Opening Up Our Inner Well

Lent 3A: Ex. 17:1-7; John 4:5-42 St. Paul’s, Smithfield 3/19/2017

Jim Melnyk: “Opening Up Our Inner Well”

They hadn’t been back to the old farm since their childhood – but memories persisted and they set out one warm, dry spring day to find the old well they remembered coming upon once long ago.  They searched most of the day without any luck.  It had been an especially dry springtime in the area. 

Finally, near the end of the day when they were both hot and tired, they noticed some cows gathered in the one place they hadn’t yet looked.  They shooed the cows away from a corner of the pasture that was both muddy and messy from what cows always leave behind in the pasture.  Digging through the mess – which wasn’t much fun on a warm day – they found a large rock with a depression at its lowest point.  The depression was clogged with mud and rocks and sod. 

Working more purposefully now, they dug the mess away from the depression and suddenly a clear stream of living water sprang up around them.  Out of the ground, surrounded by dirt and rock and cow pies, came cold, clean, water.  It had been there all along – even when there was little or no evidence of its existence – all it took was a little purposeful digging.

Throughout the whole breadth of Scripture there are images of living water sustaining God’s people.  Always it is God who gives the gift of water, which is, in effect, a gift of life. 

Water is one of the very first images we come across in Scripture.  “In the beginning when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God – or the Spirit of God – swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2).  When we look to the heavens for habitable planets, one of the first things we look for is the possibility of water – and perhaps the absolute necessity of water for our lives is the reason water shows up before any forms of life in both of our creation stories.  Water is there from the very beginning.

We come across the need for water in this morning’s passage from Exodus, as those who have been liberated from Egypt quarrel with their leader, Moses.  But we should bear in mind, “The Hebrew people were not chronic whiners complaining about the food service. They were desperate people faced with annihilation. No wonder they asked, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’ The slaves thought their liberation from Egypt would immediately plop them down in the Promised Land. But God's first freedom act was deliverance into the severe and harsh wilderness,” perhaps to show these newly freed slaves that their freedom, and their life, comes from God (Nancy Hastings Sehested, Sojourners On-Line, Preaching the Word, 3/19/2017). The Holy One gives them the gift of water from a rock as a sign of the Divine’s ongoing presence with and for them.  The promise of God and the living waters of life are always present for the people of God – the challenge is to trust – something that comes with great difficulty, even for a people who had just been delivered from slavery.

And the prophet Isaiah, speaking to a people anxiously returning from exile, reminds us once again that it is God who gives us the gift of living water.  “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1).  God’s promise of living water – of thirst assuaging grace – is from the very beginning.  God’s promise of living waters defies slavery in Egypt and it defies exile in Babylon.  The dream of God is like a well of living water flowing at the heart of creation, and for the heart and life of humanity.

When Jesus comes upon the Samaritan woman at the well and engages her in conversation over a drink of water, he comes with all the history of God’s redeeming work in mind.  Jesus engages the Samaritan woman realizing that such an exchange is more than unusual.  While contrary to some modern day interpretations, it was not out of bounds for a rabbi to speak with a woman, the fact that they are alone and that she is a Samaritan does have bearing.  We may recall from Luke’s story about the Good Samaritan that the first century relationship between Jews and Samaritans is strained at best.  Each saw the other as out of bounds religiously.  The woman is surprised, if not shocked, that Jesus would speak to her, let alone ask her for a drink.

When she replies to Jesus, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” she is engaging Jesus on a level quite similar to that of Nicodemus from last week. The reality that their conversation takes place in broad daylight makes their exchange bold in comparison to the nighttime setting with Nicodemus.  In fact, the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is the lengthiest dialogue Jesus has with anyone.

And while it does take her a while to fully understand what Jesus is promising her – living water that will assuage her deepest thirst – in the end she gets it – and she even enters into a theological dialogue with Jesus about the proper ways, and proper place, to worship God.  I submit that by the end of their conversation she is already experiencing that inner well of life – those living waters – of which Jesus speaks.  Much like Peter, Andrew, James, and John leaving their nets by the shore and following Jesus, the Samaritan woman leaves her water jug by the well and rushes back to town telling anyone who will listen about her meeting at the well.  As one of my clergy colleagues says, she turns out to be an “Introverted, Anonymous, Spunky and Spirit-Filled” follower of Jesus (The Rev. Lea Slayton).   She becomes an evangelist to the Samaritan people – and a woman who has had a rather sketchy reputation among her own people, leads many to believe the Good News of the coming kingdom of heaven.

Later in the same Gospel Jesus speaks even more clearly about the presence of God’s living waters in our lives.  Speaking to a crowd of listeners Jesus cries out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37-38).  The author of John’s Gospel goes on to tell us that the living water Jesus is talking about is the Holy Spirit of God welling up within us (v. 39). 

But our English translation doesn’t do justice to what Jesus actually says.  More accurately he says, “Out of the believer’s belly – or out of the believer’s bowels – shall flow rivers of living waters.”  The belly or the bowels just doesn’t sound as romantic, as poetic, or nice as the heart, does it? 

We’re right back to the cow pasture and the well – the deep, clear, spring is there, it’s just clogged up with dirt, rocks, sod, and cow dung – and there’s nothing romantic, poetic, or nice about that, is there?  The living waters of God – the Spirit of God – resides in the last place we want to look for it; perhaps in our own forms of slavery or dependence, our own experiences of exile, or at the very heart of the brokenness of our lives – delivering us “from all that binds us, diminishes us, and enslaves us,” (Sehested) moving us to proclaim healing and wholeness for all.

In the end we have the privilege of looking back at these faith stories through the lens of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  We have the privilege of looking back at these faith stories through the lens of our baptism into Christ, and the waters we experience in our baptism are symbolic of the living waters of God alive deeply within us, and drawn forth as we open ourselves to God’s promise and presence in our lives.

Remember, the thing about the well in the pasture is that it had been there all along – it just needed to be uncovered.  The living waters of God are alive and well in the deepest places of our lives – we just need uncover them and let them flow.