Lent 3A + We believe! + 3.12.23

 

Melissa Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Exodus 17:1–7; Ps. 95; Romans 5:1–11; John 4:5–42)

I believe! This is a theme of today’s scriptures.

I have been listening to the audiobook of Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), a fascinating novel in which the protagonist is an African-American woman married to a European-American man in the US of 1976. She is summoned back in time to prevent her white, slave-owning ancestor from dying, which leads to a number of challenges. She is treated as a slave even though she has saved a life, and is conflicted because she must save her ancestor in order to protect her family even though he can be cruel at times and is very enmeshed in the plantation system. Due to the fact that she is educated and appears and disappears mysteriously, she is treated differently by the slave owners, even though it doesn’t protect her from mistreatment. And often she must confront her ancestor with the truth, even though he does not wish to hear it. Truth is often hard to hear. But it can lead to deeper faith.

I must admit that when this Sunday comes around, the third Sunday in Lent in Year A, I think oh what a long gospel! I mean, this gospel is a vibe! It is a mood! It is a whole gospel in itself. There is just so much here. Truth telling is a start, and there is more.
First, let’s just address what is happening culturally here between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman. You may recall that Samaritans were originally part of the people of Israel, but in the time of King Hoshea they were relocated to Assyria and there lived in a multi-faith context in Samaria. They began to worship the Lord and other Gods, and decided that they would only use the Pentateuch or the first five books of the Bible as their basis of faith, rather than the whole Hebrew Bible. They also felt that God was to be worshipped on Mt. Gerizim rather than Mt. Zion.^[1] This was part of the tension between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. But she is also able to see how Jesus has her look beyond Zion and Gerizim to see the Kingdom of God in his presence. It is amazing, because at first we may see her as almost a placeholder- a foil against which Jesus will proclaim his Messianic identity. But she is more. This woman is able to see beyond her context and that which her people have deemed sacred and see the Messiah in her midst. In short, she says, I believe!
How does Jesus invite that belief? He invites her to drink of spiritual water, he tells her about herself, and then he shares a little about the nature of ministry in front of the disciples and perhaps the woman too.

First, holy water! When Jesus refers to this other water, he is clearly referencing the life-giving water in the desert that we hear referred to in Genesis. Jesus and the Samaritan woman are at a holy and historic well in Sychar, and Jacob provided water in the desert that allowed a whole community to be built over many years. But Jesus is mentioning a water that meets the woman’s spiritual thirst. She doesn’t quite get it, as she thinks he might be able to save her the chore of returning in the heat of the day, day after day, or perhaps she just wants to remind him that there are practical needs to be met. But he begins to reveal a layer of the onion of his identity by referring to something that goes beyond the physical and into the realm of the spiritual.

He then performs the magic trick of revealing to the woman that he knows about her history. Various people around town may know her story, but how can he, a stranger, know so much about her? No doubt this is why she comes to the well at this inopportune time, so that she can avoid those who live more commonplace lives and might judge her. Jesus may seem to judge her in his words about her truth, but you can tell from the woman’s response that she doesn’t feel judged, she feels seen. As we heard last week, Jesus came not to judge but to save and invite us into new life. And she gets that. She sees Jesus as a prophet. And that leads her to ask him about where people should worship. You see, she has heard that she needs to access God on Gerizim, and the Jews talk about Mount Zion in Jerusalem. And Jesus just expands it all out, saying pretty soon where you worship won’t matter, because the Spirit is everywhere.

Jesus reveals himself to her here and this is the first time he says these words in John. A stranger, a woman, and a woman with a complex past at that, is the first to hear these saving words. This saving truth.

And yet it doesn’t stop there. The disciples, still worried about the things of the world, start worrying at Jesus because he’s missed lunch. And he goes on to talk about spiritual food – he who just spoke of spiritual drink—and that leads him to the harvest. He is aware that others have been sowing the seeds before him and now he is here to reap the harvest by gathering people like the woman at the well to him.

“I believe!” She says. And pretty soon others do, too. And they believe at first because they hear her words, but they really get convinced when they meet Jesus for themselves and hear his saving words. That they are not judged, but saved.

In this way, this story really recaps the whole gospel. We come to Jesus, often at an unexpected time, and Jesus teaches us about what really matters- that life is more than physical food or drink, but that we need to be sustained with something else. Then we learn about ourselves. And we learn that we are not judged but free. Jesus shines a light on our lives, and we begin to believe he is the Truth. Then we share with others. We invite them to believe. But others don’t believe until they experience Jesus for themselves.
In the spirit of the Samaritan woman, let us believe! Let us be unafraid to hear Jesus’ truth for us. Let us share the good news, and invite others to know Jesus, too. So that more will say “I believe!” Amen.

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[1] Ezigbo, Victor I. The Art of Contextual Theology: Doing Theology in the Era of World Christianity . Cascade Books. Kindle Edition.