Third Sunday of Lent 2015

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT 2015
John 4: 5-42

Sometimes the most important and impactful things that happen to us in our lives, when we are paying attention, are the things that come to us because of our interaction with a person we’ve never met before. I remember, one time, paying a homeless man’s bill at a checkout stand because he didn’t have enough money for his items. This man waited for me outside the store and, when I came out, he said to me: “You are a good man.” Those words from a stranger meant more to me, at that time, than he could have ever known. I’ve reminded myself of his words many, many times.
The woman in tonight’s gospel had never met Jesus, and yet the encounter between them changed her life forever.
Tonight’s gospel passage suggests that this woman’s life was out of kilter. It’s the hottest time of the day when she comes to the well, not like other people who would have come earlier in the cool morning. Her aloneness, her alienation from the townspeople, seems to indicate that she wanted to avoid others in the community, possibly because she was embarrassed at her living situation. As the gospel recounts for us, she had been married five times and is now living with a man to whom she is not married. I can’t say that I blame her for not wanting to become the subject of the gossip and the haughtiness of others in the town.

We’re not sure why this woman wants to stay under the radar; but we do know this from our own lived experience: for some people, life seems to work reasonably well, but for others, life doesn’t seem to work out at all. Some people are well adjusted and productive, reasonably happy and have a sense of achievement and fulfillment, and others are restless and discontented, with a growing sense of frustration and futility. What’s the difference? What are the variables? How does one make one’s life work?

This is the business Jesus was in, and still is in. Helping people. Helping people to put life together, helping them to put together a life that works. How did Jesus help this woman? How can Jesus help you and me put together a life that will work?

First, Jesus provides her with a clarifying moment, a moment of honesty, in which she is able to admit and accept her flaws, to name what is out of balance in her life, in this case: her relationships. This had to have been a painful experience for her, but it was absolutely necessary in order for her to own, as well as to accept, her responsibility for it. There is no other way for us to straighten out our lives, no other way for us to live with meaning and at peace than to come to the point at which we must say: “I am responsible for my own life. My actions, good or bad, are of my own choosing and of my own doing. I am responsible for me.” Taking responsibility for our own lives means shifting responsibility for what happens in our life from others to ourselves. This is the essence of what it means to be mature. If we don’t make that transition, then we never grow up and time simply passes as the number of candles on our birthday cake increases. By helping the woman to admit the truth, Jesus enables her to take the first and most essential step in building a life that works. No more alibis, no more blaming others for our failures. Finally, the buck stops with us.

Next, Jesus encourages this woman to anchor herself onto something eternal instead of something superficial and passing. She came to the well because she was thirsty and needed water and Jesus tells her that to make life work, she should seek the “living water,” that water that, when consumed, quenches all thirst. The woman, like all of us, is tempted to nail the restlessness and the longing we experience daily onto something or someone we feel will take it away, only to find ourselves thirsting again and returning to the same old wells to try again what we, on some level, know will never quench the thirst, will never fill the void. We’ll try money, or power or sex or drugs. We’ll go to the gym so we can go to the mirror so we can desperately feed our egos so we can put on our mask so we can go to the party so that we can put our despair to sleep so that we can let the whole loop start over again tomorrow. Jesus warns the woman, as He warns each of us, that the only way out of this sad spiral is habitually to affirm our dignity and worth by the sure and certain knowledge that we are loved unconditionally by God and that there is nothing else that will, or even can, replace that, no matter how hard we try, and goodness knows, we do try. The woman begs for that living water, and Jesus assures her that the living water is He Himself.

And lastly, after having been affirmed in her flaws and inspired by the affirmation of her dignity, the woman runs off to the town to bring others to encounter Jesus. The bucket she had brought to fill from the well is discarded, no longer necessary. All that is important to her now is the fire within her that the people she had been avoiding receive the same good news from Jesus. This broken, flawed woman, because of her encounter with Jesus, becomes a disciple of Jesus, an apostle, if you will. She doesn’t let her sins get in the way of her blessings. And this could be the story of all of us; the news of our acceptance of responsibility to make a good life and the assurance that nothing outside of God’s love can add anything to our dignity should have the result that we want everyone, all of our families and friends and even strangers and even enemies to share in the beauty and in the power of the message. This is the gospel, the good news. It should never be hidden, nor should it be just for ourselves; it deserves to be shouted from the rooftops.

Every single one of us in this church tonight, I believe, wants to put together a life that works; and, tonight, Jesus gives us the three ingredients that will make that happen: a peaceful acceptance of our flaws and mistakes and taking responsibility for our choices, nailing our longing onto something eternal rather than onto something superficial and temporary, and seeing ourselves as sent to everyone else to share with them the good news.

That little voice inside that says: “This is impossible” is the reason our transformation hasn’t happened thus far; and it is why we come back to the same wells over and over again, day after day and year after year. Put the bucket down, you don’t need it any more. You have the love which comes from Jesus Christ, the human face of God. And we have nothing at all to fear from God.

Amen.