Jesus and the woman at the well : Living Water

John 4: 1- 29

For just over a week now we have been hearing of the attacks of the US & Israel against Iran, and Iran’s retaliation in the Middle East.

The BBC have reported that since the first wave of strikes killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the air attacks have shown little sign of relenting.

An eye-witness has said "Each day has felt like a month, the volume of attacks is so high."

Most people are staying indoors, only venturing out for supplies. The regime appears to have increased its security presence on the streets, which Iranians have seen as a response to the dissent shown following the ayatollah's death.

"There are checkpoints everywhere. They're scared of their own shadows," says one 25-year old student in Tehran.

The price of staples like eggs and potatoes has also sky-rocketed, he said, and the queues for petrol and bread "are unbelievable".

Another resident of the capital has told the BBC that most shops are closed and some cash machines out of service, though supermarkets and bakeries remain open.

 

We might be wondering whether British people whom we know in the Middle East are safe, and how the UK government is going to respond to this war; we might listen, aghast as the US government describes the most recent carnage; or we might simply despair at the state of the world.

 

We bring our wondering and our worrying into the light of the gospel this morning, praying that God’s love can help and sustain us. 

The story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well starts with Jesus deciding to withdraw from the area around Jerusalem, because he’s facing opposition there.

It’s a timely reminder that the land of Israel in the time of Jesus was a place of occupation, of division and of mistrust and hatred -  even conflict.

To reach Galilee from Judea, Jesus must travel through Samaria.

There is deep animosity between the people of Samaria and the people who consider themselves purely Jewish. The Samaritan people were originally Jewish, but they had inter-married with non-Jews following the conquest of the Northern part of the kingdom of Israel by Assyria and then the Invasion of the armies of Babylonia 136 years later.

The Samaritans were a people born of conflict and two invasions – but they were hated by those who remained purely Jewish, because they had abandoned some aspects of the Jewish faith.

Samaritans still held to the law of Moses found in the first 5 books of Hebrew scripture, but they had built their own temple to Yahweh, which Jewish armies had burned down about 150 years before this meeting at the well. (That’s why in the middle of the conversation the woman asks Jesus which mountain God should be worshipped on?). 

Jesus and the Samaritan woman meet at Jacob’s well.

This is a place which shows the deep common roots of the Samaritans and the Jews – this is the place where Abraham built an altar to worship God, and the place where the bones of Joseph were said to be buried. It may even have been the place where Jacob met his future wife Rachel.

This is a place of long history, but a place where different stories and different peoples collide. All of this sounds horrible familiar, doesn’t it?

Intertwining histories, conflicting claims about to whom the land really belongs, inter-related but different faiths, long-standing hatreds.

There is a potential sparking-point for violence here.

But Jesus comes to bring understanding, peace, life.

The woman is seeking water for her daily tasks – at the start the conversation with Jesus she may well be wanting merely to be left alone to get on with her life.

But Jesus offers her something new: living water. 

Jesus begins by showing care. He is offering a new relationship with God, a wonderful addition to life that he calls “living water”. A life with God where love is real, fresh, tangible. Of course, someone who had gone to a  well was always likely to misunderstand at first and think this was a conversation about filling her need for water.

But Jesus wants her to know that he is offering to meet her deeper needs – for more than just water.

Jesus is offering worship where this woman can meet God in Spirit and in truth. 

Meeting with Jesus – whom she now recognises as the Messiah – provides this seeker of life-giving water with a broader vision of what matters. Broader than the identities of Samaritan and Jew; broader than the question of where the temple should be; a vision based on true life for all God’s children. This is the living water which can refresh all people.

Jesus meets with this Samaritan woman and changes her life – she rushes off to tell her neighbours that the one sent by God to save them had come.

 

Jesus meets with us here today and offers us living water, the water of his presence and his life, to meet us at our point of need.

Again he offers a living relationship of care: a sign of God’s love here for us, to meet our deepest need.

Jesus offers us God’s Spirit and all its gifts – of love, joy, and peace in a world riven by hatred and conflict.

He inspires in us a vision of God’s kingdom – a broad vision where all God’s children are precious and worthy of care.

 

So may we rest in the presence of Jesus, and in the power of the Spirit bring our prayers to God the Father of us all… that there may be love, joy and peace for all.

In the mercy of God,

Amen.