Jesus [said to the Samaritan woman], "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." (v. 10)

When Jesus met the woman at the well the encounter was a communion event. The element - the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace - was not what Jesus gave to the woman but what the woman gave to Jesus. What made this element, this object, a sacrament, a communion, was the way in which Jesus impacted the element with spirit, opening its and his meaning to her.

The element was a drink of water. Now, when used in the Sacrament of Baptism we would call this a formal sacrament. But as it was the water was a symbol which radiated its meaning from the beginning of the story to th…