A Disturbed Woman Series

We’re in the third talk in our series on ‘Encounters with Jesus in John’s gospel.’

Last week, we looked at a passage in John 3. A man called Nicodemus met Jesus. He was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council. In short, he was a very respectable man. Jesus told him that he needed to be born again! That didn’t make much sense to Nicodemus!

In our passage today, Jesus meets a very different person. She’s a woman, but she isn’t given a name. She’s a Samaritan – a people who lived to the north of Israel. Whereas Nicodemus was very respectable, this woman was not very respectable. She had had five husbands and was now living with someone who was not her husband. Jesus asked her for some water. And then Jesus told her that HE could offer HER some amazingly good water – living water! Why would Jesus ask her for water if he already had some?! It didn’t make much sense to the Samaritan woman.

The story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well has lots to teach us. I’m sure different people will draw different lessons. I’m going to pick out three things that really impressed me.

JESUS CROSSED BARRIERS

One thing that really impressed me in this story is the fact that Jesus completely ignored social custom to reach out to the Samaritan woman. At multiple levels, she was A Woman Who Should Not Be Spoken To.

Jesus was travelling through Samaria on his way north. Many Jews would have taken a longer route specifically to avoid going through Samaria. Jews and Samaritans had a long history – and they weren’t friends.

So on the grounds that the woman was a Samaritan and Jesus was a Jew, he shouldn’t have spoken to her. In addition, the fact that she was a woman and he was a man meant that he shouldn’t have spoken to her. And if – as it seemed – she wasn’t the most moral of people, then he, as a rabbi, should have kept his distance. So there were three good reasons for Jesus NOT to speak to her.

But Jesus blithely ignored all the social conventions that said he shouldn’t speak to her. He was NOT P.C. Quite the opposite. HE didn’t discriminate on the grounds of race or gender. HE didn’t turn away from the Samaritan woman because she looked disreputable.

Jesus spoke to her. He spoke to her A LOT. This is the longest documented conversation Jesus had with anyone!

JESUS DID WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DIDN’T DO. No wonder his disciples were surprised when they returned with the shopping!

Jesus’ willingness to cross cultural barriers is a wonderful example to us. We think of missionaries as people who cross geographical barriers and go to faraway places. But there are barriers right where we are. At work or at school there are people who are picked on, put down, pushed away. If we see someone with special needs, we think, ‘I don’t want to talk to him or her.’ We see an Afghan refugee? We think, ‘I don’t want to talk to him.’ The Samaritan woman was A Woman Who Should Not Be Spoken To. But Jesus spoke to her. If we want to be like Jesus, we need to do the same.

I’d like to show you a video about a 17-year-old American girl called Rachel Scott. This is told by her elder sister, Dana.

…

Rachel Scott was the first of 11 people to die in the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999. She said that kids generally want to fit in. But that doesn’t work for Christians. As Christians, Jesus’ radical character needs to shine through. We need to reach out to people who others are rejecting. We need to cross barriers. From what I’ve read of Rachel Scott, she was doing that.

JESUS WAS LED BY SCRIPTURE

Jesus’ disciples were surprised to find him speaking to a woman. That was pretty radical! But in another area, Jesus was 100% conservative. He was very much led by scripture.

I think we can see that in three ways.

A. LIVING WATER IS AN OLD TESTAMENT IDEA

Jesus told the Samaritan woman that he could offer her living water. That idea fits entirely with a theme in the Old Testament. There are a number of passages where this comes up. Let me quote just one. This is Jeremiah 2:13:

‘for my people have committed two evils:

they have forsaken me,

THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that can hold no water.’

Here, God describes himself as the fountain of living waters. So when Jesus says he can offer living water, he is completely in line with this Old Testament idea.