24 March - New water for old thirst

Readings:
John 4:5-42
Psalm 11

A day or two ago we considered the story of the woman who suffered from constant bleeding and today we read about another woman, one with a very different problem. The first woman experienced a flow from her being that resulted in daily, incapacitating loss. Sin (in the sense of the human condition) systematically hemorrhaged her vitality. It kept her life small and brought with it much suffering, shame and social stigma. It made and kept her poor. The second woman had - in a strange way - almost the inverse of the problem. She was religious, steeped in sin, and had no flow from inside her. What was supposed to flow from her - a bubbling spring of living water - was dry. What is even more strange though is that their contrasting ailments resulted from the same source: sin. Both of them met Jesus, and were never the same again.

The story of the woman at the well is like a cryptic little self-contained gospel. I like the story because the woman is such a feisty one.  If Jesus met a decorous woman at the well there would have been no story, because she would have dropped her gaze and her shoulders and said "yes sir, no sir". There would have been no impertinent questioning, no challenge to Jesus' leading answers, and no revelation and mass salvation. But in the Samaritan woman at the well we have the prevailing religious paradigm of the day standing up and challenging the New to come.

Judaism excluded other nations from God's covenant, and woman were in many ways considered second class. (They were for instance excluded from serving in the priesthood). Jesus broke through both these barriers, to the shock of both the woman and the disciples. She questioned his ability to deliver on his invitation: "You have no bucket and rope, and the well is very deep." She questioned his qualification: "Do yo think you greater than Abraham who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he did?" She questioned him on the rules of worship. Jesus explained that worship was moving to a whole new center altogether, no temple or mountain but spirit. The old water had to be taken every day. It was hard work. The new water is not drawn up though human effort. It is given and received. It lasts forever, becoming a source. She was sold and ran off to call her people.

Jesus started the conversation by asking for something, but in the end he gave something. When the Samaritan woman ran off with the Good News Jesus still didn't get his drink of water.