the one about the well

Having an uncomfortable conversation with someone is never easy. Try talking about racial injustice and white privilege in a room full of black and Hispanic people. I had the frightening privilege of doing that in Atlanta in January. It was a hard conversation and we were kind and merciful to one another.   

Think about the last time you had a difficult conversation with someone.  Maybe it was this week. With a spouse or a child or a coworker or a parent…Maybe it was like talking to a wall of... miscommunication, misunderstanding, misinterpretation.  We talk past each other.  Put up walls.  Dig  trenches.  Retreat. Hide. Lie.  Divert. Blame. We let emotions cloud judgement and speak harshly.        

Last week's gospel story was the clandestine meeting at night from John chapter 3, Nicodemus and Jesus.  Nicodemus was a respected elder in the religious community, who was concerned about Jesus and about his own reputation. So he goes at night, in darkness, secretly.  He asked questions.  He received more questions and riddles about spiritual rebirth and the love of God.  I know John 3:16 is in there, but the conversation was more than a sentence.  It was an internal conflict about essential matters of faith. It's not easy talking to John's Jesus because he can be so esoteric. And yet, he's open to a late night meeting with a man who could be his religious superior.  Sometimes we have to initiate the tough, uncomfortable conversation because our own consciences are burdened.  Sometimes we have to question our own beliefs. Are we open to the possibility that someone like Jesus could point us to God in a way our safe religious habits can't?       

Today it’s the well confrontation. It’s not easy talking to Jesus. Because he knows.  He knows the woman at the well, her story of broken relationships, abuse, and bad decisions.  He already knows.  And we get a little creeped out.  I don't want to believe that someone knows my inner thoughts, my habits, my secret faults, my mistakes.  But the story shows that Jesus knows. And he loves us anyway. And that’s a little hard to believe, too. 

 The story is John chapter 4.  Jesus and an anonymous Samaritan woman.  Think water cooler or drinking fountain or pub.  That is the well.  Why is she there?  Thirst? Yes.  And also…

Escape.  People go to the well for water in the morning and evening.  Not at midday. She wants to be alone.  To not be seen.  To avoid people. People in a bar at noon are not there for community. She is hiding. In broad daylight.    

Jesus goes to the well alone, too  No disciples. A rare occasion in his life with others.

He asks for a drink.  She immediately says, “You’re a Jew.  I’m a Samaritan woman.  And you have the nerve to ask me for a drink?”  This is code for “leave me alone, man”. Maybe she's threatened by his very presence, afraid of his intentions.  In that world, she was vulnerable. You can imagine why.  

Jesus responds, if you knew me you would have asked me for a drink of living water. He's a giver, not a taker.  She needn't feel threatened.    

She jokes: Buddy, you got no bucket and this is a deep well.  Are you greater than our common ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well?  She means, you’d have to go back a long time before Jews and Samaritans could share a drink together…It's clear he didn't come prepared to get a drink for himself.  Did he expect a Samaritan to help him? Not likely.  So why was he there? 

He offers her a  deeper well than the one they’re standing at.  He calls it a spring gushing up to eternal life. He's talking about quenching something deeper than physical thirst. She says,  "By all means, give it to me so I don’t have to keep coming back here." She is not a believer yet. But maybe she is expressing a hope.  Not just for a good long drink or for running water and indoor plumbing in her house, something we take for granted.  She is hoping for a better life. She is hoping to get a real break from the inner turmoil she hides inside. She is hoping for something that might last...  

That’s when we enter her story.  She  is not married.  She is living with her fifth “husband”.  She has been abused.  Or widowed.  Or passed around.  She is available…He has caught her.  She comes at midday because of shame and vulnerability.  She does not want to be known.  Her circumstances make her a whore.  Men have hurt her.  She has been in and out of one bad relationship after the next.  She has been discarded.  She does not want to be known.  And Jesus knows the truth. Shehas that moment.  You know that one?   "Oh God.  He knows the truth?  About me? Now what?" 

She tries to change the subject back to the other elephant in the room.  Ever been so uncomfortable talking about something that you’d rather talk about politics and religion?  I have.  I do it all the time.  Easier to talk about big controversies out there, than the ones going on in here. "So, Crimea, eh? What a mess." Or "how about this crazy weather?" Or my favorite, "Did you see the Phillies last night?  What a disaster!" We dodge the hard balls all the time. Small talk is avoidance in disguise.  

But even though she’s trying to point out their cultural and religious differences, Jesus won’t be put off.  Worship is not about ethnic identity.  Its not about denomination or creed or skin color or cultural distinction.  Worship is about Spirit and Truth.  It doesn’t matter if you’re Lutheran or Catholic or Jewish or Muslim or Methodist; those are the things we put on to hide our weakness, to feel accepted, inside the right group. But real worship is essentially an inner orientation to God. To love God with the heart and the mind and the soul.  He is interested in cutting through the protective layers that guard us.  Spirit and Truth.  What lies beneath the shame and the hurt and the fear and the anger?  

Worship in Spirit and truth means to stand before my creator as I am.  Naked.  Honest.  Open. 

She says she is a believer too.  In the Messiah.  God will send someone to proclaim all things to us.  When Messiah comes, old religious, cultural, and ethnic boundaries will end.  It will be an age of honest, open truth. There will be one humanity before one God. She has hope that humanity can change.  She has hope in a better future.  

Jesus says, “I am.”  Messiah. God in flesh. Standing before you.  Seeing you.  Hearing you.  Knowing what I know about you. Your beauty and your scars.  Your goodness and your sin.  Offering you the water of life.  Drink it up.  It’s a  free and endless supply of mercy and forgiveness.  Believe it and it is yours.  

She runs away. Forgets her bucket of water.  She goes to tell others about Jesus.  And her past, her vulnerability, her shame becomes her proclamation.  "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done."  Here is a man who knows me and still offers me what I need the most.  Something life-giving, refreshing, hopeful, good.  He welcomes her into God's life.  He welcomes all of us.  

Amen.