Living Water

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The 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.) Jesus 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.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but 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.’ The 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.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’ John 4:1-26 

A very common practice once, drawing and carrying water from a well, is much rarer in this country. People lived by streams and rivers so they could have potable water and travel from one place to another. We are fortunate to have a well and have water pumped into our home. Many Indigenous people still have to carry water long distances for themselves and their livestock. Jesus came upon an Indigenous woman, a Samaritan, and asked her for water. This encounter is a shock to his disciples and a gift to us all. Throughout his ministry among us, Jesus broke protocol after protocol to show us who is included in God's living water. Time and time again, he met with, and often heals, those outcasts, enemies and women. May we follow Jesus and see the love of God in a stranger's eyes.

Blessed Creator, who is living water and abundance

you shine your light on all the people of the earth

and clothe us with your spirit and your compassion.

We give into fear when we encounter an enemy

we judge and cast them away before speaking to them

and forget that they too are made in your loving image.

Give us new sight so we might see your love here

help us to offer a drink of water to the thirsty and alone

and follow you in making community with outcast and strangers. Amen.