I enjoy deep, theological discussions. But I admit that I’m pretty selective about who I choose to have them with. If I’m honest about it, I confess that there are some people I won’t waste my breath on. Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who come knocking on my door. I won’t talk with them because experience has taught me that they really aren’t interested in a conversation. They’ve come to give me all the answers. I feel that way sometimes about engaging Evangelical Christians, too. I try to avoid talking with them. Sometimes, against my better judgment, I’ll get sucked into a discussion, and I always end up regretting it because it never ends well. I come out of it feeling angry and frustrated and wonder why I bothered to waste my breath.

If Jesus had consulted his disciples before speaking with the woman at the well, they would have advised him not to waste his breath on her. The fact that he gave her the time of day is shocking. She is a Samaritan and a woman. Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along and had deep theological differences. And men in Jesus’ culture were taught to keep a safe distance from women for fear of being defiled. Jesus knew all of that. He wasn’t naïve. He knew exactly what he was doing when he came to the well and asked the woman for a drink. And she is rightfully surprised by this. She knew she was the sort of person men like Jesus didn’t waste their breath on. Then, all of a sudden, they aren’t just talking about drinking water anymore. He goes deep with this woman. He tells her about living water. “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman wants to know more.

Next, something a bit puzzling happens. Jesus asks her to go get her husband. When she says she has no husband, Jesus agrees. “You have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband.”

Many preachers have used this statement to brand the woman a prostitute. But nothing in this passage actually says that. Jesus doesn’t in any way invite her to repentance or speak of her life as sinful. David Lose of Luther Seminary points out how she could easily have been widowed or have been abandoned or divorced. Five times would have been possible. And it would have been heartbreaking. There are many scenarios that might have come into play here. The fact is, if this woman’s story is anything, it’s not scandalous, but tragic.

After hearing Jesus describe her life, the woman responds, “I see that you are a prophet” and she shifts the conversation in a direction that might seem odd to us. She says: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Actually, she’s not changing the subject here at all, but she’s cutting to the chase. You see, this is the central question that had divided Samaritans and Jews for centuries. The Jews taught that worship must be in Jerusalem and the Samaritans didn’t. So, which was it? Who was right?

Jesus offered her an answer that went beyond anything she expected. Jerusalem vs. a mountain in Samaria? The question is irrelevant, Jesus says. Because worshiping God is not about what happens on the outside, it’s about what happens on the inside. God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth. Jesus tells her that what has so long divided them doesn’t matter a hill of beans. And that would explain why he could, in fact, waste his breath on her.

Contrast this story from the fourth chapter of John’s gospel with the story we heard last week from John 3. Both are about deep theological discussions Jesus has with people. In John 3, we hear about a man who came to Jesus in the dark of night to get answers to questions that were burning within him. John 4, tells us about Jesus meeting a woman in the bright noonday sun. She doesn’t seek him out, he seeks her out. In John 3, the man who came to talk to Jesus, Nicodemus, is a learned man, a leader of the Jews, the kind of person anyone would have considered worth Jesus’ breath. The woman at the well, on the other hand, was the kind of person anyone would have considered not worth Jesus’ breath.

But there is a similarity in the content of their conversations. Nicodemus wants to know how it is possible to be born again a second time. The woman wants to know where she can find the life-giving water Jesus tells her about. Both are being offered new life by Jesus.

Ultimately, that’s what salvation is all about: choosing life in all its fullness, the life God offers us, the life God wants for us. People who think salvation is all about getting to heaven someday really are missing the point. God offers us so much more than a pie in the sky by and by. God offers us eternal life that begins in this life. God offers us the pie right here, right now. A life in relationship with the one who loves us more than we can begin to imagine. Heaven is just the cherry on top.

Now, you would think that this wouldn’t be so hard for people, wouldn’t you? You’d think that we’d grab onto an offer like that, no questions asked, and never let go. But that’s not how it works for us.

A case in point can be found in the Old Testament lesson for today from Exodus. God’s people have been slaves in Egypt and, under the leadership of Moses, they are delivered. And God promises them this glorious new life in a land flowing with milk and honey. Right? So they set out on their way. But in today’s lesson we read that the people are getting cranky. They’re thirsty. And they start whining about their old life in Egypt. At least in Egypt they had water to drink. Did God deliver them from Egypt to take them out into the desert so they could die of thirst? Now, doesn’t that sound just like what people would do in this situation? Can’t you just hear them? They’ve been delivered from their old life of slavery. They’re being offered a new life in the Promised Land. But rather than move forward to the life God wants for them, they stubbornly cling to the old life that really wasn’t much of a life at all.

But, here’s the thing. Their life in slavery was what they knew. And the new life God wanted for them was a life they had never experienced before. They were afraid. Rather than embrace the abundant life of freedom that God promised them, they would prefer to hang onto the slavery they had known. It wasn’t much of a life for them, but it brought them a sense of security. In their old life, they knew where their next cup of water was coming from.

It’s ironic that Moses had begged Pharaoh, “Let my people go” and then when Pharaoh finally did let God’s people go from Egypt, they were the ones who couldn’t let Egypt go.

It seems that embracing the life God wants for us has always been a problem for God’s people. It continues to be this way for us. God calls us to a life of transformation. That means letting go of Egypt so that we can arrive in the Promised Land.

Now, granted, letting go of Egypt isn’t easy. You can’t just step out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. It’s necessary to spend some time in the wilderness along the way. And in the wilderness amazing things can happen. That’s where transformation takes place. That’s where we can become new people who are ready for the life God wants for us. But it doesn’t happen for us by aimlessly wandering around. Nor does it happen simply with the passage of time. It happens when we are intentional about letting go of Egypt.

How might you be holding onto Egypt in your life?

• Have you royally screwed something up and do you keep kicking yourself over it?
• Have you moved from one place to another and are you missing the place where you used to be so much that you can’t enjoy and appreciate the place where you are?
• Has someone wronged you and do you continue to carry around your anger and resentment?
• Have you lost someone you loved deeply and resisted going on with your life without them?
• Have you been released from a job that seemed to give you a sense of identity and been struggling to feel like a worthwhile person again?
• Have there been so many changes in your beloved church that you can’t begin to embrace the new church God is creating?

God wants our lives to be transformed, again and again. That’s what it takes to experience the new life God has for us. Another word for that, of course, is change. It’s a word most of us hate because change means loss for us. And loss is not without pain. We’ll hang onto something that’s not good for us just because it’s too painful to let it go. It’s so hard for us.

And yet, God continues to offer us life abundant with him. God continues to invite us to live the life he intended for us, in all its fullness. God continues to call us to lose our lives of slavery so that we might gain lives of freedom and joy. God continues to pull us toward transformation so new life will be ours.

Sometimes I wonder why God bothers to waste his breath on us. Yet, from the creation story we learn that it’s by God’s breath that we receive life. Listening to the conversations Jesus had with people, from a leader of the Jews to an outsider drawing water from a well, we learn that he considers no one a waste of his breath. And from Jesus’ last breath expended while he hung on a cross, we learn that -- despite our whining, and our cowardly clinging to Egypt, and our stubborn resistance to all that God wants for us -- despite all that -- In love, God says that we’re never a waste of his breath. We’re worth it. We’re worth every breath.

Pastor Nancy Kraft
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
Charlotte, NC