Friends, last week, in worship, we focused on Nicodemus’ middle-of-the-night visit to Jesus. Even though Nicodemus was an educated Pharisee and leader of the Jewish Council in Jerusalem, he struggled to understand the meaning of Jesus’ words when they spoke. And, he came to talk to Jesus secretly in the dark – he not only didn’t understand Jesus, but he also was afraid to be seen with Jesus.
Today, we continue reading our way through the book of John and pick up where we left off. Soon after Jesus and Nicodemus had their talk,Jesus and his friends departed Jerusalem and headed towards Galilee. The most direct route was one Jewish people usually avoided, because it took them across Samaritan territory.
The Samaritans are the descendants of the people of Northern Kingdom of Israel – their country was defeated by the Assyrian army and their leaders were scattered across the Middle East in the 7th century BC. After the country was partially depopulated by the Assyrians, the people who still lived in Israel gradually inter-married with Gentiles. In the first century, the Jewish people considered the Samaritans their enemies, but both groups believe in God and follow much of the teachings of the Old Testament.
Jesus and his friends walked through Samaritan territory as they travelled to Galilee. Jesus rested by Jacob’s well….in the Old Testament, wells are places for “meet-cute” moments. Moses met his future-wife Zippoarh for the first time at a well. Jacob met his future-wife Rachel at a well. Rebekah met Abraham’s servant at a well – after they met, she agreed to return to Israel with him to meet and marry Isaac. So, men and women meeting at wells were significant in the history of our faith – but, when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well in today’s story, he wasn’t meeting a future wife – instead, he revealed himself for the first time as “the messiah” and offered the woman living water and new life in Christ. The woman became the first non-Jewish follower of Jesus and first evangelist on behalf of Jesus who wasn’t one of his disciples.
This story is lengthy – bear with me as we read from John chapter 4:
Scripture Lesson John 4:1-42
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—
although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
Now he had to go through Samaria.
So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.
The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,
“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.
Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.
I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”
So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.
And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
After the two days he left for Galilee.
(Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.)
Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen…
Let us pray….
Message The Woman at the Well
This morning, we remember that Jesus revealed himself as the messiah to a woman – a woman who was a stranger to him – a woman who was one of his traditional enemies – a woman who was married 5 times – a woman who wasn’t Jewish.
We don’t know all of the details about the woman’s history – maybe she was forced to marry her husband’s brother when her husband (s) died – maybe she was unable to have children, in a period when children cared for their widowed mothers – maybe her “job” was to carry water from the well to her town – maybe she was rejected by her people, her neighbors, her community – we don’t know her history.
But, Jesus offered her living water. And, Jesus told him that he was, “I am,” the Messiah. And, when the woman heard this news, she had no hesitation – she rushed to her town to tell everyone Jesus was there. She rushed to town and told everyone to come and meet Jesus – to meet the messiah for themselves. She didn’t keep this meeting to herself, she wasn’t like Nicodemus who wanted to keep the conversation to himself….the woman went and told everyone about Jesus and told them where he was so they could meet him for themselves.
In this interaction, Jesus models for us how we should act….most Jewish men would have not spoken to the Samaritan woman – they would have ignored her. They definitely wouldn’t have asked her for water. If Jesus behaved like a typical 1st century Jewish man, he would have not even walked on the path through Samaria, so there would have been no contact at all between a Jewish person and a Samaritan person.
But, Jesus talked to his enemy. Jesus talked to a woman. Jesus talked to someone other people even in Samarian possibly avoided or ignored. And, Jesus offered her living water, new life in Christ.
Twenty-first century people aren’t that different from 1st century people. We still divide ourselves up into groups – we still have “us” verses “them” – we steer-clear of people who we perceive as other: gay people or old people or teenagers or goths or ghetto people or foreigners or Muslims or Dallas Cowboys fans or MAGA people or antifa or theater kids or people who live in the city– we avoid people we perceive as different, as we perceive as other. And, over and over again, Jesus demonstrates to us that instead of avoiding people who are different than us, we are called upon to draw closer to them. We are called upon to share our lives with people who at first glance we assume we have nothing in common with….because we believe in the God of Jesus Christ. And, the God of Jesus Chrsit wants us to work with each other…we are called upon to work together for the good of people who are experiencing needs – the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the lonely, the rejected, the ill, the disabled, the foreigner, the widow, the orphan. Jesus Christ came for all of us and Jesus Chrsit compels us to work together.
The Samaritan woman didn’t keep Jesus’ message to herself. She immediately left her water jug at the well and ran to tell everyone about Jesus. We are also called upon to share the Good News with others…to tell them about our faith in Jesus Christ…to tell them about our loving God….to share that we feel the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in our midst.
So, let’s not keep our faith to ourselves….let’s share the Good News…and let us work to open our hearts and our minds to accept and love people who we once may have turned away from.
Amen.
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