Year A
Third Sunday in Lent
March 19, 2017
Cross~Wind
Title: Empty Wells and Living Water
5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground
that Jacob had given to his son Joseph . 6 Jacob ’s
well was there, and Jesus , tired out
by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon .
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus
said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the
city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it
that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria Jacob , who gave us the well, and with his sons and
his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus
said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 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.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and
come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have
no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have
now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19 The woman
said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 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 Christ ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I am
he, the one who is speaking to you.”
27 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?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the
city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me
everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30 They
left the city and were on their way to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33
So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him
something to eat?” 34 Jesus
said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his
work. 35 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. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is
gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice
together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another
reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.
Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s
testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So when the
Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there
two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 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.”
Introduction to Scripture
John 4:4-42
is a discourse by Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob. The
tensions between Jews and Samaritans are legendary. Samaritans did not worship
in Jerusalem, put obstacles in the way of building the temple, and helped
Syrians against Jews in 200-100 BC. In
128 BC, Jewish High Priest John Hyrean burned the Samaritan temple on Gerizim.
The times of Jesus contained frequent clashes as Galileans passed through
Samaria on their way to Jerusalem. The story is powerful. We learn of living
water and therefore of life in the Spirit that quenches the thirsty soul. The Samaritan
woman comes to represent us all when we come to Jesus. She came to the well in
great need. She will meet the one who can satisfy the deepest needs of
humanity. The context makes it more powerful. The faith of the half-pagan
Samaritans who accept Jesus so whole-heartedly stands out in sharp contrast to
the superficial crowds in Jerusalem who accepted Jesus only because of signs in
Chapter 2. They also stand in contrast to the bewildered Jewish leader
Nicodemus in Chapter 3. The response among non-Jews also requires patience on
the part of Jesus, but eventually leads to a positive outcome. We learn much
about witnessing here and our relationship with those who do not follow Jesus. Jesus
will disclose his mission as savior of the world. We might also note that the
early church had a special interest in the Samaritans. The story is a drama of
a person rising from the things of this world to belief in Jesus. As is typical
of John, Jesus speaks on a spiritual level, while the woman struggles to think
beyond this earthly world. Jesus is patient with her. Jesus offers “eternal
life” in such a way that human life without it is life only with reservations.
We learn of the important role of the Jewish people. To reject the Jewish
people is to reject God. If the church cooperates with the hostility we find in
the world against the Jewish people, it only proves it has become blind and
deaf to the Word. God is spirit, one of the few times the Bible attempts to
define God. Thus, God is the origin and sustainer of life. This passage reminds
us that handing over to others what we believe in preaching and teaching
reaches its goal when the other person has their personal relation to Christ
that we see as the work of the Spirit and the personal act of faith in Jesus.]
Introduction and application
The
woman comes to a well and Jesus meets her. I would like to use the presence of
the well in this story as a metaphor of human life.
We
come to various wells in life, from which we hope we will draw satisfaction.
You know the feeling. You are particularly thirsty. You take a drink of water
or maybe your favorite soda. Then, that
sound comes from your mouth: "Ahh!”
The
Coca-Cola Bottling Company has come up with a new advertising campaign that it
designs to offer brand recognition across a number of the products they
produce. Here is how one website describes it:
"Coca-Cola has launched
an innovative long-term effort intended to capture the attention of teen
audiences and boost engagement via not just one website, but 61 of them. The
Ahh Effect campaign focuses on Coke and the response drinkers should have when
taking a sip: an audible 'ahh.' In fact, that 'ahh' is a sound effect on the
sites used for this campaign, which feature videos, games and creative images.
For example, visitors to one of the sites can use their cursors to move Coke
bubbles around and hear the 'ahhh' sound, or throw ice cubes in a glass of
Coke. The campaign has the design of delivering the best experience via mobile.
Coke envisions this campaign as a multi-year effort.
I
would like to use that physical experience as a metaphor for finding that which
brings spiritual satisfaction.
This
woman had gone to the well of pleasure. She
went to the well of sex, having one sexual partner after another. I do not know
what her hopes and dreams were. She came to a well for water at a time when
other women would not be present. Does this mean she wanted to avoid meeting
others? Did she feel some guilt? We do not know. Like many people, however, she
probably had her hopes and dreams, she sought a way to have those hopes and
dreams fulfilled, yet come up empty.
Pleasure
is not the only empty well in her life.
Another
empty well is religion. This woman at
the well knew her theology. She knew where Jews worshipped, and she knew where
Samaritans worshipped. She thought she could take refuge in her religion. Yet,
Jesus directed her, not to religion, but to the worship of God in spirit and
truth.
Another
empty well is social status. This
woman refers to the difference between her as a woman and Samaritan and Jesus
as a man and a Jew. Jesus does not allow her to get away with the difference.
