Going to the Well

John 4:5-42

5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When 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.)

9 The 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.[a])

10 Jesus 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? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The 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.”

16 He 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. 18 The 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.”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

28 Then, 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 Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many Samaritans Believe

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.

42 They 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.”

Even though our scripture seems to be somewhat lengthy this morning, it still must only be a snippet of the conversation that this Samaritan woman and Jesus had.  One commentator related it to the minutes of a meeting.  We only get the major discussion points in this conversation but there was likely much more conversation between Jesus and this woman than we get to read here.  Nonetheless, this scripture still offers us a lot of “bread” for our faith.

The well in which John is referring to is about a half mile from the city Sychar and it is likely that this city had water so why did this woman have to travel a half mile to Jacob’s Well? Here we find our first faith lesson: where do we meet Jesus.  This woman could have travelled here any number of reasons, the exact one is difficult to pinpoint.  One possibility is that the woman came here just to get away from it all.  This helps serve as a reminder that sometimes we just need to get away from things to find Christ.  Life has a way of keeping us busy and in that business, we can lose track of our faith and this shows us that if we can strip down all the burdens of life and find time for ourselves, then Jesus has an opportunity to meet us there.  Another possibility as to why she came to this well is that this woman was ashamed and tired of the people in Sychar saying things about her.  We do not know what kind of life this woman lived but if she was an adulterer as the text somewhat hints at, Jesus handled this situation much differently than he did others.  In John 8:1-11 Jesus tells that adulterer to “Go and sin no more!”  But Jesus did not say this to the Samaritan woman.  Why?  Because I don’t think this woman was that way.  I think this woman was let down by men who had promised to take care of her so she kept going to the well, both literally and figuratively, in search of security and dignity.  She had kept going to the well of promise only to come back from that well still thirsty.  This also offers us a great faith lesson: when we rely on anything other than God, we will be always going back to the well searching to quench our thirst.  

In verses 13 and 14 we find Jesus telling the woman that “...everyone who drinks this will water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  In verse 15 we see the response of the woman and many of the commentators I read think that the woman didn’t catch what Jesus was saying.  In other words, many people thought the woman took Jesus literally, that she actually thought she would literally never be thirsty again.  As if Jesus had some kind of water that would keep her from ever needing something to drink.  I personally think that she was matching Jesus’ metaphorical talk.  Verse 15 says, “... Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  I think that woman was coming to that well, not just for something literal to drink, I think she came there to refresh her soul and mind, to get away from the gossip and disappointment of her life.  How many of us have a special place where we go to get away from things?  A place that for some reason, we feel refreshed after going there?  For some that “place” is going for a run, for others it may be a motorcycle ride, it may be a place out in the country that is quiet, and still for others it may be under a blanket with a good book.  The point is that all of us are like that woman, continually going to the “well” to refresh ourselves.  She wanted something more, she wanted to never to have to come back to that well.  Up to this point, she had to keep coming back to the well and she was yearning for something more.  And Jesus offered her that.  He offered her the living water, a cure to her disappointment and insecurity.  If we are honest with ourselves, we too have our own insecurities in which we think there is no cure but Jesus offers us a well that never, never runs dry.

Our next faith lesson is found in verses 20-26 and this lesson regards places of worship.  The woman confusingly asks Jesus where she should worship.  She says that her ancestors believe that the very place where they are standing is holy and that is where she should worship, she was raised to believe that the place where they are standing is where she should worship and she also knows that the Jews believed that only true worship can take place in Jerusalem.  And Jesus’ says, “... a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”  For a Jew to say those words had to catch the woman off guard.  But I like to call this kind of faith a “lilac-based faith.”  I know that sounds odd but give me a minute and it will make sense.  A few months ago, Pastor Donna contacted me about a person who was looking to change churches and this person was interested about Fairview but they were wondering what had happened to some of the lilac bushes that had been around Fairview at some point.  If I understand correctly, those lilacs were planted in the memory of someone else and I understand the sentimental importance of those bushes but should we allow our faith to be based on whether or not those bushes are still alive and well?  To some this may seem silly, but I would venture to say that most of us have “lilacs” in our faith.  The Samaritan woman did by believing Mount Gerizim (location of Jacob’s Well) and the Jews did by believing Mount Zion (Jerusalem) were the only places we could find God.  So my question to all of you is: What are your lilacs?  In other words, what keeps you from seeing God everywhere?  What chains are holding you down?  These “lilacs” lead to false and misguided worship.  This kind of worship is selective, ignorant and superstitious.

A false and misguided worship is selective in the sense that it chooses what it wishes to know about God and omits the rest.  While it is easy for us to accept and hold the parts of God’s truth that suit us and disregard the remainder but we must resist that temptation.  False worship is ignorant worship because there is little or no reason behind it.  Faith needs to be emotional as well as intellectual.  As Christian believers it is important to not only understand what we believe but we have to be able to voice why we believe what we do.  1 Peter 3:15 says, “...Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”  And I don’t mean intellectual in the sense that you have to be able to recite verses to back up a thesis on the importance of the Sermon on the Mount.  Intellectual in the sense that you should have a grasp as to why you believe and be able to voice that understanding.  If you don’t, that is ok.  Just spend some time in thought or maybe even jot some things down.  At some point, you should be able to voice, if at the very least, to yourself why you are a believer.  False worship is superstitious.  Superstitions cause us to fear and change our behavior out of fear.  Don’t believe in God just because you are fearful of what might happen if you don’t.  The biblical commentator William Barclay says it like this, “...Real religion is founded not on fear but on the love of God and gratitude for what God has done.  Too much religion is a kind of superstitious ritual to avert the possible wrath of the unpredictable gods.”  In our scripture this morning, Jesus points us towards true worship.  Jesus tells the woman at the well that God is spirit which means that God cannot be confined to things, like lilacs, and God is not confined to places, like church buildings.  This means that our gifts to God are not confined to worldly things.  Our gifts to God are also gifts of the spirit such as love, loyalty, obedience and devotion.  Genuine worship does not consist in coming to a certain place nor in going through a certain ritual nor even in bringing certain gifts.  True worship is when our spirit, the eternal and invisible part of us, speaks to and meets with God.

Just like the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus has a similar discussion with his disciples but this time it is 

about food instead of water.  Perhaps Jesus took this opportunity to foreshadow the Last Supper.  And just like 

the woman at the well, Jesus tells the disciples that there is “food” that keeps you from getting hungry.  The 

disciples response: “Someone must have brought him food.”  Jesus goes on to tell them that his “food” is the 

will of God.  Through our scripture this morning, we have learned that there is water that keeps us from getting

thirsty and there is food that keeps us from getting hungry.  Sign. Me. Up!  If we shed the worldly chains that 

keep us from giving to God with our spirit, if we actively seek to do the will of God, and if we fully trust in God,

then we will not hunger or thirst any longer.  Perhaps you are sitting in that pew this morning, so hungry and 

thirsty for something but you don’t know how to quench that hunger and thirst.  Maybe you have tried all the 

worldly remedies you can think of but yet you are still not satisfied.  If you can find it in your heart to hear 

God’s spirit turning inside you, then you can have food and drink that fills and quenches beyond anything this 

world has to offer.  Amen.