Who's Thirsty?

Woman at the Well - 

I wonder if that sort of title doesn’t cause us to miss the actual story. 

Simply writing that causes me to have to look at the story again. 

The longest conversation in the Gospels, there is much here, isn’t there. At the Festival of Homiletics 3 years ago, Tom Long preached on this text.

He did a nice thing - first asking if, when Jesus asked her to give him a drink - if he was asking a trick question. “Many of the commentators think that it was.” he says a number of times, a number of ways.

As he works through - he suggests that it is no trick question, but, instead, is Chrsit’s request for care - for his thirst - and the needs of the least and the lost in our world.

Finally - he reflects on how water figures prominently in the Gospel of John - with water of life gushing from Jesus’ side in the crucifiction.

One more thing. 

David Lose seems to be moving toward Martin Marty status, with so much published, one wonders if most every thought that occurs to him makes it to print.

On Huffpo - he has a column reflecting on Sunday’s text, and I liked it better than his piece on workingpreacher. It is titled “Misogyny, Moralism & the Woman at the Well” and it is a good read. 

He concludes with these paragraphs:

A second reason preachers cast this woman in the role of prostitute is that it plays into the belief that Christianity, and religion generally, is chiefly about morality. Treating the Bible as one long, if peculiar, Goofus and Gallant cartoon, we read every story we find in terms of sin and forgiveness, moral depravity and repentance. But this story is not about immorality; it's about identity. In the previous scene, Jesus was encountered by a male Jewish religious authority who could not comprehend who or what Jesus was. In this scene, he encounters the polar opposite, and perhaps precisely because she is at the other end of the power spectrum, she recognizes not just who Jesus is but what he offers - dignity. Jesus invites her to not be defined by her circumstances and offers her an identity that lifts her above her tragedy. And she accepts, playing a unique role in Jesus' ministry as she is the first character in John's gospel to seek out others to tell them about Jesus.

If preachers can rise above the misogyny and moralism that characterizes too much Christian theology, they have the opportunity to tell this woman's story for what it is: a story of the transforming power of love and the capacity to receive and live into a new identity. By doing so, preachers won't just be talking about this woman any more, they'll also be talking to and about us. And that's a sermon I, for one, would like to hear.

 Heck, that's a sermon I'd like to preach. Perhaps engaging in a conversation with this One, we might find our own identity transformed. Might be a good first step in proclaiming that sermon David would like to hear.