He simply refers her to the living water that God offers to her.
Another
empty well is surrounding ourselves with all the stuff we can. Yet, the gospel tells us that a rich young man
approached Jesus one day, and Jesus told him to give away all he had and follow
him. The man left Jesus, sorrowful because he had many possessions. When Jesus
meets us, we have a decision to make.
The
strange thing is that people keep coming back to those empty wells. Yet, for
most of us, the empty well needs to be our empty well. We need to experience
its emptiness personally before we become open to true satisfaction. There is
so much fear and rejection in life; we do not know where to turn.
There
is no way the woman at the well could visualize how refreshing this water is.
Jesus is not suggesting a better way to do her chores. He is not proposing to
create a better work environment for her.
He
is offering to ease the burden of her troubled soul and release her from the
pain of guilt. This woman is living with a past that makes her an outcast in
her own village -- she has been married multiple times. Even worse, for that
day, age and culture -- she is now living with a man who is not her husband (v.
17).
She
carries with her the pain of guilt, shame and rejection -- and that is a far
heavier burden than the water that she hauls every day. Jesus does not want to
help her with the burden of her hands; he wants to ease the burden of her
heart. He wants to remove the pain of isolation and disgrace.
Today,
I would like us to reflect upon the empty wells of life, those places people
have gone to with hopes and dreams, yet find only emptiness. I would also like us to reflect upon our
attitude toward others who try to have noble dreams fulfilled, yet do not do it
in ways we approve. There may be members
of our own families who have rejected our faith or moral standards. What do we do?
Second,
the woman at the well experienced the empty wells of life, the pain of rejection and fear.
She
recognized Jesus to be a Jew. Jews
rejected Samaritans. She tried to hide
her past and present from Jesus. After
all, she had experienced rejection from many people. Her loose moral standards simply did not fit
in with her culture. She feared
rejection from Jesus. She even wondered
about a theological issue, whether the right place to worship was on the
mountain in Samaria or in the temple in Jerusalem. Fear and rejection is behind almost
everything the woman at the well says to Jesus.
Yet she continued to live that way.
She kept going back to the empty wells of her life, hoping to find
refreshment, and instead finding rejection.
Rejection
is a part of life.
Third, what ought our attitude to
be toward those who have experimented with empty wells?
Jesus
has a missionary spirit. Does the word “missionary” scare you? One missionary to a foreign land was here in
the states. Someone approached him and
said, "Isn't it true that you are a missionary?" He responded, "Isn't it true that you
are?" You see, in this situation,
Jesus had something life giving to share, and he shared it. I will suggest today that we need to be
missionaries in our own way.
There
is that familiar missionary text toward the end: but I tell you, look around
you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. Jesus accepts her, and helps her to feel
comfortable talking with him. He offers
living water. The result of the
conversation is that she begins to believe that in Jesus she just might find
her hopes and dreams fulfilled.
In
the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well, I see a model for
being a missionary in our world. If the
church is holier than thou, then people with real needs and hurts will not
respond. They will keep us at a
distance. What concerns me is that so often people will say about the church,
"Church has nothing to do with my life." Alternatively, "It's boring." On the other hand, some who are inactive will
say, "I wasn't getting anything out of going to church, so I
quit." I know we can defend
ourselves. Nevertheless, do we not also
need to listen?
For
example, with this woman at the well, if we knew her history, we might tell her
to stop living like that. We might tell her, “Just say no.” Some people will
respond to that admonition. However, even if we have lived from one empty well
to another, we have still invested ourselves in that way of life. It may not be
quite so easy to turn our lives around and adopt another way of life. What I
notice is that Jesus offered a “Yes” to the woman at the well. He offered her
living water. All other places she might
go to receive nourishment in life will dry up.
She needed Jesus.
Ahh!
Living water!
Conclusion
For
what do you thirst?
Do you thirst for someone who knows you
as completely as Jesus does and yet love you anyway?
Do you thirst for forgiveness and
new life that God alone can offer?
A fresh start?
Understanding?
Rest?
Renewal?
Peace?
To acknowledge the mistakes that we
have made and know that there is still hope for us?
To cast away the burden of guilt and
the weight of regret?
Read
the label: All of that and more are offered to us in the "living
water" Jesus offers us.
Take
a sip of this water, and wow! It is refreshing. It has a supply that is unending!
