Text: John 4:5-42
Focus: Salvation
Function: How the Spirit enters into us and changes the world.
(Reader 1)5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7A 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.) 9The 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.) 10Jesus 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.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but 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.” 15The 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.”
(Reader 2)16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But 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. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
(Reader 3)27Just 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?” 28Then 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, can he?” 30They left the city and were on their way to him.
31Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” 34Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35Do 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. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They 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 Savior of the world.”
Good morning Painter Creek. This story is packed with grace, mercy and a little bit of the supernatural. It illustrates to us in deeply symbolic language the power of the Holy Spirit to transform the life of those who are walking with Jesus.
There are actually two lessons here. One on the power of the Spirit and the other about overcoming prejudice.
I love the middle of the story when the disciples come upon Jesus and see him talking with not only a woman, but a woman of whom there was significant amount of racial and then as a natural result of racism, religious prejudice between the two cultures.
The disciples take note that Jesus crossed racial boundaries and in the process, brought restoration to an entire village.
I have preached this passage several times emphasizing the nature of the woman and questioning why she was there alone without the other women and wondering if she was an outcast. I have preached in from the perspective that she was the evangelist to the village and God used someone whose character the religious folk would disdain. My point being that Jesus included everyone in the family of God.
However, before COVID, I picked up a female passenger driving Uber, and she sat in the front seat. Which was very unusual at the time for a woman to sit up front. But she was making a point that if the men can sit up front, then she could to. She was a professional story teller and she was working on this story of the woman at the well. She was explaining how we project a guilty, or sinful, image of the woman since her current circumstances did not include marriage. But the text does not say why she was married 5 times. Was she divorced or widowed? Most likely, she was widowed. And she helped me to see that Jesus wasn’t addressing her as a vile person, but as a hurting person who desperately needed grace and mercy.
It is a way to consider everyone in their individual circumstances and never judge them. We do so in obedience to the sermon on the mount where Jesus commanded us not to judge others but to only look at ourselves.
Every soul is a child of God and has value.
And again, the lesson is not only being taught to the woman at the well, but to the disciples as well.
Jesus deliberately uses this alien woman to instruct his own disciples to give up their prejudice and see the value of everyone.
That, I believe is also a process of the Holy Spirit. I remember the first time I saw a black child. I was shocked. And, because of the difference, I was somewhat afraid. I had the typical curious white response of wanting to touch that soft, curly hair, which I now have come to learn is offensive because it invades personal space in a way that makes a group of people feel like they are “the other.”
The disciples are shocked that Jesus is sitting with “the other” and they learn a lesson about racism from Jesus. They learn to give up their tribalism and fear of the other and accept them as God’s children, regardless of race or religion.
Let us get back to the supernatural part of the story: Jesus’ miracle here is the fact that he knows her circumstance and then leads her to understand that a messenger from God is here to help her.
And here is where it gets highly symbolic. He offers her living water and of course, she thinks he is talking about physical water.
She has already deducted that this a supernatural encounter and she is not afraid and I believe she is tense with expectation.
And then, she goes and tells the village that she has found the Messiah and they also believe because of her testimony. And then, both she, the village, Jesus and the disciples enjoy the beloved community for a few days together before Jesus moves on.
But the symbolic language, you will drink water that will keep you from ever being thirsty again is a reference to the living water that Jesus said would flow out of our bellies.
In this story, the life giving water of the Holy Spirit flowed out of Jesus into the woman and then through her, redemption came to the entire village. It is a wonderful story of God’s grace and power.
And it has two lessons combined into one. Jesus dismisses all the ancient prejudices without a word to the disciples and the disciples just accept it.
I praise God that they were able to get the message. And then Jesus, in the fact that he opened up the kingdom to their enemies demonstrates to them the passion that God has for the redemption of the world entire.
Later on, in Matthew 28: Jesus commands those who follow him to spread across the planet teaching these principles of love and mercy so that the culture would change. Then they baptized them into this new way of living.
I see a link between this move of God and the overcoming of racial boundaries. When we dedicate ourselves to love our neighbor as ourselves. I believe that God moves in our acts of love by the power of the Spirit inside of us.
Let us be that light and love as well because this story illustrates that Jesus is indeed the Savior of the world entire.
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