I Love to Tell The Story Because I Know It’s True

John 4:28-29

Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

We all have people in our lives who love to tell stories. They tell the story the same way every time. The best storyteller in my family was my grandfather, whom we called Papaw.

Papaw told the same stories repeatedly. Any time we gathered as a family, whether or not there was a lull in the conversation, he would launch into one of his stories. Somehow, as lifelong members of the repeated story club, Papaw’s stories became fresh at different points in our lives, because we were changing as the stories stayed the same.

Even if we’ve heard a story hundreds of times, we can lose something if we choose to hear it the same way each time.

The story of the Samaritan woman at the well is familiar. We’ve heard the typical reactions or points of the story, from the Jews and Samaritans not getting along, to Jesus speaking to a woman of “ill repute” and questionable background. We could walk away from this retelling with the knowledge that living water, the water of life, is what we seek and all that is needed.

If we simply walk away from the story there, we miss the lived theological and rhetorical reality of the Samaritan woman. We miss the middle of the story, where she sets down her water jar, leaving the physical sustenance, and asks her people, “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” This simple rhetorical question could be reframed as, “Could there be a Jewish Messiah for Samaritans?” Or, “what does a Messiah look like for the world?”

We live in a world filled with the realities of food insecurity, lack of fresh water, lack of safety and security, limited access to healthcare and basic needs. What does a Messiah look like for all creation?

As Christians, we are more than simply followers of the one who offers living water. We are the reflections of a Christ who offers more than salvific words of mercy, but actions of justice and new life. We are reflections of the living God who offers the nourishment of living water to all creation. We are the body of Christ in the world as we welcome the stranger, the broken, and the afraid. We are the hands and feet of Christ who breaks bread with those deemed unworthy or considered the enemy.

Jesus Christ came to the world as the Savior and Messiah for all. The Samaritan woman’s question challenges and disturbs our assumptions. Her question breaks open the picture of a Christ who some claim came into the world for the sake of some, but we follow the one who offers living water to all, is the Savior of all, and who offers the way of new life to all.

It is time for us to pick up our jars of living water, carry them into the world, and do the work Christ set before us. We can seek and serve Christ in ourselves, in one another, and in all creation.

We have a story to tell. We have a story to live. We have a story of new life. Thanks be to God.

prayer

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP 218)

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