What Wells Are You Drinking From?

“What Wells are You Drinking From?”

John 4:4-18, 25-30, 39-42

She has a history.

Things done and some left undone, some good some not so good.

Guilts and regrets.

Fears.

Wounds and sorrows.

And secrets too.

She is a person with a past and yet she remains unknown to everyone.

Everyone, that is, except Jesus.

Most commentaries, interpretations down through the ages take it for granted that this woman was promiscuous.

They take it for granted that she is shunned by her community due to her sins and maybe that’s true and maybe that’s not true.

We don’t know.

What we do know is that women of her day had very little choice or control over their lives.

If she is divorced it is because the men divorced her.

She couldn’t divorce someone; that’s only something the man can do—she didn’t have the right.

And maybe she isn’t divorced at all.

Maybe she’s lived through the deaths of five husbands.

That’s five times of being left alone—five times of starting over.

Or, maybe some of the husbands divorced her and some died.

We really don’t know.

And the man she is living with now could be her uncle, her father…we are not told.

Either way, she has lived through tragedy.

Life has not been easy for her.

And I think we can all relate to that.

We too are people with a past, people with a history are we not?

(pause)

Ten years-ago or so, a woman came to my office to talk, but by the time she sat down, she was in tears.

When she was finally able to speak a few words, this is what she said: “Nobody knows me. Nobody understands me.”

She talked for a long time that day.

For years she had been a drug addict and had turned to prostitution to make a living.

But she had overcome her drug habit and now had, what we might call, “a respectable job,” and lived in a “respectable neighborhood” with a “respectable husband.”

But, she was really, really ashamed of her past, and she had not told anyone about it—not even her husband.

She was afraid she would be rejected.

And you know, people like her aren’t unusual.

The situations might not be as extreme, but—in a very real way--the Woman at the Well story is the story of most of us.

Most all of us have things we have done that we are ashamed of.

Most all of us have secrets we wouldn’t share with a soul.

Male or female, rich or poor, popular or unpopular—this situation affects us all.

People like her, people like us, people with a past, often live in fear of being found out.

It’s not just the fear that someone will know the truth, the facts about us, but that they will do so without ever really seeing us for who we are—without really knowing us, understanding our situation.

And so, we thirst to be seen and known at a deep intimate level—but it scares us at the same time because we don’t want to be judged—we want to be embraced, loved, and accepted.

We want to pour our lives out to someone who knows us, accepts and loves us unconditionally, to let them drink from the depths of our very being and offer us grace, mercy, forgiveness, salvation.

And I think that is what Jesus is asking of this woman when he says: “Will you give me a drink?”

It’s Jesus’ invitation to let herself be known.

And to be known and loved is freedom, is it not?

One awesome thing about family, if you come from a good, healthy and loving family is that they are always on your side—even if the rest of the world doesn’t seem to be.

When I was in the 6th Grade we moved to a brand-new city in a brand-new state.

And it was a very difficult transition for me.

And that is because it was 6th grade.

Kids are often so insecure at that age.

And for the first month or so, not one other child in my class even acknowledged my existence.

It was miserable and dealt a major blow to my self-esteem.

Anyhow, in gym class one day we had a race, and I won.

Later that evening, I was telling my parents and my two sisters this news, and they all made a big deal about it.

They cheered.

They congratulated me.

And I don’t know why I remember such a mundane thing such as that, but I suppose it is because I was being shown love by people who were “rooting for me” and on “my side” at a time when it seemed the rest of the world was against me.

To be known and to be loved is freedom.