The Woman at the Well

I had prepared a sermon for today in the Contemporary Service (The Table) at St. John the Divine. However, we ended up canceling that service, so I am publishing it here:

Jesus is headed north from Jerusalem to Galilee, going through Samaria on the way. Samaria had been the central city of the northern kingdom of Israel. Its most famous king was Ahab, who reigned there twenty-two years and did more evil than all who were before him. When the northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians around 740 B.C., the Assyrians deported the most educated of the Israelites, leaving the lower classes and brought in a new ruling class. Over time the two groups mixed, meaning Samaria in Jesus’ time was a mixed race, mixed religious area frowned upon by the “purist” Pharisees, the religious elites.

Yet this area had a rich patriarchal history. Jacob had bought land here and set up an altar where he declared that God was Israel’s God. Just before he died, he gave this land to Joseph. Joseph, however, died in Egypt and never used the land.

Jesus, tired and thirsty at the noon hour, arrives at this well. As “the Word made flesh,” his human limitations, including thirst, make him relatable to the woman he meets. John uses this encounter to set up a dialogue Jesus will have on spiritual blessings around the symbolism of water, what Jesus will call “living water.”

We may not understand the radicalness of the greeting Jesus gives this woman without knowing some background. In Jesus’s day there were two deep prejudices: one against Samaritans and the other against women. After the death of King Solomon, the Jews were divided into two kingdoms. The northern kingdom was known as Israel and the southern kingdom as Judah. As I said, after annexing Israel in 722-721 B.C., the Assyrians resettled the area with foreigners, spoiling its religious and ethnic purity. The situation worsened in 400 B.C. when the northerners built their own temple at Mount Gerezim. The people of this area became known as Samaritans after their primary city, Samaria. To the Jewish leadership headquartered in Jerusalem, they were mixed race traitors with a corrupted faith.

In regard to women, the two following rabbinic citations illustrate the attitudes of the day: “A man should not talk with a woman on the street, not even with his own wife, and certainly not with somebody else’s wife, because of the gossip of men,” and “It is forbidden to give a woman any greeting.” Instead, Jesus spoke to her deliberately, breaking the social norms of the day. Jesus came to tear down prejudicial and sexist barriers and gather a new, more inclusive people of God based on his divine standards, not human constructs.

Jesus invites her to ask him for “living water.” It is an offer to join the new people of God, to break through the exclusive barriers, and, as he said to Nicodemus, to “be born again.” “Living water” is an Old Testament metaphor for salvation in relationship to God. God says in Jeremiah 2:13 and 17:13 that his people have forsaken him “the fountain of living water.” We find similar water metaphors in Genesis 2 and Ezekiel 36 among others in the OT. Revelation 22 employs the same metaphor to illustrate the source of eternal life in the age to come where the “river of the water of life” flows from Jesus himself.

Like Nicodemus, the woman does not understand Jesus’ water allusion. Practically speaking, the well was likely 100 to 200 feet deep, and Jesus had no bucket or rope to get to the water, which leaves her perplexed as to how he can give her living water. Jesus keeps pressing the point until she wants the water more than anything else. Then he asks her a penetrating question about her husband. Jewish law made no room for common-law marriage, so she was correct in saying she had no husband. But her life was in a relational mess and apparently had been for years.

She could not fool Jesus. Instead, he reveals the truth to her, opening up her life for both of them to see in the light of day. His offer must have been even that much more appealing now that they were being honest with one another. A spring of water welling up to eternal life must have sounded like a healing balm for a life of pain—the pain of failed relationships and the pain of being an outcast. Do you know the pain of failed relationships? Do you know the pain of being on the outside and not on the inside? That she came at noon (the sixth hour) to the well in the heat of the day meant she was avoiding other women in her town, who most likely wanted to avoid her as well. Jesus provides instant community to the one without community.

At the well, Jesus models evangelism for us. He meets this woman in her daily life, engages her in conversation, eases her into expressing her deepest needs, and then shares naturally with her his divine knowledge with a directness filled with kindness. The last step of evangelism, pointing people to Jesus as the Savior, comes next, but we cannot get there until people know we care about and respect them, no matter what their situation and condition is. We cannot look down on them or tell them that their established thinking has closed them off from the Spirit. That is patronizing nonsense. Instead, like Jesus, we are to speak the truth about Jesus in love, not spout ideology, but present the Word made flesh to flesh.

19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."

