[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen. You may be seated. In our gospel reading for this morning, Jesus
sits down beside a well in Samaria, tired and thirsty. It’s about the sixth hour noon,
and a woman of Samaria comes to draw water. Now, this isn’t the first time in the scriptures
that a man has met a woman at a well. In the Old Testament book of Genesis,
Jacob runs away from his home toward his uncle Laban’s place, hundreds of
miles away. And there, at a well, he meets a woman named Rachel. And Jacob rolls
away the stone from the mouth of the well and gives water to Rachel and to
her flocks. Now Jacob would wait 14 years to marry Rachel, but Moses says they
seemed like only a few days to him because he loved her. That’s what happens when a man meets
a woman at a well in the scriptures. Now the Samaritan woman in our text comes to draw some
water and finds Jesus sitting beside Jacob’s well. And now this isn’t the same well as Jacob and
Rachel’s well, but it’s a well that had given water to the people of Israel up to that day.
But this time, instead of the woman being in need, Jesus is in need. He’s thirsty, so
he asks the woman for a drink. Now this isn’t the first time that has happened
in the Scriptures either, where a man asks a woman for a drink. A well also shows up
in the courtship of Jacob’s parents, Isaac and Rebekah. Abraham had sent a
to his homeland to find a wife for his son Isaac. And the servant stood beside a
well in Abraham’s homeland and he sought a sign from God. He would ask a woman for
a drink of water and if she gave him water she would be the one appointed by
God for Isaac. And it happened just like that. The servant asked and Rebecca gave
water, and Isaac and Rebekah were married. However, when Jesus asked the Samaritan
woman for a drink, he’s not met with a response like Rebekah’s. Instead, the
Samaritan woman is shocked. She’s astounded. He, a Jewish man, is talking to
her, a Samaritan woman, much less asking her for a drink from the well. Now let’s
let’s step back and think about how scandalous this scene is.
First of all, it’s Jesus, a single man, alone with a woman, at a well.
But even more so, we don’t look at Samaritans
the way that Jews looked at Samaritans. To the Jews, the Samaritans are idolatrous
half-breeds. When the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in
Old Testament, the Assyrians took all the northern kingdom into into captivity and they put foreign
peoples in their land. And the Samaritans of Jesus’ day are a mixture of those foreign peoples
and the remnants of the northern kingdom. They’re half-breeds. And in addition, the Samaritans
practice a sort of polluted Judaism, worshiping on Mount Gerizim instead of Mount Zion and Jerusalem.
And they had an Old Testament that was edited, that was altered, to fit their theology.
In fact, for Jews to even interact with Samaritans would make a Jew unclean.
To say the relationship was not friendly is an underestimation, but Jesus doesn’t seem
to care about this history, and he doesn’t care about that distinction.
and this is where Jesus takes hold of the conversation with the Samaritan
woman. If you knew the gift of God, he says, 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.
Are you greater than our father Jacob, she says? And it’s a great question. After
all, if anybody could give living water, Jacob’s probably the best bet. Jacob’s
the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, Jacob’s the one who rolled away the
stone to give water to Rachel, Jacob’s the one who dug that very well that had
provided water for generations. Jacob was a big deal. But Jesus answers,
everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, this normal water, but
whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
Water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up
into eternal life. Jesus’s actions here are truly remarkable. He kindly listens
to the Samaritan woman, he gently teaches her, and he offers her that living water
which we find out in John’s Gospel is the Holy Spirit, which means he invites
her into the kingdom of God. And John tells us that the disciples are astounded. They marvel
at this. They’re scandalized by this. Jesus with a Samaritan woman. And the faithful woman
replies with trust, Sir, give me this water. Now if this was like any other meeting of a man
in a well in the scriptures, and there’s many more than the two I just mentioned previously,
we would expect to hear one thing. Wedding bells. And we do. Although it’s
not the wedding you or I would probably expect. It’s not like the wedding of
Jacob and Rachel, though Jesus has waited ages for this like Jacob. It’s not like
the wedding of Isaac and Rebecca, though Jesus also would give himself to the one
appointed to him by God, like Isaac. You see, this wedding takes place at
another sixth hour, at noon, at the cross, because Jesus is the bridegroom who
sacrifices himself on the cross for the forgiveness of sins of the entire world.
And as Jesus is lifted up on the cross for our sins,
he’s pierced, and blood and water come out of his side,
becoming a spring of forgiveness, welling up to eternal life. And this
spring is still flowing today. In the waters of holy baptism, the living
waters of baptism, Jesus took you as his bride. He washed away all of your sins
and he gave you his Spirit. As St. Paul writes in Ephesians, Jesus so loved his
the church that he gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having
cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. Jesus is the bridegroom
and he invites all of us to become a part of his bride the church. He even
invites a Samaritan woman who as it turns out had not one not two but five
former husbands and was currently cohabitating with a man who was not her
husband. What kind of a crazy bridegroom is this Jesus guy to have such a bride?
Well, he’s one who would give himself up for the salvation of every single person,
regardless of who they are or what they’ve done. You see, throughout the
Gospel of John, we see that when it comes down to it, Jesus draws one distinction
in humanity. You’re either a part of Jesus’ bride cleansed with water, or you’re
not. You’re either forgiven or condemned. You’re either of the light or of the
darkness, but they’re all saying the exact same thing. You’re either a part of
Jesus’ family with his Father or you’re not. And he wants everybody in his family.
