John 4:5-42

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "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." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, `I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "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." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "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."

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. 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?" They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, `Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, `One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

Let us Pray,

O God, giver of life and health

Your son Jesus Christ has called us

To hunger and thirst to see right prevail;

Refresh us with your grace

That we may not be weary of well-dong;

For the sake of him who meets our needs,

Our savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (from the New Zealand Prayer Book)

Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." What a remarkable request for that time and in that place. The history of ill relationships with the Samaritan’s should have precluded Jesus talking to her. In addition, men of the time only spoke directly to a woman if they were related by blood or as a proposition. No wonder her response, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" has an edge to it. Another question that comes to mind is - What is this woman doing at the well in the heat of the day when all of the other women are in town out of the sun? This women, who has had five husbands is most likely scorned by the town folk. So in order to avoid the gossip and the reproachful looks of the other women she goes to draw water when she can be reasonably sure she will be alone.

In answer to her question as to why Jesus is talking to her Jesus does the remarkable, he tells her all about herself! I can’t imagine that it would have put her at ease! How would we react if total stranger suddenly confronted us with our life history on the first meeting? I know my response would not be to proclaim that person as a prophet but more likely to think it was creepy and that I was being stalked. But no matter, this unnamed Samaritan women has spunk and she engages Jesus. She ends up having a spiritual and theological discussion with him which lead Jesus to revealing his nature as the Messiah to her. I don’t think she is completely convinced that Jesus is the messiah but she is energized enough by their conversation to run back to the village, to confront the people who most likely shun her, and talk about her behind her back, to proclaim that there is an interesting prophet, and even possibly the messiah, who they need to hear! Her witness and sharing got people to believe and then their encounters directly with Jesus got them to believe.

How different this is from the story of Nicodemus, who we heard about last Sunday? Nicodemus, one of the religious leaders, a Pharisee, comes to Jesus in the dark of night to engage him. Jesus does not make much progress with Nicodemus. He is not able to recognize what Jesus offers, and more importantly, who Jesus is. Contrast that with the Samaritan women, who in the light of day engages Jesus and is willing to ask Jesus for the living water, and while she may have some remaining doubts about Jesus being the Messiah she is excited and believes.

Of course the disciples, when they find Jesus having intense spiritual conversations with a Samaritan women have the reaction we would expect. “They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman,” These followers of Jesus were still being surprised. They could not let down their historical and cultural rules to even image talking to a Samaritan woman and now here is Jesus talking to her. They would rather that he cease talking with her and have lunch with them!

Would we react any differently than the disciples? Do we react differently? What is our reaction when we see our fiends talking to someone who is outside our comfort zone, someone we define as the other, the outcast, the unclean? Do we join in the conversation or do we hang back and listen and think, like the disciples, "Why are you speaking with her?" Do we welcome “the other” into our conversations around the table? If we must talk to them do we hold polite conversation, hoping that they will go away so that we can have real conversations with our friends or do we engage them in real conversations of faith? Do we show them the kind of radical welcome that Jesus shows the Samaritan women by engaging her in real dialog regardless of what society dictated?

Karoline Lewis, assistant professor of preaching at Luther Seminary in Satin Paul Minnesota in her Commentary on this Gospel reading wrote, “The woman at the well shows us that faith is about dialogue, about growth and change. It is not about having all the answers. If we think we have all the answers, if we are content with our doctrinal constructs, if we believe more in our own convictions that the possibility of revelation, we will be left to ponder whether or not God will choose to be made known. We will have to wonder when and if we will finally feel confident enough, secure enough, and knowledgeable enough, to invite others to "come and see." We will be forced to admit how many times we have overlooked opportunities for giving testimony about the Savior of the world, satisfied that "Jesus is for me." The Samaritan woman at the well is an example for us, not as one who claims "Jesus is for me, too," but as one whose labor helps bring in the harvest (4:34-38). She responds to Jesus in such a way that leads Jesus to reveal his true identity to her, and in doing so, her own identity evolves. We learn from the Samaritan woman that in our own encounter with Jesus, not only are we changed, but that which God will reveal to us will change as well.”

One of the lessons of this gospel lesson for me is that we are called not only to practice the kind of radical hospitality of feeding the poor and clothing the naked but we are to practice the kind of radical welcome where we engage “the other” in real dialog about faith. We are to open our minds and hearts to truly listen to life experiences that are outside of our own. The book Radical Welcome, by Stephanie Spellers, that some of us are studying this lent, calls us to take our practice of radical welcome beyond hospitality and to make it a spiritual practice. When we are confronted with an inquiring Samaritan Stephanie Speller calls us to “ask God “What would you have us do? Who would you have us embrace? And when God presents us with a holy opportunity to be stretched beyond our comfort – either by welcoming a particular group or by allowing that group’s culture and perspective to transform us then we leap forward in faith and we will never be the same!

I invite us to be open to sharing our faith with those whom we meet. To not prejudge their ability to hear our stories of faith for we never know when our faith stories might truly transform and redeem someone who is outside the doors and show them that wonderful radical love God freely offers to all who come to him.