All's Well That Loves Well
John 4:5-42
Despite the fact that I have a mobile phone with me pretty much at all times, I rarely use it to make phone calls. In fact, I don’t receive that many calls on it either. Many people these days, and I include myself among them, prefer text messaging to talking on the phone. It’s faster. Less intrusive. You can get right to the point, say what you want to say, and move on. You can get in and out of there with nary a sound, just the gentle ding notification on the recipient’s phone.
Actual phone calls are reserved for emergencies and special occasions only. Nowadays, when one of my friends wants to speak to me, they’ll first send me a text and ask when would be a good time to call. I’ve never asked them to do this. It’s simply become an unwritten rule of cell-phone etiquette: If you want to speak live, it’s only polite to make an appointment.
Of course, there are downsides to text messaging replacing live conversation. Among them is that with texting, because there is no voice, it’s much harder to read someone’s tone, which can lead to misunderstandings. A message sent with no ill intent can be interpreted negatively due to its brevity, lack of context, missed sarcasm, or even typos. “Honey, I meant ‘I want to kiss you,’ not ‘I want to kill you.’”
Reading the Gospel of John can be like reading a text message. At first glance, the Jesus we encounter in John often seems aloof, sometimes even rude, more philosophical than friendly, more critical than compassionate, more divine than human. There are theological, cultural, and historical reasons for this, which is why preaching from John can be a chore. (Those reasons are not worth mentioning here in the sermon, but if you’re interested, we may discuss them during Bible study.)
Suffice it to say, when preaching from John you have to do quite a bit of excavating to reach the Jesus that we recognize in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. That’s why many pastors, this one included, preach less often from John than from the other Gospels (Believe me, I keep statistics).
But John also features many stories that don’t appear in the other Gospels—stories that help give us a fuller picture of Jesus and a deeper understanding of the good news that he both proclaims and embodies. We read one of those stories last week when we heard about Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisee Nicodemus, which is found only in John chapter 3. Today’s reading from chapter 4 is another one.
This story of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well is like a companion piece to his interaction with Nicodemus. These two stories are meant to be read together because of how they complement each other. The Samaritan woman is in many ways the opposite of Nicodemus. Nicodemus is male; she is female. Nicodemus is a Jew; she is a Samaritan. Nicodemus is named; the Samaritan woman is anonymous. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, and a leader among the Pharisees, at that, and thus a consummate insider; she is an unnamed Samaritan woman, far removed from the center of power in her society. As far as demographics are concerned, they could not be more different.
This story of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well is like a companion piece to his interaction with Nicodemus.
But the differences don’t stop there. Nicodemus has heard of Jesus, wants to speak to him, and thus purposely seeks him; the Samaritan woman has no idea who Jesus is, and he, in fact, approaches her. Nicodemus comes to Jesus under cover of darkness; the Samaritan woman encounters Jesus under the shadowless noonday sun. After speaking with Jesus Nicodemus remains confused, his final words being, “How can this be?”; the Samaritan woman leaves and tells her entire village that she has met the Messiah. Nicodemus remains in the dark; the Samaritan woman sees the light.
One thing that Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman have in common is that they both understand that it is scandalous for them to be seen talking to Jesus. Pharisees were often at odds with Jesus, taking issue with his loose interpretation of the law, which is why, as much as Nicodemus wants to talk with Jesus, he doesn’t want to be seen with him. Similarly, when Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink, she says, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” She is stunned that he would be so bold, disregarding all of the social boundaries that separate them.
Social boundaries are not the only boundaries that separate Jesus and the Samaritan woman; there’s also a geographical boundary as well. Try to picture the geography. Jesus is coming from Jerusalem, which is in southern Israel. He is returning home to Galilee in the north of Israel. Between Jerusalem and Galilee lies Samaria. Jews tended to look down upon Samaritans for reasons that go back hundreds of years.
