3rd Sunday of Lent: Water Jars and Gushers

“The woman left her water jar and went back to the city saying, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Christ?’” (John 4:28-29)

It's very interesting to note the details which the eyewitness to this encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan women thinks are worth mentioning. That she left her water jar at the well to run back to the town was a detail worth handing on to future readers. How she came to have five husbands, and why she wasn't married to number six, was apparently not worth mentioning.

Samaritans considered themsleves the children of Jacob, whom God renamed Israel. And they considered themselves bound by the first five books of the Old Testament. And under the Law of Israel, if the oldest son in a family died with no children, the widow was married off to the next eldest son. For all we know, this poor woman might have been married off to the next four brothers, all of whom died. Maybe brother number six didn't want to marry her, and she was left to fend for herself.

That she wasn't married to the man she was living with explains why she carried her water jar to the well at noon -- the hottest part of the day -- rather than early in the morning and endure the stares, the whispers, and occasional barbs of the other women of Sychar.

And so she came to the well at high noon, needing the water at the well to quench her physical thirst. But as Jesus could see, she had a thirst, which that water at the well could never quench. And neither would rubbing her nose in her mistakes quench that thirst. Salvation is so much more than being told, “don’t do it again,” and obeying that command.

The only way that Jesus can quench her thirst, and ours, is to engage us in a conversation of equals, which He begins by asking her for a drink. It is only in that conversation that we can complain about our thirst. It is only in conversation that we can figure out what we’re really thirsty for. It is only in conversation that we can finally understand the thirst in our hearts that only the gushing water, which Jesus offers us, will quench. We all need a gushing fountain that will make us leave our water jars at the well.

No doubt, the Samaritan Woman was tired of having to drag her water jar to the well in the heat of midday, day after day after day. But she was also dying of the thirst of loneliness. She yearned to be accepted by her fellow Samaritans. Isn’t it rather ironic that she is so defensive about her Samaritan heritage to a Jew when it is her fellow Samaritans that she has to avoid by coming to the well at noon?

She thirsts for the approval of her fellow Samaritans in Sychar. But Jesus offers her a gushing fountain, a community of Jews and Samaritans worshiping together the God they have in common in spirit and truth. Instead of fighting over which place God is to be found, Mount Gerzim in Samaria or Mount Zion in Jerusalem, Jesus offers her the presence of God everywhere. Instead of fighting over who has control of God’s sacred spaces, Jesus offers her freedom to meet God in any building so long as she seeks the truth in an open spirit. She thirsts for tolerance. Jesus offers her a gushing fountain of love.

What are you thirsty for? What am I thirsty for? What are we thirsty for? What gushing water does Jesus offer to you, to me, to us? Those answers can only be found in conversation. Those answers can only be found in a spirit of openness to each other. Those answers can only be found in a spirit which recognizes that our first answer to the question, what am I thirsty for, is the water jar that we need to leave at the well.

Where is the gushing water that Jesus promises. “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). The gushing water, the Sprit of eternal life is already in each of us. If we open up our hearts to ourselves, we will find that Jesus has been there the whole time waiting for us. If we face our thirst, we will find Jesus, who does not judge us, but meets us where we are. If we have that conversation with Jesus, then we can have that conversation with each other, because that conversation will be filled with the Spirit of truth and love.

Jesus is waiting for us at the well. Let us leave our water jars behind.