| The Rev. Catharine W. Montgomery | Third Sunday in Epiphany |
| Grace Memorial Episcopal Church | Year A |
| February 24, 2008 | RCL |
Think what it would be like if those of us who travel regularly from Lynchburg to Roanoke felt we had to bypass Bedford and go 20-30 miles to the east or west because we wanted to avoid any kind of contact with the people in that area. No stopping at the cute antique stores, visiting the Elks Home or stopping at the Train Station restaurant for a meal. In friendly Virginia, that would be an awkward, unnatural, and very strange situation.
John’s Gospel tells us Jesus was traveling from Judea up to Galilee. Samaria lies between Judea and Galilee like Bedford lies between Lynchburg and Roanoke - the distances are roughly the same. Jews traveling from Jerusalem to Nazareth or Cana in Galilee had to go up through the valley of Samaria unless they chose to go way out of the way and up by the Jordan River… which is what most Jews did.
It is a long story about Samaria and its people…how they were descended from Jews, and lived in the middle of Israel, yet were hated by other Jews. Samaritans were blamed for bringing Gentile groups into Israel – we would call them immigrants. Jews did not talk to Samaritans or eat with them and certainly would not worship with them. They were outcasts. The Gospel tells us Jesus went into that forbidden territory – had to go through Samaria and stopped at a well to rest….at noon. When St. John makes a point of telling the exact time of day we know something important is going to happen.
Enter the Samaritan woman…... To be a Samaritan was bad enough, but to be a woman and a Samaritan was about as low as one could get in the eyes of a Jewish man…. And this woman showed up at noon…alone…long after the other respectable women had come as a group to draw water for the day. You get the picture….there is something different about this woman. The scene at the well starts out simply enough. Jesus asks for a drink of water. His request seemed ordinary… but was it? Jesus was violating social custom by even speaking to the woman. She knew this immediately, “Why are you, a Jew, asking for water from me, a Samaritan woman?”
Suddenly the conversation gets confusing. Have you ever been talking with someone and you think you know what you are both talking about? In this case something as simple as water…And then you realize that the other person is way over your head and it is a struggle to keep up and understand what is really being said? Well, Jesus tells the woman that she is not asking the right question. If she had any idea of who he really was she would be asking him for another kind of water - living water. She was a woman in a dry land who probably spent hours each day hauling clay jugs to and from a well. She knew about water…what was he talking about?
Jesus said something like… the water that I give will become in you a spring that flows from deep within you and you will not be thirsty again. I don’t think she knew what he meant, but she knew she didn’t want to be thirsty or keep hauling water, so she asked for the water Jesus offered. It was the right question. Jesus said, “Go call your husband and come back.” And she said, “I have no husband.” Jesus knew that already, and he knew more about the woman.
In that moment the Samaritan woman came face to face with her past and face to face with one who could see deeply into her life and heart. Here was one who did not treat her as an outcast. In an instant she came face to face with one who knows her and can provide living water to wash away all the hurtful things in her life. This woman is the model of a Christian disciple. She asks for what Jesus has to offer. She confesses her past sin. She professes her faith and then tells others what Jesus has done for her.
Jesus had to go through Samaria. Jesus goes to places that other people do not want to go… Jesus has a way of asking the right question. Jesus reaches out to those who for one reason or another are not accepted. Jesus knows how to change broken lives and heal broken hearts and make them whole again. It has been said that any fool can change the future. Only God can change our past. Only the God we worship in Jesus Christ can quench our thirst and give us life. We just have to ask the right question. Amen.