Living Water

Message for worship on the 8th day of the Third Month, 2026 given by Nathan Sheets

Scripture: John 4:5-42

There are so many ways to reflect upon today’s Gospel. I was reading various perspectives on it this week, because just as I have heard and read various takes on what meaning to draw from this vivid dialogue in the Gospel of John – the longest continual dialogue of Jesus and anyone, I will add – it is likely you have heard many reflections on this reading as well.

Personally, and for years I have been drawn to this interaction in John’s Gospel because I find it maybe to be the most profound instance of God meeting a person on the margins of society; this interaction confronts social, racial and gender boundaries – the emboldened norms of a society where not only did Jews not engage with Samaritans, but a rabbi would have never spoken to a woman in public even if they were also a Jew.

This type of look into the scripture helps us, as Christians, to see even more depth and significance in the text and the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

Many interpretations detail the mercy of God toward the woman in the story; wherein Jesus shows compassion, and mercy, for the things that have happened in her life that would have left her even on the margins of her own community.

Other interpretations focus in on the theology of worship. The dialogue showcases a yearning or a model of seeking spiritual truth that is often presented as a quote “right way” to accept Jesus as God, and the necessity to seek God’s grace through our own dialogue with God every day.

Yet another interpretation that was more new to me than any of the others was the idea of the Samaritan Woman as ‘the first evangelist’ interestingly a title often given to the supposed author of this text, John. After the interaction with Jesus, the text says that 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…it says that in response “they left the city and made their way to him.”

Finally, yet another read of the text details that in God’s very divine nature is thirst. Thirst to share God’s self with the people of the world. Specifically, and tying to a theology of liberation; God’s thirst is preferentially to be near to and to reveal God’s self to people who are on the margins; people who most need the message of reconciliation and hope that Jesus offers.

The richness of this text clearly gives us a variety of ways to reflect upon its significance, and likely can be interpreted differently for each of us at different periods of our life. Or based on whatever we have currently been experiencing.

But today I want to focus in on a particular part of the conversation – that after doing my own reflecting – I felt drawn to as I prepared to speak with you all today.

First, I want you to imagine with me a bit. Even close your eyes if you feel comfortable.

Imagine this scene. The Gospel of John tells us that this interaction takes place in the ancient city of Sychar; Jesus is sitting by a well … and is tired from the journey…it’s Noon…likely meaning the Sun is straight overhead beaming down.

The weather in Sychar, especially in warmer months offers a hot, and dry climate.

The journey was long. Thirty to forty miles across some pretty treacherous land. Elevation changes of close to 9,000 feet would have also been part of this long difficult walk.

Think about those sensations; the heat; the dusty air swirling around; tired legs and feet from walking…imagine yourself in this experience after a long journey on foot;

At some point these sensations would likely have us thinking what Jesus must be thinking…when he asks for a drink. That physical thirst is familiar to all of us, whether we’ve experienced similar climates or weather…or we’ve just been on a long hike, or working in our yards in the summertime (and yes, warm summer months are coming despite all the cold we’ve had this winter).

You can open your eyes if you haven’t already.

Another detail of this scene that often gets overlooked is Jesus’ humanity; he thirsts as we do, is certainly worn out after this long journey, and even seems a bit short to the woman he meets (though, it could be just that some translations offer us just the abrupt:

“Give me a drink.”

Perhaps not surprised by Jesus’ (maybe) curt request, the woman asks Jesus:

"How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"

To which Jesus then says:

"If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked, and would have been given living water."

Jesus jumps into what I found this week to be a brilliant tie of The Truth of Water; both as an essential, tangible, physical source of life for each of us, but as a spiritual, animating source of life as well.

I don’t have to remind anyone of the essential role water plays in our lives, or of the care and stewardship we must take of our sources of water.

In and of itself, another read of this text might inspire us to better honor the physical source of life that water is for our world; perhaps it’s a call for justice for our water supplies, and for the nearly 2 billion people who do not have regular access to clean drinking water in our world.

Again, what is brilliant to me in this text is that connection between the life-giving water we require on a daily basis and the living-water that Jesus presents as water that becomes like a “spring” “gushing” of the eternal; of right-relationship with God and thus what urges us as justice-centered Christians toward bringing about truth and reconciliation to our families and communities.

Living water. The flow of water. Imagine it, hear it, taste it.

