This morning in worship we looked at John 4 as three conversations:
1. The Samaritan Woman's talk with Jesus.
2. Jesus' followers' talk with him.
3. The court official's talk with Jesus.
The first conversaton is happenstance. She's not looking for him and he doesn't seem to have been looking for her. But they both stop and talk when opportunity presents itself. He's physically thirsty. She's spiritually parched. He asks for her help. She asks for his. The obstacles that others would see to their conversation even taking place don"t seem to phase either of them.
We modern non-Jewish readers are actually the ones with an obstacle. What on earth is Jesus talking about? It seems like he's ignoring her very real problems, talking right past them. What on earth is this mysterious "living water?"
But "living water" was a core religious practice in Jesus' day and in the Holy Land.
Purifications, changes in status, preparation for Sabbath or holy day-these new beginnings were marked by immersion into the living waters of a mikveh.
When an archeologist unearths the remains of a particular kind of stone pool, they know they have found a Jewish home or gathering place. 3 steps down into a small pool,
bor, sized to hold a constant 40
sa'ah, or about 200 gallons, of water coming through a small opening in a natural flow of rain or spring water. in the pool the living water would mix with water brought from any source available, saturating them standing water with rebirth.
The mikveh's constantly refreshed living water recollect Eden, paradise's waters, the source of all water in the world said to flow from 4 rivers into all the other rivers and streams in a perfect state of constant renewal. In a mikveh, the living waters flow into the womblike cavitiy of the bor. (
Aryeh Kaplan “Waters of Eden: The Mystery of the Mikveh”)
John the Baptist prophetically enlarged the rebirthing place and brought it out into the open -to the Jordan river.
And Jesus completed the extension of this powerful, physical metaphor, "I am the living water." Immerse yourself in my life and you immerse yourself in God's life.
Do his words sound strange to us? Perhaps we've forgotten the daily renewal of living water, the ever at hand power of remembering our baptism, of being reborn, immersed in God's life.
Mayim is the Hebrew word for water. It has the same root as
mah, or water. When a person is immersed in water, he or she is nullifying their ego, cut off from oxygen, it becomes possible to answer the question,"what am I," in a new way.
When the Samaritan woman meets Jesus, it becomes possible for her to become someone new as je guides her gently into the living waters of God's life.
The second conversation is not happenstance. Jesus' followers return from foraging for food, determined to feed him. If we could ask those followers,"what are you?" I wonder what they might answer at this stage in their journey. I wonder what we might answer as we busily work at serving Jesus.
It seems like their determination to do what they think they ought to do may be getting in the way of understanding what Jesus is talking about. We've seen that before, in his interactions with other teachers and leaders. Their certainty is like a wet suit, with goggles, getting between them and the living water he offers! They can't get very wet until they shed a few layers.
In the conversation, a court official frantically seeks Jesus out. "Save my son," he pleads. It is the cry of any parent whose child's life is at stake. He knows what is most important to him. What he needs is who he is at that moment. Jesus meets the need.
David E. Holwerda talks about John's Gospel as a "trajectory of faith." Reading John as a whole this winter, we noticed how Jesus returns again and again to the simplest of images: water, bread, word, life. We also noticed how again and again he starts by saying, "I tell you the truth!"
Could it really, truly be this simple? Hear the truth, walk this way, rely on God's sustenance (water, bread).
We train ourselves to crave fancier things: soda, cofee, fructose enhanced juice, when what our 70%water bodies really crave is.....water, fresh, clean water. We train ourselves to rely on expert opinions and institutional processes when what we really need is the fresh readily available living water of Christ, poured into our world, poured into our lives, in constant renewal of God's loving purpose.
