Living Water

 When I served in Walker, a teacher there took some time off and joined the Peace Core. She was sent to Mongolia where people lived in Yurts and had to walk about 3 miles round trip to get water everyday, they walked in the morning to avoid the heat of the day. Once she learned the language enough and they started talking, they asked her if we as Americans had running water in our homes. She swelled up with pride and said, "Yes, we don't leave our homes, just turn on the faucet." "How sad," they replied, "you have to stay inside your house all day long and never get to know your neighbors." 

So in our story this morning, Jesus is by the well in the middle of the day. He is resting while the disciples go out and find some food. Along comes this Samaritan woman and he asks her for some water. In those days, the Samaritans and the Jews were in a family feud. This has lasted over 700 years and they don't like each other. Plus, there's more. In Judaism, there were rules for just about everything, which includes interactions between men and women, especially from different nationalities and religions. To flip this over, the Samaritan woman has to walk to get water in the heat of the day, by herself, and when she gets there, here is a Jewish man just sitting there and asks her for some water. So she puts her defenses up, wondering why he and how could he ask her such a question as it was literally against his religion to even talk to her, much less ask for anything. Especially someone who can't even be accepted in her own community. There has been a lot of speculation and judgment about this woman who admits she has had five husbands and now lives with a man who isn't her husband. She must be the worst. However, maybe she is just very unlucky and very bad at relationships that some have died and the rest left her. We don't know. Anywho, unlike Nicodemus who comes in the middle of the night, she is engaging him during the day out in the open. So, she wants to know why he would ask her such a thing? He answers that if she know him, she would ask for living water, the kind that won't every run dry and she will never thirst again. She asks about this, where she can get this? And they get into the nitty gritty and she discloses her status and he doesn't judge her but welcomes her and offers her a place at the table when the kingdom's table is spread. She leaves her own jar behind and goes to tell the village that she found the Messiah. They appear to believe her and come to see Jesus and invite him to stay. It happens that by the time he leaves, many of them are believers and she is once again part of the community. 

So what is this living water? Is it just salvation, the Spirit, or something else? In a book, "Church of the Wild," the author tells that in the Gospel of John when the word "Logos" is used, we have translated that into "Word" "In the beginning was the Word of the God, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." However, when this Gospel was written, it was defined as a conversation, not a final "Word". In the beginning was the Conversation, and the Conversation was with God, and the Conversation was God." The Gospel of John uses lots of metaphors and allegories to try to explain the ministry and mission of Jesus and the love of God. Jesus is the Word, or Conversation, the Light of the world, the Good Shepherd, Living Water, to participate we have to eat the Body and drink the Blood. Though there is many times when Jesus chastises Nicodemus and others for only focusing on the physical, he doesn't discard the physical, he implores all to include the spiritual as well. It is also true that Jesus in any gospel, much less John, calls us into an individual relationship that is exclusive and ignores other people or the world itself. One must be born of water and of Spirit. 

The 'living water', I believe, is the community. The Samaritan woman is reconciled back into her community, the Samaritans are invited into the kingdom, and it is community that quenches our thirst that is hard to fill by ourselves, if not impossible. In the last chapters of the Gospel, Jesus prays that we all are one, just like he and God are one. Jesus' vision of heaven is one people, caring for each other and everyone having enough. The Gospel of John has the least emphasis on justice, but here actions speak much louder than words, a woman who is of a different nation, a religion that is considered inadequate at best, and is spurned by her own community, is made an apostle who tells them about the Messiah so that they will believe. She is restored, she is respected, she is again one of them. 

No matter, no matter, no matter who you are or where you are going, you are welcome here. That is a bold statement in the world of division, in this world of fear and mistrust. This is an invitation for others that mean once you become like us, then you are welcome. We issue this invitation for healing, reconnection, love, forgiveness, abundance, and community. This is living water for those who are dying for community, friends, people, and a heart to be filled. For God so loved the world, Jesus was sent to save it and all who are in it. Amen?  Amen.