The Day Visitor

March 18, 1990

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Scripture: John 4:1-42

It’s a long passage, I know, much longer Scripture reading than usual. The incident in its entirety takes up almost the whole chapter. John must have considered it important part of his story, or else he wouldn’t have given it such prominence, wouldn’t have spent so much time on it. The conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well is the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and anybody in the entire New Testament.

And what a story unfolds as the conversation progresses, and the plot moves along. It’s a story of unusual drama and theological insight. It’s a story containing some surprising twists, and a finely drawn, really, exquisitely drawn character sketch.

That woman---you don’t have any trouble picturing her, do you? When they make the movie, Glenn Close will play the lead.... surely.... Lauren Bacall could have handled it a generation ago.... maybe still could.

Can’t you see her, this woman, standing out there by the well...outwardly brash, but inwardly bleeding.... her former beauty frayed somewhat now by the erosion of the years... faded and worldly wise, cynical and sad...... Doesn’t the image emerge? Before the drama draws to a close we feel we know this woman.... we still may not completely like her, but we feel we know her. She’s not a caricature, not a cardboard figure. She’s flesh and blood, she’s human, she’s real.... AND SHE’S HAD SOMETHING HAPPEN TO HER, which, if not totally transforming, at least has pushed her in a new and unsuspected direction.

It makes you want to head straight for the jugular, if you’re a preacher, straight for the moral... but let’s see if we can restrain ourselves. There may be a moral or two lurking around.... Knowing John as we do we’re always suspicious, but let’s not worry about that yet. The story, simply as story, has enough in it to hold our interest for a while. Will you look at it with me?

It begins with a hike, a long morning walk. Jesus and the 12 are itinerating, which shows clearly that they’re Methodists. They are in transit, from Judea, in the south, up north, to Galilee....home. John implies they are moving because of controversy over John the Baptist, but to get from Judea to Galilee, direct route, you have to pass through Samaria.

You could, of course, go all the way around to the east....cross the River Jordan, and cross it back again.... but that would take hours of extra traveling,  and miles of extra distance. THEY TOOK THE BEELINE, even though it meant crossing through alien country. Jews and Samaritans.....an old, ugly story in the Middle East---partly kin, semi-related, sharing half a heritage... just close enough together to despise each other.... How many times in history has something similar happened between groups? Jesus wasn’t big on that kind of distinction.

STRAIGHT THROUGH. That day, after a brisk morning walk, they reach the well...THE well, the well known well. It’s a familiar landmark, even today. Some of you have been there, I imagine. It’s out in the country, a couple of miles from Nablus. In Jesus’ day, Nablus was called Sychar, old Schechem.

Remember your Old Testament history? Schechem was where Joshua had his headquarters in the days of the Conquest. The well was there then. In fact, it was OLD then. Jacob dug it, they say, centuries before, and bequeathed it to Joseph, whose bones are supposedly buried nearby. The well was nearly 2000 years old when Jesus drank from it, and it’s still producing fresh, clear water.

When I was there, about 30 years ago...a mere child, you understand...I had a sip of  water drawn from Jacob’s well. (Here is the hand that held the dipper.) IT WAS FINE WATER. The dipper, I’m not so sure about, but the water itself was excellent. We all drank some, passing the questionable dipper among us, from one to another in the group, and as we drank, we remembered.

That day that John records, Jesus was waiting by the well... alone. The disciples had gone into Sychar for provision, leaving Him there by Himself, to rest. It was hot. The sun was beating down, as it can do with a vengeance in Palestine.

Suddenly, a woman appeared, almost out of nowhere. That was strange. John thought it

important enough to note the specific time. It was the 6th hour, he tells us. That’s Bible talk for high noon. By Jewish calculation, the day began at dawn, sunup. The 6th hour was mid-day, with the sun directly overhead. What was a woman doing coming out of the village, maybe 2 miles away, at that time of day, to draw water in the scorching heat, when the sun was at its absolute zenith?

Nobody came for water then. Water drawing was women’s work, of course....as most  menial labor was. That’s not a statement of gloating, I promise. It doesn’t make me proud to say it; it’s just a statement of fact for that day...and maybe some other days. It was women who went to the well...made that long, hard trek, every day, to bring back the water for household needs, and you went in the evening, at sundown, in the “gloaming”, as the Scottish people say.... You went when it was cooler, and you knew others would be there so you could at least visit together for a little while and be neighborly while you completed your chore.

