Give Me Drink
A Refflection on John 4:5-42
At that time, Jesus came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, “What do you wish?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the city and were coming to him.
Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him food?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard ourselves, and we know that this is indeed Christ the Savior of the world.”
RSV John 4:5-42
Christ is Risen!
Today, we read a lengthy Gospel passage recounting the story of a Samaritan woman. Generally speaking, the Samaritans were a group of God-believers who worshiped not in the Temple in Jerusalem, but on Mount Gerizim. There are deeper differences between these two groups of worshipers; however, for the sake of this reflection, our takeaway is that this woman is an outsider within a Jewish context.
Rather than having nothing to do with her and treating her as an outsider, our Lord asks this woman, “Give me a drink.” Remember, as an outsider, the typical Jew would have nothing to do with a Samaritan, yet our Lord makes this request of her. She then replies by pointing out this reality, to which our Lord tells 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.”
Later in the narrative, Christ reveals that this woman has had five husbands, showing His deep understanding of her personal struggles and history. This revelation shows us that Jesus knows us intimately, including our past mistakes, and still offers us what we need for salvation. In other words, our God sees the whole of who we are and offers us His love regardless of how we may perceive ourselves.
Then Christ reveals to her that:
“The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
From this revelation, we see that our Lord is pointing to a higher reality of understanding God and the salvation He offers. We tend to put God in boxes of our own understanding, yet in Christ, the time is coming when God continues to show us His will in a dynamic and complex way. Salvation is found in God’s presence rather than in mere rule-following, for the rule, in the light of our Lord, takes on a new dimension. Thus, if a rule we follow does not lead us to the presence of Christ, which is centered in His love and peace, then it is not a rule for us to follow.
Our Lord, in His love for this woman, further reveals to her that He is the Christ she is awaiting, leading not only to the growth of her faith, but also to that of her whole nation. What Jesus being the Christ means will not be fully revealed until the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord. Yet this revelation is granted in order to plant seeds of faith.
Rather than going line by line, which would constitute a novel, we will focus on how our Lord knows us, what He offers us in the form of living water, and how He reveals Himself to us fully.
First, we see the Lord questioning the woman. In doing so, He offers her the opportunity to draw near to Him by revealing who she is. We may think this is meaningless, given that Christ knows more about this woman than she even knows about herself. Yet in the questioning, we see Christ open the way for a relationship with this woman.
Christ does not treat the Samaritan woman as a problem to be solved or a topic to be studied based on her perceived characteristics. Rather, He desires to see the fullness of who she is, which shows us her true value and worth in Christ’s eyes. This is the model of how God seeks a genuine relationship with us all, and we are likewise called to do the same with God and with one another.
On the note of salvation, we come to the concept of living water. Water symbolizes life because all forms of organic life need it to survive. Spiritually, however, this “living water” represents God’s gift of renewal and ongoing grace that sustains us daily. Christ offers us this living water, which we see in our baptism, for it is a water that transforms our life, offering us true life — hence, “living water.”
Within baptism, we also see the twin symbolism of water, for water can also have a chaotic or destructive character. When we enter the waters of baptism, we die to a prior life ruled by sin. Yet it is through this death that we experience the true life that water offers us: the newness of life transformed in God’s presence. So, in the death and life offered through the waters of baptism, we see that our life changes for the better in the presence of Christ.
Christ, as we see in this narrative, knows what to ask and what we need to seek in order to receive the salvation He offers us. He grants us glimpses of the truth He offers, so that we have the freedom to receive or reject it. Without freedom, there is no love, for without our free will, God would have us act as automatons programmed to do His will. Rather than this, He opens Himself to us so that we may receive the fullness of life with Him. He gives us His Spirit of Truth to animate us and lead us to the presence of our Father. We are thus given all we need to worship God, and in doing so, He gives us life.
What I am getting at through all of this is that God knows what we need to receive new life in His presence. He plants seeds of faith in our hearts that take root when we need them most, nurturing our spiritual growth. By giving us all we need to worship Him, our Lord grants us the tools to deepen our relationship with Him and continually receive His fullness.
We see that this leads the Samaritan woman to realize that He is the Christ, and it is in this revelation that He not only touches her life, but also the lives of all her countrymen.
God knows who we are and what we need, and knowing this, He fosters a relationship with us so that we may receive the living water He offers. He plants these seeds of faith in our hearts so that we may have all we need to receive Him fully. Thus, at every moment of our lives, our Lord is giving us what we need to receive Him fully as our Christ and God.
We will not fully grasp all He offers us until we stand fully in His presence at the end of time. Yet, in His presence, we become fully who we are called to be.
God grants us all we need to seek true life in His loving and saving presence. It is our calling to receive the life-giving water He offers us in every moment of our lives, so that the fullness of His gifts may be partaken of by the whole of our being. New life is always offered to us; it becomes our choice whether or not we partake of it.
Truly the Lord is Risen!
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