Rev. E. Scott Winnete
Rev. E. Scott Winnette
February 24, 2008
Ever been really thirsty? Really thirsty – like so thirsty you would ask a stranger at the Metro for a sip from her Deer Park bottle? I haven’t. Now, I have been thirsty but not that thirsty. I have been blessed with a birth into this country, and our time. I’ve never been too far from a kitchen, water fountain, or bottle. We are so very blessed. In our text today, we see a weary Jesus, a thirsty, dusty Jesus on his way through hostile Samaria. Jesus, tired from walking, parched in the heat of the sun sits at Jacob’s well. He sits at this well close, so close to refreshment. Maybe he could smell the coolness and hear the wetness of that unattainable water? Maybe he was tempted to call down his Logos, his world-creating, miracle-making power. While the disciples were off into town might he teleport some of that water to his lips unseen, might he simply create a bucket with a rope, or a straw that would reach the coolness?
Our text today places us smack dab in the middle of an ancient theological debate. Was Jesus more human or more God? Did he really thirst or was it only a pretense? The theological compromise we inherit is the Chalcedon formula; Jesus was 100% God and 100% human. I see both aspects in our text today. I believe that Jesus was indeed humanly thirsty. In the noon-day heat he sat at the well and prayerfully waited for the disciples to return. His parched tongue longed for water. And he sees a figure coming toward the well, as its form clarified; he sees a woman with a bucket on a rope and an empty water pot on her head.
Jesus, the human Jesus was a Jew by culture and religion. The disciples might have insisted that he stay behind, so that he could remain clean from any association with the Samaritans at the market. He had to hear the voices of his people: “She is a Samaritan dog. A mutt – inbred, Jewish and who knows what else. Keep away from her.” He had to remember the men’s ritual prayer at the Temple, “Thank God I am not a woman.” Rabbis did not talk to women. The holy Rabbis would walk into a tree to avoid seeing up close a woman who was not their wife. He knew that to talk with her would make him unclean. Taboo – talk to a Samaritan! Taboo – talk to a woman! Double taboo – talk to a Samaritan woman! It was taboo to drink out of her filthy bucket. But he was thirsty.
I imagine Jesus watched this woman, with her water pot, and her bucket wishing it were a different and better world, a world where he could ask her for hospitality, for a refreshing draw of water from her bucket. God dreams for a world free of misogyny. Did Jesus long for a world where he could talk to any stranger? God dreams for a world free from fear. Did he thirst for a world where he and this woman could chat politely and bless each other with good will ignoring their religious differences? God dreams for a world united in Love of God and neighbor. Did Jesus thirst for a new world where he would not be expected to cast down his eyes to ignore her or to shout out to her to leave for he was there first?
Jesus lived in a world where people used their faith in God to degrade people they hated. We still live in that world. Anne Lamott wrote, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
Human Jesus had to make a decision. Follow his head and thirst or his heart and drink? Behave appropriately or radically? Ask for hospitality and break the taboos of his people or sit thirsty. His human thirst led him to a divine thirst for a lovely, friendly, justice-filled world. His human thirst led him to his divine nature and he says four words that bridge sexism, racism, and religious superiority, “Give me a drink.” The silence was broken by the very Spirit of God, and Jesus becomes a water pot of living love. Jesus Christ thirsts for us, his disciples, to become water pots too, always to offer and seek hospitality, always to violate unjust taboos, always to invite the living water of God’s love into our lives and into the world.
During our Wednesday Bible Study (commercial – 1st & 3rd Weds., 9:30 – 11:00 in the Library), it was no surprise to Susan and Jeanne when I discussed how the woman at the well had gotten a very bad rap over the centuries. In a sermon preached recently by a pastor of the Christian Reformed Church he said, ”After all she was an adulterer, a slut…” Somehow she has become one of the famous Big Bad Girls of the Bible.
Jesus breaks the divisive silence of gender, race, nation, and religion by asking her for hospitality and water. They enter into the longest dialogue we have recorded with an individual and Jesus. Even last week’s Nicodemus who came in the night, does not get in the theological lines of this un-named woman who came to Jesus in the middle of the day. Jesus tells her she has had five husbands and was not married to her current man. Because of the six men in her life this poor woman became the archetype loose woman, the harlot, the prostitute, the user of men for economic gain and sexual pleasure. The long history of biblical commentary and preaching has tragically and unjustly misinterpreted this passage. Thousands of preachers have preached this text celebrating the amazing conversion of this definitive naughty woman. They were missing the point. Thousands of sermons have taken the living water of this story’s astounding gender equality between Jesus and this woman and poured it upon the ground. She offers him needed H2O and he offers her needed living water. They help each other. Patriarchal psychology runs so deep in humanity that the very followers of this Jesus take this boundary breaking conversation between Jesus and a theologically astute woman making it a story of a man rescuing a woman from her sin.