It sounds at first as if the woman wants to change the topic from her multiple marriages to discuss esoteric religious differences about the true place of worship. Yet her question goes to the heart of the matter. She wants to know who Jesus is. How could this stranger know about her husbands? The Samaritans only recognized the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They had no loyalty to David or Solomon, who planned and built the temple in Jerusalem. Their messianic interpretation, based upon Deuteronomy 18:15-18, anticipated a second Moses, who would reveal the truth and restore true worship. She wants to know where Jesus fits in.

Again Jesus is direct, telling her that she does not know who or what she worships. She is not an atheist but someone uninformed. He returns to a time before Moses, back to Abraham, saying that the promise is through him. Salvation is not for the Jews but from the Jews, and specifically, uniquely through him—Jesus the fulfillment of Israel, God’s people.

Jesus adds that the Father seeks worshipers. We do not seek God; he seeks us, explaining one of the reasons why God sent his Son into the world: to seek the lost. True worship begins with God seeking us, calling us to Jesus through the Holy Spirit, like the wind, coming into our lives at an unexpected moment, opening up our hearts to hear the message of Jesus. Jesus collects God’s children so he can be their Father. She will be one of his children. Jesus adds that the children of God are not just flesh and bones but are spiritual in essence. They can only truly worship God through the Holy Spirit, and the truth they worship is not an abstract concept but a living, breathing person named Jesus.

25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things." 26 Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."

God comes to earth to meet face-to-face with this outcast woman in dignity, love, and respect. Jesus, who is the bridegroom in John 3:29, seeks out a bride and finds her at a well in Samaria, the last place any good Jew would think to look. She was not looking to meet him, but he came to the well to meet her. More than that, he will go to the cross to die for her sins. She will no longer need to go to any mountain to offer a sacrifice for her sins. He will pay the price. He will be the sacrifice. And after ascending to the Father, he will send the Holy Spirit to dwell in her body, the body she once used for sinful purposes, so that she can worship him in spirit and in truth for eternity. This is a marriage made for heaven.

You too are part of the bride of Christ, the new people of God for whom Jesus came to seek, to give his life, and to fill with his Spirit. Yes, that is a feminine image, a real biblical image that God gives us in his word to help us understand our true relationship to Jesus. He is the bridegroom and we are the bride.

Unfortunately, John never gives us this woman’s name. Regardless, her reaction is amazing. Immediately she runs to the townspeople and admits publicly the truth Jesus told her, that she has had five husbands and the man she is now living with is not her husband! She never would have done this before her encounter with Jesus, living in her shame, fearing the repercussions of the people she just told. Her reaction suggests she is born again, her sins are forgiven, and her new mission is to share the news of Jesus and what he did for her.

She did not have to get her act together before coming to Jesus. Instead, he came to her. He sought her out and changed her life. Emboldened by his truthful yet gracious treatment, this outcast’s mission turns to telling others about Jesus and bringing them to him, proving that the best evangelists are those who understand how badly they need Jesus. The outcast has become a broadcaster of good news.

Who have you told about Jesus? Write down their names and pray for them. If you have never told anyone about Jesus, write down some names of people that you can tell, and ask the Lord to help you share your story about him with them.

When you do what God wants, it is like eating a delicious, hunger-satisfying meal. Jesus has just eaten a metaphorical meal in his encounter with the woman at the well. His conversation with one hurting person has led her to bring more people to him and partake of the free feast of God he offers. Evangelism is like planting crops and watching the harvest grow before your eyes so that it will produce a delicious meal for the children of God.

This woman knew her people had sin problems. The history of their religious practices was dubious at best, if not outright malicious. That is why she wanted to talk to Jesus about religion. Their land had seen child sacrifices. That’s why when she shares her story, the Samaritans are attracted to Jesus. They sense he is the Truth, and the Truth who set her free is immediately available to them as well. Wow! The people of Samaria, where children were once sacrificed, are now part of the Church, the Bride of Christ, and call Jesus the Savior of the world. Amazing, the Jews in Jerusalem run Jesus out of town and these lowlife Samaritans invite him to stay with them.

The excluded Samaritans are now included. The divided nation is being gathered together again. The promise God made to Abraham that his descendants would bless the nations of the world is coming true in the inclusive, soul-seeking, sin-forgiving, outsider-embracing ministry of Jesus.

Oh today, that our divided nation would be gathered together again and be healed by the inclusive, soul-seeking, sin-forgiving, outsider-embracing ministry of Jesus. My friends, like this remarkable woman at the well, we all need Jesus.