The woman we meet in our story in John 4 is very like many of the people in our world today, people whose lives are empty. People who have come to the conclusion that life is like an onion. You peel off layer after layer only to discover in the end that there is nothing in it, except perhaps tears. With a little imagination, we can see the tragedy of this woman’s story.

Like all of us, she had set out to find happiness. She had married in the hope of this, but it had turned out to be a disappointment, it had all fallen apart for one reason or another. The same with her next marriage, another disappointment, and so it had gone on, peeling layer after layer off the onion. By the time she had come to man number six they were not even married.

She was probably a social outcast, the respectable neighbours probably refused to speak to her. That’s why she has to come to the well in the heat of the midday sun, to avoid the ill will of her fellow townsfolk when they came for their water. Life was one endless round of meaningless, unsatisfying drudgery that was symbolised by the water-pot she was carrying. Every day she bought it to the well to fill and carry back home. Every day it became empty and she had to repeat the process.

But this day was going to be very different for her. She was to meet someone who was to change all that, things were going to be different for her. Jesus was passing through Samaria, on his journey. On this day he was sitting there at the well when she arrived in the middle of the day. Once again John shows us Jesus in intimate profound conversation with an individual. The words Jesus speaks have a life-changing effect on the woman. His words can be just as effective with those who will engage with him in the 21st century.

Notice the way Jesus begins the conversation. He asks for a drink of water. Many of us are reluctant to ask people for help. How many of us when we are driving in a strange place avoid stopping and asking someone the way when we are lost? But people are often far more open to us if we will acknowledge that we need a little help from them. Respectable men in the culture that Jesus lived certainly would not have spoken to the woman. It was considered improper to address a woman in public.

It was also considered out of order for Jews to speak to Samaritans; there was a deep resentment and mistrust between the two peoples over their religious beliefs. No wonder the disciples were surprised to find him talking to the woman But Jesus has come to exemplify a better way. Jesus is not bothered who we are or what we’ve done before he is wiling to encounter us. In fact he’s more concerned for the lost, for the sheep that have gone astray than for what he terms the righteous.

So Jesus asks for a drink of water. The woman is surprised, so she asks him how come that a Jew like him will ask her for a drink. Jesus reply is a complete surprise to 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.’ The woman is now perplexed, but she is all attention. Is this just another man who makes big promises he can’t keep, or is there more to him? Where will he get this living water? Is he greater than Jacob who had this well dug in the first place? She wants to know more. Jesus tells her more. He is offering her something different to the water that she draws from this well everyday, this ordinary water only quenches our physical thirst; every day we get thirsty and every day we need more water to drink.

Jesus is offering something that will be a permanent supply. He can give water that satisfies, and that is self-renewing, it will be rather like having a living spring within. Of course Jesus is talking in parables as he often does and we often have to, he is using an ordinary substance like water to illustrate a spiritual reality, he has to do that because spiritual realities are not things we can see and touch, but they are no less real because they can’t be seen. Realities such as a living relation ship with God, God’s grace, the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is offering her a living relationship with God, the only thing that can truly satisfy her. The woman wants the living water, but she still doesn’t really understand, she still thinks that perhaps it will mean no more coming to the well every day, but Jesus leaves the misunderstanding to be put right later and moves on to the next step.

‘Go call your husband and come back’ he says to her. It wasn’t a trick question, Christ gives us his living water not just for ourselves but to share it with others, and firstly with those closest to us. Christianity is not an excuse to run away from our families or our responsibilities to them. The woman gives a superficial answer to Jesus’ question, I have no husband she says.

Jesus is not content with that answer. He knows everything about her, just as he knows everything about you and me. ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is that you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.’
Once again, as we have seen him do it before, Jesus speaks in a way that is direct and truthful, facing people with truths that most of us would never dare to. It is characteristic of the way that John portrays Jesus as the one who is light coming into the world. When Jesus encounters a person, he faces them with the truth about themselves; he will not let them pretend to him. When people do encounter Jesus, many turn away; they prefer darkness to light.

This is a real test for the woman how will she react? She could turn away. The reaction of many people would be ‘What do you have to spoil things by dragging all that up?’ So often people are in what is sometimes called denial, they are unwilling to face the truth about themselves and their sins and failures. What does this woman do?

Firstly, in her way she acknowledges the truth. ‘You know all that! you must be a prophet.’ Then it seem as if she goes on to change the subject. She brings up the big religious question that had dived Jews from Samaritans; regarding the rightful place to worship God. Some think what she was doing was just getting off the subject of her colourful past as quickly as possible. Although to some extent that is what she did, she was also turning her thoughts towards God. Maybe she was acknowledging that yes, her life was in a mess, and she needed to get right with God, so where should she do it; Jerusalem where the Jews worshipped, or mount Gerizim, the holy place of Samaritan worship?

Notice how Jesus answers, because the woman’s question is at heart one that people ask today; ‘Where must I go if I want to encounter God?’ Many people do want to know that, and we need to be able to give the right answer. Notice that Jesus does make a clear distinction between the worship of the Jews, and the worship of the Samaritans. ‘You Samaritans worship what you do not know,’ says Jesus. In other words, your worship is based on ignorance. The Samaritans, although they were descended from Israelites, they came from a tradition where they had mixed up their worship with pagan ideas. They had not been allowed to join in the rebuilding of Jerusalem by Nehemiah; that is partly why animosity had grown up. The Jews on the other hand were the people through whom God had revealed himself to the world through the law and prophets. It was through the Jews that the Messiah was to come.

Today, some people think that it doesn’t really matter how you try to find God, all the religions are much the same. Jesus words remind us that worship is not a matter of our personal preference. There is only one true God, and he has chosen to reveal himself to mankind through the Jewish people. Any religion that is not rooted in and consistent with the Old Testament is not valid. But Jesus said more than that. Up until that time, the answer to the woman’s question would have been that to worship the one God, you needed to go to Jerusalem. But Jesus spoke of a new age of which the world was standing on the threshold. ‘A time is coming, and has now come when the true worshippers will worship in spirit and in truth.’

The time had come when the focus of true worship would no longer be the temple. The focus for true worship would be the one who was the way, the truth and the life. True worship would be in spirit and in truth. ‘I know that Messiah is coming, when he comes he will explain everything to us.’ Jesus said to her ‘I who speak to you am he.’ And so she leaves her water pot and goes and tells the people of the one who can give living water.

Read v24-32. The disciples return, surprised to see Jesus talking to the woman. They are fairly oblivious as to what has gone on. Their concern is to sit down and have their meal. Maybe they want to get on their journey back to Galilee. Maybe they think that Jesus has no interest in a place like Samaria. But Jesus isn’t interested in lunch. He says open your eyes and look at the fields. There is a harvest ready to be reaped. What did the disciples see? The people of Samaria were coming out to see Jesus. People who wanted to meet the Messiah. Many of who would come to believe for themselves.
It is a reminder to us that around us, here in Southend there are people with lives that have a void, lives that have a hunger, people who need to know the one who can give them living water. May we have eyes to see that, and may we have hearts that want to share the truth we have found for ourselves.

Amen.
 

Acknowledgement.

I lay no claim to originality in my sermons. They are an attempt to pass on the gospel message in a contemporary way and depend on the bible as well as others who have studied and written on the passages in question. In preaching from John’s Gospel, I acknowledge my debt to Roy Clements for his book Introducing Jesus and I have also used material from Readings in John’s Gospel by William Temple. PN Jan 04

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