A Rope, a Bucket, and a Jar for the Water

A Rope, a Bucket, and a Jar for the Water

In today's Scripture, Jesus is just getting started in his ministry, but the Pharisees are already displeased with his message.

Jesus decides he'd better get out of Jerusalem for a while--it's not time yet for his head-on collision with the official religious authorities.

Jesus needs to buy some time so he can teach and heal the sick and spread the good news of the gospel before he faces his trial and death in Jerusalem.

He leaves Judea--the area around Jerusalem--and goes where most people would go if they were in trouble in a strange city. He goes home; he goes to Galilee.

Eventually, of course, Jesus will return to Jerusalem. He'll be there for just seven days, the days we remember as Holy Week-- the triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, the crucifixion on Good Friday, and the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

But in today's Scripture, Jesus decides he'd better get away from Jerusalem for a while. He heads for home.

On the way, Jesus passes through a region called Samaria. Most Jewish people in Jesus' time avoid traveling through Samaria. They take a longer way because they don't like the Samaritans.

The problem is that the Samaritans believe that the only right place to worship God is on Mt. Gerizim. They had a Temple of their own on Mt. Gerizim, but it was destroyed about a hundred years before the time of Jesus. The Jews believe that the only right place to worship God is at the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Jews and the Samaritans believed in the same God--the God of ancient Israel--the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they disagreed on where God should be worshipped. So they didn't like each other.

Jews didn't like to even pass through Samaria on their way to somewhere else. "Those guys don't believe all the same things we do. Don't like 'em. Let's take the long way home."

Some things haven't changed. There's still prejudice today, even among Christians. Other nationalities, races, religions, lifestyles. Different political opinions. "They don't believe all the same things we do. Don't like 'em."

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But Jesus lived his life a different way. He not only passed through Samaria, he stopped there to rest, to get a drink of water, and to talk with a woman at the well.

It's noon, and the sun is hot and bright. Jesus is tired--he's already walked a long distance, and he hasn't even had any breakfast.

He sends the disciples into the village to buy some food, and he rests by himself beside a well. He's thirsty, but he can't get the water--no rope, no bucket.

He rests, he waits, he thinks things over, he prays. Eventually a Samaritan woman comes to draw water from the well. We don't know her name, but we know already know there's something not quite right about her. She comes to the well alone at noon, in the heat of the day. The other women in her village all come early in the morning when it's cool. They talk and laugh, maybe gossip a little, make jokes about their husbands, have a nice visit before they carry their heavy water jars all the way home. But this woman comes alone in the noonday heat. She doesn't expect anyone else to be there. The other women don't like her much. She's not respectable in their eyes. She's been married five times, and now she's living with a man she's not married to. Of course, we don't know the whole story of her life, why she's been married so many times. Divorce wasn't common in those days, but dying before reaching old age was very common. Maybe her husbands died, leaving her a widow five times. She's living now with a man she is not married to, but we don't know her whole story. She might be elderly--she's outlived five husbands. Maybe she and the man she's living with need each other, take care of each other, comfort each other. We don't really know anybody's whole story, except our own, and I'm not sure we really understand even our own life stories very well. We don't know the woman at the well's circumstances or her heart. She comes to the well alone, at a time of day when the other women are at home. A strange man speaks to her: "Please give me a drink." She's surprised. What's he up to? She can tell by his features, his garment, and his accent that he's a Jew. A Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman? "Why are you asking me for a drink?" she asks.

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Jesus replies, "If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water."

At first she doesn't understand--nobody would have. "You don't even have a rope and a bucket. Where would you get this living water? " Jesus explains a little more: "If you drink this water, you'll get thirsty again. If you drink the water I'll give you, you'll never be thirsty again." Jesus is speaking about spiritual things, of course, but she misunderstands. "Please, sir, give me this water so I won't get thirsty again, and I won't have to come back here every day to fill this heavy jar with water and lug it back home. That would make my life a lot easier." She doesn't fully grasp what Jesus is talking about, but at least she's listening, she's paying attention, she's trying to understand. And by the end of this story, she does pretty well. But now Jesus abruptly changes the subject. "Go get your husband." She responds with a partial truth: "I don't have a husband." That's true as far as it goes, but it's not the whole story. She doesn't tell Jesus everything, but he knows it all. "You've had five husbands, and you aren't married to the man you're living with now." Why does Jesus bring this up? Is he trying to make her feel embarrassed or ashamed? I think he's still trying to help her understand who he is and what he is offering her, so he tells her something about herself that a common stranger wouldn't know. She figures out that he must be a prophet. She decides to keep the conversation going, but she doesn't want to talk about her past husbands and her current living arrangement. She changes the subject--goes way off on a tangent--and asks Jesus why Jews worship in Jerusalem and Samaritans worship on Mt. Gerizim. Could this really be the most important question on her mind and in her heart?

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If you could ask Jesus one question, what would you ask him? Let's think about that for just a few seconds. If you could ask Jesus one question, what would you ask him? What's the most important question on your mind and in your heart?

I'll bet you'd ask a better question than the woman at the well did. She asks Jesus, "What's the right place to worship, Jerusalem or Mt. Gerazim?" And Jesus answers, "That doesn't really matter. Just make sure you worship in spirit and in truth." She doesn't really understand what that means, so she says, "When the Messiah comes, he will explain everything to us." Jesus tells her, "I am the Messiah." Before she can say anything, the disciples come back from the village. The conversation between Jesus and the woman ends abruptly. The disciples are shocked that Jesus is talking to a woman. They can't get up the nerve to ask Jesus why he's talking with her, but their silent disapproval is a real conversation stopper. Jesus and the woman don't say another word to each other. So, do you remember what happens next? The woman lowers the bucket into the well, pulls it back up filled with water, pours the water into her clay jar. Then she lifts the water jar up onto her head and carries it back to her house in the village, right? Well, not really. She doesn't fill the vessel and lift it up onto her head and carry it home. That's what she came to the well to do, but she doesn't do it. Something changed. She leaves the water jar beside the well and runs into the village, telling everyone, "Come and see!" Why does she leave the water jar behind? Maybe the cold stares and disapproving silence of the disciples cause her to forget to take the jar with her. Maybe she wanted to leave it as a gift for Jesus--remember that he didn't have anything to put water in, and he asked her to give him some water. Maybe she left the water jar behind as a symbol of the old life she was leaving behind. Or maybe she leaves it behind just because she doesn't need it any longer as she runs to the village to tell others about the man she met who knew everything she had ever done and who accepted her and loved her anyway.

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Maybe she doesn't need that vessel anymore because now she is a vessel, a vessel filled with the good news of the gospel, like a clay jar filled with the living water that gives eternal life.

For the first time in her life, she has all she really needs. At the beginning of today's Scripture, she already has a rope, a bucket, and a jar for the water. She even has access to a well filled with cool, clean water. But until she meets Jesus, a whole jar full of ordinary water isn't nearly enough to satisfy her deepest thirst for very long. She's thirsty all the time, just like most people are. Then one day she meets a stranger at the well. He tells her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

She listens, she pays attention, she tries to understand. There does seem to be something intriguing, something challenging, something compelling about this stranger who asked her for a drink and then offered her living water. The woman leaves her water jar at the well and runs back to the town. "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did." And she might have added, "And he listened to me, and accepted me, and forgave me. He offered me living water." And then she asked, "Could this man possibly be the Messiah?" Easter is coming soon. We'll see if she's right.

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Rev. Tom Bierovic First Christian Church Shelbyville, TN March 23, 2014

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