Come to the Well

John 4:5-42

How is it going on your Lenten journey?  This is the season of casting off what draws us away from God and taking on what draws us nearer to God. 

It is often difficult to see the value of a difficult circumstance when you are in the midst of it.  You are going through a divorce, you get the diagnosis you were hoping not to get, you lose your Job, you can’t find someone to spend your life with or you lost someone you have spent your life with.

It all seems like an end. 

The feelings surrounding the season of Lent has been for eve altered for me. It was Ash Wednesday 2005, my last Ash Wednesday service I would attend before becoming a pastor and leading them myself.  I prepared myself for the Journey for Lent.  I opened my heart to God and earnestly asked to God to reveal to me the brokenness in me that I did not yet see.

On Friday of that week I got a call that my father, whom I had not seen or spoken to in 7 years was taken by ambulance from the Houghton Lake Hospital to Munsen Hospital in Traverse City for emergency brain surgery. I waited at home with my two children until Diane got home from work.  It was late; I remember the sun had already gone down. I told her what was going on. Then I drove from Greenville to Traverse City. Waiting there was my sister, and my aunt whom I hadn’t seen for 25 years.  We waited together. We talked. We got caught up on each other’s lives. Then the surgeon came out. You know how they talk. They downplay the bad and they say well at least this or that and there is hope that this could happen. There was none of that.  It was a very advanced, very aggressive form of brain cancer.

It was the beginning of Lent.  He died a couple of days before Pentecost that year.

In the time between I got to know my dad again.  I spent a lot of time with him.  We talked a lot about faith. We talked about the source of our hope.  He talked about his doubts about being good enough.  I offered him forgiveness both as a son and as brother in Christ.  And he offered me his.

We all face difficult relationships. We have failed to be the best people we can be. There are those whom we have never been given a change to reconcile with or say goodbye to.  There are some that no matter how much time we could have been given it would never be enough time to say goodbye.

It all seems like an end when we are living in the midst of it.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

God is the constant that runs through all our lives. The question is how much we are willing to align ourselves with God.  It’s not a question of how good, or moral can we be but more of a matter of admitting that we do not and cannot have it all together and we have to fully rely on our heavenly parent to rescue us, pull us up from the mud and  transform us.

In today’s scripture reading I could easily spend several weeks constructing messages on a variety of subjects. I could talk about Relations with minority groups; Jesus was in a Samaritan village talking to a Samaritan woman.  It was not the norm for Jews and Samaritans to be talking and otherwise associating with each other.  I could relate this to the way our community is segregated by Anglo and Hispanics. 

This could be a message about marriage.  The woman was married several times and was currently living with a man who was not her husband.  This is an issue that some people in the church have to go home and deal with on a daily basis.

This could be a message on morality.  The usual time to collect water was in the morning before the heat of the day.  But this woman was at the well around noon when no one would be around.  We could talk about how our life choices affect more than ourselves they affect our relationships and the community we live it.

I could talk about church growth.  This woman went back and told the people about Jesus and they came to believe in Jesus for themselves because she first told them.  

I could say all of those things but I won’t today…

In the scripture today, Jesus had been traveling.  Jesus was tired and thirsty.  There was a well. There was a woman at the well.  The woman had a bucket and he did not.  He asked the woman for a drink.

Immediately the situation turns from a simple request for water into what it all implies.  Why are you talking to me? What would it mean if I gave you water? We worship differently; we believe differently.

Remember what Jesus says will happen in the end:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

 ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Jesus was asking for a drink of water to satisfy is physical thirst.

He was offering Living water to satisfy the woman’s spiritual thirst forever.

Jesus didn’t ask about her ethnicity, he didn’t bring up her marital status; he didn’t confront her about her morality or the reason for her social location. He began a very real relationship with a simple request for a drink of water.

How is it with you today?  Who can you offer a drink of water to? Where is there division where we can bring unity?   Where is there Judgment where we can bring grace? Where is there condemnation where we can demonstrate love?

You may have some feelings about what the federal courts did very recently in striking down the Michigan ban on same-sex marriages. You may be applauding it or you may be bemoaning it. Either way we need to take a Christ like approach.

No matter where someone comes from, no matter their background or history if they are thirsty give them something to drink.

If someone needs water, we should be handing out water.  If someone needs food we should be finding ways to give food.  If someone is looking for spiritual refreshment we should always be pointing toward the well where we find it. Jesus Christ is the source of living water.  Jesus Christ is the source of all spiritual refreshment and nourishment.

Jesus did not come to judge and condemn but to bring eternal life.  This is the good news that we can share with everyone regardless of culture, marital status, or social location. We are Jesus presence in the world, called to be is body, to carry on his ministry.