Exodus 17.1-7; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-32

There’s something wrong. There’s something most definitely wrong.

Jesus and his disciples are in Samaria, a place Jews normally avoided like the plague, preferring to take the longer route through Jericho when they were travelling from Judea to Galilee in the north.

The disciples have gone into a Samaritan town to buy food from, presumably Samaritans. But Jews and Samaritans have no dealings with each other.

There’s something wrong. There’s something most definitely wrong.

It’s midday but a woman is out collecting water. People just don’t do that.

They don’t come out in the hottest part of the day to do a heavy job. Women usually fetched water in groups, enjoying the chance for a chat and catching up with the latest gossip. But this woman is on her own.

There’s something wrong. There’s something most definitely wrong.

And we could go on. Jesus starts a conversation with the woman. Men just didn’t do that in those days. Here’s a quote from rabbinic law: “One should not talk with a woman on the street, not even with his own wife and certainly not with someone else’s wife.” And another one: “It is forbidden to give a woman any greeting.”

And the woman he’s chosen to talk to is not only a Samaritan and an outcast, she’s cast in the story as immoral, living with a man who is not her husband, having already been married five times. And Jesus is on his own with her. Not the done thing.

It’s a bit like those children’s puzzles where you have to spot what’s wrong with the picture. There might be someone hoovering the floor but the plug is not in the socket but trailing behind the vacuum. There might be a picture of a bicycle without a chain or a piano with no keys.

If this story were such a picture, we would find lots of things wrong.

The contrast between the woman at the well and the person Jesus encountered in last week’s Gospel reading could not be greater.

Last week those of us in church heard about Nicodemus, a man, a learned teacher, a respected Jewish leader, member of the Sanhedrin, the council, a man who followed the law strictly.

But there is something the two have in common - an encounter with Jesus.

It’s an encounter with Jesus that God longs for each one of us to have. And sometimes that encounter will take us to places that we’d perhaps rather not go to.

When Jesus started talking about the woman’s marital situation, she changed the subject rather rapidly and started a conversation about where worship should take place.

I expect many of us have things we’d rather not talk about, things perhaps in our lives of which are ashamed, or things that just hurt too much to be reminded of them, things that might bring the tears welling up to our eyes, or the resentment building up inside.

Jesus offers the woman living water - the word used for living is the same as running. She’s a bit confused to start with since there is no river or stream nearby. But she’s pretty keen for it; “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Without water, no one can live. Without Jesus’s water of life, no one can be fully alive.

But encounter with Jesus can allow that living water to seep into our lives.

I wonder how we, twenty plus centuries later, can also have such an encounter. We’re not going to go to a well and find Jesus sitting there, but I guess many of us long for more in our lives.

Perhaps we long to feel God’s presence more closely, or to sense that deep joy that some others seem to know. Perhaps we long for a deep hurt to be healed or for God’s comfort in a time of loss.

So, how can we encounter Jesus today?

I think there are a number of ways.

Sometimes people experience Jesus’s presence out of the blue and as a complete surprise. The woman was not expecting to meet Jesus when she went out to get her water.

But for most of us, that’s not how it works most of the time. We need to set time aside away from the busyness of daily life. We need to put other demands on hold so that we can give priority to God. We need perhaps to reassess what takes first place in our lives.

We can encounter Jesus through the pages of Scripture. That’s something we can do each Sunday here in church as we hear the Gospel reading, but it’s also something we can carry on during the week.

If you find it hard knowing where to start with reading the Bible or difficult to understand, why not try using Bible reading notes. The Bible Reading Fellowship is well experienced at these and produces different types of note for different levels of reading - as does Scripture Union. If you’re interested in knowing more, come and have a chat at some point. They can be a helpful way in, especially if you’re not sure where to start.

Through reading our Bibles each day, we can grow in faith and learn more about what it means to follow Jesus and to receive that living water.

And we can use our Bibles in different ways. We can read them as we would any book, perhaps using notes to help us understand more. But we can also read in a different ways.

We can take the stories of Jesus and read them reflectively, perhaps concentrating on one story for a whole week. Read it and mull it over. Ask whether there is anything Jesus might be saying to you through it.

A Reader at a church I used to attend would liken it to eating a boiled sweet. When you have a boiled sweet, unless you’re very impatient, it takes a while to eat it. We roll it around our mouths, licking and sucking it, and letting the taste develop. We stay with it for a while before we crunch it.

One way of reading a Bible story which often leads to an awareness of encountering Jesus is to mull it over, reflect on it, pray through it, ask what it might mean for me today, ask what God’s message might be for you. Take time to know Jesus through the Bible’s pages.

But there are, I believe, other ways too in which we can encounter Jesus. The woman stepped aside and took time to talk to him. She could have ignored him or given him the drink he asked for and gone on her way. But she didn’t. She took time to listen and respond to him. If we want an encounter we Jesus, perhaps we too need to step aside and take the time to talk and listen to him.

Deepening our spiritual life takes effort. So often we see God as an add-on to our lives, when in fact, the first commandment is to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength.

Only we can make that decision for ourselves. We can decide that we haven’t got time to make the effort. We can decide that coming to church on a Sunday is perhaps enough for us. Or we can decide like the woman at the well that we’re going to allow our whole life to be affected by our encounter with Jesus.

At the end of the story, the woman leaves behind her water jar and dashes back to the city to tell everyone about Jesus. Commentators see symbolism in her leaving the jar behind. It’s a sign that she has left behind her former life and started on a new path. She has been transformed from outcast to evangelist.

What I wonder might we have to leave behind if we are to allow space for a life-changing encounter with Jesus?

Lent is a good time to think about where our priorities lie. It’s a good time to ask whether we want those springs of living water welling up with in us. It’s a good time to pay attention to the spiritual side of our life.

It’s a good time to assess our priorities and to ask where Jesus fits into our life and think about whether we want more.

It does take effort and time, but the riches that we gain, as the woman discovered, are immeasurable and beyond anything we might have to leave behind.

And we don’t have to do it alone. We have each other and we have the Holy Spirit to help us along our journey to a deeper encounter with Jesus.

Amen.