Sermon for the 12th of March, 2023 - Third Sunday of Lent
Exodus 17: 1-7
John 4. 5-42
If the author of the Fourth Gospel was alive today, I wonder if they might convey the Gospel through the medium of film.
This morning
• The brilliant narrative. Surely a candidate for best original screen play Oscar.
• touch on why there was such friction between and Jews and Samaritans
• what it is that makes this story so appropriate for Lent.
This encounter with the Samaritan woman, Perhaps you would agree, a very bright and also coquettish lady. The detail of the scene setting and the dialogues between Jesus and the woman and Jesus and his disciples has such intensity.
We are told the time (noon), the place (Jacob’s Well) outside the town of Sychar (now identified as Shechem) just below Mt. Gerazim which the woman gestures to in the course of their conversation. It’s harvest time. The disciples have gone to get food. It’s hot. Jesus is thirsty and alone with the woman.
Traditionally water carrying and gathering around the well was a communal activity and perhaps because of the woman’s marital history, she collects water in the heat of the day on her own.
I love the lady’s practical approach. “You have no bucket” – apparently Jacob’s Well was then one of the deepest in the Holy Land – 120 ft deep. Today is still 70ft deep. And when told about the living water which quenches thirst for ever, the woman’s reaction is again practical – if I can get this water, I’ll no longer have to make these tiresome regular visits to this well.
And what about Jesus’s response to the women when she says: I have no husband?
There is a website: https://www.afi.com/afis-100-years-100-movie-quotes/
The 100 greatest movie quotes of all time.
Number 1 is “Frankly, my dear I don’t give a damn” - Gone with the Wind
Number 2 “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” - The Godfather.
If the Gospel was a movie, Jesus’s response to Samaritan woman must rank as one of the greatest ripostes of all time: “You are right when you say you have no husband. For you have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband”. I love the woman’s spirited responses. The dialogue between them. Perhaps she was used to holding the attention of men. Yet as the conversation develops, she realises she is conversing at a level of spiritual depth that she has never experienced before. Could this be the Messiah? To which Jesus’ response is: I AM HE
More detail such as the women leaving her bucket by the well, to tell the town about the revelation she has received – leaving her bucket, because she was clearly coming back, “he told me everything I have ever done.” But perhaps, the woman was not quite as much on society’s margin as we might think. Because the townspeople’s response was not to ignore her: They came to investigate and believed that Jesus was truly the Saviour of the world.
One last point on the script.
The author of the Gospel will have been aware that in the Hebrew Bible, Jacob had met his future wife Rachel, daughter of Laban, at a well and fell in love with her. A fruitful relationship ensues – and a different type of fruitful relationship will ensue from Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman.
Now to the friction between and Jews and Samaritans. And what it is that makes this story so appropriate for Lent. About Jews and Samaria.
Dates from the division of Israel into the Northern and Southern kingdoms after the reign of Solomon, so around 1000 BC. The Northern Kingdom retained the name Israel (roughly 10 tribes of Israel and a bit of Benjamin -revolted against high taxes of Judah) – Southern became Judah -with capital at Jerusalem.
From Judah’s perspective, the kingdom of Israel/Samaria seeks continually to frustrate their existence. 722BC Northern Kingdom conquered by Assyrians – colonised with foreign tribes who brought their own Gods. 587 BC, Judah overcome by Babylon – most influential members of population exiled to Babylon. When the remnant return to Jerusalem 70 years later and want to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, Samaria offers to help but this is rejected – due to the impurities of the Assyrian colonisation (not monotheistic - intermarriage with gentiles etc). From such rejection, relations rapidly spiralled downwards. 100BC the Samaritans allied themselves with Judah’s enemies, the Seleucids from Syria in the Maccabean wars. Judah responded by destroying the Samaritan temple on Mt. Gerizim and ravaged the territory.
Later still, around the time of Jesus’ birth, a band of Samaritans profaned the Temple in Jerusalem by scattering the bones of dead people in the sanctuary. So there is a history of antagonism over the long term and in the near term. Sadly, we can easily think of such tensions between neighbouring countries in our own times.
Yet Jesus is no respecter of convention. A Samaritan woman was believed to be ritually unclean, and all proprieties appear to have been lost in the case of this woman. Yet Jesus asks for her help -for a drink – imagine sharing a vessel with such a woman. No wonder she is surprised. The story ends with the Samaritans, having been told about Jesus by the woman, spending time with him. Time spent with him results in their believing that Jesus is the true saviour of the world. “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.”
The Samaritans drink of the living water. And are given a living Lord. Perhaps they sought to reproduce in their own lives the new divine life that was in Jesus. And they recognised that Jesus was indeed greater than their ancestor Jacob. Perhaps it was this two day stay at Sychar that inspired Jesus to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan. Perhaps the relationship between the woman and her community was transformed. Perhaps, having met Jesus, the idea of worshipping in the ruins of the temple on Mt Gerizim or in Jerusalem was now eclipsed by worshipping in spirit and truth.
To conclude, for the Samaritans and for us:
All that had been foretold by Jesus has come to pass.
In this season of Lent, we have the opportunity to deepen our relationship with Jesus.
We pray that we remember that:
• Life is eternal, continually creative,
• There is a love that never diminishes
• From our weaknesses comes our strength.