Foretaste of the Sermon to Come
A little nibble of the Revised Common Lectionary
Sunday’s readings are, Exodus 17:1–7; Romans 5:6–11; John 4:5–30; 39-42
A pastor could go 30 different directions in deciding how to preach on the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well. It’s a story of grace, love, bravery, transformation of shame to belonging, the empowerment of women in a world where women held no power, the power of Jesus’ Word, water that gives eternal life…and more.
I am interested in the Samaritan woman’s religious background. The Samaritans were the remnants of the conquered “northern kingdom of Israel” and had the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible. This is often called “The Law” for short, because 4 of the books contain the story of Moses, the people entering the Promised Land, and the Law that God gave them to form them and keep them as a people and as a way of returning to holiness after sin. Readers might assume that because she has had 5 husbands and is living with a man outside of marriage, she would not be religious. But verses of this short story in John clue us into her knowledge of her religious history. In verse 12 she refers to the well as Jacob’s, the grandson of Abraham, and in 19 and 20 she speaks to her perception that Jesus is a prophet and to her understanding of the differences between Samaritan and Jewish worship. So she is versed in her scriptures, and in her peoples’ history, and feels the heavy weight of The Law as a woman living outside of polite society’s standards.
However, even in her scriptures, The Law, we find Gospel that points toward the living water that Jesus is offering the Samaritan woman. I have to think that she knew her scriptures and knew these Gospel stories, like God’s covenant with Jacob’s grandfather Abraham that all people would be blessed through him. Jacob met Rachel at this well in Samaria, and via their complicated relationship, he met her sister Leah, through whom the lineage leading up to Jesus was continued and this blessing fulfilled. When Israel was wandering in the wilderness, God told Moses to hit a rock with his staff, and when he did, the dehydrated and grumbling Israelites received a miraculous gusher of drinking water. In 1 Cor 10:4, Paul links Christ to this rock. An interesting side note about Jacob’s well; it is considered “living water” because it is filled both by underground sources and through percolated surface water…it is more than just a cistern…it has ingress and egress…”living water.” In John 7 Jesus will go on to call the thirsty to him, and the Holy Spirit will send rivers of living water from their hearts to others who thirst.
The Book of Revelation puts the icing on the cake of references to Living Water in both the Old and New Testaments. Jesus promises in John’s Gospel that from him will flow streams of living water that will quench thirst eternally. The visions that John wrote down in Revelation have beautiful images of “…the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city…(Rev 22:1-2). John saw thirsty multitudes from every tribe and nation led to Lamb in the midst of the throne to drink from spring of the water of life without payment. (Rev 7:17) And in his vision of the New Jerusalem,“To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” (Rev 21:6)
The woman at the well understood what this water is, or “who” the water is and she ran off to her village to share the Gospel with her neighbors, sending rivers of living water gushing from her heart to others who thirst. Thanks be to God!
