How is it?

John 4: 5-42, NT pages 94-95 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you now say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his 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 Savior of the world.” Sermon It took me a long time to get ready to ride a bike. I was 6 or 7 before my parents bought me one, but even the sight of a brand new bicycle didn’t make me want to jump on it and start riding – the sight of my new bike made me afraid. But I couldn’t just tell them that of course. Instead, at dinner one night my parents were ready to talk about it, and so one of them said, “Don’t you think it’s about time to start ridding that nice new bike we bought you last week? One of us sure would love to take you down to the park to help you practice ridding it.” My response: “I’d rather focus on my roller skating right now.” Now as cool as roller skating is, I imagine that my parents knew what was really going on here. They knew that I was covering up my fear of ridding a bike with a dedication to roller skating, the same way I covered up the fish I didn’t want to eat with a thick coating of catchup when we went out for dinner. Denial covers up the truth that way, and while parents can tell pretty easily when their kids are using a story to cover up something their afraid of or are embarrassed about, adults become so good at it they can even fool themselves. Let me give you an example: I ran a race yesterday. It was nine miles, I barely survived, but I’ve been telling myself that I barely survived, not because I’m out of shape, but because at mile three I sort of twisted my ankle and I had to walk for a little while. Probably, I would have won the entire thing were it not for that injury. Now if you believe that you might also believe that this Samaritan woman goes to the well at noon because the well is nice and quiet at that time of day. Sure it’s hot, hotter than at any other point in the day, but she wouldn’t want to be inside taking a nap like everyone else, she just has a hard working disposition and doesn’t like to nap. Certainly it has nothing to do with all the other women who all go to the well together before the sun rises and after it sets. It’s not that their conversations go silent when she approaches. It’s not that she had the feeling that everyone had been talking about her before she walked up the last time she went to the well in the cool of the morning – no, no – she just likes to go around noon. Regardless, it’s a good thing for Jesus that’s she’s there, as no one else would have been at the well to help him for hours. “Give me a drink,” he says. And maybe she was used to men making demands of her. But she was also used to men doing something for her in return, maybe a gift, maybe a roof over her head – Moses made water spring from a rock, Jacob gave them the well, but here is this Jesus who doesn’t even have a bucket, so she hesitates. Recognizing her hesitation Jesus says to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Pointing to the well he says, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” She’s attracted to his offer now, and you may be able to understand her attraction for two reasons at least. For one thing, the idea of not relying on a well, the idea of no longer having to carry buckets back and forth, to and from, every time someone is thirsty, every time someone needs a bath, or whenever it’s time to cook, sounds as good as indoor plumbing does today to anyone who doesn’t have it. But these two are no longer talking about the kind of water that you drink, and it’s not just her thirst that never gets satisfied going back and forth from that well every day. Jesus and the woman are not just talking about her bucket that she fills up with water – they’re also talking about her heart that she longs to fill up with acceptance, but because of who she is and who she is to her community, every day she walks away from the well and that bucket is still empty. So she goes to the well at noon now – the time when no one else is there to make her feel exactly the way she would feel about herself were she not so guarded and protected by the stories that she tells herself. He’ll marry me one of these days she keeps saying. And why he won’t – well, he’s probably right, it is better if we wait a little while. That way we can really get to know each other. That’s probably best for the children any way. And sure, he uses harsh words and doesn’t appreciate the water that I bring him – but he says he loves me and in this world it seems as though no one else does. Some lines are so good they even work on ourselves. And they seem to fill up the empty bucket for a little while, but they never really do - Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” If he is, know that he knows you better than you know yourself, and not only that – he is not like the crowds of women at the well who only love you enough to smile sweetly while they talk about you behind your back, he is not like the men who are willing to look over a few blemishes if you’ll just do what they want, and he’s not even like the friends who only love you enough to be nice to you fearing what will happen if they tell you what they really think. Christ loves you enough to tell you the truth – his words cut through even your own denial – but not only that. Having told you everything you have ever done he offers not condemnation but living water so that you’ll never be empty again. My father said to me several years ago: “Joe, you’re scared to ride your bike, and that’s OK. In fact, I’m going to stick right by you until you’re ready to ride on your own.” If it were not for him I might still be wearing roller-skates. But if it were not for Christ, I might still be trying to prove who I am to the world rather than trusting that by him I am known and by him I am loved. He’s willing to call you back from who you’re pretending to be, who you’re longing to be and even who you think you are supposed to be – so that you can come to terms with who you are. Come unto him. Come unto him and be truly known. Come unto him and be satisfied by the living water. Amen.