It was a hot summer day and I was pondering this text for an earlier version of this sermon. My teenage sons and my husband were playing miniature golf at a roadside attraction. Overcome with extreme weariness and preoccupied with the text we’d just heard and the need to preach it coming back from vacation, I collapsed on at a picnic table near some day lilies buzzing with bees and shut my eyes.

 

First I heard the traffic going by and then the cadence of voices of those playing golf. Then I heard the trickle of water – irrigation to the plantings around the course…and I dozed. Suddenly I knew how I wanted to explore the text.  “Be the well,” said a voice in my head, “Be the well.”  And so…

 

Well. Well. Well.  As I’ve heard it so often said, “That is a deep subject.”  And indeed I am.  A deep subject.  I am a well. Specifically I am a well they call “Jacob’s well.” Bir Jacub!  I am as old as I can remember!!!  I’ve been around for thousands of years. And yes, I am rather full of myself! (you may laugh).  And here you are come to visit me!

 

I’ve always been about 35 miles north of Jerusalem.  Presently the Greek Orthodox church own the land I’m on and they protect me. Now-a-days a lot of tourists on pilgrimages such as yourself come to see me.  You come because I’m a pretty special well. 

 

I am no cistern!  I don’t house dead water!  Do you know what a cistern is?  It’s a big covered pit in the ground that collects rain water during the rainy season.  Many places which are not fortunate enough to have a well such as myself have to rely on cisterns.  Ugh. Terrible water, unlike mine!  I am fed by an underground spring.  My waters are fresh and cold!  That’s important.  It has made me a neighborhood gathering place throughout history! 

 

I’ve seen some things here too, let me tell you.  A well knows a lot.  Folks gather at wells.  They talk.  Yep, I’ve heard some things.  But a couple thousand years ago I heard a discussion which has had me wondering about myself ever since!  About how deep I really am.  About how good my waters really are. What could be better than my waters?

 

I am a good well. So many people like to throw pebbles and coins in me for good luck that I know I’m not as deep as I used to be. Remember my name? Bir Jacub? Jacob found me way back when.  I remember the day he came across me.  I don’t remember exactly how long I’d been here before that! I might have been here when Rebecca met the servant of Jacob’s grandfather. But I know Jacob met his wife Rachel when she was fetching water, right here! He helped her water her sheep and the rest, as they say, is history.  Funny how many people have met special people at a well!

 

The times I’ve seen!  I remember the good ol’ days when David and his son Solomon ruled the land and it was one.  But Solomon’s son lost control of these northern lands and the next thing I knew -  I was an Assyrian well!!!!  Some of the Israelites stayed though and remembered the old ways and the old covenant made by Joshua at Shechem.  Did I mention that that was nearby ?  And the capital of Samaria?  The ancient Israelite capital? 

 

Well, the folks to the south down Jerusalem way stopped coming here.  They got captured by Babylon and were exiled for quite a while.  And when they returned from exile they didn’t like the folks up here anymore.  They said that the truth faith had been corrupted. That they, the people of Judah had the true faith. 

 

I know one of the reasons you have come here today is because that man Jesus came here that day and met that most notorious woman.  What a strange day that was.  I’m still trying to get my watery thoughts around it all!

 

I wonder what drew that fellow Jesus here?  Was he looking for his Jewish roots?  Maybe he wanted to get a look at the land of the patriarchs who gathered for my water.  And fought over possession of my waters! You know things aren’t much better in this millennium!  Depending on who you are this is still a dangerous part of the land to travel through.  Present day Nablus is nearby and Americans have been warned away from these parts for years. 

 

That Jesus fellow arrived here in the heat of the day.  Odd time of day to be traveling.  Too hot. Too dry.  He seemed pretty discouraged and dispirited. Was he being a tourist like so many?  And yet, He seemed to be expecting something.  He seemed thirsty. But he had no dipper, no way to reach my refreshing waters!  He had companions with him that he sent into town to buy lunch. But he stayed.

 

And that was when she arrived! And He asked that woman to give him water.

