First Lutheran Church
March 15, 2020 + The Third Sunday in Lent
John 4:3-30, 39-42
Good Morning. I want to begin by thanking each and every one of you for practicing “social distancing” as together we face the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The decision to not meet on Sunday morning is one that we have not made lightly, and is not a decision based in panic and fear, but rather a decision rooted in our mission to love and to serve our neighbors, especially for those most vulnerable to the disease in our congregation and in our community. It is our sincere hope and prayer that our actions will help slow down the virus, making it easier to fight the disease and treat those who are suffering.
Today we gather together as the Body of Christ in a very different way. We may not be in the same physical space but still we are united in faith, gathered together in the Spirit. And in this moment, we are gathered around the Living Word of God, as we reflect on this week’s appointed Gospel according to St. John, The Story of Jesus and the Samaritan Women at the Well.
For today’s message I am going to be breaking up our Gospel reading into shorter sections and offer up my comments in between the sections. And the theme for today, or better yet, the lens through which I am looking at today’s text, is that of “social distancing.” It is a phrase we have been hearing a lot over the past few days, it may end up being the phrase which will define 2020, and it is a phrase that I hope will open us up to today’s Gospel reading in a new way.
The Holy Gospel according to St. John, Chapter 4, verses 3-30, and 39-42.
Glory to you O Lord; Praise to you O Christ.
3 (Jesus) left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)
The Gospel writer tells us that Jesus “had to go through Samaria” to get back to Galilee. Most Jews would have taken the longer and safer route across the Jordan to avoid Samaria and their long-time enemies the Samaritans. In the time of Jesus, and for decades before Jesus, the Jews and the Samaritans disagreed about everything that really matters! And they avoided each other whenever possible! They practiced well-established rules of “social distancing” in order to stay away from each other!
So, why does Jesus “have to go” through Samaria? It’s interesting to note that whenever Jesus traveled, he always seemed to wander over boundaries of every kind; political boundaries, religious boundaries, social boundaries, and personal boundaries. Those are the places where he goes, and those are the places where the kingdom of God is revealed. Perhaps Jesus “had to go through Samaria” because that’s where the Spirit of God was leading him!
In Samaria, Jesus stops to rest at “Jacob’s Well.” It seems he too is practicing some “social distancing,” getting a “break” from the disciples as they go out to get some food. Eventually at “noon,” a Samaritan-women arrives to draw water from the well. And Jesus does what Jesus always does, he breaks all the well-established rules about “social distancing.” Jesus engages her in a conversation, “Give me a drink.” And the woman is shocked, once again Jews and Samaritans don’t interact or share things; certainly not a drink of water, not to mention the fact that Jewish men are not supposed to interact in public with women, and in this case a Samaritan woman! Theologian Debi Thomas sums this interaction up, “To put this in more contemporary language, the Samaritan woman is the Other. The alien. The heretic. The stranger. The foreigner. She represents all the boundaries that must not be transgressed in the religious life. All the spiritual taboos that must not be broken. But Jesus transgresses and breaks them all, anyway.”
And it’s revealing that this conversation is happening at “noon.” It’s not a normal time to visit the well. Most people would visit the well in the morning hours to get water for the day, before the heat of the desert day would set in. It’s dangerous to travel to the well at mid-day! So, what is this woman doing at the well at noon? I suspect it has to do with “social distancing.”
Perhaps she’s at the well at “noon” because she has been marginalized by the rest of the women in her village, and they don’t want her around in the morning. She is alone in her work. As this story unfolds, we will learn that she has a complicated past, that she has been in more than a few relationships, and they all have ended badly. But we really don’t know why! Lutheran theologian Nadia Bolz Weber reminds us of the possibilities, “Perhaps she was married off as a teen bride, then widowed and passed along among her dead husband’s brothers, as per the ‘Levirate marriage’ practice of the day. Maybe her various husbands abandon her because she's infertile. Maybe she's a victim of abuse. Maybe she has a disability.” Whatever the case, we do know this, first century women did not have the legal power to end their own marriages — the authority to file for divorce rested with men alone. (That's why the Bible keeps telling us to look after the widows and the orphans: life has historically been hard for them.) So it is, this woman is more than likely a victim of some kind of “social distancing” practiced not out of the concern for a pandemic, but rather practiced to shame her, to punish her, and to “marginalize” her from the life of the community.