He wants everybody as his bride. Jesus draws no other distinction. We saw it
last week, last Sunday, with the story of Nicodemus. Nicodemus was rich, he was powerful,
he was crafty and connected, he was a Pharisee, he was a ruler, a member of the ruling council.
Jesus calls him a teacher of Israel, but Jesus doesn’t really care about those distinctions.
In fact, those things get in the way of Nicodemus believing. And we see it this week with the
Samaritan woman. As the conversation continues she tries to drive a wedge
between the Jews on the one hand and the Samaritans on the other hand. You worship
at this mountain, she says, but we worship at that mountain. But Jesus will have
none of it. Yes, yes, he says, but that’s in the past. The hour is coming when true
worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. In other words, true
worship is not defined by who you are, your ethnicity, your location, or any of
those things. True worship is defined by Jesus’ spirit and faith. Jesus refuses to
draw another distinction between in his bride or not. In other words, Jesus
refuses to label people. Now we have a tendency to label people. We like to form
groups. We are, as Jonathan Haidt says, tribal. And groups aren’t inherently bad.
they really aren’t, whether they’re nations, denominations, gardening clubs, so
on and so forth, groups can be fine. And God created us with a desire for
community that groups fulfill. They can be a really, really good thing. But since
the fall into sin in the garden, our groups can also create issues. Because
Satan contempt those people that are in the group to view those as outside of
group as less important than them. To view them as the other, as the out group. And we’ve seen
this throughout all of world history, especially with our wars, but especially in the last decade
across the world and in America. People are labeled as white, black and brown, affluent or homeless,
liberal or conservative, American, European, Middle Easterner, transgender or cisgender,
and on and on and on. Sometimes these labels are just descriptions. They’re
just calling a thing what it is, which is fine. But far too often these labels also
signify malice or anger against a group of people for whom Jesus died. They
signify maybe even that we don’t think they’re worthy of the kingdom of God.
But remember, Jesus only makes one distinction in humanity, whether
you’re in his bride or you’re not. And in our story with the Samaritan woman, he
does not label her as an adulteress. He does not label her as a Samaritan. He
does not label her as a woman beneath him. Rather, he sees her as someone who
could and should be a part of his bride, because he came not to call the
righteous, but sinners. And in the conversation with her, it’s as if Jesus
is trying to get her to see herself not as an adulteress, not primarily as a
Samaritan, but as someone whom he loves, as the very Bride of Christ for whom he
died, because in the end that’s all that really matters. And he wants the same
for you too. To not see yourself defined by your sin or your shame and what’s
been done to you or what you’ve done. And to not primarily identify by your
class or your ethnicity or your occupation, but to see yourself
primarily as a son and daughter of the Heavenly Father, as the forgiven beloved
bride of Jesus. You know in marriage there’s this old cliche that husband and
wife after decades of living together start to look like each other, and I’m
not sure that’s true. Actually, I really hope that’s not true for the sake of all
the wives in the congregation. But in a marriage, husband and wife do start to
become like one another in other ways. They often can adapt similar routines or
ways of doing things after living with each other after so many years. With the
help of his wife, a husband begins to see things that she sees, things that he
would have never noticed if she hadn’t pointed out, and vice versa. And husband
and wives often begin to find joy in and love similar things, chiefly
among them, if God gives them, their children and their grandchildren. Well,
the same dynamic holds true for us, the bride of Jesus.
Here’s how it works.
Jesus, our bridegroom, continually showers us
with his love week in and week out.
And every Sunday morning we kneel, we confess our sins,
and Jesus in the absolution says,
I’ll take that sin from you.
And then he embeds his gospel in our ears,
telling us he really, really loves us.
And then to put the icing on the cake,
he draws nears to us and he touches us
with his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.
As the bride of Christ, it’s all grace upon grace,
love upon love.
And then slowly but surely,
Jesus forms us more into a bride like him.
We adapt similar ways of doing things
like Jesus, our bridegroom.
We learn to kindly listen,
to gently teach and rebuke,
and to offer living water, the gospel and the Holy Spirit
to all people, just like Jesus treated the Samaritan woman. We begin to see with
eyes that are cleansed and restored by the Holy Spirit, eyes that don’t
make much of ethnic, of class, or group distinction, but eyes that make the one
distinction that really matters to Jesus, whether they’re part of his bride or not.
And we begin to love those things that Jesus our bridegroom loved, which means
we love his heavenly father, we love his word, we love his sacraments, but we also
love all people because we know that Jesus died for every single person and
wants to take everybody home as his bride. And when anybody repents,
regardless of who they are or what they’ve done, we rejoice with Jesus our
Bridegroom. After all, we see this bride-bridegroom dynamic in the story of
Samaritan woman herself. After she believes in Jesus, after she says, sir
give to me this water, Jesus’ love begins to work on a problem in her life. Her
serial divorce and her cohabitation. And then Jesus molds her with his teaching
and love because she is a part of his bride. You know throughout 1,500 years of
church history. That’s as far back as I could find it. Church theologians, pastors,
and people have viewed the Samaritan woman as more than a Samaritan woman, but
as someone who represents the Church, the Bride of Christ. And I think that’s
exactly right. After all, her response is the exact response that Jesus desires
this church to have. Sir, give to me this water. And also, if I can add, may
everyone around me, no matter who they are, receive this water too. You, O Bride
of Christ, know the gift of God. You know the one who is speaking to you, Jesus. So
ask him to give you a drink and he will always give you living water. In the name
of Jesus. Amen.
