The text: John 4:5-42
5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground
that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and
Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
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.)[a] 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, “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 or have to keep
coming here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The
woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You
are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five
husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you
have said is true!” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a
prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you[b] say
that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said
to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship
the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship
what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from
the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true
worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks
such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that
Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will
proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he,[c] the one who is
speaking to you.”
27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was
speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or,
“Why are you speaking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar
and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a
man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the
Messiah,[d] can he?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat
something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not
know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has
brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do
the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say,
‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around
you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is
already receiving[e] wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that
sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds
true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which
you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into
their labour.”
39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the
woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So
when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of
his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what
you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we
know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.”
Today’s Gospel reading this morning begins by telling us that Jesus had to pass
through Samaria to get to Galilee. This isn’t entirely true, at least not as we read it.
In fact, as Jesus was leaving Jerusalem, there was a well-worn path that all Jews
would take that went around Samaria, they’d walk this road so that they wouldn’t
have to pass through Samaria at all. Such was the animosity between Jews and
Samaritans that even being in the same region was taboo.
To put it in perspective, for Jesus’ disciples it would have felt like walking through the
roughest neighbourhood at night. No one wanted to be there. And yet we begin
this story with the statement in verse 3 that Jesus had to pass through Samaria.
What drove him there? Was it the people or person he would soon meet?
Jesus takes his disciples into Samaria and sends them to get food while he sits alone
at a well on the outskirts of the town.
In the heat of the day a woman comes, on her own, to draw water. The stage is
set.
It is a curious thing, this woman coming in the middle of the day. It would be normal
to draw water first thing, to prepare for the day’s work. It would be normal to draw
it in the cool morning. Practically speaking it does not make sense to come in the
middle of the day. Unless you want to avoid everyone.
This woman comes at a time when she knew she’d run into no one.
Now we need to be careful about jumping to a conclusion why. The story doesn’t
tell us. What we do know is this woman is ostracised from her community and
prefers the discomfort of the middle of the day, over against the discomfort of
being around others.
Already you can see a stark contrast in the setup of this story, to the previous one in
the gospel of John. In John 3, Nicodemus: a well to do, highly respected Jewish
man, a teacher, comes to Jesus wanting to speak with him. In John 4 we have an
unknown woman, a Samaritan and cut off from her community, surprised at Jesus
speaking to her.
This transition from John 3 to John 4 shows the breadth of the reach of the Gospel.
In most respects we have polarities in the two stories. The common factor is that
Jesus directs the conversation in both cases to where the person needs to be.
Let’s read the story:
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
Immediately the conventions are broken. She knew she should not talk to Jesus,
Jesus knew he had to talk to her. It stuns her, she effectively accuses Jesus of being
inappropriate. She says, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a
woman of Samaria?”
Jesus invites her to himself. She puts up a wall and he dismantles it. If you knew
who I was, you would have pursued me for a drink. You would have asked me, you
would let all your fear, shame, discomfort, fall away and you would have done the
unthinkable for the sake of the prize that I offer you.
And how does she answer this highly personal invitation and offer? She argues
theology What an amazing response!. You would not expect Jesus, after telling a
woman in her position to break every social convention, to be met with a debate
on buckets, the well and what the great-great-great-great, very great grandfather
did.
What’s she doing?
She’s deflecting. Jesus has offered her an amazing gift, but it opens her up to
vulnerability – can she be seen talking to, going to, a Jewish man in the middle of
the day? Isn’t it interesting how Nicodemus, in the last chapter, hid behind the
comradery of being a teacher and Jesus challenged his theology? In this story the
woman at the well wants to hide behind theology and Jesus calls her to an
uncomfortable familiarity.
She deflects the conversation but Jesus sees right through her. He is not here for a
theological debate, but to invite her to worship in spirit and truth. When she
deflects, Jesus brings it back.
You are looking for a drink, whoever drinks of the water I offer will never be thirsty
again. All of a sudden he’s not talking about water. He promises eternal life,
welling up from the soul. This invitation – a hazy telling of the gospel for sure – cuts
through and all of a sudden she is captivated. Is she sick of drawing water, is she
sick of working through her own broken world left on the outer, enduring life cut off
from community?
Jesus draws the conversation away from physical water to living water of the
presence of God.
In Jeremiah 2:13, The Lord himself paints this image for his people:
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
This is why we need to be careful about how we view this woman. She is not unlike
us – she is like us in so many ways. We all ‘drink’ of many things that leave us thirsty.
