In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’”
I know you all spent the past week meditating on the Gospel reading from last Sunday, turning over in your minds the Lord’s mysterious words to Nicodemus: “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3.5f). Well you’re very lucky because this Sunday’s Gospel reading takes us deeper into the mysterious ontology of water and spirit which the Lord introduces in these passages from John’s Gospel.
Here again, in today’s reading, we have the Lord speaking about water and spirit: He says to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew who I am, you would have begged me for drink, and I would have given you living water.” And a few verses later, Jesus says to the woman: “God is SPIRIT, and those who worship him must worship in SPIRIT and truth.”
Water and Spirit. What is Jesus talking about?
By now you should be familiar with my new catch-phrase: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus; always and only Jesus. If something doesn’t bring you closer to Jesus, to hell with it. Seriously. And literally. This man, Jesus of Nazareth, came to save us from the hell we make for ourselves without him. And only he can save us.
This story of the Samaritan woman is fundamentally about her encounter with God made flesh. It is about a particular woman encountering God in his human particularity – the untapped and unknown wellspring of her fulfillment, the fountain of life-giving water who gently seeks to bring her to seek him, to recognize her unquenched thirst as a thirst for HIM. “…Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
This proposition sounds good to the Samaritan woman. "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." But she is obviously thinking in a material way. Like Nicodemus in last week’s reading, this woman has not yet become spiritualized by encountering Jesus in his particularity, as who he really is. And how often do we do exactly the same thing? We desperately want to think that our happiness will be found in some kind of material refreshment – if I just had another job, or if I just had more money, or a different spouse – sometimes its so bad we think that “if I were just someone else, then I would be happy” – I would no longer have to come to the well to draw. So we spend our time running away from the person God has created us to be.
“Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” And then Jesus says something interesting. He says: “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The Lord is resisting the Samaritan woman’s effort to make this encounter abstract, which she keeps trying to do. Jesus is bringing her back to herself, to face the fact that her problem is not that she lacks something outside of herself. Her problem rather is that she keeps running away from this personal encounter with Jesus. She keeps trying to change the subject. And Jesus keeps saying “No, its about you and me. You’ve had five husbands, and now you’re in a sexual relationship with someone to whom you are not married.”
Of course this makes the woman intensely uncomfortable. She tries to change the subject again: “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." But Jesus brings it back around to this moment, to her and him: “Woman, the point is neither this mountain nor Jerusalem. And besides, you Samaritans don’t know what you’re talking about anyway. The hour is now. The Father seeks you NOW. He wants you to worship him honestly – in TRUTH – and as he is – in Spirit.”
The woman was probably breathing a sigh of relief that the conversation had finally seemed to veer safely away from her sexuality – she seems to think that she’s gotten the prophet’s attention off of her, and onto theological abstractions about God and Spirit and Truth and what not. But she’s wrong, and she’s about to realize it. She says “I know that Messiah is coming some day, and then he’ll reveal everything.” She thinks she’s talking about some point in the safe and distant future. All will be disclosed THEN, and by then I will be long dead, and my extramarital sexuality and my disastrous personal life will be long forgotten.
But Jesus says to her with devastating clarity: “The time is now. I am he.” In the Greek language, in which John was written, Jesus says “Ego eimi… ho lalon soi”. Ego eimi means I AM: The name of God in Greek: the same words used in the Septuagint when Moses asks God on top of Mount Sinai to identify himself. “Ego eimi.” I AM. And now this Samaritan woman, thinking she could safely push back her encounter with God and her need to take an honest look at her personal life in spirit and truth, she now finds that she’s standing face to face not just with a prophet, but with the Lord himself.
So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and told others about Jesus. She suddenly finds her thirst quenched with the waters of life, and so she drops her water jar, the sign of her vain quest for fulfillment in earthly pleasures, and she runs off to tell others about Jesus.
. . . .
