Standing at the Crossroads (or—but that’s not the point!)

John 4:5-42
February 24, 2008

Our two stories this morning seem to have one feature only in common. Water. Moses in the wilderness with those eternally murmuring Hebrew people, needing, craving, demanding water. And Jesus at Jacob's well in Samaria, asking for—water. On the surface, that is as deep as the comparison can take us. Water, after all, serves two different purposes in the two stories. In the Exodus reading water is a physical necessity. They are wandering in a desert and have no water. The ever-present "Back to Egypt" Committee is ready and waiting to ask the difficult question—why on earth did you take us all the way out here into the middle of a desert so we could die of thirst? (implication—there was plenty of water in Egypt, after all.) And the water supplied was real water too—Moses complained to God about the complainers, and God told Moses how to find water. Hit the rock and there you go—water in the desert.

The narrative of the Samaritan Woman does indeed begin with the request for water—real water, actual thirst quenching water from a well. But no miracle, no plea to God for salvation from death by thirst is made, no dialogue between Jesus and God explaining the need and asking for deliverance. It is hot. Jesus is thirsty. But there is water already—he just has no way at the moment of drawing any. And so he asks the woman who has come to the well to draw some out for him, and to let him drink from her water dipper. We have discussed the Woman at the Well – well, several times, you and I. It's one of my favorite stories—and I believe, one of the most important evangelism stories in the New Testament. It is a story so rich in detail that it is possible to preach about it from several points of view. It is the longest reported conversation of Jesus. It is a narrative so rich in detail it is difficult to narrow focus down to just one point.

We have explored the woman herself, her status within her own country as something of an outcast, explaining why she is at the well in the hot part of the day. But today, that is not the point. We have examined the time of day—the bright hot sun beating down, casting no shadows to blur vision or disguise the landscape of the spirit—but that is not the point, today. We have considered the relationship of the Jews and the Samaritans, and why Jesus chose to go out of his way into Samaria at all—but that is not the point, today. We have discussed the empowerment of the woman when she turned and ran back to her village, fining her voice, calling out the joy of her discovery into the startled and fascinated neighbors. But even that is not the point, today. The point today is that the woman encounters a cross-road at the well. And so does Jesus.

We know the story so well, we have even put ourselves in the place of the woman, imagined her pain and her loneliness transformed into joy. But think about that moment when she stood poised as it were between one world and another. The crossroads had been reached. It is for her to take the first step forward into the rest of her life. She can remain true to stereotype, continue to listen and be polite to authority, then creep back to her village, still silent, still the outcast—after all, who would listen to ME? Who am I to tell anyone anything? I have no power, no voice. What if they laugh? What if they hurt me, stone me? Such things do happen, after all. She could have gone quietly meekly back to the life that oppressed her in all its emptiness and meaninglessness. She could have played it safe, and maybe took the compelling, dazzling, enlightening words of Jesus out of her memory from time to time and thought about what she had been offered and rejected. She could have, in other words, have embraced the thirst of her existence and refused to end its torment by taking that first wonderful, terrifying, quenching swallow. She could have. But she didn’t. She simply flung down her water jar (old life, empty and dry and thirsty) and ran to her village, crying out the good news, the Word on her tongue. No longer without voice, she speaks, she summons, she questions and answers all at once. So the woman at the crossroads in Samaria, at the point of choice between the security of the old (nothing is more secure than slavery—its what motivated the “Back to Egypt committee out there in the unknowable desert with Moses), choice between thirst and a fulfillment only dreamed of—steps into the road to the future. She will go. She will drink. She will be filled. And she will carry the living water to others who are dying of thirst in a lonely, dry and empty world.

Story: When new pastor went to one of the bigger Disciple churches in Sacramento, one of the old time church leaders, a real big wig in the region, took her out to lunch and offered to help her understand her congregation. "I can tell you where the bodies are buried, show you all the skeletons in the cupboard." Her reply: I'm really only interested in their potential.

Jesus, too, stands at a crossroad. Hitherto he has addressed himself to the Jews. Other scriptures tell us that he thought of himself as coming for the sheep of Israel, to the chosen ones, to the children of Israel. But here, he encounters someone and in her he recognizes potential. He sees here there in the glare of the sun in the unforgiving desert landscape and he doesn’t see what others might see, what his disciples will see. In a blinding flash he sees someone who represents a whole new direction at the crossroads of his ministry. He doesn't see a woman—a second class being, a possession with no rights and no voice. He doesn’t see a Samaritan—a hated enemy, religious heretic. He doesn't see an immoral person whose soiled life makes her unfit for the company of decent people. What he sees—what matters to his vision, is potential. He sees in her soul the potential to hear the Word and be transformed by it. He sees in her soul energy, enthusiasm and courage. He sees an evangelist.

Scholars believe this story represents the shift in Jesus' life from ministry directly and only to the Jews, to a wider mission to the world. The Samaritans, of all outsiders, were the most outside, the most despised. If Jesus could actually step onto the crossroads that led not to the exclusive messiah to Israel but to the Christ of the world, then here it is. He looks at this person and sees the mission to the Samaritans, and to the world.

Now, as a seminary professor once cautioned me in an excess of enthusiasm, Jesus doesn't send her. He doesn't commission her to go. He simply offers her the life-changing water of hope and faith and commitment, and she goes. She goes! I still don't agree. He may not have said "go," to this woman. But he filled her up with such joy, such an overwhelming need to share her encounter with her neighbors—those same neighbors that had shunned and shamed her for years—of course she was sent. Because when Jesus looked at her, and spoke to her, he did not see the shame, the mistakes. He saw her potential—and he ignited the fire of evangelism within her just the same as if he had spoken the words "go—go for me." What about you? What are your reasons—your excuses for not going and sharing the good news? I’m too old? God doesn’t see your age as a limitation, but as a deep well of experience, of wisdom and compassion. Too young? God sees your energy, your new appreciation of life and of God's love as a life changing force like water in a desert. Gay? Straight? Sick? Busy? Whatever you see as drawbacks, be sure, God does not look at it—at you, like that. God sees your potential—for empathy, for understanding and for sharing the word with those around you who are thirsty. Of course Jesus sent the woman of Samaria. Just as Jesus sends you. She went. What are you waiting for?