But here’s the good news of the Gospel, - this is “the place” where Jesus shows up! Jesus “shows up” at the well at “noon” to meet this woman. And to offer her what she truly thirsts for, living water that will “save” her, water that will bring her back into the community of faith, water that will satisfy her thirst forever, water that will give her life abundant!
Our Gospel continues with what is the longest recorded conversation with Jesus in the scriptures.
10Jesus 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.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Once again we see that Jesus is not there to shame this woman, he does not exact judgment to inspire her confession, he does not make absolution and compel her to, “go and sin nor more;” but rather he is there to simply engage her in a “holy conversation” that will reveal the Kingdom of God! Jesus begins this conversation from a humble and vulnerable place,- sharing his own thirst. Jesus meets her where she is at, and she is invited into his welcoming presence. This enables them to have one of those wonderful existential theological chats about life. And in the process of this exchange Jesus makes known to this unlikely person, a Samaritan woman, that he is, in fact, the long-awaited Messiah, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” Jesus crosses over “borders,” and breaks down malevolent “social distancing” to proclaim the grace and love of the Gospel!
And then the disciples show up! Our Gospel reading continues …
27Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?”
I bet they were thinking, “We can’t leave him alone for one minute without him getting into trouble.”
The Gospel narrative continues ….
28Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30They left the city and were on their way to him.
Suddenly the woman who must to go to the well at “noon,” the woman who most likely prefers to not be seen, to be invisible, the woman who perhaps lives at the very edges of her community - is transformed. Upon discovering who Jesus is, after her encounter with Jesus, she drops everything and runs back to the city and invites everyone, “Come and see!” Ironically her story, the story that keeps her “socially distant” on the margins, is the story that reveals the very Kingdom of God to her community. She becomes the vehicle of their salvation.
Looking ahead to verse 39, the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well concludes ….
39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40So When the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41Any many more believed because of his word. 42They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard ourselves, and we know that it is truly the Savior of the world.”
My favorite part of today’s story is the simple phrase at the end of verse forty, - Jesus “stayed there two days.” The utter disregard for all the “social distancing” between Jews and Samaritans is complete. We can only imagine what happened over those two days! I want to believe it was a party; a party interrupted by incredible “holy conversations” that broke open all the divides created by religious intolerance, gender discrimination, economic injustice, moral stigmas, and social inequalities. And after it was all done, they all knew, “This is the Kingdom of God!” (And that, I suppose, is the answer to my first question today, that’s why Jesus “had to go through Samaria!”)
For the next two weeks we will all be experiencing “social distancing” to one degree or another. For the most part, we have not been forced into it, certainly not in the same way the Samaritan Woman was marginalized in her community. But nonetheless, many of will experience being cut off from community, and more importantly the gift of life that comes from living in community. Perhaps we can make the best of this situation by making the experience a part of our Lenten discipline, our Lenten Journey?
I invite you to reflect on the effects of living in isolation, to pay attention to the things for which you begin to “thirst,” and to begin to empathize for those who will continue to live under “social distancing” long after the coronavirus pandemic is over and done. Perhaps in doing so, our eyes will be opened; and we will see anew those who have been marginalized, those who are afraid to come to the well in the morning because of the shame inflicted upon them, those who have been unfairly stigmatized by society, those who have been cut off from religious and political systems.
And may we be aware of the way that Jesus will break into our “social distancing” experience. I guarantee you that Jesus will, he’s never been good at “social distancing!” May our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts, be “open” to receive Christ when he arrives. And then finally, may we be transformed by that presence that breaks in, transformed in such a way that suddenly we are the ones who “have to go through Samaria” in our daily life, we are the ones who realize - that’s where the Kingdom of God will break into this world!
Over the next two weeks I want you all to practice good “social distancing.” I want you to stay safe and healthy, I want you to help keep other people safe and healthy, and I want you to reflect on your experience, make it your Lenten discipline. But after that’s all done, when this crisis comes to an end, when we get to Easter, and Jesus once again rises up from the dead, I want you to go out into the world and do what Jesus did, break all the well-established rules regarding “social distancing” and in doing so help usher in the Kingdom of God! Amen.