John 4.5-42
We are looking today at the woman of Samaria.
John does not mention her by name, although Eastern tradition has given her a name: Photine.
It is a remarkable conversation
It begins when Jesus asks her: Give me a drink.
She replies, ‘How can you ask me for a drink? How can you break all the traditional norms?
You are a man and I am a woman. We should not be speaking.
There is a story told from the Talmud (a body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law and legend): Rabbi Yose the Galilean was once going on the road when he met Beruriah (wife of Rabbi Meir). He said to her: “By which road do we go to Lydda?” (four words in Hebrew) She said to him: “Galilean fool! Did not the sages say this: ‘Do not multiply talk with women?’ You should have asked: ‘By which to Lydda?’ (two words in Hebrew).
Men should not speak with women
You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan. We should not be speaking, let alone asking me to give you a drink.
The Jews considered the Samaritans to be racially impure, idolators and even demon possessed. The feeling was probably mutual
And yet Jesus gives her four reasons why he can ask her for a drink.
He is the one who gives us living water.
“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.” John 4:10
“The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” John 4:14
Later, in John 7, Jesus calls to the crowd and says:
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ” Now he said this about the Spirit John 7:37-39
We are all in need of this living water: whether we are Jews or Samaritans or Gentiles, black or white, Russian or western, men or women.
Without this living water we are dead, spiritually dead.
It is as if our soul is like a dried-up seed, like a rock, deep within us. It has potential for life, but it has no life. It needs water – not physical water, our bodies need physical water. No, our soul needs spiritual water – it needs the Holy Spirit to come alive.
The problem is that we do not recognize that.
We give our bodies water – and that keeps them alive
But we try to water our soul with all kinds of things – which do not work. And we are lost.
- Maybe we try to water it, like this woman, with searching for at least a semi-decent relationship.
It is possible that her five husbands have each died, and she really does not want to commit herself again. But unlikely.
It is far more probable that she was searching for someone who would at least look after her, protect her – which as a woman of the time she would have needed – and who might just also love her. And six relationships really do suggest that she is a bit messed up, that she is lost.
- Or maybe we try to water our soul with what? Other kinds of drink, substance abuse, shopping and stuff, wanting to become a celebrity, art and music, our children and family, our work, a retreat into the virtual world where we can control at least something, a political, social or religious cause?
The problem is that it is the wrong kind of water for our soul.
And rather than opening up, our soul closes even tighter.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that somewhere in us there is a little physical something that is our soul, which we could see if we had a sufficiently high-powered microscope. I am using picture language for a reality that is bigger than what we can see or touch or sense.
But if our soul is to open up, if it is to crack open – like the rock in the Exodus reading, or like the ground when the first shoots appear (one of the things that I have done, every year, is take a photo of when the first shoots come through in our church garden – it is a little ‘wonder’) - if life is going to come out of that seed, then it needs this living water.
We need to come to Jesus, and ask him for this living water.
We need to drink in his words, drink his cup and allow the Spirit of God to come into us.
And that water will give life to that seed. It will open it up. And the water will become a spring in us and fill us with life. And this is water which will last for eternity.
I am not saying that if we have asked Jesus for this living water, and if we have begun to drink of Jesus – we are never going to experience frustration or loneliness or emptiness. We will. But what we will always have is his Word to guide us and feed us, we will always have someone who we can turn to, and we have the promise that nothing can separate us from the love of God – not even death.
Jesus says to her, ‘I can ask you for water, because I am the one who would give you living water, if you ask me’.
2. Jesus is saying, I can ask you for water because I know you
He was able to tell this woman about her past and her present. That made a huge impact on her.
When she returns to her town she says, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything that I have ever done’ (John 4.29)
Jesus knows us.
He knows our past, our hidden secrets – things that our closest and most intimate friends do not know. He knows our lies and our fears. He knows our deep hurts and losses and the pain that is deep inside.
He knows what we take pride in, and what we are ashamed of. He knows our sin.
