Lent 3, Year A

Exodus 17: 1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5: 1-11; John 4: 5-42

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, March 23, 2014.

“GOOD NEWS TRAVELS”

(Homily text:  John 4: 5-42)

Good news travels!  Good news often travels fast.

Good news travels, and comes to Samaria, as Jesus, a Jew, decides not to avoid Samaria by walking along the Jordan River valley to get from Jerusalem to Galilee, but decides, instead, to go directly north from Jerusalem to Galilee through Samaria.

There, the Lord sits by Jacob’s well[1], where he meets, at the middle of the day, a woman from the city of Sychar, as we read in our gospel text for this morning, from John 4: 5 – 42.

A lively conversation ensues…..

The Lord asks the woman for a drink, to which she responds, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”  John inserts a sidebar here, explaining to his readers that Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans.  In addition to the hatred of Jews for Samaritans, there is the matter of a man speaking with a woman he did not know in public.

Good news takes place, as Jesus begins to break down the walls of hostility and estrangement, walls which separate Jews from Samaritans and men from women.

The conversation continues, as Jesus begins to talk about “living water”.  The woman doesn’t seem to understand what the Lord is talking about, for she seems to interpret what He is saying as having to do with “running water”.[2]  Her comments seem to indicate that, perhaps, she thought that Jesus had access to a spring somewhere, which would eliminate her need to come and draw water from a deep well.

The two talk past each other, the woman taking Jesus’ comments literally, while the Lord is speaking spiritually.  (We saw this same dynamic at work in last week’s gospel reading, which had to do with Nicodemus’ meeting with Jesus, from John 3: 1 – 17.)

Jesus then moves the conversation in another direction, as He says to the woman, “Go, call your husband and come here.”  She, in reply, says, “I have no husband.”

Jesus says that, “You are right in saying ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

We might very well pause to look a little closer at this part of the conversation.  Scholars down through the years have focused their interest on this aspect of the Samaritan woman’s life history, and have wondered about the specific circumstances that caused her to have been married five times.  In truth, we do not know the reasons for this large number of marriages.  Perhaps the woman had been widowed at least once, or perhaps more than once.  Perhaps she had also been the object of divorce.  What we can say with some assurance that our guess is probably right is that the number of marriages she had been party to would have been unusual.  Certainly that would have been so in Jewish society, and it probably was in Samaritan society, as well.

But what the Lord does is to point out that the woman is currently living with a man that she is not married to.

Good news has a way of traveling:  Good news comes to the Samaritan woman as the Lord does not condemn the woman for her living arrangement….neither does He condone it.  Nor does He end the conversation, or seek to get away from the woman or to ignore her, as perhaps many of the residents of Sychar may have been doing….it is notable that the woman has come to draw water at the hottest part of the day, a time when many others would have been unlikely to be present.  (We will come back to the Lord’s treatment of the woman in a moment.)

The woman is surprised, it seems. 

After all, there is no way that this Jewish man could have known, by normal human means, her past history.  What we have before us is Jesus’ ability to see and know things that normal human beings cannot know.  This is a prominent feature of John’s gospel account, for John takes pains to let us know that Jesus is “one with the Father” (John 10: 30).  The point is that Jesus has God’s power to know all things.

So, she apparently decides that, if this fascinating Jewish man could know her life story, perhaps he could also settle a long-standing matter of debate between Samaritans and Jews:  The question of which mountain is to be considered the holy mountain where people are supposed to worship God.

Good news is expressed in Jesus’ comments:  Essentially, He says that “salvation is from the Jews”, which answers the woman’s question.  But then He continues to say that the time is coming when people who worship God won’t focus on any particular mountain at all, for God will be worshipped by all who worship “in spirit and in truth”.

This scrappy lady responds by saying that, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ).  When he comes, he will tell us all things.”

Good news comes in all its fullness as Jesus confirms that the Christ, the Messiah, has come.  He says, in response to the woman’s comment about the coming of the Christ, “I who speak to you am he.”[3]

Now, good news comes to the residents of Sychar, as the woman gets up, leaves her water jar by the well, and goes into town to exclaim “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.  Can this be the Christ?”  Good news travels fast, by the feet of the Samaritan woman and by the words of her testimony.

John goes on to tell us that many residents of Sychar came to believe in Jesus as a result, first of all, of the woman’s testimony, but also because they, themselves, had come to experience the Lord for themselves.

Some observations about this marvelous encounter are in order:

• The walls of separation that divide one person from another, one ethnic or racial group from another, one gender from another, all come tumbling down as Jesus Christ is encountered.  This is good news, indeed.

• God’s presence, a presence that is to be worshipped, adored and honored, will be seen and known everywhere.  This is good news, for no longer will people be able to think that God is to be found only in a special, holy place (mountain).  No, God is present everywhere and not just in a special, holy place, as Jacob exclaimed after he had had his dream of a ladder reaching up into heaven at Bethel.  In response to his dream, he said, “Truly, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”  (Genesis 28: 16)

• God’s good news extends to everyone, even to those whose lifestyles are less-than-acceptable.  (Here we would do well to remember that the Lord didn’t avoid, censure or condemn the woman for her life history, as perhaps many in Jewish society would have done, and perhaps as many in her own community were also doing.) The Lord is quite willing to accept this woman – and everyone - in the place and in the circumstance in which He finds them.  But the Lord never leaves anyone in the place where the initial encounter takes place.  That part of the good news is also important to underscore.  The Samaritan woman’s life changed forever, we can be reasonably certain, as a result of her encounter with Jesus beside Jacob’s Well.

• When we, ourselves, encounter the Good News of God made known in Jesus Christ, we will want to tell others about that experience.  Good news is meant to be shared!

This process is – in its simplest form – the same process that Jesus outlined to His disciples as He told them to look up and see the harvest that was at hand in the city of Sychar.  “Look,” he said, “and see that the fields are white for harvest.”  He told them that they were to share in a harvest whose seeds someone else (Jesus Himself) had planted.”

All of us who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ have benefited from a rich harvest, the seeds of which were sown by the Lord Himself.  We have received good news ourselves, through the graciousness of God.

Thanks be to God for the Good News of Jesus Christ.

AMEN.

---

[1]   Jacob’s Well is located near the modern city of Nablus, which is located in the West Bank region.  The well is about 135 feet deep, and is now housed in a Greek Orthodox Church which has been built over the site.

[2]   The Greek word which is usually translated as “living” can also mean “running”.

[3]   The Greek literally reads, “I am, the one speaking to you.”