THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT A

[cappie]

In today’s gospel story: Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink of water. What’s this story about? Women show up so infrequently in our scripture stories, that when they are there, it might be a signal to look closer, wait for the critical message that will be revealed. We’ll see that this story from John’s Gospel is often known simply as The Woman at the Well. Sometimes it is known as The Woman of Samaria. Both of these factors are important to the story in identifying who she was:

Firstly, a woman. Secondly, a Samaritan woman. Thirdly, an immoral Samaritan woman.  This is the longest conversation recorded in the New Testament between Jesus and anybody. There has to be something in this story more important than how many men she had known.

Consider the story. Jesus asks the woman for a drink of water. She expresses her astonishment that he would talk to her. He says to her that if she only knew who he was, she’d be asking him for a drink – of living water. She says, “Okay. May I have a drink of this water?” He says, “Go. Call your husband!” Now, to this point, she’s talking about plain old well water. And while that’s the drink that Jesus asked from her, it is not the water he offers to her. So, still with well water in mind, she engages the conversation and doesn’t call anyone.

After the woman realizes Jesus is the Messiah, after she realizes what he’s been talking about as “living water,” she takes her new and tentative and shallow and not-yet-fully-formed faith and tells someone about it.

She went back to the city, the scripture says, and talked to people about her experience. “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony… And many more believed because of [Jesus’] word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’”

That’s the highpoint of this story: the believers! And it all got started when she believed – and when she told someone else of her belief.
Her understanding may have been incomplete; “He can’t be the Messiah, can he?” But it was enough to hook people, to pique their curiosity, to invite them in. “Many Samaritans in that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” This woman, who would not have been considered a credible witness, was an early disciple.

This woman, whose witness and testimony were only as strong as: “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” brought many to faith.

Now think: How will history remember you? Will it be for your behaviour? Or for your testimony?

This woman, the Samaritan woman at the well, is an example to us of discipleship. However strong or weak or confused or partial or new or unclear or even certain your faith: When was the last time you talked with someone about faith so that they might believe?

The encouragement to spread the Good News, to talk of faith and the wonders of God, permeates our scripture and rings in our hymns. That’s what this gospel story is about: not a woman at all, but about Jesus and the living water poured from his hand.

 Jesus uses his encounter with the Samaritan woman to teach his disciples that God’s mercy is without limit. The disciples return from their shopping quite confused to find Jesus talking with a Samaritan, and a woman at that! But the conversion of the Samaritan townspeople is a foretaste of the kind of open community that will be created among those who believe that Jesus is the Messiah.