We cannot hide anything from God. When I worked in our inner-city London community, and I visited people, I sometimes saw a poster which read, “Christ is the head of the home, the unseen guest of every meal, the silent listener to every conversation.” I think it was meant to be an encouragement, but actually to me it sounds more than a bit scary! It is like there is a 24-hour God camera on us.
But the amazing thing is that God does know us, we cannot hide anything about God, he knows the worst about us – and yet he still loves us.
He knows this woman has a very dodgy past and a pretty dodgy present, and yet he still loves her.
That is why he comes to her and asks her – even her – for some water to drink.
I have seen it on more than a few occasions – it has happened here – people come to worship, often for the first time, and Jesus meets with them. As he touches what is deep within them, so they begin to weep – it is usually weep, although I have also seen someone laugh, with a deep deep laughter. And as they open themselves up to Jesus, some of the hidden stuff in here, pushed down for so long, comes to the surface. As they begin to drink of Jesus, and often with an openness that puts old stagers to shame, and as they receive his love, so Jesus – who knows us – begins to deal with them, begins to bring his healing.
Jesus is saying, I can ask you for water because I have come to bring something new
The Samaritan woman realises that Jesus is not just a prophet, but the prophet, who the Samaritans were waiting for. The one who would teach them. So she asks him a critical question. ‘Our ancestors worshiped God on this mountain, Mount Gerizim, but you – Jews - say you need to worship at Jerusalem, Mount Zion. Who is right?’
Jesus answers and says, there is a right answer to that one. Jerusalem – because God’s promises were given to the Jewish people, and he said that his name would dwell in the Jerusalem temple, and that through the Jewish people he will bring salvation to the world.
But, he says, the time is coming when it will not be a question of mountains or geography or nationality. The grace of God is going to flow out, from me, to all people. And all you need to do is to listen to me, let my words come into you and allow the Spirit to lead you.
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24
To worship the Father in spirit and truth. It is important to get that balance.
We can emphasize the Spirit and end up doing anything. If it feels right, we think we can do it. And you end up with the most weird and dangerous teaching.
Or we can emphasize the Truth – the words of Jesus; the scripture as interpreted in the light of church tradition – and we end up turning the Christian faith into a set of rules that we have to follow.
We need both if we are to worship right. We cannot understand the truth without the Spirit and we can only be led by the Spirit if we also are held in the truth.
But in this ‘hour that is now here’, the people of God in their worship of the Father, are not separated by race or by mountain or by language or by custom.
Jesus really has come to do something radically new. He has come to bring people separated together.
Later Paul writes, ‘In Christ there is neither slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female. For all are one – united – in Christ Jesus’.
We are united in Christ, part of each other, needing each other.
That is why I love this congregation. People from all over the world – I think from every continent apart from Antarctica – worshiping the Father together.
So yes, says Jesus, I – a Jewish man - can ask of you, a Samaritan woman, for a drink.
4. Jesus is saying, I can ask you for water because I am Messiah
“I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” John 4:25-26
The Messiah, the Christ, is the one anointed by God to be King, ruler of God’s world.
And Messiah can ask you to get him a drink!
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Well, we don’t know if Jesus did ever get his drink! We’re not told!
But we are told that the woman does ask Jesus for the living water – and very clearly that spring of living water erupts within her.
She runs back to her city – leaving the water jar – and she says to her people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’
What a contrast to the woman who was on her own at midday drawing water – probably because she needed to avoid people because of what they would say about her. And now, she couldn’t care less. But she wanted people to meet the person who had changed her life. And by the way, notice she doesn’t preach. She tells what has happened to her, she asks a question and she invites them to come and see.
According to tradition, Photine continued to be a witness to what Jesus had done, traveling from Samaria to Carthage. There she was sentenced to death for Christ.
According to legend, and I suspect it is not true, she was thrown down into a dry well.
But if it is true, then it is fitting. Because she is the one who has witnessed to us – that in our dried up wells, on our little separate mountains, in our barren lost places, there is one who can give us living water, and that water will well up in us and lead to eternal life
All we need to do is to come to Jesus and ask him for that living water.