John 4:1-41

It all starts because Jesus is thirsty.
It’s that simple. Did you notice? The Lord and Savior of humankind and all Creation are tired and needs something to drink.
We talked last week about acknowledging our vulnerability and our brokenness. We took our own brokenness, and the broken places in our world, and put them on something tangible, that we could see and touch – a shard of broken pottery – and placed them on the cross. We released them into the care of a God who, taking on human flesh in Jesus Christ, is able and willing to carry all of our burdens.
And then, in this morning’s Gospel lesson, which we just watched play out, we see that very same Jesus turn to another human, broken and vulnerable, just like us, and ask for a drink of water.
In John’s Gospel, the gospel where we meet the Samaritan woman at the well, we hear a lot about the divinity of Jesus. We meet the Jesus who is God incarnate, the Word made Flesh, the Light of the World, the Bread of Heaven. This larger-than-life Jesus is easy to admire, easy to worship, even, but sometimes…well, I find him a little hard to relate to. He talks in these esoteric metaphors about how he is the Resurrection and the Life, or how we must be born again. He tells us about a Spirit that is like the wind – we feel it blowing around us, but we do not understand where it comes from. To be honest, sometimes I hear Jesus talking in John’s Gospel, and I think, “Well, Jesus, you got that ‘do not understand’ part right!”
Many of you will remember two weeks ago when we read from chapter 3 of John’s Gospel and met a man named Nicodemus – a Jewish leader who had a hard time understanding what Jesus was talking about. Nicodemus didn’t get it, remember, at least not during that first conversation with Jesus. He couldn’t wrap his head around all this talk of being “born again”, didn’t understand what Jesus was saying about the Son and the Father, and how they are one, and then the Father sent the Son into the world… It was too much for him to take in, too big a change in his worldview, the way he’d always understood God. He was, you remember, still a “gestating Christian”, still in need of growth, and formation, still waiting to be born from the womb of God.
Nicodemus didn’t get it. And really, can we blame him? I’m not sure what I would have made of that conversation – or of the conversation, we heard this morning between Jesus and the Samaritan woman – if I had been in either of their shoes!
But for some reason, the Samaritan woman has a better go of it with Jesus than Nicodemus does. Their stories are mirror images to one another in many ways. They have so many parallels, and yet, their conversations end so differently. Both of them begin talking with Jesus without a clear picture of who he is, not realizing that they are speaking to God incarnate, the Word-made-Flesh. And, in both conversations, Jesus launches immediately into his metaphorical descriptions of who he is and who God is and how it all works – before they’ve really had a chance to catch their breath! They’re both a little blown away by it all; both start by taking Jesus’ words literally. And both are a little skeptical at first, trying to figure out if this Jesus talking about living water and being born again is a crazy man…or a prophet.
But while Nicodemus gets overwhelmed and confused, and ultimately fades away into the shadows of the night, the woman we met today continues to engage with Jesus. Some might say he’s met his match! She gets his theological drift, and so they keep talking, and together they confront some of the things that have kept their two peoples – the Jews and the Samaritans – at
odds with one another. Ultimately, Jesus reveals to the Samaritan woman who he is – the Messiah, the God whose name is “I AM.” And even as the woman at the good doubts and wrestles with this information, she jumps up, leaves her jar behind, and runs to call her people to come and see for themselves! Just like John the Baptist and those first disciples in John’s Gospel that we met in January, the Samaritan woman becomes a witness to who Jesus really is.
And I wonder…I wonder if part of what makes the difference for the Samaritan woman is that she gets a glimpse of a Jesus who is thirsty.
I wonder if she sees this road-weary Jesus, tired and dirty and sitting down to rest on a well, and she catches a glimpse of their common humanity. Across the boundaries that separate them – he is a Jew and she is a Samaritan; he is a man and she is a woman; he is revered as a teacher and she has people whispering about her marital history. He is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. And yet, when the Samaritan woman meets Jesus, she sees another human being who, just like her, gets tired and thirsty, and needs a drink of water. And so she can talk to him and relate to him because, in spite of all that separates them, there is something more fundamental that they share in common.
It is a powerful experience, isn’t it, when we recognize something unexpected that we share with another person. Something that binds us together in our common humanity. It makes me think of a humorous, if somewhat embarrassing, experience in my own life.
While I was in seminary, I participated in a travel seminar to Ghana with a professor and several other students. We spent a few weeks traveling around the country, meeting and learning from our Ghanaian Presbyterian brothers and sisters about what ministry and the Gospel look like in their context.
One morning, our hosts announced they were going to take us to a nature reserve so that we could see some of the wildlife of their country that we weren’t likely to encounter in the crowded streets of the city – baboons, peacocks, ostriches…, etc. We boarded our little bus, and while we were on our way, I pulled out my big old bottle of sunscreen and started to lather up. And – and here’s the embarrassing part – to my surprise, my African American friend and classmate started to do the same. She glanced over at me, and my face must not have masked my surprise too well, because she laughed and said, “Yes, Ginna, black people can get sunburned too.”
I learned two things that day. First, as my friend so aptly put it, that black people can get sunburned too. And second, a bit more sobering, I learned how little time I had spent with people of color, to have lived 23 years before knowing that we all burn when exposed to the sun.
We may not like to admit it – I certainly don’t! – but it is harder for us to see our common humanity with people that we individually or the world around us and the society in which we have been raised, has taught us to see as “other.” Jews and Samaritans. People who are white and people of color. People who were born in the United States, and people who were born in Spain, or Mexico, or Syria. The Samaritan woman notices something so simple, and yet something that the powers in her world have worked so hard to keep her from seeing: that Jews get thirsty, too.
There’s another story, this time from Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus talks about this common, shared human experience of being thirsty. I imagine you’ve heard it before. It’s the story of the sheep and the goats, where Christ has come in glory to judge the world, and he looks to those at his right hand, the ones he calls “the sheep”, and tells them they are counted as righteous because he was hungry, and they fed him; he was thirsty, and they gave him something to drink. For that which we do for those counted as “the least of these”, we do for Jesus himself.
I think it’s safe to say that the Samaritan woman we met today is one of the people Jesus calls “sheep”, the righteous ones, in this story. Because as it turns out when we recognize our shared, common humanity, and respect that humanity, and act to serve that shared human vulnerability and need – when we do this, we recognize Christ himself.
Jesus gives the Samaritan woman the opportunity to do just that when he asks for something as simple as a cool drink of water. That’s how it all starts. From that small, basic human request, that stream of living water and eternal life that Jesus offers bursts forth, not just for the Samaritan woman, but for her whole community. From a simple cup of cool water, a story of salvation is born.
So friends, consider with me, this morning: Where in our lives might Jesus be offering us this same opportunity? Where in our church, in our town, in our world, might we catch a glimpse of that humanity we share with Jesus, in face of the person who is hungry, or thirsty? The one who is homeless, or an immigrant, or in prison, or sick?
And, perhaps more importantly, are we willing to look into the faces of the people around us and respond with the faith and the courage of the Samaritan woman? To see the humanity of others and respond with our own humanity. To recognize that in spite of all that might separate us, there is something more fundamental that we share in common.
It all starts because Jesus is thirsty. Friends, let’s keep our eyes and ears and hearts open, for I think if we look around we will find that Jesus is still thirsty, and still giving us the chance to offer him a drink. Thanks be to God...