Scripture can be found here and here…
Our readings this morning talk about something we all need: water.
In a way, the history of our faith is told in stories about water, from creation, to liberation, to the life of Jesus and beyond. Each time the church pours the water of baptism over a child of God, we hear those stories.
We recall that, before the world had shape or form, the Spirit of God moved over the waters, beginning the acts of creation, bringing forth life and all that would sustain it.
We remember that, in the time of Noah, God washed the earth with the waters of the flood, and offered humanity a fresh start.
We are reminded that, in the time of Moses, God led the people across the Red Sea waters from slavery to freedom, and then across the waters of the Jordan into a new land of promise.
We marvel that Jesus, bearing God’s love for us, was nurtured in the waters of Mary’s womb.
And we recall that Jesus was baptized by John in the waters of the Jordan, washed the feet of the disciples, and sent them forth to baptize with water and the Holy Spirit.
The history of our faith is told in water stories.
In our passage from Exodus, the people of God have been in the wilderness just a short time, two to three months.
But three months are an eternity when you have no water.
Our passage mentions how very cranky this made the people. Our translation says, they “quarreled” with Moses. Others say, they chided him, they complained to him, they argued with him.
Truth is, they were terrified.
And Moses gave it right back to them—he even accused them of testing God. But they continued to complain, and they wondered, was it even worth it? They escaped slavery, for what? To die in the wilderness?
They had a point.
Moses cried out to God—not to say, “Give us water!” but to say, “Help me with your people! I think they’re ready to kill me!”
And God provided a way. God provided water. God gave God’s people what they needed to go on.
Water is at the heart of our gospel passage as well. It’s no accident that Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman immediately following his encounter with a learned Pharisee. What a contrast: A respected and well-known religious leader comes stealthily to Jesus by night. Then, an unnamed woman, a religious outsider, appears at a well when the sun is highest in the sky, and there is no hiding from anyone.
Jesus has taken his disciples on a detour into Samaria, which is to say, outside their home territory of Judea. After the time of David and his son Solomon, the united kingdom split into northern and southern kingdoms, Samaria and Judea. They became bitter enemies. A central wound in that division had to do with where one could truly worship God. For Judeans, those in the southern kingdom, the place to worship God was ever and only the temple in Jerusalem.
So, here, under this hot sun, and at the lip of a famous well, a man, a Judean, asks a woman, a Samaritan, for a drink of water.
This unlikely encounter sets off the longest conversation between Jesus and any other person in the New Testament.
The woman challenges Jesus. Why? Why me? She knows that she and Jesus, according to laws and customs each of them recognizes, and according to this ancient grudge between Judeans and Samaritans—with all that baggage, the woman knows that the two of them should do pretty much everything the can to not even notice one another.
Jesus answers the woman’s challenge by saying something odd. It’s really too bad, he says. If you knew who you were talking to, you could have asked me for living water.
Living water, in this era, means fresh water—water from a spring, or a stream. Water that is moving. Not a pond, stagnant. And not sea water, bitter. Living water. Fresh. Flowing. The only kind of water that is dependably life-giving.
Jesus means all that, and more.
Just like Nicodemus last week, the woman appears, at first, to take Jesus' words literally. She notices he has no bucket, and wonders how he thinks he can be the water-provider in this situation.
She brings up Jacob. This is Jacob's well, a well-known well. This is the well at which Jacob and Rachel first laid eyes on one another, and fell head-over-heels in love, setting in motion, not only their own very complicated relationship and marriage, but the whole history of Judeans and Samaritans from the very beginning. Jacob, whom God eventually re-names Israel. Father of the twelve men for whom twelve tribes were named. That Jacob.
So, now, we know that Jesus and the Samaritan woman are at a place famously associated with both romantic love and the whole, complicated history of their people. That’s a lot.
How are you supposed to get water? the woman asks. Do you think you’re greater than Jacob?
Jesus promises that the water he gives will end the woman’s thirst once and for all. It will be “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
OK, she says. I’m in. Give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty. Give it to me, so that I don’t have to keep coming here to draw water.
Jesus introduces the subject of the woman's husband, which feels like another non-sequitur. She says, “Don’t have one.” Jesus then comments that she has had five husbands and is now living with a man outside wedlock. This might be a statement to take literally. But based on how the woman responds, I don’t think so. There were five shrines in Samaria, a fact Judeans ridiculed. The ridicule went something like, “Five shrines? Does that mean you have five gods?” In Hebrew the word “ba’al” means both “god” and “husband.”
The woman’s next words go right to the heart of this disagreement about worship. “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus responds that “where” is beside the point. It does not matter where you worship God. It matters how you worship God. God is spirit, Jesus says, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth.
Then, the woman speaks carefully, she knows now, but she can hardly dare to say it: “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”
Jesus responds, “I AM.” Our translation says, “I am he,” but there's no “he” in the original Greek. Jesus’s answer is to give the ancient formula of God's name, the name so holy, Jews do not say it out loud to this very day: “I AM.”
The Samaritan woman leaps into action. She leaves her jug behind. She goes into the city. She tells her neighbors what has just happened. She tells them about a man who promised living water. Her exact words: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
Jesus provided a way. To a woman who was, in so many ways, on the other side of an uncrossable divide, Jesus offered living water. Life.
Our readings are about water in all its functions and meanings.
Water, so essential to the survival of every human being, since up to 60% of our human adult bodies are water.
Water, so essential to the survival of every form of life on this planet—so much so that in our explorations of space, we look to see whether other planets have or have ever had water, as a sign of whether or not they might support life.
Water, from a spring, or a stream, water that is moving. Not a stagnant pond. Not bitter sea water. Living water. Fresh. Flowing. Life-giving.
The stories of water in scripture cover the entire story of God’s world from creation, to liberation, to the life of Jesus and right into our own lives. When the waters of baptism were poured on us, every water-story was poured right along with it, including these two. And so, as we walk through these very unusual days in our country and in our world, we find that we, too, have entered a kind of wilderness. We find that we, too, are standing by the well. We wonder if we will have what we need to get through.
But when God’s people were frightened in the wilderness, God provided what they needed. God provided water from a rock, the water of life.
And when a woman wondered what she could possible give to, or receive from Jesus, he made a connection with her that gave her exactly what she needed. He gave her living water, the water of life.
God will meet us in the wilderness, too. God will hear our worries and complaints. God will know what we need even before we do.
Whatever these next weeks and months have in store for us, we are bound together in a community that will endure, a great cloud of witnesses that includes those thirsty people in the wilderness and that thirsty woman and man who stood by that well in a long, life-giving conversation. Whether we gather face to face in this sanctuary or we tune in to worship from home, we can still worship in spirit and in truth. We will remain knit together in the body of Christ. We will be there for one another with phone calls and emails. In the midst of worry we will find moments of joy.
The One who has called us together will be with us. The One who draws life-giving water from a rock will hold us up. The One who gives us living water will provide what we need.
Thanks be to God. Amen.