Going Deeper
[Scene one is 4:4-26 is a dialogue
between Jesus and the woman concerning living water and true worship of the
Father. The point here is that everyone must recognize who it is that speaks
and ask for living water from him.] 5
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground
that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there,
and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about
noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, [This was an
unlikely time for a woman to be at the well, normal time being at sunrise or
sunset, for obvious reasons.] and Jesus
said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the
city to buy food.) 9 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.) 10 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.” 11 The
woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you
get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob,
who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” [The
question shows she remains out of touch with what Jesus is offering. As is
typical of the dialogues in John, she does not understand. However, Jesus is
also patient in order to teach her and bring her along. His reference to living
water might refer to the revelation or wisdom Jesus provides to all. It might
refer to the Spirit that Jesus has promised to all. Both could find
justification within the Gospel of John. It suggests the close relation between
gift and giver. Rabbis in the days of Jesus referred to the Torah as living
water. In either case, the implication is that the disciple of Jesus must be
willing to go beyond the Law. From the standpoint of John, Jesus is in need of
nothing, while the woman is in great need. She will meet the one who can
satisfy the deepest needs of humanity.] 13
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty
again, 14 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.” [Pannenberg will stress that the new
eschatological life is life in the full sense in comparison with which earthly
life can be called life only with reservations.[1]] 15
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.”16 Jesus said to
her, showing his patience “Go, call
your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no
husband.” Jesus patiently said to
her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have
had five husbands, [We might note that Jewish teaching was that a woman
could only marry twice, or three times at most. The Samaritans also considered
such frequent re-marriage as dishonorable and illegitimate.] and the one you have now is not your
husband. What you have said is true!” 19 The woman said to him,
“Sir, I see that you are a prophet. [The Synopotic Gospels also note that
people thought of Jesus as a prophet. Yet, she remains quite concerned with the
cultural chasm separating Samaritans and Jews.]
20 Our ancestors
worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must
worship is in Jerusalem.” [wanting some theological discussion] 21 Jesus [patiently] said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is
coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem. [As Karl Barth sees it, the opposite of Jerusalem and Gerizim is
not the universe at large, but the worship of God mediated through Jesus as the
One who makes everything known to us. God does not cease to dwell in the world
in definite and distinct ways, that is, even as omnipresent, and without
detriment to the divine omnipresence, God does not cease to be in special
places.[2]]
22 You worship what you do not
know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. [This
statement reminds us of the role of Israel in the history of salvation. In
1:17, we read that the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ, a hint of the view of John concerning the relation between
Judaism and Christianity. Karl Barth uses this passage to point out that if the
church tries to cooperate in hostility to Jewish blood, it simply proves that
it has become, blind, deaf, and stupid. In rejecting the Jew, one rejects God.
The Bible as the witness of divine revelation in in Jesus Christ is a Jewish
book. One cannot read, understand and expound it unless one is prepared to become
Jews with the Jews. [3] Regarding salvation
itself, Pannenberg says that since Jesus mediates future salvation in the
present, we may extend the term soteria to
his work, as here, that soteria originated
in the proclamation of Jesus himself. The statement is surprisingly close to
modern exegetical insights on the theme of the proleptic presence of the
salvation of the divine rule in the message and work of Jesus.[4]]
23But 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. 24 God is
spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” [John
is inviting people who believe in God to an unheard of intimacy with the
Father. If humanity is to adore God in Spirit and truth, the Spirit of God must
fill and penetrate it. This immediate, eschatological gift of the Spirit has
come about through Jesus Christ. God is spirit, which is a reminder that God is
different from all that is earthly and human. In I John, we learn that God is
love. Theologians also derive divine immutability from Exodus 3:14. The point
is that these passages are the closest the Bible gets to a definition of God.
In this passage, God is spirit, but in the theological tradition, God as
supreme reason or mind is also strong, even if it does not have the biblical
support.[5]
However, Origen interpreted this idea in terms of the Platonic and Aristotelian
view of deity as nous or mind,
because his only alternative was to construe the saying in terms of the Stoic
doctrine of pneuma. Yet, the Stoic
teaching of pneuma involved a refined
sense of corporeal reality. Pannenberg points out that in our time the dilemma
is no longer present. The field theories of modern physics, related to the Stoic
view of pneuma no longer view field
phenomena as bodily entities, but see them as independent of matter and defined
only by their relations to space-time. He stresses that the possibility that
field theory can help the theologian to interpret the notion of God as Spirit
depends on relating space-time to the eternity of God. He also points out that
the definition of God as Spirit is the essence of God as well as the third
person of the Trinity.[6]
As Spirit constitutes the divine essence, the Spirit is opposed to the world,
but is also at work in creation as the origin of life, and the one who
sanctifies creatures by giving them a fellowship with the eternal God that
transcends their transitory life.[7]]
25 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.” [When he comes, he will proclaim all things to
them as Samaritans. The Samaritans looked for a Moses-like prophet and teacher
of the Torah.] 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to
you.” [To some extent, we have another example of what scholars call the
Johannine misunderstanding, as she is looking for a Messiah of the future,
while Jesus points to the present. Yet, her religious yearnings are sincere.