Which is as we listen to Jesus and Jeremiah means nothing other than forsaking
God and pursuing other gods. It is when we treat anything as if it has the power
meet our deepest needs, that we rob them of the good they can provide and
make them something they can never be – the thing that saves us.
Jesus calls himself the living water – the one who can truly quench our parched
souls, but we prefer to find the answer ourselves. It is the story of humanity: that we
continue to believe that we can earn true satisfaction; that our best efforts can
deliver what we know is missing. We may not be able to articulate exactly what
that gap is, but certainly we all have said at some point in our lives ‘if only…’ and
you can fill in the rest yourself… And once we have placed that unrealistic
expectation on anything in our lives, no matter how good that thing is it will never
truly satisfy. The more we want it to live up to our expectations, the greater our
failure will seem – it will only leave us thirsty for more.
That’s what happens when we live without grace. Jesus stands directly in contrast
to that. He has come to this Samaritan woman to divert her attention from meeting
her own needs and to draw deeply from him. She can never achieve for herself
that which Jesus is offering to her without cost. And whilst it’s the kind of thing you
can’t adequately describe in words, we can see the effect soon enough, by the
end of the story in fact. But we’re not there yet.
This is what Jesus means when he says that he is living water that will truly satisfy. He
will take the place of all these idols and he can meet our deepest need. And that’s
precisely what he offers the woman.
But just when she begins to get an appetite for this living water it seems like Jesus
completely changes the subject:
She says ‘give me this water’ Jesus says ‘go get your husband’.
How on earth do these two things go together? It would seem that Jesus jumps to
an illogical request. This discourse has more digressions than the average sermon!
Does this living water require a husband? Or has he hit the mark on the very thing
that this woman has chosen to try and fill her need?
‘Sir I don’t have husband.’
‘I know’ he responds, ‘you’ve had five and the man you’re now with isn’t.
And where does she go? Back to theology. “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place
where people ought to worship.”
He gets too close again, she pulls back. He knows! She changes the subject to
talking about the temples.
Now I don’t know about you, but if someone laid out in front of me a personal
history like that, my first thought would not be about places of worship. Her secrets
have been laid bare, will it hurt, and will it drive him away? Does the truth ever hurt
our chances with God? Does it ever drive him away? Jesus cannot truly satisfy until
he can reach to the depths of our human need and prove the power of his love in
the places where we doubt anyone ever could see and not reject us.
Instead Jesus offers a new way. “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”
In the gospel of John, ‘The Hour’ is always pointing to the cross. Jesus promises this
woman living water, he delivers it to her, and the world, on a day when he thirsts,
when his mouth and his heart runs dry. The Samaritan woman, and we along with
her, receive a whole new life, with our deepest needs met by God himself because
Jesus took on the ultimate thirst of being separated from God.
And this promise hits the mark for this woman. Remember again how the story
starts? She comes out on her own, choosing the heat of the day over the
discomfort of being around people. How does the story end? Jesus tells her to get
her husband, she doesn’t. She gets the whole town! This woman who had had 5
husbands and now living with a man who wasn’t, runs back to the people she
wanted to avoid and declares: Come and see this man I met!
You can almost imagine people rolling their eyes, ‘here we go again’. But she is not
ashamed, she has a new message: Meet the man who told me everything I ever
did. Now let’s pause there for a moment. Is that true? Did Jesus recount her life
story? Of course not, but he reached into the most hidden place, the most tender
spot, the thing that caused her guilt or shame, the thing that led her to avoid
people.
And he met that place of bondage with grace and freedom. By ‘everything I ever
did’ she means ‘the things I wish people didn’t know’. But Jesus knew it and loved
her. It did not exclude her from the living water.
What does this mean?
It means we need not be afraid of God or being honest before him. The living water
fills those dry and barren places in us and brings life in him.
The change she experiences, that Jesus knew the worst in her and still blesses her,
transforms how she views herself. If Jesus knows and does not condemn her, than
she cannot condemn herself either. If Jesus does not condemn her, but sets her
free, then the opinions of others do not matter. By grace now she is not afraid of
people, but now cares for them. The same people she avoided because of their
opinions of her are the people she first goes to, to announce the messiah!
Jesus came to her and changed her life, he became the one who truly made her
whole and quenched her thirst. We receive the same grace from him too.
Let’s pray.