I am Parched

Growing up in Tucson, in the desert southwest our parents taught us how to take a very short shower and still get clean. We were not to run the water while brushing our teeth. Part of it was learning to practice water conservation. The other part of it was that the Great Depression left my parents with a distain for unnecessary waste. We were slow learners at turning off lights before leaving the room, shutting exterior doors behind us, and avoiding water waste.

What would it have been like in first-century life, when your household water was the water you drew from a well and carried across the miles so that you would have it available? It is still like that for a portion of the world’s population. It was like that in first-century Samaria when Jesus took up a conversation with a Samaritan woman near an important well in her region.

We will hear this conversation on Sunday when the Gospel is read during worship. I love the series we get in this Lenten season; Jesus has some fascinating, even enigmatic, conversations which are recorded in the Gospel according to John. Last Sunday was the talk between Jesus and Nicodemus. This Sunday it is the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well. The following week it will be the man blind from birth whose eyes are healed by Jesus as he washes in the pool of Siloam. Finally, we have conversations with Mary and Martha of Bethany at the time Jesus raises their brother Lazarus from the dead. These are revelatory interactions.

Let’s get back to the well near the city called Sychar. Jesus and the woman are speaking on different levels, so the movement toward clarity and revelation is slow. The woman speaks of literal water that she must labor to draw and carry home. Jesus speaks spiritually of living water that satisfies everlastingly. The woman brings up her people’s customs of worship as being distinct from the Judean practices within the temple. Jesus speaks of true worship. He points out that God is spirit, and seeks worshipers that connect in spirit and truth.

The conversation seems all over the place, but somehow within it this fortunate woman comes to see Jesus as a prophet, and Jesus further reveals that he is the Messiah that people of several traditions had been longing to see for centuries:

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. (John 4:28-29)

The townsfolk had their own experiences in learning from Jesus and this is what transpired from their encounters with the rabbi—again, revelation, enlightenment, and belief:

So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” (John 4:40-42)

We often don’t know just how parched we are, but when we encounter Jesus, we ask, and he gives us living water, which becomes in us a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. (John 4:14) Stay conservative with the literal water that flows from municipal sources, but with God, get ready for abundance. You shall never thirst, in the companionship and fellowship of the Savior.