About 20 years ago, the son of a friend of mine had to do a school project on “My Hero.” His father, my friend, also a clergyman was proud but somewhat surprised by his son’s choice of topic, so he asked him “Alex, why did you choose Jesus as My Hero?” “Well Daddy” said Alex “I couldn’t spell Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
The word hero is used rather casually today. Sports people are called heroes if they defeat a better team against the odds. Think how often you heard the word hero at the winter Olympics or in the 6 nations rugby. Popstars are called heroes if they do some physical task and raise money for charity. Much as I like sport and music, I am not sure that I would call sport stars or musicians heroes. In fact I am sure I would not (stand fast Paralympians perhaps).
In my work as a military chaplain, I have however worked with a number of heroes. In the hospital at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan and in the desert of Iraq, there were any number of heroes and heroic events. The fact that such events were conducted in 50 degree heat, in mud-summer, made them even more remarkable. In the 10 degree heat of NW1 in this season of Lent however, what can heroism say to us?
Our gospel story this morning is about Jesus asking the Samaritan woman for a drink of water. What’s this story about? Well, we could think that it is about sin and repentance and moral purity – except that it’s not. It isn’t a story about morality, sexual or otherwise.
Stories with women at the centre don’t happen very often in our scripture. When they do, they often want us to understand the story as a miniature morality lesson with a woman as the tawdry example. There’s Eve, for example, castigated as the one through whom sin and death entered the world.
And there is Mary Magdalene, friend of Jesus, one of his first disciples. We know her as a harlot, though none of that comes from scripture. What does come from scripture is that she was the first witness to the Resurrection.
Women are not very often at the centre of our scripture stories, and when they are it’s often because they did something important, something worth noting and remembering, something that sets a good example of faith. Women show up so infrequently in our scripture stories, that when they are there, it might be a signal to look closer, dig deeper, wait for the critical message that will be revealed.
If we look in a Bible that names stories – you know the kind that puts story titles on the top of the page, we see that this story from John’s Gospel is often known simply as The Woman at the Well. Sometimes it is known as The Woman of Samaria. Both of these factors are important to the story in identifying who she was.
First, a woman. Second, a Samaritan woman. Third, an immoral Samaritan woman. By anyone’s reckoning, she is a rather poor choice for an illustration of goodness – someone highly incredible as a disciple. In her own time, she was nobody to a Jewish man.
This is the longest conversation recorded in the New Testament between Jesus and anybody. There has to be something in this story more important than how many men she had known.
Consider the story. Jesus asks the woman for a drink of water. She expresses her astonishment that he would talk to her. He says to her that if she only knew who he was, she’d be asking him for a drink – of living water. She says, “Okay. May I have a drink of this water?” He says, “Go. Call your husband!” Now, to this point, she’s talking about plain old well water. And while that’s the drink that Jesus asked from her, it is not the water he offers to her.
After the woman realizes Jesus is the Messiah, after she realises what he’s been talking about as “living water,” she takes her new and tentative and shallow and not-yet-fully-formed faith and tells someone about it.
She went back to the city, the scripture says, and talked to people about her experience. “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony… And many more believed because of [Jesus’] word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’”
That’s the highpoint of the story: the believers. And it all started when she believed, and when she told someone else of her belief.
Her understanding may have been incomplete; “He can’t be the Messiah, can he?” But it was enough to hook people, to make them think, to invite them in. “Many Samaritans in that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” This woman, who is often remembered badly in Church history, who would not have been considered a credible witness, was an early disciple.
This woman, whose witness and testimony were only as strong as: “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” brought many to faith. So think: how will history remember you? Will it be for your behaviour, or for your testimony?
This woman, the Samaritan woman at the well, is an example to us of discipleship. However strong or weak or confused or partial or new or unclear or even certain your faith, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you are faithful.
The encouragement to spread the Good News, to talk of faith and the wonders of God, permeates scripture. That’s what this gospel story is about. We may not be called to be heroic, or to be like a figure in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but we are called, like to the woman at the well, to be faithful. Don’t strive for heroism, strive to drink from the living water offered by Jesus.
When asked for a drink of water, what will you offer from your own well? Amen.