John 4:5-42

John 4:5-42 (NRSV)

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?” (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?” 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.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ 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. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 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.” 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.”

            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. 

This 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 the story even 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.

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 teaching her and bringing 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 needs 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.” 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 Synoptic 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. 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 (σωτηρία) 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. 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 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, 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. 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. 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. 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 opposes 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.” 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 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 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 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 (ἐπίστευσαν) in him because of the woman’s testimony (λόγον … μαρτυρούσης), “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 (ἐπίστευσαν) because of his word (λόγον). ⁴² They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said (λαλιὰν) 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 entire world. 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] 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]

Many of us search for a meaningful and happy life, but so often in all the wrong places. We invest in ways of life that are destructive to others, and to self. Pleasure is one favorite investment of a human life. Yet, the excitement that we have over a moment of pleasure never lasts. We search for another pleasurable experience that, we hope, will give us that for which we long. Surrounding ourselves with stuff is another favorite investment of our lives. Yet, the possession of one more thing soon leads to the desire for yet another thing. We may seek happiness in the social status we achieve. We may seek happiness in the work we do. In fact, we may even seek happiness in practicing the external form of religious life. Our struggle is that nothing finite will satisfy the longing of our lives. They are nothing other than empty wells to which we continually return. We want them to supply us with refreshment and satisfaction that they cannot provide. 

Thankfully, Jesus shows us that God does not look upon this quite human struggle with disdain or hatred. Rather, God looks upon our struggle with compassion. In fact, God has placed this insatiable hunger in us so that we would experience dissatisfaction with the finite things and achievements of this world. When we turn our lives toward genuine worship of God, we begin a process of adopting a way of life that no longer focuses upon us. We direct our lives toward that which is beyond us. Ultimately, we find our satisfaction in God, who is already the one who is the source, sustainer, and fulfillment of our lives. This well never runs dry. This well will always nourish and refresh us.

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 had a new advertising campaign that it designed 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.  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 and 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.

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?

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 are 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.  

What ought our attitude to be toward those who have experimented with empty wells? Jesus has a missionaryspirit.  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 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.  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!

For what do we thirst? Someone who knows us as completely as Jesus does and yet loves us anyway? 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: Jesus offers us all of that and more in the "living water."  Take a sip of this water, and wow! It is refreshing. It has a supply that is unending!

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[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 347.

[2] Barth (Church Dogmatics, II.1 (31), 481)

[3] Barth (Church Dogmatics, I.2 [19], 511)

[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 402.

[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 371.

[6] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 1, 382-3.

[7] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 1, 400.

[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 381.

[9] Pannenberg, /Systematic Theology Volume 2, 441.

[10] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71], 502)

[11] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 124.