Living Water and Free Flowing Discipleship (March 8)

Readings, Exodus 17:1-7 and John 4:5-42
Image, Still from Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Women, Art, Revolution (2010)

What stood out to you in the reading, what struck you from the conversation with Jesus and the woman, or Jesus and his disciples, or the scene with the townsfolk afterwards? Any feelings? Any phrases that jump out.
            Discussion
 
Two things struck me this time. The first, which is linked with the reading from Exodus we read together earlier in the service is the graciousness by which God shares the living water. To explain, let me just draw a little from the epistle that was assigned to this week’s reading in the lectionary, which we didn’t read today (I couldn’t ask any more from Kay!).
But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us… For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.
In this passage from Romans 5, Paul stresses the freedom of God, who out of abundant grace and steadfast love, acts to reconcile and redeem humanity while we were far off, while we were in a state of estrangement and enmity. It is not because we moved near to God that we have received the Spirit of adoption, but because God moved to us, found us, enfolded us, saved us – out of God’s generous, free desire to be with and for the creature.
 
And this we see, in both of today’s readings is consistent with God’s character.
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​In the passage from Exodus, God does not help Moses draw water from the rock because the people have been so faithful, so obedient, so trusting and appreciative. It is in the midst of their quarrelling, their accusations, their ingratitude that God responds with gracious provision, quenching the thirst of the people. So one-sided is this act of God’s love for those far off, that the very site of God’s graciousness, God’s great love and provision is named after the people’s doubt: Moses called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’
 
Likewise, in the gospel scene, the woman engaged with Jesus is offered the living water despite having no idea who she is talking to, despite having manifold questions about the nature of God and proper worship. While far off, while still bewildered about why this man is talking to her to begin with, she is offered the living water, she is offered that which gushes up to eternal life.
 
This is God’s character. Exemplified, as we see, across the canon of scripture. As the psalmist celebrated, we are the people of God’s pasture, the sheep of God’s hand, and like that Good Shepherd, God goes out to find the lost sheep, find it while far off, and whether it is quarrelling, questioning, or simply wandering absent-mindedly, God offers the living water, God reconciles us, God restores and commissions us. God gives gifts, not rewards, and gifts them not when we move close, but as free grace.
The saying is sure:
If we have died with [Christ], we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
… if we are faithless, he remains faithful--
for he cannot deny himself.
 
The second thing that struck me was quite different to this kind of profound reminder of God’s grace. And that’s this, let’s say, humorous or ironic detail in the gospel narrative.
 
Jesus has his conversation with the Samaritan woman, treats her with dignity, engages her questions, and provides her with hope. 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. But before resolving this, we get a Meanwhile… and we have this discourse between Jesus and the disciples about doing the will of the Father, the awaiting harvest, and their identity as those being sent: “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.
 
Then, right on the heels of this comment from Jesus, we discover that while Jesus has been explaining to his disciples this whole idea of being sent, of reaping and sowing: Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. While Jesus has been explaining the task to his disciples this woman has gone ahead and embodied it, serving an educational illustration for the very thing under discussion. She has gone and shared what her encounter with Jesus made her feel, and many have come to believe because of it. And the saying holds true – because of her labour, Jesus and the disciples enter into her labour: when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word.
 
Just as it is remarkable that one of Jesus’ earliest and longest theological discourses in the Gospel of John occur with this Samaritan Woman, so too is it important that she is the first evangelist. The first to take his message to others and lead them to believe through her testimony. Indeed, her response to Jesus is a deliberately stark contrast to the chapter before where Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader engages in a long theological discussion with Jesus but is not recorded as doing anything in response (at least not yet). It is the unlikely, the outsider, the marginalised, who takes up the charge first and offers the appropriate response to the life-giving encounter with Jesus.
 
And so the two points are actually strangely related. Just as God does not need to wait for us to offer the response of faith, to live the life of obedience, to settle into a spirit of gratitude and clarity in order to fill us with the living water, in order to reconcile us and restore us, so too the person or community who have encountered this living water, who have been awakened to the reconciling grace and restorative love of Christ do not have to wait to overflow with praise and proclamation, do not have to wait before going forth to tell of the wonderful story, do not have to wait before saying: Come and see! The message of Jesus didn’t require the initiative and authority the chosen twelve, or one of the religious elites before it could begin to be spread. This ordinary woman, unnamed, responding in joy and wonder to what she had encountered, was all it took.
 
Usually, and especially on International Women’s Day, I would say it is a shame that the patriarchal context of the Bible leaves so many women unnamed, but here it does have one upside… it could have been anyone, any ordinary one to begin this. Because just as God’s grand entrance into history begins in a stable surrounded by shepherds not a palace filled with courtesans, so that beginning of the evangelistic expounding of Christ by those who encountered him begins in a humble place, by a humble figure. Because it is, by and large, in humble places and by humble figures that it continues to this day. We can place a lot of important on the whole great commission moment, where the soon-to-ascend Jesus sends out his disciples to all the ends of the earth, but we need to remember, as today's story reminds us, people have already been going out and about spreading the good news, drawing people to Jesus, and flipping their lives around in response to the call of discipleship. It is why it was so wonderful earlier to celebrate the range of women (and our own Julia Poole) who were nominated in the National Assembly's IWD honours. For all the attention we can pay to Presidents, Moderators, or the Ordained ministry, it is the faithfulness, passion, and curiosity of the whole people of God that sustains and expands the church). This unnamed woman becomes the paragon of the story to come, as ordinary, everyday Christians respond to the thirst-quenching joy of the living water with this woman’s words: Come and see.
 
This is good news. For just as God did not need to wait for the faithful response of humanity before reconciling the world in Christ, just as God did not need to wait for gratefulness and clarity to offer the living water, so we as those who have drunk deeply do not need to wait for the expected or authorised to step out first and set the way. We, all of us – by our immediate and personal encounter with Jesus – have a gospel to proclaim, have good news to share, an encounter to expound. We have, each of us, an experience, a hope, a tingling that leads us to go forth with an invitation to any who thirst: Come and see.