Inside the city of Nablus in Palestine, there is a Greek Orthodox monastery. Inside the monastery there is a church dedicated to St Photine. If you don’t know who St Photine is, that’s because you are a Western Christian!. In the Eastern Christian tradition, Photine is the name given to the Samaritan woman that Jesus meets at a well in Sychar. The well is referred to as known as Jacob’s well, and it is mentioned in the gospel of John as being connected with Jacob, who gave the land and the well as a gift to his son Joseph (the one with the colourful coat).
Today, you can go into the monastery of Jacob’s well in Nablus, and into the church of St Photine (which looks ever so historical but was actually built ten years ago). Then you walk down a set of marble stairs into the crypt which is directly under the altar. Inside the crypt is the well which has been venerated as Jacob’s well since very early in the Christian story. A friendly local invites you to wind the crank which lowers the bucket into the well. It takes a long time! But eventually you hear it go kerplunk, then you wind the crank back up again and eventually a bucket full of icy, clear water appears.
When I was there, we all drank from the bucket using the same borrowed enamel mug. We might do it differently in these unprecedented times. But being in that place and drinking that water was evocative. Whether it’s the exact location of Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman isn’t so important – the opportunity to drink living water right out of the stone from deep in the bowels of the earth is pretty cool.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘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 said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
Jump forward a few pages from this story in John’s gospel, and Jesus has just performed the sign of multiplication of loaves and fishes. Five thousand people fed with plenty to spare. Then, he walks on water. The crowd chases Jesus and finds him in Capernaum, one of the key cities around Lake Galilee. They bug him for a sign. Moses gave them manna in the wilderness, bread from heaven, so what’s Jesus going to give them? Jesus corrects them. Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, God the Father gave the bread from heaven.
‘Sir, give us this bread always’ they demand, echoing the Samaritan woman who pleads ‘Sir, give me this water’.
The Jesus drops some classic material. One of his I am statements. There are seven explicit ‘I ams’ in the gospel of John, plus a bunch of other subtle ones. Can you think of them? I am the light of the world, I am the gate. I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth and the life. And, of course, today’s banger – I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
In this neat statement, John’s Jesus ties up the two events – the woman at the well and the feeding of the five thousand – and the two requests – Lord, give me this water, and Lord give us this bread always. Whoever comes to him will be neither hungry nor thirsty.
It is tempting (and reasonable) to view these gifts from Jesus – living water and bread from heaven – as only metaphors. After all, don’t we all need spiritual refreshment and nourishment? The living water might stand a strong faith, or a deep sense of being loved and forgiven. The bread might be the scriptures, or the gifts of the spirit, or the presence of Christ in the sacraments. It might be the courage or perseverance we need to get through the week, or the comfort we need to face another day. I think that’s beautiful. We need metaphors and symbols to help us come close to God who is bread from heaven and who offers living water. It is part of our language system, and it’s here to help us.
But what if when Jesus says he is bread, and that no one who comes to him will ever be hungry, and when he says he offers living water and no who believes in him will ever be thirsty, what if (just go with me on this) he is talking about actual bread and actual water? What if they are not only metaphors, but concrete, literal statements?
In the world of Jesus, just as today, access to basic foodstuffs like bread, and access to water for drinking, bathing and watering crops, was not guaranteed. Rivers like the Jordan river and lakes like Lake Galilee, and even wells like Jacob’s well, were not accessible to everyone. Even in the fertile parts of the Holy Land, water was a contested resource, just as it is in so many parts of the world today. Likewise, the grain and equipment needed to bake bread, or the money to buy it, didn’t fall out of the sky like it did in Moses’ time, and it still doesn’t. There are still people who die of dehydration and starvation, while other drink Evian from a disposable plastic bottle and I gorge myself at the trough of plenty.
Perhaps when Jesus offers real bread and real water, it is an invitation to the world’s poor to come, eat and drink, to forget hunger and thirst, and to enjoy a meal in the bosom of Christ. And for those of us who are less poor, perhaps it is an invitation to make do with less, to appreciate what we do have, and to share the world’s resources with equity.
‘I am the bread of life.’ says Jesus ‘Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’
The Lord Be With You