In John’s Gospel, little details so often carry important meaning. He seems to be saying this woman went to the well precisely when she knew almost certainly no one else would be there.... when she knew she would most likely not bump into anybody.... when she felt pretty sure no one would be there to hassle her.

SHE WAS AN OUTCAST, a woman unacceptable... or at least unaccepted by the reputable folk of the village, AND JESUS, OF COURSE, PICKED UP ON IT... right away. He knew who she was, and what she was. He knew immediately that here was a woman hurting, a woman in pain, a woman living a life, or trying to live a life in 2 separate incompatible compartments. HERE WAS A WOMAN BEING TORN APART.

The external, the veneer, was easy enough to see, and obvious.... the shameless hussy, the brazen, sharp-tongued flouter of public morals, the overdecorated, overbearing, oversexed trollop. That was her assignment, that was her expected role, and she played it.

But beneath the surface, in the hidden compartment... a person lonely as hell. Don’t hear it, please as obscenity; hear it as a simple description.

Not a friend in the world---to the women of the village, she was a threat; to the men she was a THING. She probably hadn’t been treated with respect since she was 12.

That’s not to condone her actions. I’m not trying to be a bleeding heart. I’ve gotten a little tired of those ultra-far out ecclesiastical bashers, most of whom are on General Boards and not serving local churches, who seem to believe that all church members are hypocrites, but all thieves generous, all drunks loveable, and all prostitutes deeply spiritual. There may be some who are, in every one of those categories, but realism suggests that you’d do well not to put every dime you have on a blanket endorsement.

I don’t condone her actions for a minute. She’s no latent saint, just ready to pop out of a cocoon of coarseness. She’s where she is partly through her own choice, and in life, unfortunately, everyone has to accept the consequences of choice. It’s just the way life is.

BUT I DO SEE HER AS PARTLY TRAPPED. She’s both AUTHOR and VICTIM of her circumstances, which is also the way life often is. Caught in the snare of a sinful lifestyle, she’s found it paying lower and lower dividends, offering less and less satisfaction, becoming ever increasingly hollow... and she sees now a way to get off the treadmill, YOU BETTER BELIEVE SHE’S LONELY AS HELL.

So, what do you do when you’re trapped like that, caught between desperation and disillusionment? If you’re this woman, you run that much harder on the treadmill.

The more you hurt, the wilder you act.... people do that all the time. The greater the pain, the greater the outrageousness.... You learn those things.... you grow a shell; you cope.... She’d learn to manage.... When the crow’s feet get too noticeable, you add mascara; when the weight edges up, you wear black; when the music slows down, you dance faster.

And you bite before people bite you; you strike first, keep them off balance. YOU LEARN THOSE THINGS. She was a pro by now. STILL...it was easier to go to the well when you didn’t have to play games. She was the disappointed one to seem Him sitting there.... Put the old mask back on. Here we go again.

And it was, without question, a strange combination, an unlikely juxtaposition. We talked last week about the contrast between Jesus and Nicodemus....look at THIS one: a man......a woman; a Jew...a Samaritan; a transient.....a native; a person at peace....a person in turmoil; a person with a purpose.....a person just barely getting by; a person anxious to reveal something.... a person trying to hide something; an integrated personality.....a fragmented one; a person at home in the world, even away from home....a person at odds with the world, even AT home. A point of contact between these 2? Where is there any?

But look---Jesus does a startling thing... really, an unusual, extraordinarily gracious thing. HE ASKS HER FOR A FAVOR.... He puts Himself in HER debt. “Would you, please be kind enough to give me a drink of water?”

WOW! Not only polite, but smart. Any other approach would probably have spelled doom. Nothing patronizing about it. No suggestion of moral supremacy. Not an ounce of putdown in sight... a simple request for help from one human being to another. NOBODY HAD DEALT WITH HER THAT KINDLY, OR AS AN EQUAL FOR AS LONG AS SHE COULD REMEMBER.

