?
And then the story gets even more surprisng, because these two people enter into a serious theological discussion, sitting there at the well in the noonday heat, like my friend and the woman on the bench in front of the church. I say this is surprising, but let me tell you, it is shocking, it is amazing, it is over the top WEIRD-because nowhere else in any gospel-and I invite you to check me on this-does anybody, male or female, have a serious theological dialogue with Jesus. They may ask him a question that sets off a long speech of his, or provokes a pithy saying, or a parable. But nobody gets into this give-and-take of questions and answers like this woman. This woman!! This woman of Samaria, with her Palestinian face and her strange ways.
Maybe that's why she's had so many husbands. (This is another odd part of the story: it's hard to believe that any woman of that time could have been married and divorced five times, so we think there's something symbolic going on here; but for now, let's suppose she had indeed had a whole succession of men.) Some rabbis at that time thought that it was all right for a man to divorce his wife if she committed some minor fault, like burning the toast. So just imagine, if a man had an uppity wife like this one, a woman who apparently enjoyed theological speculation and was just as likely as not to answer back and not take "no" for an answer . . . well, women like that have a hard time, even now, and for sure back in Jesus' time!
We get a clue here when Jesus' disciples turn up: they are blown away that he is actually talking intelligently with a woman-and even more so if they hear what she has to say! But she has finally met a man who will talk to her, and listen to her, and she has fallen for him, for sure: she goes running back to the village and tells everybody who will listen: "he told me everything I have ever done!"
Now, we usually read that with a kind of snicker and a raised eyebrow: woo-hoo, everything this babe has ever done has to be quite a story! But let's remember that this is a weird story, a wonderful story, a story about Jesus and therefore about every one of us. So I'm going to say this: Jesus told her-by listening to her and responding to her-who she really was, and "everything she had ever done" looked entirely different to her, once she saw herself in his eyes. It all became a story about her life with God: she saw that every deed she had ever done, every thought she had ever thought, had happened before God, with God, in God. In every moment of her life, she was wrapped in God's love; God's eye was on her, delighting in her, rejoicing in her, weeping when she hurt herself or someone else, laughing with her when she laughed.
So she tried to tell the others about this experience, but they didn't get it. Finally she just said: "Come and see." And they did: they went, and they saw Jesus, and talked with him, and listened to him, and pretty soon they began to see everything they had ever done in a new way, too.
And here we are: it's all about us, after all. The invitation to "come and see" is for all of us. Every encounter is full of Jesus Christ. We can, every one of us, meet Jesus Christ every day, in every person who comes our way-however strange the face, however odd the behavior. In every conversation we have a chance to see "everything we have ever done" in a new light, because God casts light on it from a new angle. We can go away from every encounter, however brief, however trivial, or however profound, knowing that our lives have been enriched by one more encounter with God-God in Jesus Christ, who dwells in and wraps every person with unending love.
Saint Benedict, when he wrote his "little rule for beginners" by which men and women have been living for 1500 years, reminded them that every guest who comes to the door is to be received as Christ. Many parts of the rule have been modified by custom or no longer apply after so many centuries, but Benedictines still take this part about hospitality to guests very, very seriously. Like the Samaritan woman, they take every new encounter as a chance to play host to Jesus Christ and to have their lives renewed and enriched by him.
Every day we have the chance to offer a drink of water, in some shape or form, to Christ, and to receive living water from him in turn. Let us, every day, be mindful of how our lives are caught up in God, because God, who gives us Jesus, is so wrapped up in us.