Abbot Columba Mc Cann: Here’s a thought I came across on the internet a few days ago: “One day you are going to meet someone in your life, that is going to change everything. They are going to change the way you think about the world, the way you view yourself, and the way you look at everyone else around you.”
Certainly for the woman at the well, to meet Jesus was a life-changing event. Here she is, going to collect water at the well in the middle of the day. This Jewish stranger probably realises that something is wrong. The heat of midday is not the time for trudging around carrying water; the women do that in the evening. Does he realise that she is something of an outcast in her own village? He seems to speak in riddles, promising her living water that will well up to eternal life. What on earth does he mean? By the end of the story we might have a clue.
In the full story, which we don’t hear today, Jesus gently probes the question of her family life, and it turns out that she has been divorced four times, and the man she is now living with is not her husband. Her life has not gone according to plan. She has been rejected multiple times. It’s not surprising that she has given up on marriage. She has broken the rules, rules which Jesus himself underlined elsewhere about fidelity in marriage, even to the consternation of his disciples. She has broken principles that Jesus himself believes are important.
But look at his response: not a word of blame or condemnation. It appears that he knows her through and through. He knows what it is like to be her. Far from condemning her, he starts to speak about himself. He reveals that he in fact is the long-awaited Messiah. In St John’s gospel, the first person to whom Jesus reveals his identity in this way is this adulterous Samaritan woman. He sees all that has gone wrong but, as Messiah, he loves her. This is the living water that lasts for ever. It’s his love. Another name for this is the Holy Spirit.
St Paul speaks eloquently of it: Neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height, or depth, or any created thing can come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus Our Lord.
For this woman the fact that she is a Samaritan and he a Jew, supposed to be sworn enemies over the centuries, will not get in the way of that love; the fact that her family life is way off the normal bounds of morality will not get in the way of that love; if anything it draws his love closer. Many men have rejected her. Jesus doesn’t. His love is like living water, and nothing will get in the way of it, including societal norms.
What might it be like for any of us to be in touch with that love and living from it? We could draw on a beautiful poetic image from the Old Testament; it’s like a tree planted near the water’s edge, that thrusts its roots down to where it is always moist. This tree has no worries when the weather gets hot and dry, with the soil dusty and barren; it is continually watered deep down, and will bear fruit in due course.
The last book of the Bible, again writing in poetic terms, sees this flow of love, this river of life, flowing from the throne of God for all eternity, with amazing trees planted on either side, bearing fruit every single month, and with leaves that are healing and medicinal.
I suggest that all of us thirst for something like that. We don’t need to wait until the next life to begin to experience it. As we come to the altar table today already we can open our hands, open our mouths and say, like the Samaritan woman, ‘Sir, please give me this living water.’ And he will not refuse anyone who comes to him.