If YOU knew the gift of God, and who it is that speaks to YOU, you would ask him, and he would give you living water.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’”
I know you all spent the past week meditating on the Gospel reading from last Sunday, turning over in your minds the Lord’s mysterious words to Nicodemus: “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3.5f). Well you’re very lucky because this Sunday’s Gospel reading takes us deeper into the mysterious ontology of water and spirit which the Lord introduces in these passages from John’s Gospel.
Here again, in today’s reading, we have the Lord speaking about water and spirit: He says to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew who I am, you would have begged me for drink, and I would have given you living water.” And a few verses later, Jesus says to the woman: “God is SPIRIT, and those who worship him must worship in SPIRIT and truth.”
Water and Spirit. What is Jesus talking about?
By now you should be familiar with my new catch-phrase: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus; always and only Jesus. If something doesn’t bring you closer to Jesus, to hell with it. Seriously. And literally. This man, Jesus of Nazareth, came to save us from the hell we make for ourselves without him. And only he can save us.
This story of the Samaritan woman is fundamentally about her encounter with God made flesh. It is about a particular woman encountering God in his human particularity – the untapped and unknown wellspring of her fulfillment, the fountain of life-giving water who gently seeks to bring her to seek him, to recognize her unquenched thirst as a thirst for HIM. “…Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
This proposition sounds good to the Samaritan woman. "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." But she is obviously thinking in a material way. Like Nicodemus in last week’s reading, this woman has not yet become spiritualized by encountering Jesus in his particularity, as who he really is. And how often do we do exactly the same thing? We desperately want to think that our happiness will be found in some kind of material refreshment – if I just had another job, or if I just had more money, or a different spouse – sometimes its so bad we think that “if I were just someone else, then I would be happy” – I would no longer have to come to the well to draw. So we spend our time running away from the person God has created us to be.
“Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” And then Jesus says something interesting. He says: “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The Lord is resisting the Samaritan woman’s effort to make this encounter abstract, which she keeps trying to do. Jesus is bringing her back to herself, to face the fact that her problem is not that she lacks something outside of herself. Her problem rather is that she keeps running away from this personal encounter with Jesus. She keeps trying to change the subject. And Jesus keeps saying “No, its about you and me. You’ve had five husbands, and now you’re in a sexual relationship with someone to whom you are not married.”
Of course this makes the woman intensely uncomfortable. She tries to change the subject again: “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." But Jesus brings it back around to this moment, to her and him: “Woman, the point is neither this mountain nor Jerusalem. And besides, you Samaritans don’t know what you’re talking about anyway. The hour is now. The Father seeks you NOW. He wants you to worship him honestly – in TRUTH – and as he is – in Spirit.”
The woman was probably breathing a sigh of relief that the conversation had finally seemed to veer safely away from her sexuality – she seems to think that she’s gotten the prophet’s attention off of her, and onto theological abstractions about God and Spirit and Truth and what not. But she’s wrong, and she’s about to realize it. She says “I know that Messiah is coming some day, and then he’ll reveal everything.” She thinks she’s talking about some point in the safe and distant future. All will be disclosed THEN, and by then I will be long dead, and my extramarital sexuality and my disastrous personal life will be long forgotten.
But Jesus says to her with devastating clarity: “The time is now. I am he.” In the Greek language, in which John was written, Jesus says “Ego eimi… ho lalon soi”. Ego eimi means I AM: The name of God in Greek: the same words used in the Septuagint when Moses asks God on top of Mount Sinai to identify himself. “Ego eimi.” I AM. And now this Samaritan woman, thinking she could safely push back her encounter with God and her need to take an honest look at her personal life in spirit and truth, she now finds that she’s standing face to face not just with a prophet, but with the Lord himself.
So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and told others about Jesus. She suddenly finds her thirst quenched with the waters of life, and so she drops her water jar, the sign of her vain quest for fulfillment in earthly pleasures, and she runs off to tell others about Jesus.
. . . .
If YOU knew the gift of God, and who it is that speaks to YOU, you would ask him, and he would give you living water.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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