"Staying Power" - Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent

Staying Power
Lent 3A
March 15, 2020
Grace, Waseca MN
John 4.5-42

So, when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and the stayed there two days.

I’ve mentioned before how at 38 years old, we packed up our household and moved to seminary at Gettysburg, PA. Even though we didn’t live on the seminary campus—by design—I was on campus quite a bit. However, if I wasn’t in class I was studying in the library. One day between classes and studying, I met the seminary president, Dr. Darold Beekman, walking along the sidewalk. To my surprise, we stopped and chatted. Although I don’t remember the details, I was astonished for two reasons. First, that he would stop to talk to me, a lowly student (in my eyes). Besides, he couldn’t see very well and had “coke bottles” for glasses. And second, that when ed did stop he both knew and remembered so much about me.

I was reminded of that encounter as I worked with our Gospel reading about another encounter almost 2,000 years earlier, that of the Samaritan woman and Jesus at the well. We are in our second of four readings of John, my favorite Gospel. We are reminded that John prefers lengthy stories with involved and deep dialogues between Jesus and others to the shorter narratives we find in the other Gospels. We saw the first instance of that last week in Jesus’ encounter with the religious leader, Nicodemus. Here again in this story we have typical features of John’s Gospel. We see misunderstandings between Jesus and his conversation partner, particularly from the use of double meanings. The woman doesn’t understand about this water that Jesus is offering, mainly because of the play on words between living water and flowing water.

There are additional Johannine features that are prominent today as well. For example, believing is always a verb in the Gospel, never a noun. Believing is active and dynamic. Then we have the first of the “I am” sayings, where Jesus equates himself with God. “I am” was the name that God used when Moses asked God who it was that was sending him back into Egypt. It’s what eventually gets Jesus killed. Furthermore, though it’s easy to miss, there is the use of meno in the Greek: to stay, rest, remain or abide. So, when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and the stayed there two days. Meno is a big word in John. You can see this unpacked in Ch. 15 where Jesus, as the true vine, invites us to abide in him as he abides in us. But today, we get a glimpse of this mutual abiding in the exchange Jesus has with the Samaritan woman.

It’s a remarkable exchange, given that Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies and that it was unheard of for a man to speak to a woman, let alone a Samaritan woman. Samaritans were considered “half-breeds” (pardon the term) by the Jews. By consorting with a Samaritan woman, Jesus would have become “unclean” and unable to worship in the temple. Yet, Jesus doesn’t let an ancient version of “social distancing” and the threat of contamination stop him. Jesus refuses to let the social, political and religious convention of the day from abiding with her and giving the opportunity for her to abide with him. As he does so often, Jesus meets her where she is and takes her deeper, giving her living water.

In essence, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman—and the Samaritan townspeople— “you matter.” And for Jesus, that’s more than mere lip service;.How he gives himself to the woman and the townspeople is a foretaste of how he will give himself on the cross for the sake of the whole world, the world the Samaritans represent. I think that there’s a part of that Samaritan woman in all of us, a part that we hide and don’t think worthy of Jesus’ time and effort. But, Jesus invites us to put down our jars, stay with him as he stays with us, and receive the living water only he can give.

Dr. Beekman was living water to me that day at seminary. He was abiding with me, as Jesus, telling me that I matter. So, as you receive the living water of Jesus today, I invite you to share that with others this week. Amen.