5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." 16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, "I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." 27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" 30 They left the city and were on their way to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33 So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" 34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor." 39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 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."
***
In a perfect world everything would make sense.
No riddles.
No puzzles.
No quandaries.
No questions.
We're not so lucky, because our world is full of uncertainty, full of doubt, and full of questions that will remain unanswered until the end of time. However, there is an answer if we just look to the well... the place where the woman meets the messiah. The well of life, the place where the water is always flowing, that is where we will find Jesus.
Now, instead of talking in riddles about a magical well where there is water for everybody to drink, we direct our eyes to the cross where the water was ultimately poured out for us--the blood of Jesus. It was poured out so that we might live, it freed us to love our neighbor with everything we can muster and then some. We are charged with taking this message back to our home and telling people about it. We are to be like the woman at the well.
The woman in this story is hesitant in picking up what was being told to her--granted it was kind of cryptic--but when she put all of the pieces together she got the message. Following this eureka moment, she was instructed to go back and tell all her friends. In doing so the entire town was brought to Jesus for a little talk about living water.
No riddles.
No puzzles.
No quandries.
No questions.
Jesus is the water that sustains life. We can buy into all of the promises of this world but we will ultimately remain thirsty. There might even come a time when the water from the worldly well will dry up, and to whom will you turn then? Will you seek out the next best thing, or will you turn to the source of life? These are the questions that make us wonder, what am I buying into? What am I putting my faith into? I have been given access to an ever present flow of life and I have returned to the world for my sustenance. To what end? Death, that's the end.
Return to the well of life so that Jesus might sustain us and make us whole again...
Let us pray:
Our most gracious heavenly host. You pour out the living water for all to partake in for the ultimate cost--you sacrificed your son so that we might know eternal life. We ask that you allow your spirit to guide us to drink from the well of ever flowing water and be sustained for life. Guide us, strengthen us, and sustain us in the days to come as we grow weary from the water from the worldly well. In your son's precious name we pray. Amen.
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