Her sincerity opens the door for Jesus revealing himself to her as Messiah.]
[Scene two is 4:27-38.] 27 Just then his disciples came.
They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, [The fact that
Jesus was speaking with a woman astonished them, rather than the fact that she
was a Samaritan. No one asked what he wanted or why he was speaking with her.
As this story unfolds, we see the missionary interests of the early church
making itself felt strongly.] but no one
said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28 Then
the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,
29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He
cannot be the Messiah, can he?” [The Greek phrasing of this suggests she
doubts this.] 30 They left the
city and were on their way to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were
urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have
food to eat that you do not know about.” [Jesus answers cryptically speaking spiritually about physical
things.] 33 So the disciples
said to one another, [confused as was Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman] “Surely no one has brought him something to
eat?” [Jesus will again need to be patient and bring the disciples along to
the spiritual truths he sees around them.] 34
Jesus said to them, [in a description of his ministry] “My food is to do the will of him who sent
me and to complete his work. [We find a similar description in 5:30 and
6:38. The style and wording mark it as a word of revelation. The whole life of
Jesus centers on and grows out of an effort to do the will of God who sent him.
Jesus lived his life that way, and our duty is to recognize this in him.
Pannenberg stresses that the Old Testament notion of the divine command and the
divine good pleasure provide the context for the divine will in the New
Testament.[8]]
35 Do you not say, [in a
proverbial saying] ‘Four months more, [This
would make the time of year May 15-June 15, making the feast mentioned in 5:1
the Passover.] then comes the harvest’?
But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields [of people] are ripe for harvesting [for eternal
life]. 36 The reaper is
already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower
and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true,
‘One sows and another reaps.’ [As Micah 6:15 suggests, this was a probably
a negative reference, where one sowed calamity and therefore could not reap the
benefits of his or her work. Jesus turns it into a positive image of the mission
field. Jesus sent them to reap that for which they did not labor. Others (John
the Baptist and Jesus possibly) have labored, and they have entered into their
labor. Readers of this text should have the reminder that they cannot know just
how much time and labor have gone into sowing faith among others before those
we recognize as missionaries actually arrive on the scene. Even when we think
we are sowing, we may be reaping.] 38
I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored,
and you have entered into their labor.” [He then invites them to reflect on
their experience with farming in a way that will strongly suggest the
missionary interests of the early church. The notions of sending and laboring
carry this theme through. In addition, the text reveals an interest with the
community of their mission to Samaria.]
Scene three is 4:39-42, where John
contrasts the Jewish and Samaritan responses to Jesus. 39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of
the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So
when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he
stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his
word. 42 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.” [They no longer believe because of
what she said, but for what they have heard for themselves. The point is that
one comes to full faith only by the personal encounter with Jesus. They know
this Jesus is truly the Savior of the world, not just the people of God, and
the only time “savior” applies to Jesus in his earthly ministry. Luke 2:11 uses
the title as well. The content of faith matters, seeing in Jesus his
eschatological and soteriological significance. Faith in Christ reaches its
climax in confessing Jesus as savior of all. Jesus is the savior in the
Messianic sense, since he answers the hopes of Samaritans as well as Jews. His
saving work was the purpose the Father had in sending him into the world.[9]
His self-revelation has taught the Samaritans that the true savior sent by God
does not belong to one people alone, does not set up a special form of worship
in Samaria or Judea, but bestows salvation on the whole world. As Barth notes,
even in the witness of prophets and apostles, Christ is the one witnessing and
the one to whom they respond. Believers always need to “hear” more than just
the human witness.[10]
Pannenberg refers to this passage in reminding us that Christian handing down
of tradition by proclamation and teaching has reached its goal only when by it
recipients achieve their own independent relation to the matter, and hence a
relation of immediacy that can cause them to forget the communication process.
This immediacy that Christians experience as the work of the Spirit
characterizes faith in Jesus, yet not just in the sense of knowledge of Jesus,
but as the immediacy of a personal relationship. Believers have immediacy to
Jesus because all have individual fellowship with Jesus in faith.[11]]
[1]
Systematic Theology Volume 2, 347.
[2]
(Church Dogmatics, II.1 (31), 481)
[3]
(Church Dogmatics, I.2 [19], 511)
[4]
Systematic Theology Volume 2, 402.
[5]
Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume
1, 371.
[6]
Systematic Theology Volume 1, 382-3.
[7]
Systematic Theology Volume 1, 400.
[8]
Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume
1, 381.
[9]
Pannenberg, /Systematic Theology Volume
2, 441.
[10]
(Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71], 502)
[11]
Systematic Theology Volume 3, 124.
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