Water flows and changes, as perhaps our spirituality flows and changes as we move through life. Water makes up a sizable percentage of our physical selves. Can we also embody living water as Jesus puts it in every element of our spiritual selves?

What I see in this text is Jesus describing this Truth of living water as the animating force in our lives; the holy spirit, our inner light which offers us intimacy with God and thus the deep inner desire for honoring the most important commandment; To Love God and To Love Neighbor.

Put another way, this invitation of Living Water is an offer to be fully alive through God’s gift of the Holy Spirit that inevitably draws us out from ourselves for others.

Think of what makes you feel fully alive. For us it is likely our identity and practice as peace-loving, justice-seeking Christians and Quakers. But it’s also in the gifts we have, our passions, interests, the love we have for friends and family; the things that make us, us.

In my early preparation for these words this week, and with Spring upon us, I was tempted to liken the hostility between Samaritans and Jews in Jesus’ day to the rivalry between two bitter baseball rivals; think Red Sox/Yankees, Cubs/Cardinals or, as some can attest the old rivalry between my beloved Cincinnati Reds and the LA Dodgers.

But instead, I’ll save the baseball connection for something else…baseball, the sensations around it, the yearning for it during long winters like this one, is something that makes me and millions of other fans feel very alive. The eternal promise of Spring, and the inevitable period of rest following the World Series, also known as the Fall Classic.

Baseball, for me is something handed to me by my dad, and to him from his grandfather. Its place in my life is important.

What makes you feel alive?

Lately, I’ve also taken to birding. I can Thank Earlham and its illustrious ornithology program for giving this new-found passion to me. What a joy it is with fresh eyes of wonderment to venture outside to see these amazing (often tiny) creatures who spend time in our backyards, muddy Wayne County corn fields, and local ponds sometimes after traveling tens of thousands of miles during migration. And like with baseball, Spring offers us yet another opportunity to see those hard to spot Warblers, or rare and elusive shorebirds. Birding is yet another discovered passion that yes, makes me feel quite alive and connected to something larger; with creation you could say.

Lastly, for years, I’ve been fascinated with the 1978 made-for-tv movie Puff the Magic Dragon. Puff is voiced by the famous Burgess Meredith. You may know him from the original Batman tv show, playing Penguin, or more-recently in the Grumpy Old Men series.

It may seem silly, and it might be fueled by my personal experiences as a child who watched the VHS of this short 30-minute movie over and over until the tape literally broke.

Recently, I’ve even shared my obsession over this “masterpiece” (my words no one else’s), with my children who more or less give it a big: MEH.

But, either way, for years I have torturously mulled over a deeper meaning to this short-animated film that I’ve been certain exists. This week, like an epiphany, it hit me.

So, in the film following the opening credits, Puff (a friendly, green, bi-ped dragon who swears off ‘destroying things’) is shown walking through some liminal space, when he passes an open window to a bedroom; the bedroom of our other protagonist, Jackie Draper. For some reason no one knows, including his parents, and three doctors who open the animated film, Jackie cannot speak or communicate. One of the doctors states to Jackie’s parents who desperately want to find a cure for their son, that “alas, the case is hopeless”.

Puff invites himself through the window “shrinking himself to fit” by, of course, using his magic, before delivering the key monologue giving this film what I think is its deepest meaning.

Puff engages the topic of ‘the living thing inside each of us’ obviously talking to a junior audience. Puff says: “The living thing…

You wonder what it isit is what causes you to laugh and to cry, to hurt, and to care…it’s what makes apples crunchyand tells your nose to tingle on a crystal winters morning.”

Over the next 20 minutes or so, Puff helps Jackie discover some of what animates him and gives him life, his heart and his imagination; gifts it would seem that he cannot give to himself.

And then in a period of disappointment Puff then relies on Jackie to help him/Puff rediscover his own living thing; that which shows this beautiful image of how nurturing that ‘living thing’ not only helps us to discover what makes us come fully alive, but also inspires us to help others to do so as well.

I believe God offers us that living thing; the living water that animates us, gives us true meaning and inspiration in our lives. What rushes over us, and inspires us to Love God and Love neighbor.

God appeals to us in the very fabric of who we are and also then flows out from us to others, who can in turn discover that light in themselves.

Let us live into that light, be that living water for each other as we continue to nurture this eternal gift in ourselves.