 

Now that was a strange thing.  That woman.  She’d been coming here for years to get her water.  She was coming here at stranger and stranger times.  Times when no one else was around.  I suppose considering what others said about her when they got their water I shouldn’t have been surprised. Most women came early in the day with their jugs and dippers. And they spent a good deal of time visiting and gossiping. 

 

A little later the men folk would come and maybe sit and have a smoke and discuss the daily news and drink some of my refreshing waters.  But they never arrived at the same time.  They all knew better.  Men folk then just didn’t talk to women in public!  Not even their wives or daughters!  Just didn’t happen. But this woman – she didn’t come with either group. Kept to herself she did.

 

So here is this Jesus at my waters, mind you with no way to get my water!  And the woman arrives.  Never did know her name.  Sad that.  Considering.  Yep.  Married five times she was and at that time was living with a fellow she hadn’t married.  She was kind of popular with certain people you know.  But no one respected her.  No one took her seriously.  She was pretty depressed if you ask me.  Lonesome.  No self esteem.  Seemed like she was hiding from people and life!

 

But this Jesus fellow talked to her!  He - a Jew broke all their religious taboos and talked not only a woman - but this woman!!! Asked her for a drink!  From her dipper!  I was cringing myself!  She was shocked! 

 

But then they had this really long discussion! At first I thought they were discussing my wonderful qualities.  And suddenly I realized that they weren’t talking about me at all!  But rather, about something he was calling the waters of eternal life which would make a person never to thirst again. 

 

Well my wet ears perked up at that!  Was this fellow going to put me out of business?  Well the next thing I know this woman asks this Jesus for this special water and he is suddenly telling her (in kind of teasing way) that he knows all about her and her husbands and even her present living arrangement.  But he is still accepting her.  And they have this long theological conversation.  I mean I don’t know when she ever talked with anyone in that way! Actually I didn’t know women and men spoke of such things to each other!

 

Well the next thing I know this man’s friends return with their lunch and they see them talking, but they act like, well, they aren’t surprised by anything this leader of theirs says and does.  And then suddenly she leaves her water pot and runs back to the village!

 

Now here’s an interesting thing!  This Jesus doesn’t want his lunch now.  He as much as tells his disciples that the encounter with the woman has refreshed and renewed him.  Something again about the boundless qualities of his special life giving waters!  Seemed actually like he was kind of bubbling over with something - come to think of it.  I’ve been wondering about that water.

 

Well the next thing you know – I mean I almost dried up in amazement!  The woman returns with a huge following of people from the town!  And she is bubbling over with excitement , full of a new joy and life and she has brought these folks with her to meet the man of eternal life water. 

 

There is something compelling about how she tells the tale!  And these folks who wouldn’t have believed her if she’d warned them about plague or famine have come to see what has transformed her.  The man, Jesus, he talked to these folks for days about eternal life and God’s boundless love.  Then he said he had to get along and see his folks over Galilee way.

 

Nothing has ever been quite the same ever since.  The woman.  She was changed. And for the better.  And you know whatever that man’s water did for her was a good thing.  But I’ll tell you she still came to me for my water too, but now she came with the other women.  And they seemed to catch her excitement.  And they always spoke of this man who they said was the savior of the world.  Not just of the Jews down south or of them the Samaritans, but of the whole world.  Imagine that.

 

It happened right here at my waters! The savior of the world found refreshment in his encounter with a sad sad women when she asked for his water not mine!  You know it seems like somehow that day they both tapped into something deeper than I could ever dream of being. And that spirit or whatever you want to call it has just never stopped flowing.

 

And here you are, you probably came to hear the story not to get a drink, but I’m glad to have had your company for a while.  I’m proud to be Jacob’s well, but I’m even more honored to have been the well that Jesus met the woman of Sychar at. 

 

Come to think of it - I’m blessed to be that well.  I’m a good well.  I’m the best well that I know to be.  Now people, they aren’t wells like I am, but I think that Jesus fellow was asking people to be wells of eternal life like him.  Well, I can only hope that you folks are the best wells you know how to be.  I think it would please him.  Amen

© 2006 Rev. Anna "Nan" Butera. Reproduced by permission.