Empty Jars
Readings: Exodus 17:1–7 · Psalm 95 · Romans 5:1–11 · John 4:5–42
I imagine, that it was a hot day when the Samaritan woman set out.
I imagine the midday sun heating her skin as she walked to the well—sweat beading on her forehead.
I imagine each step being driven by the necessity of thirst, each step a battle between exhaustion and the necessity of moving forward.
Was she used to this walk?
Did she walk this way often?
We don't know—the text doesn't tell us.
But we do know this.
She came to the well searching.
She came to the well carrying empty jars.
She came to the well looking to have that emptiness filled.
Have you ever had a time in your life when you just felt exhausted, but knew you had to go on?
Have you ever had a time in your life when every step felt weighted down as you walked, weighted down by jars that were empty?
Emptiness can be a heavy burden.
And so the woman walks to the well, and it is at the well that she has an encounter that will transform her.
It is at the well that she will see Jesus.
Jesus should, by every social convention, ignore the Samaritan woman.
She belongs to the wrong gender.
She belongs to the wrong religious community.
As the scriptures remind us, Jews do not share things with Samaritans—not even niceties.
In fact, the polite thing for a Jew and a Samaritan to do with one another is to pretend the other doesn't exist.
Jesus, against every expectation, approaches the woman at the well, and asks her for a drink.
I love their sassy exchange.
The woman at the well might be exhausted, but she is not defeated, and she will not let this man ask her socially inappropriate questions unchecked.
"How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (John 4:9)
Jesus takes up her reply and redirects it:
"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." (John 4:10)
The woman has come to the well empty, searching to have her jars filled.
Searching for what she thinks, is water.
But Jesus is offering her something more refreshing, something more lasting.
She came to the well bearing empty jars.
What have you come to the well carrying?
What have you come to the well to find?
The Samaritan woman knew she was carrying the weight of emptiness.
The Samaritan woman knew she was driven by thirst.
But the Samaritan woman did not know, did not know that this emptiness could be filled, that this thirst could be quenched.
Jesus names this emptiness:
"Go, call your husband, and come back." (John 4:16)
Yet she cannot, because she has had many husbands.
She has lived a life marked by loss.
Jesus does not shame this life.
No. Jesus sees her and loves her.
And in being seen, and in being loved, I think she is healed.
The woman at the well is transformed by her encounter with Jesus. She came for a drink of water. Jesus gave her living waters.
But there are still some obstacles that remain, there are still some walls that are hard to overcome.
Because the woman at the well is a Samaritan, and this leads to an interesting theological dilemma. You see, a big dividing line between Jews and Samaritans was where one worshipped.
Jews believed worship belonged in the Temple in Jerusalem: the beautifully constructed, well funded, and historic center of God's people in the land.
But the Samaritans had their own place of worship, and while it wasn't as large, wasn't as rich, wasn't as central, it was, nevertheless, the anchor of their people's common life.
It would be as if the peoples of St. Michael's and the Cathedral were to have a historic rivalry, in which members from either community were reticent or outrightly refused to worship together, because each saw their own place of worship as the only place that God can truly meet them.
Jesus challenges all these claims:
"Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:21, 24)
Now Jesus is clear: Salvation comes first from the Jews. Salvation is a story that God is telling first with and through Israel—fulfilled now in Jesus.
But the boundaries of God's love, and our love of God through worship, does not stop at the boundaries of the Temple in Jerusalem,
Does not stop at the mountain of Samaria,
Does not stop at the walls of the Cathedral close,
Does not stop at the property boundaries of St. Michael's, Sillery.
God is Spirit and Truth, and this Spirit and Truth can dwell in every place and in every people.
Before the God that is Spirit and Truth, we must be sure we do not mistake our places of worship as our objects of worship.
"But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him." (John 4:23)
It makes me laugh that the woman at the well came to fill her jars, but in the end, having met Jesus, having been seen by him, and loved by him, she leaves her jars behind.
She leaves to go spread the word—to witness to the God, who in Jesus, reveals Godself as Spirit and as Truth.
She becomes one of the first evangelists.
A woman.
A Samaritan.
A Samaritan Woman—whose testimony brings an entire city to sit at the feet of Jesus, whose testimony is not an argument, but an invitation: come and see.
Be seen.
Be loved.
Be healed.
What have you come to the well carrying?
What have you come to the well to find?
What have you received there?
What will you leave behind?
Come and see.
