Fully known
I love this dreamy Jesus with St. Photini.
Source: Fontana, Lavinia, 1552-1614. Christ and the Samaritan Woman, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58377 [retrieved March 13, 2023]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lavinia_Fontana_-_Christ_and_the_woman_of_Samaria.jpg.
Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, Year A (March 12, 2023).
View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Third Sunday in Lent (Year A)
Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service for the Third Sunday in Lent (March 12, 2023) is available here.
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The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? … “
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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.”
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.” John 4:11-15
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: One God, Mother of us all. Please be seated.
The woman of Samaria said to Jesus, "Sir, give me this living water."
Now. Tone is everything, I think. And when I hear this Gospel, I always think of the woman of Samaria saying this to Jesus in a tone that has a little bit of sarcasm in it. I imagine her as a hard-bitten woman, someone who's had a hard life and has got a shell around her. She's got a tough attitude that protects her.
So she says, "Sir, give me this living water. That sounds great. Then I won't have to keep coming back to this well every day. I won't be thirsty anymore." Again, imagine her saying this with an edge of sarcasm, with an attitude of self-protection and toughness around her. Notice that she comes to the well in the middle of the day, right? In Jesus' time and in this place that would've been the hottest, most awful time of day to come to the well. For us this is the equivalent of going to the grocery store at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. You don't go at this time unless you're trying to avoid other people. So here she is at noon day. Why would she be avoiding other people? Why would she come when none of her neighbors are going to be there? Well, as Jesus is in conversation with her, it's revealed she has no husband. She has someone, but they're not her husband. And she's had five other husbands! The Gospel doesn't comment on the circumstances that led to this, whether it was loss and grief, whether it was abuse, whether it was poor decisions... whether it was some combination.
But this woman's had a hard life. And more than that, she's had a life, and a string of broken relationships, that has caused her to go into hiding, to put up a tough shell and to avoid her neighbors and her community. It's possible she was forced into that. It's possible she was shunned, marginalized, pushed out to the edge of her community because of her past, because of what's happened in her life.
Remember that in the four Sundays of Lent which started last Sunday, we're going through this series of stories of people encountering Jesus. People who, because of their encounter, experience transformation. The transformation that the woman of Samaria experiences is this: she goes from coming to the well in the middle of the day to avoid others, to rushing back into her community to share something, to share good news. She goes from avoiding other people, to seeking them out!
Her request, "Sir, give me this living water"—yes, there may have been some bitterness or sarcasm in it, but underneath that was, I think, some hope. There was a yearning, a thirst, a desire. And Jesus does give her the living water she longs for. Jesus gives her back her life. How does he do this? As soon as she says, "Sir, give me this living water," he says, "Go get your husband." "Sir, she responds, I have no husband." He draws out from her the truth of her life, and he shows her everything she has ever done. He tells her that he knows who she is. He tells her that he knows her past. He offers all of this to her, but without a smidgen of the judgment that, I imagine, she experiences in every other quarter of her life—including from herself.
To be known completely and also to be loved: for her, that is the living water.
It takes away her shame and her bitterness and it renews her. She rushes back to her village. She leaves her water jug on the ground, which is even more meaningful than leaving behind all your grocery bags that you carefully collected and keep in the trunk of your car. This water jug would have been one of the most important implements in her household, needed for every daily chore. She leaves it behind because she is in such a rush to go from being lonely and isolated... To go back and tell people—and what does she tell them? "Come and see a man who has told me everything I have ever done!"
This is not about Jesus being psychic. This is about: "I am no longer ashamed of who I am. I am no longer bound by what I have done. Because somebody told me everything I've ever done, and still loves me. So I can come back to you and I don't need to hide from you anymore. I don't need to hide from myself anymore. Because I am known, fully known, and I am loved, completely loved."
From isolation to relationship and belonging: Jesus has given her something that flows through her, that overflows. She has to share this good news with other people!
In the Orthodox tradition, the woman of Samaria receives a name. She's called Saint Photini. The Episcopal Church commemorates her, I believe in February. Photini means "the enlightened one," and tradition has it that, after this encounter, Photini—who was the first person to hear the good news that Jesus is the Messiah and the first person, according to John's account, to proclaim that news to others—from isolation to proclamation—after this transformation Photini is baptized at Pentecost!
She is one of the first saints of the church. From isolation and hiding, to proclamation. And then through that living water of baptism, she belongs, like us, to the body of Christ. That living water flows from Jesus through her and the other Apostles and to us. We are all bound together and belong, through that living water. We are fully known and fully loved.
Don't be ashamed of anything you've ever done. Because Jesus has given all of us the gift of renewal. There may be things we have done wrong. There may be things we'd prefer to forget, or to hide from ourselves, or to hide from others. And I don't think many of us, well, I certainly would not go running to my neighbors to tell them to go meet the guy who knows everything I ever did and is talking about it! But we don't need to be ashamed, through that living water. We're bound in the body of Christ, through that living water.
Whoever we are and whatever we have done, there is a path for us to belong, to be freed and to be renewed. Amen.