Samaria had once been part of a united Israel under David and then Solomon. Following Solomon’s death, Israel split into two competing kingdoms, north and south. Samaria lay in the Northern Kingdom. About two hundred years after the national divorce, the Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Assyrian empire. The Assyrians enacted a policy of forced assimilation. Captured Jews were deported to Assyria while people from throughout the Assyrian empire settled in the Northern Kingdom. The result was a blending of cultures, including religions—the God of Israel with various pagan gods.
By Jesus’ day (we’re talking seven hundred years later), despite their shared ancestry, Jews and Samaritans regarded each other with suspicion, if not outright derision. Yet this does not stop Jesus from choosing to pass through Samaria, from choosing to stop in a public place, and from choosing to engage with this woman whom Jews, including his own disciples, would have regarded as an alien.
But the disciples are not with Jesus. He has sent them into town to the local ShopRite to pick up some groceries. John writes that Jesus was tired out by his journey, which is understandable. It was a two-day journey on foot from Jerusalem to Sychar in Samaria. Jesus has spent all morning walking. It’s now noon. The sun is hot, and Jesus sits by the well and…waits.
Eventually a local woman comes to draw water for herself, and Jesus asks her for a drink. She recognizes instantly the social boundaries that he has just crossed, both as a Jew speaking to a Samaritan, and as a man addressing a woman he doesn’t know. These things simply were not done. And yet Jesus does them. As a measure of just how shocking an interaction this was, when the disciples later return and see Jesus with the Samaritan woman, John writes that “they were astonished that he was speaking with a woman.”
Jesus and the Samaritan woman engage in a lively discussion. This is not small talk around the office water cooler. “Hey, did you catch the game last night?” There’s none of that. Instead, they have a theological discussion on their common ancestor Jacob, on the nature of worship, on living water that quenches the soul and gives eternal life.
But in the same way that Nicodemus misunderstood the notion of being “born again,” the Samaritan woman also misunderstands Jesus because she is thinking of literal water. “Sir you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” And yet, unlike Nicodemus, whose last words to Jesus expressed confusion and doubt, “How can this be?”, the Samaritan woman persists…in talking, in asking, in seeking. When Jesus tells her that those who drink of the water he gives will never again be thirsty, she’s like, Give me some of that! That sounds great! “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
The turning point in their conversation comes when Jesus tells the woman to go and bring her husband. She answers truthfully, “I have no husband.” Now, what Jesus says next is precisely what I had in mind when I said that reading the Gospel of John can be like reading a text message, because on the surface what Jesus says sounds accusatory. “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’” he says to her, “for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” That sure sounds like he’s shaming her.
There’s just one problem. In the wider Roman world, of which Samaria was a part, women had little recourse to divorce. While a man could easily divorce his wife, to divorce her husband a woman needed to seek the approval of her father or, in the absence of her father, the male head of the family. There were also practical disincentives against a woman’s seeking divorce. A woman without the financial security and physical safety provided by a husband would have been exceptionally vulnerable.
Jesus surely knows this. He knows that this Samaritan woman who has had five husbands is not Zsa Zsa Gabor. She has not discarded her husbands like last year’s fashion, darling. More than likely she has been the one who has been discarded (I have my own theory on that, which I’ll save for Bible study). Besides, if Jesus were intending to shame her, she sure doesn’t seem at all bothered. She responds to Jesus, saying, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.” She later goes and evangelizes her entire village, telling them, “He told me everything I have ever done.” Those are not the words of a woman who has been shamed.
They are the words of an outsider who has been written into the story of God’s grace. They are the words of someone whose failure and suffering have not defined her in the eyes of her Savior. They are the words of someone who has drunk from the well of Jesus’ love, mercy, and compassion and will never thirst again. In this highly symbolic Gospel, the symbol that the Samaritan woman will never thirst again is that when she goes back to her village to tell people that she has met the Messiah, she leaves her water jar behind. She no longer needs it.
The same is true for you. Whatever might make you feel like you are on the outside looking in, whatever you may have done, endured, or may be dealing with even now, the love, mercy, and compassion of Jesus Christ flow like an eternal spring within you, quenching your deepest thirst.