Talk by Peter based on Romans 5 1 to 11; John 4: 5 – 30, 39 – 42

In the middle of the day, Jesus arrives at Jacob’s well at Sychar, (current day Shechem), he sends the disciples off to the town to buy food and he waits for their return. A Samaritan woman approaches the well to draw water. Jesus says to her ‘Will you give me a drink?’

An understandable enough request in the heat of the day but a very loaded question at that time. She recognized him to be Jewish (i.e. not from those parts) and said ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ John then adds for his readers benefit ‘Jews do not associate with Samaritans’. Again Jesus breaks all cultural norms and starts conversations with people whom religious Jews would go out of their way to avoid.

He wants to engage her and his response is to say – ‘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’. Jesus offers the woman living water. Of course she thinks he means water from the well. Jesus is referring to the new life that he is offering, not just to those of his own race – it is to anyone: as this conversation shows, anyone at all, no matter what their gender, their geography, their racial or moral state. Jesus doesn’t immediately condemn for being sinners or criticize people who are different, he calls faith out of them. This is what makes Jesus unique in my opinion amongst spiritual leaders of any age.

What this does for her is it piques her interest for then Jesus goes to the heart of the issue in her life, for she had been through one emotional upheaval after another with enough husbands coming and going to keep all the gossips in the village chattering for weeks. We don’t know the details – was she sinned against as much as she sinned herself? Did she find it hard to form long lasting relationships? She knew that her life was in a mess and she knew that he knew.

And indeed, Jesus puts his finger on the issue – ‘the man you are with now is not your husband’. Her reaction to this is a classic example of what every priest / pastor / evangelist knows only too well. Put your finger on a sore spot and people will immediately start talking about something else. And the best subject for distracting attention from talking about the deep things of life is to talk, not about the weather but about differences in religious practice. Now most of us grow up either thinking or being taught that the way we were brought up was the right one. She says: ‘I was brought up to think that this mountain, ‘Mount Gerizim’ (on which incidentally the small Samaritan community of about 500 souls still worships), is the right one, but you Jews think Mount Zion is the right one!’ The implication of course is that both views can’t be right, maybe nobody knows, maybe nothing is that certain, and maybe, how we were taught to live is equally uncertain.

In fact, arguments about buildings and places are futile. King Solomon when he had built the Temple in around 1000 years BC declared that heaven itself wasn’t big enough for God let alone the building he had had built. Holy mountains, holy buildings cannot contain God. They are at best sign-posts to his presence. Jesus tells her, it isn’t about the place, faith in God is about attitude of the heart. He goes on to say – ‘God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in Spirit and in truth’.

She then reveals that she knows the promise that when Messiah (called Christ) comes he will explain everything, and Jesus then declares: ‘I, the one speaking to you – I am he’ This is an amazing declaration. Jesus knows that in Jerusalem, he will be condemned to death for saying the same thing, but here, he not only reveals this truth to a Samaritan, he reveals it to a woman. Just then, the disciples returned with their provisions (we note the comment – they were surprised he was talking to a woman). The woman forgets her water jar and goes back to her village and immediately tells the villagers ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. Could this be the Messiah?’

What a witness. What a testimony! And again, breaking all cultural norms, Jesus accepts their entreaties to stay in their village for two days and many come to faith. ‘We no longer believe just because of what you told us, now we have heard him for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.’ What an amazing testimony from people who were outsiders.

In our companion reading this week, Paul in his letter to the Romans, puts it this way – ⁶ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus took your sin and my sin and the sin of the world upon himself and carried it for those 3 hours on the cross. It was agony for him, the righteous son of God to experience his Father turning his face away, but at the end, when Jesus gave up his Spirit, he exclaimed ‘It is finished!’ A cry of triumph not of defeat.

I just want to end by saying this: John at the start of his Gospel says to us that Jesus was a man full of grace and truth – this conversation between the woman and Jesus in both the content and the manner in which it was conducted are a model for us. In our conversations with others who are different from us, let’s learn and apply these lessons in our own lives as we journey on together. Amen.