It has been assumed that this woman had divorced her husbands, yet the law of the day made it impossible for a woman to divorce her husband. Only the man could initiate divorce and as easily as simply saying, “I divorce you.” three times. We cannot know what happened. It could be that she was stuck like Tamar in a practice of Leviticus that when widowed the brother of her husband married her. It could be that she was a wise great, great grandmother who had outlived five husbands. The story does not ring true that a harlot would be listened to by her Samaritan town’s people ranting about a man she met she thought was the Messiah. It just does not ring true that they would believe her and seek him out.
There is a positive plotline running through our Scripture of women at wells. Moses met his wife Zipporah at a well after he fled from Pharaoh. He was protected and blessed by her family (Ex. 2). Hagar’s son Ishmael was dying of thirst and God showed her a well of water (Gen. 21). Abraham’s servant prayed to meet a wife for Isaac at a well and he was met by a very gracious Rebecca who gave him and his camels’ water to drink (Gen. 24). It doesn’t make since to convert this Gospel’s story of a gracious, intelligent woman into a mirror of female sinfulness. The biblically unwarranted assumption of her sexual wantonness is unfair to her and all women.
In a paper on the woman at the well, the Rev. Surekha Nelavala, a student at Drew University, shared this story of a childhood friend of the Dalit caste in India.
One person whom we would associate with was Penchalamma, a 12 year old Dalit girl, a residential maid servant of our neighbor friends. Penchalamma, for whom I always had a special compassion, fondly and respectfully addressed me as ‘akka’, meaning elder sister …. Penchalamma was treated as untouchable even though she lived in the same house with our neighbours. Her sleeping place was usually a mat on the floor in a corner of a room; her plate and glass were separated from the other utensils in the house. She was strictly forbidden to use any of the household vessels, except for cleaning or washing them. This, however, was regarded as natural by both servants and employers, and therefore Penchalamma or her family were not particularly offended. A famous saying in India is that “the poor are always hungry”. Penchalamma being a poor girl with limited access to fancy foods, developed a curiosity and desire for the special food that the family ate, which was not usually shared with her. One fine day she sneakily tried to eat from a plate that had leftover food on it, and which was to be thrown away. The man of the house saw her do so and took advantage of her mistake to sexually molest her. She was threatened that if she complained to the lady of the house, he would let them know of her fault. Scared to death, she pleaded with him for forgiveness and said that she would never do it again. Seeing her vulnerability the man attempted to molest her again, but this time she resisted him. Being worried by his mistake, the man complained about Penchalamma to his wife, about how she has been messing and polluting their things despite several warnings by him. Obviously, Penchalamma was not asked for any explanation, but instead mercilessly thrown out and told not to come back to work again. The next morning Penchalamma came to my house crying and explained to me the details of the incident. She told me that she would not dare tell anyone else for fear of damaging her reputation, and that she was blamed by her parents for her mistake and for losing the job that earned her living.[1]
God dreams of a different world. A world where we share living water. A living water that knows no enemy, no outsider. A living water that knows no racism, or discrimination, or boundary. A living water that knows no gender inequality, that knows no rich, no poor, no greed, no poverty, no hunger. A living water that loves unconditionally, that uplifts the despairing, forgives the unforgivable, that cools and comforts other’s pain, a living water that ends all wars, and makes justice for all people, a living water that welcomes everyone to drink deeply.
Human Jesus asked this woman for water breaking the taboos. Divine Jesus saw into this woman’s reality and offered her living water. 100% God, Jesus gave this woman a grace that surpassed the divisions that stood between Samaritans and Jews, between women and men, between the religious leaders and the people, between those assumed unclean and not right before God and those assumed clean and right before God. He became a living water pot filled with God’s love. He gave her spiritual water communicating that in all of her past moments she was loved by God. “He knew everything I had ever done”, she marveled. Jesus looked her in the eye and pronounced her worthy. Jesus filled her with the infectious living water, and she ran off leaving behind her old water pot. She ran off splashing God’s grace all the way to her friends. She sprinkled them with the joy of being loved by that man and they drank deeply of the living water too.
Ever been really thirsty? Really thirsty? Have you ever joined God in a desperate thirst for justice? Our God dreams of a different world where girls are respected, where young boys do not go to war, where women are valued equally as men, where religions are friends, and strangers are hospitable. Our God offers Jesus, a living water pot filed with grace for our living and the redemption of the world.
Drink deeply of the water of God’s grace this morning. Drink deeply, deeply that you will be filled to the brim and then splash and sprinkle it at home, work, market, boulevard, and yard. Living Water Pots, may it be so for you and for me. Amen.
[1]Surekha Nelavala, Jesus Asks the Samaritan Woman for a Drink: A Dalit Feminist Reading of John 4, http://www.lectio.unibe.ch/07_1/pdf/surekha_samaritan_woman.pdf
