John 4:5:42 “Who
Do You Say I Am?”
Have you ever been
thirsty? I mean really, really thirsty.
The kind of thirst that is
hard for Americans to imagine
because we have fresh water whenever we turn on the tap.
It is estimated that 1.1
billion people around the world
have inadequate access to safe drinking water.
Here in the South, where we
normally have plentiful rain,
we rarely think about where we’re going to get
water.
It’s only been in the last
year as we have experienced a drought,
that we have begun to engage in serious conversations
about water.
Water was a vivid reality in
the life of ancient
Because of the geography of
this region, water was not always a dependable reality. Annual rains fluctuated, and springs and
streams were lacking or inadequate.
Water was often a scarce
commodity,
so that a cup of water offered to a guest or stranger
was a simple,
and appreciated sign of hospitality.
Water is a powerful image in today’s
scripture reading,
an image you can see in the sanctuary today.
There is a well, Jesus’
request for a drink, talk of water buckets and jars.
But there is more to this
story than ordinary water.
This is a story of our deepest spiritual thirsts
and the living water Jesus is offering us,
too.
This is probably a familiar
story to many of you.
But the problem with familiar
Bible stories is that sometimes
we have brought so many preconceived interpretations of
the text
that we miss out on a fresh word the scripture may have
for us.
So before we get into the
word this brings for us,
let’s take a look at what we know about this text.
Reading the text carefully,
this is what we know for sure.
She is a Samaritan, a group
whom the Jews did not associate with.
She has come to the well at
but not necessarily for the reasons we’ve been told, that
she was a fallen woman.
It was common to go to the
wells in the early morning,
but it was also perfectly permissible for women to come
to the well anytime of day
if they had run out of water.
This woman is sometimes
portrayed as ignorant or irreligious,
but this conversation, which is the longest single
conversation with anyone
recorded in John’s gospel, shows something else:
she is a capable theological conversation partner with
Jesus.
She is never judged as a
sinner.
Even in the exchange where
Jesus says
“You’ve had five husbands and
the one you have now is not your husband”
there is no judgment.
Jesus simply states what he knows about this woman.
Nothing more is said about
her past marital history,
which could have been the result of many circumstances,
including divorce which was permitted in ancient
Instead, Jesus and the woman
start a discussion about proper worship,
for Jews and Samaritans disagreed about these things.
As they go deeper and deeper
into this discussion,
it is clear this woman from
Finally Jesus reveals himself
as the Messiah,
the first such self-revelation we have seen so far in
John’s gospel.
Then the story takes another
turn when the disciples come back wondering
1) why
Jesus is talking to a woman and 2) why he no longer seems interested in eating.
After speaking to the
disciples about the work he has been sent to do,
the Samaritans show up to see for themselves who this
Jesus is.
If we can say anything about
John’s gospel, we can say that it’s layered.
There are many levels to this story.
But we needn’t get confused
about the unanswered questions about the woman
and the twists and turns this story takes.
What we need to do is keep our eyes fixed on Jesus in
this story.
For this story has something to teach us about
who Jesus is and what Jesus has to offer
us.
As Jesus and the woman talk,
they cover a range of topics, including worship.
“God is spirit, and those who
worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
But the woman’s response
shows that she hasn’t grasped
that Jesus is offering her a gift right now.
She says, “I know the Messiah
is coming.
When he comes he will
proclaim all things to us.”
It is then that Jesus
says: “I am He, the one who is speaking
to you.”
However the most accurate way
to translate this from the Greek is not actually
“I am he.”
It is more accurate to
say: “I am, the one talking to
you.”
As Jesus lays claim to the
name “I am,” we remember
the story of God appearing to Moses in the burning bush
and when Moses asks
“What is your name?” God
replies simply “I am.”
This is the moment of faith
for the woman.
For as Jesus says “I am”
she finally comes to understand who Jesus is and what he
has to offer her.
She moves from confusion to confession.
She goes back to the city and
tells to the people
“Come and see a man who told
me everything I have ever done!”
adding maybe a bit more tentatively “He cannot be the
Messiah can he?”
There is something about this
story that reminds us of the story of
Jesus and
Nicodemus from last week.
But as far as we can tell
from the story of Nicodemus, he never does get it.
In this story, we read of
this woman’s growing faith.
Incomplete maybe, questioning
often, but persistent, a faith she lives into,
until this woman finally becomes the channel who brings
others to faith.
She gets it! The Samaritan woman becomes a witness to the
life Jesus has offered -
life lived in the unending presence of God, like springs
of water that never run dry.
