Lenten Reflection 2

Text: John 4:5-42 Sermon Preached: March 24, 2011

In our text today we witness the living water gushing forth to erode the walls that divide and exclude. We hear this word well aware of what water can do. In the last few weeks the world has watched in horror as water that was stirred to life by the quaking ground has claimed the lives of thousands of our brothers and sisters, especially in Japan. We mourn the movement of this water. Here in Minnesota, where the snow just does not seem to stop, people are bracing themselves for the water that threatens to burst the barriers that we’ve set up to protect ourselves and our possessions. We are very aware of what water can do.

In fact, many of us have probably witnessed the destructive capabilities of water first hand. I personally had the distinct privilege to be in central Iowa during the great flood of 2008. Our home that had never flooded before fell victim to the living water that summer. This water broke through every barrier. It crumbled boxes, weakened walls, and threw open doors. Everything that kept our belongings protected and in their proper places was eroded so that our stuff was scattered about the basement. Living water flows into unexpected places with the force to tear down barriers.

Whether we have experienced something like this first hand or have watched what has happened on the news, we are all aware of what living water can do when it moves into our lives.

The water that Jesus offers in our text today also crumbles and erodes barriers. The living water from Jesus erodes the barriers that divide us from God and one another. Only, when these walls are eroded it is not cause for mourning but celebration. For, with these walls destroyed, there is nothing to stop us from loving God and one another.

The world of the woman at the well is full of walls. Her walls have been constructed for her, to keep her in her proper place. The narrator knows this. While this woman is not mentioned by name, the narrator takes care to tell us again and again that she is a Samaritan and a woman. Both her ethnic identity and her womanhood should keep Jesus the Jewish rabbi safely on his side of the wall.

The woman herself is also keenly aware of her identity. Jesus asks her for a drink, and she responds suspiciously, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” She knows her history; that her people have been victimized and colonized five times over the last 700 years, with Rome as the sixth colonizer. She knows that they have thus intermarried with their colonizers and that though they worship Yahweh her people and Jesus’ people have some central theological differences concerning the Law and where to worship. The woman at the well knows that these ethnic and religious differences should keep Jesus and her safely on opposite sides of the wall.

Perhaps she thinks it odd when Jesus brings up her marital history, that like her people who have been colonized 5 going onto 6 times, she has been given in marriage five times to five different people and is now with her sixth. She is a woman who has experienced tragic loss and great need. Her victimization and the victimization of her people should keep Jesus safely on the other side of the wall.

With this in mind, she initiates a deeply theological conversation with Jesus about the very wall that divides her from him. “Where should we worship?” She gets to the heart of their religious differences. Her identity brings with it walls of gender, nationality, ethnicity, and religion that should keep Jesus, the Jewish man, in his proper place, safely on his side of the wall.

When the disciples return, having found food for their teacher, they are astonished to find Jesus speaking with a woman. Can’t Jesus see the wall there? What sort of rabbi is this? I think the disciples are particularly concerned with her gender because the narrator had a hunch that future generations would have the same concern. What with all the non-biblical speculation about her…let’s call it sin to put it gently. See, even faithful preachers and interpreters see the wall there and can’t help but define her by it, making it as tall as possible by adding lacking morals to her identity. In any case, her gender identity should exclude her. Jesus should definitely stay safely on his side of the wall.

These walls should ultimately define her and keep her in her proper place. They should keep Jesus away. But here is the astonishing thing…Jesus does not finally let the walls define or exclude her. Jesus defines her specifically as one who is included. One who is welcomed, and beloved. One who is worth his time and his gift of living water, one who can provide for him and witness to him. He meets her on her side of the wall to give her the water that will crumble the walls.

The water that crumbles her wall starts with an encounter. Jesus meets her in the heat of the day as one in need. He does not let the walls keep him from her, but comes to her…in her land, at her well; to encounter the fullness of her humanity. He does not ask her to change her religion or national identity, or even to leave the man she is with. No! He simply reveals himself to her and shows that he knows her. He knows her truly and deeply, even in her most closely held hurt. When he reveals that he knows her she starts to see who he really is…he’s the one her people have been waiting for, the Messiah, I AM. He knows her so that she can know him.

Jesus crosses the walls that divide to enter deeply into relationship with this woman. In this she is given the living water that will never run out. This relationship is the water that sustains. So, when she leaves she doesn’t take her water jar with her. She leaves it because she doesn’t need it. The water has been poured into her. This water gushes forth crumbling all the walls that exclude her from relationship with Jesus and his disciples. She starts to see, like Jesus does, that the walls are crumbling and breaking down. She is still a woman, still a Samaritan, still one who has known tragedy, but these are no longer reasons for walls of exclusion as they are not her ultimate definition. She begins to see that she is defined by the relationship that Jesus has started with her.

With the walls crashing down around her she rushes home to bring her neighbors so that their walls might come crashing down, so they can see and can start to figure out with her what it means to see the world in this way and what it means to be in relationship with this odd and wondrous man. As the living water that Jesus gives starts to break down their walls that divide and exclude them from God and one another; when they encounter him for themselves, they can say, “Truly this is the Savior of the world.”

Jesus tells his disciples in today’s text that he has come to finish the work of the Father, on the cross he declares that it is finished; he offers the Samaritan woman the ever-quenching living water and on the cross it flows from his side, destroying all walls dividing God’s beloved humanity.

Our own world is full of walls. Literal walls divide entire nations. We exclude and are excluded by walls that our society builds around gender, socio-economic status, race, religion, and sexual orientation. These are only a few of the definitions that have walls built around them in our world. Our churches even erect or support walls to try to exclude the other from God and from us. It’s safer this way, we think to ourselves. Many friends have shared stories with me about walls erected to keep us from being who we are called to be in relationship with Christ. Whether we have been thought to be too young to be called or whether people have denied the validity of our call because of our gender, or you can add in your own experience. We have run headfirst into these walls.

Unfortunately for these barriers, Christ still encounters us with this gift of living water. Christ meets us in the ordinariness of our everyday lives, at our own wells where we are just gathering water for the day. He meets us in the everyday stuff of life, in bread and wine, in words, in the other who indelibly touches us across walls that should divide. In this coming to know Christ, in these ordinary encounters, we are given the living water.

Can you hear the walls start to crumble? Can you feel the living water spray through the cracks of our walls of exclusion and division? Can you see the rubble fly in different directions as the water finally breaks through? This living water gushes forth into the fullness of our world, crumbing the walls that divide us from God and our neighbors. Because Jesus has encountered us in our land, has met us and continues to meet us where we are, we are free to be united with God and one another…we are free to live in a world without walls.