And suddenly there is a crack in the mask, a tiny chink in the shell...a small beginning, and a long way to go. But it’s a start. Back and forth they talk.... Jesus speaks and she misunderstands; He talks about spiritual matters, and she’s still on the level of the material.... “I can give you living water.”

“Why, you don’t even have a bucket.” Slowly and graciously, Jesus explains, then begins, with great tenderness to press her. Her defenses bristle. She’s been burned too many times before. Never once does He throw into her face the reality of her moral lapses. He had every right to, every right in the world, but HE HOLDS BACK. If He hadn’t, He would have lost her. And besides, as Frederick Faber says in the old hymn, “the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.”

He knows...and soon, she knows He knows, but for Him, it’s a matter of simple consideration, and for her, it’s too painful, too personal to be dealt with yet, out in the open.

Still, the crack in the mask is widening---He moves closer, she dodges; He jabs, she weaves. THIS IS BRILLIANT WRITING ON THAT PART OF JOHN, BY THE WAY....exquisite craftsmanship. Not even Paul, or Luke can touch John when it comes to building dramatic intensity. Without ever demeaning her, with impeccable tact and courtesy, He brings her to the very brink of spiritual encounter, AND THEN, JUST AS HE ALMOST HAS HER, WHAT DOES SHE DO? SHE CHANGES THE SUBJECT. I bet Jesus could have shot her at that point. I don’t mean that literally. Don’t tell the Bishop I said that.

While Jesus talks about God, she talks about religion.... How many times that topic has been used as a smokescreen. “Yes, sir, but...uh, do you worship here, or do you worship there?

Should you use a green stole, or a purple stole? How many candles? Our ancestors did this, and yours did that”... rattle, rattle, anything to keep from dealing with the critical issue.... BUT HER DEFENSES ARE CRUMBLING.

Jesus doesn’t debate her. He simply reminds her quietly that God isn’t defined geographically. He’s defined by His own special categories... spirit and truth. He’s universal and inclusive. In other words, God transcends gender, and race, and station, and age, and tradition, and place......AND EVEN MORAL QUALIFICATIONS.

His love reaches out to include everybody... even, for instance, a certain reprobate, stubborn Samaritan woman.

By this time you could drive a truck through the cracking mask. Her mind was reeling. If this strange itinerant from Jerusalem is greater than our father Jacob, is a prophet, and more than a prophet....what’s left? Only one possible category remains.... MESSIAH.

In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus exercises reticence about making that identification. When Simon Peter makes it at Caesarea Philippi, according to Matthew, Jesus swears him at once to secrecy. “Shhhhh, don’t tell anybody. They’re bound to misunderstand.”

But here, in John’s Gospel, the woman’s hesitant, tentative guess, hardly more than a surmise, is met immediately with a full confirmation. You’ve got it. Just to hear the words sends shivers up your spine.... “I who speak to you am He.”

2 minutes more.... just 2 minutes more and He would have had her completely. The mask was off now, for the first time in the presence of another person in... who knows how long. She was almost in His pocket, ready to be baptized, confirmed, discipled, and commissioned, but at that moment up trooped the disciples, and the spell was broken.

Too much, too soon. Talk about an inopportune interruption... clumsy men, clomping in at the wrong time. They didn’t understand, of course, you can’t really blame them, but it was all just too much. The woman pulled back and headed for the village.... BUT LEFT BEHIND HER WATER JAR. Somebody remembered that little detail, and John stuck it in, a clear indication that the woman planned to come back. She hadn’t been quite landed yet, but SHE WAS HOOKED.

If she hadn’t yet completely arrived, at least she had started a transforming turnaround.

Something big was happening to her; she had something to tell. And she ran back to the village. Someone has said it was probably the first time she had run in 10 years. She was a little girl again.

Forgotten now were her feelings of animosity toward the townspeople. Shoved aside were her fears and inadequacy. Erased was her shame, and her defiance....She came into town like Paul Revere.

“Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.” Does that sound like a person wearing a mask? “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did”......and He told me with kindness in His eyes...... “Could this be the Messiah?” The woman is not heard from again. She appears no more on the pages of the New Testament. That’s disappointing, in a way, and maybe it’s surprising.