But her testimonial has
always struck me as a little odd.
“Come and see the man who
told me everything I’ve ever done.”
I’m not so sure I’d want to
be spreading that around.
But there is another way we can understand this.
What she was saying was
“Come and see the one who knows me fully and
completely.”
To be known by God and to
know God are the deepest desires of our hearts.
“You have searched me and
known me,” we read in psalm 139
“O God, you are my God, I
seek you, my soul thirsts for you;” we read in psalm 63.
We human beings are driven by
this divine desire, this holy longing.
We long to be in communion
with something greater than ourselves.
We want to be fully known,
and fully loved in spite of ourselves.
Yet our restless hearts often
are looking for love in all the wrong places.
There is an empty place in our hearts, a thirsting place,
that only God can fill.
But the substitutes that we
chase after that we think will satisfy!
Right now, the
we have had in a while.
Part of what has contributed
to this is people borrowing too much money
and buying more house than they can actually afford.
Now financial analysts are
warning consumers to be careful about taking out
7 year
loans for cars.
It’s going to take us down
the same path that has led to our current financial downturn.
We think money grows on trees
and happiness is found in homes and cars.
This condition has a name “affluenza,” and there is a book by that title, too.
The author defines affluenza as a “painful, contagious, socially transmitted
condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged
pursuit of more.”
And it doesn’t just have to
be more stuff.
In the case of the Samaritan
woman, it seemed to be more husbands.
It can be more toys, more
success, more recognition, more recreation,
more after school activities, more busyness.
But all of
it as an attempt to give meaning to our thirsty lives.
All of it as a way to satisfy
our deepest hungers,
which are always spiritual, not physical. But none of this satisfies.
Our hearts are restless until
they find their rest in God,
Our deepest hungers can only
be met by a relationship with God.
In the story of the Samaritan
woman at the well,
Jesus goes beyond just
surface talk,
and pushes her deeper and deeper into understanding who
he is.
Although in other parts of
John’s gospel we hear many of what are called Jesus’
“I am” statements: I am the bread of life, I am the light of the
world, I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the
way, the truth, and the life, I am the true vine. But here in this reading Jesus simply says I
am.
Jesus is the I am.
The one sent by God, the one
who is God.
The Word of God promised and
present with God from the Beginning,
the Word made flesh and sent to dwell among us,
the Word of God who is present among us still as the
living spirit of Christ,
shaping and forming all of us into the Body of Christ.
Even if you don’t understand
the fullness of this, that’s okay.
That’s why we are on a
journey of faith together. And that
Journey takes a lifetime.
Throughout the gospels, Jesus
periodically asks his followers “who do you say I am?”
As the Samaritan woman comes
to understand who Jesus is, it makes a difference.
She is so excited, she leaves
her water jar
and goes back to the city to share the good news. She takes action.
She is an evangelist, one of
the first who spreads the good news
outside the Jewish community.
Her seemingly insignificant
testimony
“He told me everything that I
have every done” converts many in her city.
Jesus stays with them - the
Samaritans in the city - for two days.
At the end of his stay, they
have gained one of the deepest understandings
we read in the NT of who Jesus is because they
proclaim:
“We know that this is truly
the Savior of the world.”
Who do you say I am? Jesus asks each of us the same question.
And what difference does this
make in your life?
For if we are growing in our
relationship with Jesus Christ,
it should affect what we do every day.
Last week I mentioned a book
I have read
“Unbinding
the Gospel” by Martha Grace Reese.
I probably am talking about
it again because I think faith-sharing is important.
She says that effective
evangelism doesn’t threaten people with hell or condemnation.
The most effective thing any
one of us can say about our relationship with Christ
is to answer the question: What difference does being a
Christian make in my life?
Here’s what I’ve heard from
some of you:
“Being a Christian means I’m
never alone.”
“Being in a church gives me a
way to serve others.”
“I love God so much, that I
want others to know God, too.”
“Being a Christian has helped
me really to feel forgiven.”
“Being in a church gives you
a way to keep growing.”
Jenny Miller, one of our
members here is also a Dekalb County Police
officer. She told me about something
that happened to her not long ago.
There’s a program in
People want to know what
difference being a Christian makes in your life.
There is a whole city out
there that needs to hear the good news.
You might think you’re not capable, you’re not an evangelist,
no one would listen to you.
That didn’t stop the
Samaritan woman. In her halting,
tentative,
growing faith kind of way, she simply named what Jesus had
done for her.
Who do you say that I
am? Jesus asks.
Will you go and tell someone
this week?
Amen.