John 4: 3-42 Rev. Marianne Niesen March 27, 2011
There are some passages in Scripture that are so powerful, so packed with images that they almost preach themselves. Those are Bible stories like the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan – or today’s text from John’s gospel about the Woman of Samaria. This encounter teaches us a lot about Jesus and faith and God – and about what Jesus challenges us to do as his followers. Because the text is so long, I have divided it up and will read a little and preach a little. Listen. . .
John 4:3-6
The geography is important here. Judea is in the southern part of Israel. Galilee is in the north. Samaria separates them. But the separation is more than physical. . . Jews and Samaritans disliked - distrusted - despised - each other. A good Jew would typically not travel through Samaria on the way to Galilee. They would travel around it or on the edge of it. The point is, Jesus had a choice here. He really didn’t ‘have to’ go through Samaria . . . there were other well-traveled options for the faithful Jew. He only ‘had to’ go through Samaria if he had another purpose in mind – something far deeper and more challenging than just getting from Judea to Galilee. He wanted to get his disciples somewhere, alright, but it wasn’t just home. He was headed for a new land altogether! A foreign land. A new understanding. That’s why he ‘had to’ go through Samaria.
But, of course, the disciples didn’t know any of that yet. They just knew he was taking them in a direction that put them all in danger. Can't you just hear the conversation between Jesus and his disciples? Turn right here, Peter. We’re going through Samaria today. Are you nuts? Heathens live there. Terrorists live there. Anything we touch will make us unclean. Why, Jesus? There would have been no understandable reason Jesus could have given. None. To understand the reason, the disciples – we – must wait to see what happens on the way. On the journey.
So they started through Samaria and came to Jacob’s well – a good (and well known) resting place. So Jesus rested as the others (we discover later) went into town for supplies. What followed was the longest conversation Jesus had with anyone in the New Testament. What followed was a life changing experience for a woman and her whole village. And it all started when Jesus decided – against all good sense - to take a detour through the local neighborhood and tarry there.
John 4: 7-18
Did you see the woman in your mind's eye? She had a worn look about her. A wary, suspicious manner. That's why she went to the well at noon, when the other women would not have been there. She would not have had to listen to the gossip, endured the stares. Clearly, she had failed in life. She saw herself as the world saw her - as a failure. A discarded human being. Five men had tried her and found her unworthy. Each in turn had either died or divorced her. She was convinced that even God had little interest in or time for her. The good people of the world were rewarded with happy, secure lives and the bad were punished with failed marriages, illness and death. She spoke to the strange Jewish heathen man at the well because she had nothing to lose by doing so. No reputation left to lose. Besides he wanted water and didn't have a bucket. He must have seemed like the only person she had met recently in worse shape than herself! And then, when Jesus spoke to her of living water, she naturally wanted some of it. It would save her the pain and embarrassment of coming to the communal well to draw water. She probably saw the offer of eternally flowing living water as the first stroke of luck she'd had all her life. Either that or the demented rambling of a Jew - you know how they are.
But Jesus saw something else in the woman of Samaria. He saw a woman thirsty for human kindness and conversation. A woman worth talking to. Somehow, he saw through the labels and judgments with which the woman lived. He knew her history and spoke to her anyway. He knew her past and offered her a future. He could have avoided talking to her. He could have avoided her - which was what she would have expected. It was Jesus who asked her for a drink. It was Jesus who began a conversation with someone others had written off. It was Jesus who saw beneath the brash exterior to the vulnerable, hurting woman underneath. And he took the time to meet her there. Where she lived. This is a story about hospitality. for others. The woman of Samaria was labeled by society and by her religious system as immoral, unworthy and sinful - and yet it was to her that Jesus spoke and offered living water. It was to her that Jesus entrusted his message. We in the world love labels. We use them for ourselves - and we love using them
John 4: 19 - 26
I think this is the part of this scripture reading that I love the most. First, the woman identifies Jesus as a prophet. This guy is different. He came here when he didn’t have to. He stopped when others kept moving. He knows things. I feel beautiful around him. Capable. Worthy. So the woman broaches one of the biggest theological questions of all times. (Which, of course, also meant that this woman rose to be the person Jesus saw her to be - capable, smart, thoughtful.) Mr. Prophet - our people worship on our mountain (Gerazim). Your people worship on their mountain (Zion). We think we 're right. You think you 're right. So who's right? Who has the right mountain? It is the question that has torn humanity apart. Crusades have been launched, battles waged, denominations founded over exactly this question. Who has the right mountain? Muslims and Hindus have battled for turf in India; Palestinians and Jews in Israel. Al Qaeda justifies terrorism by claiming mountain purity. And we Christians have our own brands of terrorism against each other. No one is immune from this cancer. All too often, we stand proudly atop our mountains of righteousness and wage judgment on others. Jesus answered the woman it's not about mountains. It is about worshiping God in spirit and truth. This is a frightening and somewhat confusing part of this text. While Jesus did not condemn the practices of his faith - or of hers - he did say there was something more important by which we ought judge one another - and something harder to quantify. Spirit and truth. Is that person I want so much to judge a person of spirit? A seeker of truth? Mountains are so much easier to fight over and defend. But it is not about mountains. It is about spirit and truth.
