Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "The Right Person, The Right Place, The Right Time"

Text: John 4:5-42 

And this brings us to the remarkable encounter we have just heard from the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel. The prelude to the story reveals that Jesus and the disciples had just departed from Judea and were headed to Galilee. And they had to go through Samaria on the way. There, about noon, in the heat of the day, Jesus – tired out by his journey – was sitting by the well known as Jacob’s, while his disciples had gone off to a nearby city to buy food.

At just that time, a Samaritan woman came to draw water and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." These simple words, spoken in the imperative, would have shocked first-century listeners to this story. And these simple words also surprised the Samaritan woman. Listen again to how she responded to Jesus, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" Later on in the story, when the disciples returned from the city, they were not all that surprised that Jesus was talking to a Samaritan, but they too "were astonished that he was speaking with a woman" (4:27).

And just in case their readers didn’t get the message, some of the ancient manuscripts included a parenthetical comment "Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans," a phrase that also may be translated as "Jews do not use dishes or utensils that Samaritans have used."

The ethnic, religious, and social distance between Jesus and the Samaritan woman provides the Gospel writer the perfect opportunity to show how Jesus turns around human relationships with God.

The noon-time conversation between Jesus and the alien woman shows clearly that Jesus did not feel bound by the social and religious conventions of his day. With his demand that the Samaritan woman give him a drink, Jesus intentionally broke down the boundary between men and women, between insiders and outsiders, and between those who called themselves "God’s chosen people" and those whom they considered aliens.

Not being first-century listeners to John’s Gospel, we may not recall the source of the long-standing enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans. About three hundred years before the time of Jesus, the Samaritans had built a shrine at Mount Gerizim, and thus put their cultic practices into direct competition with the Temple in Jerusalem. Even the Samaritan woman remarked to Jesus about this conflict, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem" (4:19-20). Jesus replied with a typically paradoxical comment, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem" (4:21).

Are you feeling it yet? Are you feeling the tension building in this encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman? In asking for a drink, in carrying on a dialogue with this woman, Jesus was not merely breaking the rules of acceptable social conduct, he was turning these rules upside down. But, perhaps, you are saying to yourself, "So how is this different from what Jesus does all the time?" What is different is that the Samaritan woman clearly was no push-over. She was holding her own with Jesus in a way that many others who entered into dialogues with Jesus were not able to do. There, at Jacob’s well, Jesus was the one who opened the dialogue. Far from being an easy foil, this woman was able to sustain her side of their verbal duel.

The performance of this alien, this Samaritan, this woman contrasts sharply with last week’s lectionary story about Nicodemus. In the third chapter of John’s Gospel, a Pharisee – a man of the Jewish religious establishment – came to Jesus in the dark of the night. Their dialogue demonstrated that Nicodemus was deeply confused by Jesus’ word plays about being "born from above" or "born again." Nicodemus hardly comes across as the sophisticated Pharisee that he is said to be.

And, by the way, did you notice that the Pharisee Nicodemus was identified by name? The Samaritan woman is given no name at all, and this makes her even more alien. Other Gospel writers also used this powerful literary device to good effect – as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) or the encounter Jesus had with the Syro-Phoenician woman whose daughter suffered from a demon (Mark 7:26ff.).

Recall that this encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman began with Jesus’ demand for a drink of water. Upon hearing her response, Jesus transformed his imperative demand into an offer to give the woman "living water." But, remembering the prohibition about sharing utensils and dishes with the Jews, the Samaritan woman replied, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?"

And Jesus comes right back with the answer, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (4:13b-14).

This brings the encounter to the critical moment. The Samaritan woman could have turned her back on this stranger, this Jew, this man – and walked away back to the city. But she didn’t. Instead, the Samaritan woman replied: "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water" (4:15).

And then, Jesus says a strange thing to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." And this leads the two of them into a lengthy dialogue about husbands, prophets, worship, and God as spirit and truth, that ends in a remarkable and unexpected fashion. Eventually (in verse 25), the woman says to Jesus, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called the Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." And Jesus responds, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."

Did you see the significance of what Jesus is revealing to the woman? Jesus never declared who he was to Nicodemus, the Pharisee and one of the religious leaders of God’s chosen people. Yet, here – sitting by Jacob’s well, with a stranger in an alien land – he declares himself to be the Messiah, the Christ.

In a way, what Jesus did, that day at Jacob’s well, is similar to what happens among strangers even today. Flying on a long trip across the country, you might be willing to share with a stranger in the seat next to you some truths that you would never willingly reveal to a co-worker or to a family member.

Haven’t you ever wondered about how Jesus felt about his emerging understanding of who he was as the Son of God? I imagine that it must have been very hard for Jesus to keep his divine nature bottled up inside him. And what a relief it might have been to spill his guts – which in ancient days was an expression that meant to share one’s compassion – with an alien woman.

And just at that moment, when the encounter had reached its Messianic climax, the disciples returned. "And the woman left her water jar and went back to the city" (4:28). But she didn’t just depart; she said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he? [And in response] "They left the city and were on their way to him" (4:29-30).

Soon, the Samaritans from the city came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. According to the Gospel writer, "many more believed because of his word (4:41). And then the story closes with an acknowledgement of the woman’s testimony. Her witness about her personal encounter with Jesus was the basis for the subsequent personal encounters that her fellow Samaritans had with Jesus. During his two days in the city, many came to recognize him as "truly the Savior of the world" (4:42).

Isn’t this a remarkable story? Typically, it starts with a clear violation of prevailing social customs when Jesus demands a drink from the Samaritan woman. And it concludes with a transformation of prevailing religious and ethnic customs when many Samaritans in the nearby city proclaim the stranger Jesus to be "truly the Savior of the world." How did this great transformation come about?

First, Jesus encountered an unnamed alien woman willing to listen to him, willing to engage him in conversation, even willing to challenge him. And through their encounter, she came to see him as the Messiah, the Christ, in a way that no Pharisee could. To be sure, the Samaritan woman had the advantage of a marginal outsider’s perspective. Through their encounter, Jesus transformed someone whom any observer in that day would have considered to be the wrong person, at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

The Good News is that the story told by the Fourth Evangelist is not over. What Jesus did for the Samaritan woman, God can do for us, a couple of thousand years and many thousand miles removed from that ancient well in Samaria. Today, right here and right now, God offers each one of us the same "living water," the same "eternal life" that Jesus offered to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. If we are willing to listen to and engage his word, not passively but interactively, we can be transformed just as Jesus transformed the Samaritan woman. Like her, we can stop feeling like the wrong person, at the wrong place, at the wrong time. With God’s help, we – like the Samaritan woman – can be transformed into witnesses to the Savior of the world. Just as the Samaritan woman did among her fellow citizens, we can share our encounter with the Lord with our neighbors. As each one to whom we witness comes to drink the "living water," we will know that God has chosen us for this duty. And, like the Samaritan woman, we will have become the right person, at the right place, at the right time. Thanks be to God. Amen.

© 2005 Van Kemper (e-mail: rkemper@trinitypresdallas.org)