Former American Press staff writer Sunny Brown Farley writes "Naked Faith," a look at faith in its natural form: lived out in the day-to-day lives of ordinary people.

Taste and see

Posted February 20, 2008 at 7:48 am
Filed Under Faith & Religion | 3 Comments

This week, I have focused my attention on the story of the Samaritan woman at the water well. There is something interesting about the contrast in the two kinds of water talked about in this story – the water the woman sought and the water Jesus had to offer her.

The Samaritan woman had to routinely go to the well for water. There was no running water in her house. She couldn’t just turn on the tap and get all the water she needed. She had to go to the well, perhaps daily, to get the water she needed to survive.

She lugged her bucket to the well each time she went and probably bent down to lower it into the water. I can imagine that, like most people, she thought about life as she went through this routine, this ritual.

She probably thought a lot about the mess she was in with the men in her life.

Relationships hadn’t worked out for her like she had hoped they would. Most likely, she felt judged by the others in her village. Maybe they thought she was a tramp. What they did not know was her shame. Too ashamed to risk running into the other women and men in the cool of the morning or in the cool of the evening, she snuck to the well in the hot part of the day to get her water.

And so she would lower her bucket into the water and perhaps she’d catch a glimpse of her own reflection in the rippling water below. She probably looked tired from the heat and maybe a bit haggard from her troubles in life.

Maybe all she could really see was her own eyes and the lifelessness they revealed. The eyes, after all, are the window to the soul. Maybe she wished it were someone else looking back at her – someone happy, someone content and at peace.

Looking down into the water, she could see the truth all too clearly. What she was turning to for satisfaction, what she was turning to for fulfillment wasn’t and would never satisfy her. What she filled herself with left her thirsty. What she sought to quench her soul, left her parched and dry and empty.

The men in her life were like the water she was drawing from the well. They met her needs for a time, but they left her unfulfilled and in need of something more.

That something more is what this stranger, this Jew, this new and perplexing man had to offer.

Jesus said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Who is this man? Who does he think he is? She probably wondered.

“Where are you going to get this water?” she asked. I mean, this man had no bucket or anything.

“Are you greater than Jacob?” she asked him. This was, after all, a well known as Jacob’s well and the mighty Jacob, son of Isaac, and grandson of Abraham, was known to the people of the Samaritan’s day.

Jesus responded with a fact the Samaritan woman knew well – “Everyone who drinks of this water, will thirst again.” And then he continued, “but everyone who drinks of the water I give will never thirst again.”

Her lips were cracked. Her mouth was dry. Her throat was dry. More than that, her life was dry. Her very soul was dry. She was so desperately thirsty.

I can almost see the tears in her eyes. “Sir, please give me this water.”

In our gospel story, our dear Samaritan woman left her bucket, her water jar, at the well that day. You see, she had an encounter with Christ Jesus and her thirst was quenched by the living water he offered. No longer did she have the need for anything less. No longer did she have the need to sip on something that would only temporarily relieve her thirst. No, her thirst was satisfied.

We are challenged by this story to taste and see, as the psalmist says. Jesus offers us this same living water. All we have to do is taste and see. Taste and be quenched.

John 4

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

 1The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John,2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” 13Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17“I have no husband,” she replied.   Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” 25The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

 27Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

 28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him. (NIV) 

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