I’ve been there, or at least I think I have if the Biblical scholars and archeologists are correct. On my trip to the Holy Land in 2014 we stopped at Jacob’s well, which is located near the city of Nablas in the occupied territory of Palestine. In the late 1800’s a Greek Orthodox church was built around it, so these days the well is to be found in a very small room the walls of which are covered with icons, paintings, and a display of souvenirs for sale behind a small counter. We drew water from the well and sampled it. I remember being surprised at how cold it was. Still, even after tasting the water I had to close my eyes to try to picture the well out in the open on a hot sunny day with a man sitting next to it waiting for someone to come along who could draw him water. The man in my mind’s eye of course was Jesus, while the woman who eventually did come by remains nameless like many women in the Bible, and so is known to us simply as the Samaritan woman or sometimes the woman at the well.
It’s hard for me to imagine how this woman must have felt at finding a strange man sitting by the well, a man who upon speaking to her turned out to be a Jew. Her surprise at the situation notwithstanding, the woman did converse with Jesus, though initially that didn’t go terribly well. As in conversations Jesus had with Nicodemus, a well-educated Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, to those he had with his disciples who traveled with him and on some levels knew him well, what Jesus said to the woman and what she heard were definitely not the same thing. If you knew with whom you are speaking you would ask me for water and I would give you living water and you would never be thirsty again. Well, by all means give me some so I don’t have to keep coming here to draw water. Jesus offers her eternal life and the woman hears a way to get out of one of her more onerous daily tasks. But does that really surprise us? Who, coming here for the first time, really understands everything that is said and done? Throughout the Gospels we hear of many occasions where the things Jesus is reported to have said to people weren’t all that clear to his listeners upon first hearing. But as during his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus doesn’t lose patience with the woman in today’s reading, or dismiss her for her lack of understanding. Rather he shifts the conversation to talking about her, and she realizes then that this is no ordinary man. We watch her surprise at a Jewish man speaking to her in the first place morph into confusion at what he had to say then change to amazement when he’s able to tell her so much more about herself than would seem reasonable. She senses she’s speaking with a prophet. What an effective way to connect with someone, talk with them about things they know, and nothing’s going to be more familiar to anyone than themselves. Once a connection has been made, the person may be better able to hear and internalize topics more abstract, more spiritual in nature. Indeed, Jesus and the woman do go on to briefly discuss the Jewish versus Samaritan perspectives on where the faithful should worship. Once again the woman doesn’t fully understand all of what Jesus is saying, but she does declare that she knows the Messiah is coming to which Jesus replies, I am he, the one who is speaking to you. Before we have a chance to hear how the woman responds to this remarkable declaration, or even to make certain that she actually heard what Jesus said, the disciples show up, having gone to town for food. At that point the woman, maybe feeling a bit overwhelmed by a whole group of Jewish men, leaves her water jar and goes back to the city.
It is in the city that the most important action of this story takes place. The woman could have kept what she had just experienced to herself, fearing people might condemn her for talking with a strange man, no less a Jew. Or she might have kept silent worried they would think she was crazy if she shared the conversation she’d just had with this stranger by the well. Yes, she could have kept silent but she didn’t. Instead she said to everyone she encountered, Come and see a man who has told me everything I have ever done! Furthermore, we learn that she did hear what Jesus said at the end of their conversation because she adds, He can’t be the Messiah, can he? The story concludes by telling us that initially the people believed this man was special because of what the woman told them, but after encountering Jesus personally they were sufficiently moved by what he had to say that they invited him to stay with them, which he did for two days. By the time he left it was no longer because of what the woman had told them but rather because of what they experienced themselves while in Jesus’ presence that led them to believe that indeed this man truly was the Savior of the world.
During Epiphany Bingham preached about how early in Jesus ministry John the Baptist effectively lent his credibility to Jesus. At the time Jesus came to John to be baptized John was famous and had a large following. By telling his followers that this is the man I’ve been telling you about, you need to follow him, John effectively jump started Jesus’ earthly ministry. As Bingham explained, it was a matter of John saying to his followers you trust me and I trust him, so I’m asking you to trust him too. Bingham described that as the heart of evangelism. We see the same sort of thing happening in events in today’s Gospel with one huge difference. John was a well-known, flamboyant religious figure of his day. Of course he could influence what people did. So could Billy Graham or +Desmond Tutu. I remember hearing Bishop Ladehoff describe how moved he was when he heard Graham preach at one of his revivals. I remember how Bingham responded when he was interviewing for the assistant priest’s position here at St. Mary’s and someone asked him when he first sensed that he wanted to be a priest. He replied that it was when he was thirteen years old after hearing Desmond Tutu speak. There have unquestionably been countless people down through time who have become followers of Jesus or whose Christianity was immeasurably deepened by encountering a charismatic Christian leader. However, I would submit that many more people have come to know Jesus because of interactions with ordinary Christians.
Which brings us back to the woman in today’s Gospel. This nameless Samaritan was an ordinary woman, her rather unusual marital history notwithstanding, which should be both a comfort and a challenge to us, because it shows that an ordinary person, most likely far from perfect, could make a difference in other people’s lives. Her testimony led many people from her city to go out to see Jesus and to then invite him to stay with them, which he did. In the end they believed in him because they listened to Jesus, but the only reason they encountered Jesus in the first place was because of the woman’s invitation to “Come and see this man who told me everything I have ever done.”
Rather than living as faithful Episcopalians are notorious for doing, keeping our church involvement totally to ourselves because we’re worried the people who know us in other settings will think less of us somehow if they find out we’re people of faith, we need to be open to those moments when it seems appropriate to say Come and see…. Come make sandwiches with me on Saturday. You’ll be amazed how many other people will be there doing the same thing. Come to Journey Fellowship with me Sunday, it’s really fun. Why don’t you bring your kids to church this week and they can go to Sunday School with our kids. See how they like it. Maybe your friends will come, maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll come once and then bow out. Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll find a connection here that will bring them back long enough to develop a faith every bit as deep as your own.
I will never forget Sunday, February 6, 2011. That was the day after the two Mr. Axemen candidates were swept into the ocean near Yachats and drowned. After coming together in horrified disbelief midday on Saturday and spending the rest of the day and the night together, the high school students from South who belonged to St. Mary’s brought their friends to church with them on Sunday morning. There were two full pews of young people sitting right over there, two full pews of utterly devastated young people. The nonmembers of St. Mary’s didn’t come back as far as I know, but I sincerely believe that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives the time they spent here that Sunday, first in church for the service itself and then with Bingham after the service. Who knows, years from now, maybe at another crushingly difficult moment in their lives when they don’t know where else to turn for help, or when they’ve started a family and realize they want their children to experience something of what they remember experiencing here that day long ago, they’ll decide they need to come back to St. Mary’s and they’ll bring their family with them. If that happens it will be because they had high school friends who weren’t afraid to invite them to come to church when those friends believed church was where they all most of all needed to be. They would come back because they had friends, like the woman at the well, who were willing to say, Come, Come and see….. Amen.
