Living Water

Living Water (February 24, 2008)

“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.” John 4:14

This story in the fourth chapter of John is one of the timeless stories in the New Testament, rich with meaning.

This story is very similar to the one last week of Jesus and Nicodemus. Just as Nicodemus persisted in thinking purely on a physical level “how can a man be born again? Shall he enter a second time into his mother’s womb?” So also the woman thinks entirely in physical terms about water. When Jesus says he would give her “living water” she answers, “you have no bucket and the well is deep.”

Whether learned or simple, we spend a great deal of time thinking on a physical plane, while Jesus would draw us into a deeper reality. All of John’s gospel is filled with deeper realities which the surface realities of life only point to and suggest. Lent is a time for everyone to think of deeper truths and realities which are hidden often by the pressures of day to day existence, making a living, doing chores.

Today’s story is of a woman who comes across Truth with a capital “T” while she does her chores.

Let us think first of her. She is from a despised group with a centuries old history of bitter feelings between them and the Jewish people. Samaritans had their own Torah, the first five books of Moses, but no other books such as the psalms and prophets, and their own laws. But because they were descended from people who had intermarried with the Assyrian conquerors 700 years earlier and the people the Assyrians brought with them, they were despised. In the words of the woman herself “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans”. One of the major points of difference was whether Mount Gerizim or Mount Zion in Jerusalem was the true place to worship. More on that in a minute.

The woman comes at mid-day, which is certainly not the time to do such heavy work, and she comes alone. Why did she come at mid-day? We can guess from the rest of the dialogue. “I have no husband,” she says, and he replies “The truth is you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.” Because of her life style, as we say today, she was in effect an outcast. We can only imagine what a difficult life she had. She could only go out at a time of day when she could be sure not to run into other people from her village.

She is a woman with a hard life, mistakes in her past, and demanding daily tasks, with no joy in them of companionship.

Now turn to Jesus. If Jesus was a politician this was a woman he would have stayed clear of. It could do him no good to be seen talking with her. He asks her for a drink of water. In one of his books Jimmy Çarter comments on this passage and says, “it embarrasses me to say it, but I remember well that, when I worked in the peanut fields with my daddy as a young boy, it would have been inconceivable for a white person to drink water from the same dipper as one of the black workers. This was true,” he says, “despite the fact that we were working side by side in the same field.”

Jesus shattered a similar prejudice by asking for water. And the way he speaks with her – frankly, but not with condescension, and simply as one human being to another – is one of the most endearing parts of this story. Instead of saying to himself that this woman can’t possibly understand what I am about in the world, he unfolds to her the richest meaning of his life and its mission – to bring a spring of “living water” which would well up to eternal life for all who believe in him, regardless of their background, their situation in life, or their sins. And when the woman confesses her standard orthodox belief that one day the Messiah would come, he says outright: “I who speak to you am he.”

The woman asks for this “living water” and you sense that there is a small light beginning to glimmer in her soul. Jesus, however, goes right to the heart of her problem. The life she has been living has been less than perfect, as a result she faced ostracism. The woman shows an interest in religion – many people have an interest in religion – and even a superficial understanding of her Samaritan faith, but no interest in its moral demands. For her religion was a kind of second-hand thing, about holy mountains and ancestral wells and religious arguments, but no interest in living a moral life appropriate to her faith. But Jesus knew her inside and out and to her total shock uncovered her life’s path before her.

The “living water” of Jesus won’t allow us to rest content on easy living, of too little charity, too little fairness, too little ethical integrity. Jesus’ living water is there for the drinking, but we won’t stay the same as we were.

We should be clear that Jesus didn’t first tell the woman she had to get her act together before she could have this living water. He offered the water to her if she only asked for it, then would follow the getting her act together. In our reading this morning from Romans St. Paul says “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1). We don’t earn our peace with God through our works, but our works follow our faith and it is faith in that living water of Christ which produces peace of mind and a life dedicated to righteous living. Nothing is clearer in the New Testament than faith must lead to ethics and a moral life, but nothing is also clearer than that the living water of Christ is offered without conditions.

How petty now in contrast to this living water are such arguments about holy mountains. Jesus in effect changed the geography of religion. He moved it away from pilgrimages to holy places to the pilgrimage of the heart – a thought which John Bunyan captured in his famous “Pilgrim’s Progress” which has nothing about holy mountains but is all about the pilgrimage of faith. The ones the father seeks to worship him are those who worship “in spirit and in truth”. Jesus’ offer of true worship in the Spirit lifts religion above the claims of rival cults.

The poet W. H. Auden wrote: “In the deserts of the heart, let the healing fountain start. In the prison of his days, teach the free man how to praise.”

Today racial and class prejudice is still a fact of life in many parts of the world, ethnic rivalries tear at the fabric of national unity. In our country there is no doubt we have made a lot of progress, but only a fool would say this problem has been completely solved. It used to be above the surface and far more obvious – such as the “whites only” signs ironically on water fountains in many part of the south four decades ago. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. But there is still prejudice and class consciousness. Jesus offers the “living water” which is himself against all such human barriers. The living water is the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ himself, and it is like a spring, inexhaustible, forever bubbling up in new ways, bring what St. Paul called a “peace which passes all understanding”. Jesus said people who drink the water he gives will never grow thirsty.

People may grow tired of religion and its constant petty arguments but there can be no growing tired of Christ, and the one who lives in Christ and has Christ live in him or her has in effect a perpetual spring of living water inside to strengthen, support, cheer, and uphold through all the vicissitudes of life.

“I know the Messiah will come,” the woman said. “I who speak to you am he,” said Christ. The healing fountain is the living water of Jesus Christ.