A Tale of Two Waters
John 4:6-42 (portions) {NIV}
Sermon Objective: To encourage the congregation to draw near to Christ in order to find a genuine quenching for their spiritual thirst.
Supporting Scripture: Exodus 17:1-7; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4; John 7:37-39
4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10Jesus answered 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."
11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
16He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17"I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41And because of his words many more became believers.
42They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
Have you ever noticed that across the centuries people have always gathered where beverages are available? It used to be the soda shop or the malt shop. For some it’s a pub. Our generation has seen the rise of the coffee shop. They have sprouted up all over the place. Vickie and I just spent part of our vacation in New York City; we walked a lot of the West Side and were NEVER out of sight of a coffee Shop – specifically Starbucks. I could not help but notice that regardless of where we were I could look ahead, behind or down a side street and see a Starbucks green medallion somewhere. “Watering holes” are part of our lives; they are where we meet to talk light business, go on first dates, and just share in relaxing and everyday conversation.
It was not much different back in Jesus’ time. Granted, they didn’t have Starbucks but people gathered around the most basic place for refreshment, the village well. It was the town watering hole where everyone gathered two times a day, and where people lingered a bit to tell some tales, catch up on news, talk about their lives, and stay current on all the juiciest town gossip.
In our gospel reading today, we are introduced to a woman who was probably the subject of some of this town’s most infamous gossip. Needless to say, when she would show up at the well in person, a lot of conversation ceased, eyes were averted, and maybe even a few dirty looks were shot her way. Judgmentalism was high.
So eventually she gave up. She stayed home when everyone else was out, and she went out only when everyone else was home.
In the past, many have assumed that she got what she deserved. Well-intentioned preachers have chalked her up as a sleazy, sinful woman. But she may have been a victim, too. Don’t forget that in Jesus’ day, women had almost zero social standing. They certainly could not be the initiators of divorce. Only the men in her life culd do that … she wasn’t all at fault. All a man had to do was haul his wife out into the street and then say to her three times, "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" and that was that.
The woman didn’t have much say in the matter. And so perhaps this woman was the kind of person who, desperate for some attention and affection, hooked up with all the wrong men who, in turn, used her and then discarded her without remorse. The story of this woman may be more three-dimensional than we tend to know.
None-the-less, her status as an outcast forces her to journey to the well alone during the middle of the day when no one else would be gathering their water.
As she approaches the village well her heart sinks. She sees someone there. Her plan to avoid all contact was failing. Worse, it is a man. Doubly worse, it looks like a Jewish man.
You didn’t see too many Jews in Samaria. Jews avoided that area, willingly adding a few extra days to their journey so they could take the long way around that “greasy” stretch of land called Samaria, a people they considered inferior half-breeds because of their once Jewish roots. Racial tension was high.
Jesus has opted against that usual route, and instead he decides to make a beeline straight into the heart of Samaria (literally and figuratively).
When this woman sees him, she perhaps lowers her eyes, grits her teeth, and hopes to get through this as painlessly as possible. But then the man clears his throat, and she no doubt thinks, "Here it comes!" But instead, of barking demands and insults … there is a kind tone to his voice. Jesus ASKS her for some water. Probably she should have kept her mouth shut but she is so taken back that she blurts out, "What in the world is going on here!? You, a Jew, are not supposed to talk to me, a Samaritan!"
She cold have said other things too.
“You’re a man in public and you ask me for water?”
“You’re a holy man and you ask me for water?”
Jesus is indeed breaking with convention to speak with this woman, which is why the disciples will shortly be so scandalized to witness this. After all, consider these pieces of conventional wisdom that were current in Jesus’ day:
A man shall not talk with a woman in the street, not even with his own wife, on account of what others may say. He that talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself.
If any man gives a woman knowledge of God’s Law, it is as though he had taught her to be excessively promiscuous."
But Jesus not only speaks with this woman, he speaks the words of life to her. He tells her that he can give her water that will make her never thirst again. Jesus says that in her, there can be a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
She’s stunned and thinks to herself– “You mean I might never have to come to this shameful public place again” She asks for this water so that she may never have to deal with her thirst and public humiliation again.
"OK," Jesus says, "but let’s bring your husband into the deal, too." She responds to him saying “I don’t have a husband.” But Jesus sees through this smokescreen answer and says right back, “You’re right for saying you don’t have a husband. You’ve had five of them and the one you’re with right now isn’t even your husband.”
Why would Jesus say that?
Was He trying to rub her nose in it? No.
Was he trying to inflict more guilt for her, less than ideal life? No.
Was he trying to publicly humiliate her as did the other residents of the town? No.
We he trying to put her in her place? No, not at all.
Jesus is reminding her that she had been trying to quench her thirst in all the wrong ways.
No magical “Prince Charming” would make her feel adequately valued and loved.
No amount of sex would satisfy the longing within.
It just would not work. Jesus is offering her something different, a way of life that is fulfilling, a way that quenches her deepest thirst for love and affection. He’s offering her a way of living in relationship with God.