If you think about it, the mission of our St. Paul’s church is grounded right there – every Sunday I remind us that we are a Christian community in the heart of Helena – grounded in hospitality, growing in faith, giving in service, going in mission. welcome all people of spirit and seekers of truth. Following Jesus means to live hospitably. To speak to our fellow travelers at the well. To be a Christian is not about having a mountain to defend. It is about having a common thirst. Not only did the woman learn that she was acceptable, she was immediately challenged to make room in her life for others. We are grounded in hospitality. That is not a sweet sentiment – you know, all about coffee, cookies and smiles. No, grounded in hospitality means that everything flows from our belief that God’s grace is bigger, more inclusive and more expansive than our ability to understand. So, we commit to
Who are the people in our community who would come to the well at midday? Who are the people here who have been discarded? How might we go out of our way to meet them? Where is Samaria for us? In a sense, for Jesus, Samaria was part of his neighborhood – just not a part he visited much. But, when he risked a visit, amazing things happened! A connection was made.
John 4: 27- 30
If there was ever a doubt in your mind that the disciples were human, this should set that doubt to rest. The disciples returned presumably with food and were shocked, dismayed to see him talking with the Samaritan woman. But do they ask him about it? Noooo. . . with raised eyebrows and a few well placed sighs of disgust, they just talk among themselves. We leave him alone for a few minutes and what does he do? Pick up a stray. How in God’s name are we going to keep him safe? Next time . . . ah, James . . . we’ll leave you behind to save him from himself. What were we mumbling about, Jesus? Oh, nothing . . . nothing at all . . . warm weather we’re having, isn’t it?
Jesus was about the ministry of getting his hands and his feet – and even his reputation – dirty. He knew what his disciples were saying. And he also knew that his ministry was not to talk about love and justice and generosity but to act with love and justice and generosity. To go to the Samarias, the street corners, the homeless shelters of the world, to find the lost and reach out and get to know even those who didn’t want finding, who’d given up or given in.
Meanwhile back at the well . . . when those disciples arrived – with their withering looks and eye rolls, the woman took off. Now, at this moment, I do not think Jesus really knew what would happen. As much as he cared about her, he knew that she was the one who had to take the next step. Remember this was the woman who slithered to the well in the hot noon day sun to avoid people. What would she do? Would she slither home and ‘hole up?’
I’ll bet a smile beamed across Jesus’ face when we saw the crowds heading for the well. At just past midday. Led by none other than that woman! She returned to her village – yes - and told everyone she could - I think I've found the Messiah! Don’t you wonder why they listened to her? She didn’t have many friends. She was not someone anyone had listened to for a long time. No, something had obviously changed - she had become the person Jesus saw her to be. And even those who had written her off could not ignore her. Acceptance and love can work wonders!
John 4: 31 - 42
Once again, the disciples talked among themselves about Jesus' strange behavior. And, he talked to them about sowing and reaping and a harvest of the unclean. Can’t you just imagine the looks on the disciple’s faces as they got surrounded by the very people they had been taught all their lives to avoid? Certainly, this visit to Samaria had gotten out of hand – just as they feared it might. But, it also stopped them and gave them all a front row seat to the power of love to change lives. Still, in the end, it wasn't the disciples who had the starring role in this text. It was, of all people, the Samaritans. The heathen. Led by a woman no less! In the final scene, the Samaritans declared that Jesus truly was the Savior of the world. But before we think of that as a grandly triumphal statement, remember that, at least in the story, Jesus had not yet died and risen from the dead. So how did they recognize salvation? What was it that Jesus said or did that told them who he really was? It is found in the woman's testimony. She declared to all who would listen - he told me everything I ever did and loved me anyway. Admittedly, those last few words are not in the text, but they are certainly implied. That is the saving thing Jesus did for the woman, for the Samaritans. He loved them anyway. He quite literally saved the woman from the endless cycle of self-hate, from the depth of despair, from all the work it took to hide from other people and from God. And he did it by knowing her and loving her anyway. By talking and sharing a drink of water with her. He showed the Samaritans and his own disciples another way. It was the way of hospitality, the way of meeting one another across well-worn divisions and safe boundaries
This may seem simple - too simple to be the focus of a whole sermon - and yet in fact, there is nothing simple about it. Love and acceptance were at the heart of Jesus' ministry. Stopping for rest and conversation at the most unlikely of places was at the heart of Jesus’ ministry. And they are the very reason we exist as a Christian community. We are charged with offering the saving news that Jesus offered at that well in Samaria so long ago. But it isn't news about the right mountain. It is the far more threateningly awesome news of God's embracing hospitality. God knows us and loves us anyway. That, pure and simple, is the gift God continues to offer. God knows us and loves us anyway. And we are messengers of that grace. Called to be lovers in a world – and a church - far more comfortable with suspicion and judgment.
Years ago, Jesus told his disciples that, to go home – to get where he wanted them to go - they needed to go through Samaria. The journey was not primarily a physical one. It was a boundary-breaking, attitude-changing, God-inspired journey into the neighborhood where Jesus listened to a woman’s story and shared a drink of water. In the process, her life was changed, as was his, and the wide embrace of God’s love got just a bit wider. The kingdom of God came closer. It was dangerous – and it still is. Nevertheless, in every age, Christians are called to follow Jesus into the Samarias of our day. In every age, we are challenged to meet one another at the well and have a conversation and share refreshment. Will we go?
