EXODUS 17:1-7

PSALM 95:6-11

ROMANS 5:1-11

JOHN 4:5-42

Sermon – 3/3/02

Think of someone you know whose life to this moment, as far as you can tell, has (in terms of personal relationships) been one disaster after another. O.K.? Now, imagine that this person is the least popular person in the entire town where this person lives – a total social pariah. Now, imagine that this person is a member of a religious and ethnic minority group which is shunned by most people. O.K.? Now, imagine this person is a woman in a very chauvinistic, sexist environment. Finally, imagine that this person has a reputation for very low morals.

How do you think God feels about this person? Do you think that God has long since scratched her off his list of people for whom he has any hope or any interest? Do you think God is saying that she deserves whatever happens to her?

Or do you think God might go out of his way to reach out to such a woman, and personally offer her a fresh start to her life?

Do you think God might even become a mortal human being and offer his own life to take away her sin that she might have a chance to be redeemed, come to faith and experience eternal life?

Today’s Gospel is the story of such a person, and of God acting in a way very different from the way the nice, good people in town expected, very differently from the way even the apostles expected, very differently perhaps from the way some people today might think God would act now toward someone who really, really needs God and who knows she has no hope for a transformed life without God.

This is the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, the greatest pariah, the most notorious slut, in her town.

Samaritans are known to most Christians today because of Jesus’ parable of “The Good Samaritan” who helped the traveler who got mugged on a lonely road. In fact, a “Samaritan” colloquially in English means someone who helps out strangers in need, so the word has a specific and very good connotation.

But in the First Century, a Samaritan simply was a member of an ethnic and religious sect based in Samaria in the northern part of the Holy Land, a sect which had broken off from Judaism hundreds of years before and whose members had mixed ethnicity, so that both religious and nationalistic Jews looked down on them and had no dealings with them. Remember, Jesus and all his disciples were Jews.

First Century Palestine was also an extremely chauvinistic culture. Men were men and women were – men’s property, not people. Women could not testify in court against a man’s witness. A woman’s oath could be overturned by her husband or father. Women were worse than “second class citizens”, they were not citizens at all. They were lower than low.

Divorced women were lower than that.

And this woman had been divorced five times, and was now living with some other guy.

No wonder she came to get water at the town well at the hottest time of the day, because then she could guarantee that none of the other women in town would be there: they all lugged their water jars to the well at dawn or dusk when it was cool. Had she tried that, she would probably have been on the losing end of “the mother of all cat fights.”

So the town pariah lugs her water jar to the town well at high noon, hoping to get water and sneak home quietly, and what she finds is this guy at the well – a Jew, no less – who says to her “give me a drink.”

One other thing I have to tell you. In the Holy Land in biblical times, “the local watering hole” was, literally, the local watering hole and since carrying jugs of water was considered to be “women’s work”, if a guy wanted to meet a gal he went to the local watering hole. That’s where Abraham’s servant found a wife for Isaac, that’s where Moses met his future wife, etc. and “give me a drink” was a First Century pick-up line! This technique in this story is called “God reaching out to people using language they can understand.”

The woman’s reaction is, basically, “How come you’re ‘hitting on’ me buddy, when you’re a Jew and I’m a Samaritan?” So Jesus has gotten her attention. But, much to her surprise, he takes the conversation from this attention-getting “pick-up line” into a profound conversation about spiritual matters, offering her “living water” to satisfy her real thirst, for a life-saving, life-changing relationship with God.

As she realizes she’s dealing with someone who uncannily knows all about her checkered history, she tries to shift the focus from herself to pick a theological fight on one of the issues which divided Jews and Samaritans, the place for the true Temple.

Jesus affirms the vital truth that “Salvation is from the Jews” but goes on to say “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.”

The woman lets go of her effort to break off their discussion by her theological distraction and starts talking about an article of faith that both Jews and Samaritans shared in common. She says, “I know that Messiah is coming...When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”

Then Jesus gives it to her straight: “’I am he, the one who is speaking with you.’”

Jesus has just bulldozed through a whole series of social barriers to reach to this person’s heart. He is a Jew, she a Samaritan; he’s a man, she’s a woman; he is a righteous person, she is a notorious sinner; he is a prominent rabbi with a retinue of (now flabbergasted) disciples, she is the person no one in town wants to deal with. Until now, until she, of all people, is the first person in the Gospel of John to become an evangelist for Jesus Christ, inviting her whole village to come and meet the Messiah – and in the process ending her status as the town pariah. (Part of Jesus’ life-changing healings was to restore people to community.)

Perhaps you’ve suffered because of ethnic or religious or gender prejudice. Perhaps you’ve suffered because of some paths you’ve taken in your life which turned out not to be good ones. Perhaps you feel isolated and ashamed because of sins you’ve committed. Or perhaps you merely know people of whom one or more of these things are true. Whatever is the case, sometimes people in these circumstances wonder if God loves them, wonder if God cares, wonder if God gives a second chance, or a third chance, or a fourth chance to sinners, wonder if God stands for the liberation of the oppressed – or perhaps they think that God is only interested in people who seem to always do the right thing and who are the “uptrodden” of the world.

God in Jesus Christ made “a house call” to this woman, the last person anybody in that town would have expected God to pick for a personal visit and an invitation to be transformed by his love. She was transformed, and so was her entire town.

God does not consider anyone to be beyond his concern, to be beyond hope, to be beyond help.

May we all remember that ourselves, and share that Good News with those we know who need most to hear it.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church