Nicodemus does appear again after his encounter with Jesus that night. He appears twice more, in fact--- ONCE, in the 7th Chapter of John, when he raises a procedural question in the Sanhedrin, in a way sufficiently guarded to protect his reputation. AND FINALLY, he appears again at the end of the story, when he makes what amounts to a confession of faith, by participating openly in the burial of Jesus. He was, at last, born ANOTHEN....from above.

But we never see this Samaritan woman again after the 4th chapter. Did she come back to the well, do you think, to retrieve her water jar, and drink fully from the LIVING WATER? We don’t know.

We do know that many of the townspeople did. On the basis of her testimony, they came pouring out to hear for themselves, pressing Jesus to stay longer, which He did, John says, 2 extra days. And he adds, “many became believers because of what they heard from his own lips.”

I hope she was one of the many, and I think she was.

The chapter ends with the Samaritan people saying, “We know that this is in truth the Savior of the world. It’s a foreshadowing of the pattern we see in Acts- From Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, to the world.... And so, one by one, from person to person, the evangel spreads.

Now, that’s the story. Simply as story, it’s hard to beat. Will you allow me just a little moral? Will you indulge me that much? How about Two...make it THREE, if I don’t call them morals, but comments.

Comment Number ONE has to do with the observation that the Samaritan woman story really is the other side, the flip side, if you will, of the Nicodemus story. I’m sure John knew exactly what he was doing when he placed them side by side. They tell opposite sides of one great gospel truth.

The point of the Nicodemus story is that even the best people need Christ. The point of the story of the Samaritan woman is that even the worst people can be lifted by Him.

The story of Nicodemus says that there is nothing you can do to earn God’s love. The story of the Samaritan woman says there is nothing you can do to escape it. The story of Nicodemus warns us of the peril of self-sufficiency. The story of the Samaritan woman assures us of the power of Christ’s sufficiency. The story of Nicodemus says everybody needs redemption. The story of the Samaritan woman says nobody is irredeemable.

That’s a tune worth dancing to, isn’t it, a story worth running to tell... no one has fallen so low, no one has sunk so deep, no one has strayed so far away, but what Christ can bring that person back, set that person upright, and help that person begin again. If He can do it for that woman, He can do it for anybody.

The story of the woman at the well is the story of God’s incredible, inclusive compassion. GOOD NEWS. Comment Number TWO has to do with God’s remarkable ability to take even a limited and incomplete witness and use it to profound effect.

We don’t know for sure what finally became of this woman who is such an unlikely instrument of the grace of God. She hadn’t yet finished her own spiritual pilgrimage when we lose sight of her. We don’t know for sure if she got there, but we do see clearly documented others coming to Christ because of what she did and spoke.

Look at her testimony. When she raced back to the village, all she said, all she really could honestly say at that point was, “Come see a man who told me all I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

That’s all. Now, really! “Come see a man who told me all I ever did” is not exactly a recitation of the Articles of Religion. I mean, Good Grief!

And witness as question? Any manual of evangelism that recommended that approach

would be hooted out of business. “Could this be.....” It’s almost as if she was saying,

“Surely this can’t be, can it?” What kind of witness is this?

And yet, even so....it is enough for God to use mightily. It is invitational.....Come and see for yourself. It is not judgmental. It is not confrontational. It is within the range permitted by her own experience. It is honest. It is for everyone who will hear.

How refreshing! Couldn’t we use her on our Work Area on Evangelism? Without treats or arm twisting, without pre-packaged answers to questions nobody is asking, and without dogmatic authoritativeness, she shares what has become important to her, and lets the witness do its work.

Do you ever have the yen to be a more effective evangelist? Do you ever wish you could be? TAKE IT FROM AN AMATEUR, who established a pretty good record.... She learned it from the Master.

Don’t let the lack of a full, spiritual maturation make you think you can’t be effective. Witness to what you do know. Throw it out there, and trust God to take it and bless it.

No faith is so new, so partial, or so unclear that witnessing to Christ out of it is inappropriate. Good News.

3) Now, finally, Comment Number THREE...both good news and a challenge. THE STORY OF THE WOMAN AT THE WELL SHOWS US THAT THE WORK OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST PROCEEDS LARGELY THROUGH OUTCASTS. Maybe that gives us our agenda.