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Let the River Flow: Why WorldHope Corps digs village wells

 Sunday Sermon at the The Water's Edge in OB, San Diego, CA.

"Woman at the Well" (John 4:7-15)

When you think about the gospel story of the Samaritan woman with Jesus at Jacob’s well, I’d like you to picture this Woman at a similar well in northern Malawi. Sitting and talking with Pastor Dennis Singini about water.
Her name is Nyang'oma, which means "drum." Her Christian name is Mary Botha. She is 85 years old and lives in a village in the Kampenda area of Northern Malawi. She has cared for 11 children, two of whom have died. And her husband has died.
When Dennis and I first met Mary in 2008, her village did not have a deep well or access to clean water. Nor did the six surrounding villages with over 1,500 people. Women and children had to drink with animals from shallow seasonal wells or walk about of 5km away to drink from the closest stream. Sometimes they would get sick and complain of stomach aches. Cholera and dysentery were widespread, and many young children and elderly persons died from dysentery and other waterborne diseases-- due to drinking contaminated water from the stream.
WorldHope Corps found a sponsor in NJ and arranged for installation of a new village well. There was some conflict in the village about where to drill the well. Some of the men said, over here. Others said, no, over here. The village chief had good and strong ideas, but Pastor Dennis’ better idea prevailed. Let’s drill the well here near the home of Mary Botha. And we did. That was a few years ago. Today, more than 900 people still drink from this well. “Water is life”, Dennis always reminds me.


Gospel Text: John 4:7-15
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)[b] 10 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “But Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty again…”
UGH: There’s always good news and bad news in every gospel text!
Bad News in the Text:

In Jesus’ time, Samaritans were despised. Most Jews believed that Samaritans were only half Jews…because they intermarried, assimilated with the Assyrians, no longer worshipped in Jerusalem, nor careful to keep the Laws of Moses. Most did not want to visit Samaria, or even walk through the land on the way to Galilee. Preferring to cross the river Jordan and go around Samaria. Jesus’s disciples prayed that God would reign down fire and brimstone on Samaria.

This Woman from Samaria had three strikes against her:
  • Stigmatized for being Samaritan and not fully Jewish.
  • Marginalized for being a woman (second class citizen at that time; someone’s property
  • Divorced and discarded by 5 husbands—only men could file for divorce
  • Jesus sees her need, but he has no water bucket.
Ah, but there’s also good news in the text:
  • The Samaritan woman has a bucket, and is willing to give Jesus a drink.
  • Jesus has “living water” and he’s willing to share…
  • Those who drink the physical water from the well to live, will live…
  • “Those who drink 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 Samaritan Woman wants some of this deeper, spiritual, living water from God’s deep aquifer that will become an inner spring, never ending or running out, gushing up to eternal life.
Who wouldn’t want some of this living water?
Reminds of Isaiah 55 “Ho, everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters…”
And that old church hymn:
Come every one who is thirsty in spirit;
Come, every one who is weary and sad.
Come to the fountain, there’s fullness in Jesus -
All that you’re longing for; Come and be glad!
I’m also reminded of how on the last day of the great Feast of Tabernacles (when pilgrims visit Jerusalem), Jesus’s called out: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! 38 The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have rivers of living water flowing from his heart.” (John 7:37-38)
So, which is more important? Providing physical water for life, or spiritual water for life eternal?

WEE:

In my work with WHC, and during more than 15 trips to Malawi, my Pentecostal, Presbyterian, and Methodist colleagues have showed me how to strategically provide both types of water to people who are thirsty. They know how to drill new village wells AND plant new churches at the same time!
Here’s their strategy:
Find a needy rural village with hundreds of people who don’t have clean water nearby. Perhaps they have been marginalized or forgotten by the government, or by other churches; and so, like the ancient Samaritans, they are without support.
Make friends with the Village Chief (who functionally owns all the land and determines who can use it). Ask him to designate two plots of land for the common good: a site for a village well, right next to a site for a new church. Side by side: Water for the body and Living Water for the soul.
WorldHope Corps, through its sponsors. drills the well in partnership with the Church and Village Chief. The new village well becomes a community center where people gather to draw their water
The Mother Church births a baby church in the village. On Sundays, the church structure is the place where ‘whosoever will’ may come to the water.'
People like Mary Botha (Nyang'oma) and her 11 children…in fulfillment of the Scripture: “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
YEAH:
Both globally, and locally, Waters Edge has a presence and mission near the water.
We have a lifeboat and soul-saving station.
In our lifeboat, called the church, we paddle with two oars: evangelism and social justice. In our 'soul-saving station' we offer healing for the body and the spirit along with the soul.
As Methodists following JW’s teachings, we practice both ‘personal holiness’ and ‘social holiness.’
In our mission in the world, whether we drill a village well or simply give a cup of water in Jesus’s name… we offer both kinds of water: water to live and Living Water.
In our spirituality, we dig down deep and tap into God’s Great Underground Stream, welling up in our hearts by faith.
This is how we fulfill our mission at the Water’s Edge: "to pour out God's Love" in the neighborhood and in the world.
Let the River flow! Amen.



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