In my freshman year of high school in Ms. Good’s English class we read Huckleberry Finn. It was the first book I ever read where we studied the symbolism in the story and we learned that the river was a character in the story. The river represents freedom from constraint. Whenever Huck is on land, he’s being pressed to be obedient, sit in school and do his lessons or sit in church in starchy clothes. When Jim is on land, he is someone’s property as a slave. When Huck and Jim are on the river, they are learning how to be free.
In today’s Gospel, the water is a character. Just like on the Mississippi there are different kinds of water. The Mississippi can be slow and muddy or fast and clean. It goes by towns with pollution and people and it goes by wooded areas and quiet places and it makes a difference to people on the water and on the land. For our story today we have well water and we have flowing water.
Wells are places in the Hebrew Scripture where people meet and begin romantic relationships. Abraham’s servant meets his master’s future daughter-in-law at a well Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, meets his wife Rachel at a well, at noon. Even Moses meets his wife at a well. These are all men who have come to foreign lands, stop for a drink, and meet someone. They go into town and are welcomed by the townspeople and eventually they are married. So we have a well as a device, a meeting place, a clue that something will grow out of a meeting between foreigners. So you can imagine when the disciples saw Jesus from afar talking to a woman at the well, the two alone together they might have hurried their steps or they might have dawdled to give them more time to get to know each other, but surely their minds must have been on whether this was going to grow into something more.
Jesus and the woman start talking about water. Now we’re starting to see that this story is echoing the previous story of Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes by night, this woman and Jesus meet at noon. Nicodemus is a man. At the well, Jesus meets a woman. Nicodemus seems pretty dense, trying to reason out what Jesus is saying. This woman is really getting it, catching on to Jesus’ reference to the Messiah and naming it out loud. There are differences that accentuate one another. But Jesus is the same. He is talking about water and the Spirit. And really this story is highlighting what Jesus just said to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world.” This is what it looks like when God loves the world. God’s son goes to Samaria and talks to a foreign woman and makes friends in her city, sharing the good news with them for several days.
Jesus and the woman start talking about water. There is well water—water that is good for drawing up and taking home to cook with. Jesus needs this water. He is thirsty. But he promises her living water which is another word for flowing water. Flowing water is considered more healthy because as it flows the impurities can be washed away whereas if a well is poisoned then there isn’t much that can be done. Jesus promises living water so that the woman will never be thirsty. This will meet her needs and she won’t have to waste time coming to this well. She is starting to understand that Jesus is talking about a spiritual need. Her people were the ones left behind when Israel went into exile. The people left behind assimilated and intermarried and they worshipped on the mountain because the temple had been destroyed. When the exiles returned, they rejected the Samaritans because they thought they had the more pure way of worshiping and the codified scriptures that they had to write down while they were away so they would be sure not to forget God’s stories.
The interpretation of this story that I am especially enjoying this week is that this woman represents Samaria itself. Samaria had 5 occupiers over the years as this woman has had 5 husbands. Jesus goes out to show what it means to love the world, and Jesus the bridegroom meets Samaria at the well and they are having a courtship. Her family and town welcome him and they will soon be married, unified, in a committed relationship. This is what it looks like when God loves the world.
It means recognizing the needs that we have for each other. Jesus is the first to express a need. He is thirsty. It’s hot and he needs a drink. We can’t help but be reminded of Jesus on the cross when he says, “I thirst.” Jesus is expressing this need twice in the book of John. The woman also feels safe to express her need. She has a need or a want to quit coming to this well. She has a need to understand—she asks curious questions of Jesus, needing deep conversation. She’s a theologian and a thinker. She needs to know and she wants to discuss. And she has a need for Messiah, for hope of change in her life in her world. She and Jesus together are expressing a common need and that is for the arbitrary divisions that people make to be destroyed.
If these two didn’t have any needs, they would have never had this conversation. But they are human and they need water, they need spiritual fulfillment, they need relationship, they need each other. This is what it means to love the world, to need each other. God needs us, needs to be in relationship and we need to be in relationship with God and each other. The problem is we are so independent that we don’t want to admit our needs. We don’t want seem needy or desperate. But God doesn’t mind sounding desperate. God is desperate to save us and is not holding back, even his own son, the lifegiving water, the Holy Spirit, any of it.
So it means accepting that we have needs and expressing them and it means accepting love and help from others. These two were receptive to the gifts and help that each other were offering. They were open to relationship and they found themselves satisfied. Jesus found a place where he was received and could share the good news. The woman found the Messiah and her community was transformed.
In the desert, Moses strikes a rock with his staff and water gushes forth for the Israelites wandering in the desert about to die of thirst. The very most dry and resistant of places. So God strikes our hard hearts and our thickest armor trying to give us what we most need. May we be receptive, may we admit our needs for God and each other, may we form relationships that transform us and satisfy our deepest longings.
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