Eventually she catches on to what Jesus is saying. She understands that the living water is something more than mere water that she could fill her jug with.
She drops everything. Literally. The water jug she came with is left behind as she races back to the village. She begins knocking on doors whose doorsteps she had not darkened in years. She looks people in the eye whom she had avoided. she talks to those who would not talk to her. She begins telling everyone of the life-giving water she found in the Messiah, the Christ.
The living waters that flooded her soul poured out to others offering them the same inner quenching she had just experienced.
The woman came to the village well, that day, more thirsty than she was aware. She left sensing she’d never be truly thirsty again.
To encounter Jesus is to find life--a stream of living water that wells up in us now; a stream of water that will mount up over time until it becomes a mighty tidal wave of cleansing that will wash over the entire world, making us and all things new. That’s the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the power of His Spirit within.
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In our other readings for today, we saw that this life-giving water of Christ has been a reality from the earliest of times. Moses, stuck in the wilderness, was forced to lead the people through a dry and thirsty land. They began to complain. But did God leave them to die of thirst, to dehydrate in the desert? No. He provides his life-giving water to his people. Moses strikes the rock in the wilderness, and out of it comes a spring of water to nourish the entire community.
As St. Paul reflected on this passage in our reading from the New Testament, he wrote that this Rock, the Source of this life-giving water, was Christ himself. He writes,
“I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.”
But Paul ends on a sour note. He says that God wasn’t pleased with his people. Their thirsts led them astray. Instead of continuing to drink from the deep springs of knowing God, they chased after other things to quench their thirst. He remembers their idols and worship of other gods, their lust and immorality, their complaints that led to fiery serpents. All ways they tried to quench their thirsts. St. Paul ends with the admonition I am going to leave you with this morning. After he describes the life-giving water flowing from the Rock of Christ, and the constant failure of Israel to trust her thirsts and desires to the commands of God, Paul writes:
“These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:11-13)
In the tests and temptations that we face, we have two choices before us: to quench our thirst with the living water of Christ or to drink of our own desires and vices.
The woman at the well understood. She was thirsty, for more than just water, for love and acceptance. Jesus met her need. He was the life-giving water that she needed, not the empty arms of another lover. She accepted his gift and was filled, and in turn she shared the message of this water with everyone around her.
The children of God in the wilderness do the opposite. They tasted the sweet truth of knowing and following God, of having his life-giving water in the wilderness - but they left it behind. They drank from their own desires and vices and found themselves empty and dying in the wilderness.
Jesus makes you the same offer he made the children in the wilderness and this woman at the village well.
John 7:37-38: "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
Are you thirsty?
Maybe you, like the woman, are more thirsty that you are aware? Maybe you, like she, sense the Spirit offering you a deeper quenching … a spiritual quenching.
Will you drink from the rock that is Christ?
Let’s pray.
This sermon is provided by Dr. Kenneth Pell
Potsdam (New York) Church of the Nazarene
www.potsdam-naz.org
* Special Thanks to Rev. Kris Adams of South Hill Church of the Nazarene in Ithaca, New York for the sermon idea.
Children’s Sermon
The Thirst for Water
Prop: (1) A bottle of water (2) an outline of the human body (3) a bottle of water to give to each child.
Hello everybody! It’s good to see you this week. Please pardon me while I set here and drink my water. Yum! This is good water! I sure wish you had some because it is sooooo good … and important too.
Did you know that you have to drink water if your want to live? If you do not drink enough water your body will go into a drought (we call it dehydration) and you will die.
Did you know you can live for weeks without food, but only days without water? Next to oxygen, water is the most important element that you can give your body.
Did you know that most of your body is made up of water? We think it is mostly skin or bone but its really water.
Look at this outline of the human body for a second. Did you know that when you were a baby in your mother’s womb that you were almost 93% water!? That would be this much of your body.
And now you are still at least 80% water. That is at least this much of your body.
You see your body is mostly water. That is why you get thirsty very easily because you body does not want to quit working and it must have water to work right.
Yep, your body lets you know when you are about to go into a drought (dehydration) by asking your for something to drink (thirst).
The same is true spiritually too. If we are ever going to be spiritually healthy we need to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus calls himself “the water of life.” Listen to what he says:
John 7:37-39 (portions): "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
People all over the world are spiritually thirsty. They are trying all sorts of things to make them happy but the only thing that will really satisfy them is a friendship with Jesus. Jesus says whenever we are friends with Him he will satisfy that thirst in the heart. I hope you will ask Jesus to be your friend and to quench your spiritual thirst.
Before you leave I want to give you something – a bottle of water. You can drink it after church whenever your parents say its okay. But when you do I want you to think about how important it is to your body and how important Jesus is to you inner self. Okay? Let’s pray.
This sermon is provided by Dr. Kenneth Pell
Potsdam (New York) Church of the Nazarene
www.potsdam-naz.org
