Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Jesus is breaking a number of cultural taboos to make this conversation happen. How do we know when a cultural custom should be broken?
2. Who are the "Samaritans" of our day? Who are you prone to view as a "threat, danger, or object"?
3. Why is it signficant that Jesus doesn't criticize this woman's thirst, but offers her a better alternative? What does that mean for our own temptations?
4. "The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God." What does that mean?
5. "Prostitutes will go into the kingdom of God before you [priests]" (Matt 21:31). Why?
Turn with me to John chapter four. This chapter is well known for a number of reasons. We get the striking image of eternal life offered as “living water,” and the picture of the human quest for spiritual satisfaction described with the image of thirst. We are told that God is spirit, and seeks those who worship Him in spirit and truth. But what often sticks out the most in this chapter is the individual who Jesus speaks with: the woman at the well. A woman who is marked by sexual sin.
But Jesus came to teach us many things about sexual sin. First, sexual sin is much more common than we think. Jesus taught that adultery begins not when we get into bed with someone else or click on that video, it begins in the lusts and desires of our heart, in the thoughts of our mind. And if that’s true then who in this room isn’t a sexual sinner?
Second, sexual sin is much more destructive than we can imagine. Jesus said it was better to rip your eye out of your head than it was to look at another lustfully because that lust may take us to hell (Matt 5:29). If you think that the greatest consequence of lust is ruining your marriage or your reputation or losing the respect of your children, you haven’t taken the sin seriously enough. Lust will ruin your life, and not just this life, but your eternal life.
Third, in a conversation with a group of priests, Jesus said: “The prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you,” (Matt 21:31). Why? Sexual sin is far more common than we think, far more destructive than we think, and far more redeemable than we think. In fact, it would seem that sexual sin, if brought to Jesus and repented of, leaves a sinner in a better position than the religious, self-righteous sinner.
And that’s the point of the story today:
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Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings 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 nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 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 now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 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 is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God 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 (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” 27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
- John 4:1-30
For us to appreciate the story in its fullness, we need some background.
A Surprising Conversation
Three reasons why the fact that this conversation between Jesus and this unnamed Samaritan woman even happens should surprise us.
First, at the risk of stating the obvious, she is a woman. You get the surprise from the perspective of the disciples when they return from getting food: “They marveled that he was talking with a woman,” (John 4:27). In most Middle-Eastern countries to this day, men do not speak to women in public, certainly not when alone. “In this world men rarely speak to women in public, even if they are married to them. Single men never speak to or touch women at any time. Above all, a rabbi (as Jesus is known) would observe these ideals scrupulously,” (NIVAC). This explains the woman’s surprise when Jesus speaks to her. She is not merely a Samaritan, but a Samaritan woman.
Second, she is a Samaritan. When Jesus first asks the woman for a drink, she replies: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)” (John 4:9).
About 700 years before Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well, the Assyrians conquered the northern tribes of Israel. They exiled most Israelites, leaving a few behind, and brought in foreigners who intermarried with them (2 Kings 17:24–33). These new settlers brought pagan gods and practices—including child sacrifice—and blended them with fragments of Old Testament belief. Samaritans accepted only a revised version of the first five books of the Bible and rejected the Temple in Jerusalem, building their own on Mt. Gerizim.
To the Jews, Samaritans were impure half-breeds engaged in false worship. Jewish writings like the Mishnah even declared all Samaritan women perpetually unclean (Niddah 4:1). You get a sense of how negatively Samaritans were viewed when later Jesus is called “a Samaritan” as an insult, and then accused of being demonically possessed (John 8:48)
From the Samaritan side, Jews had corrupted worship and, to make matters worse, a Jewish leader had destroyed their temple in 128 BC. This long history of religious, cultural, and racial conflict makes Jesus’ simple request for water shockingly unexpected. “A first-century reader would barely expect Jesus and the woman to acknowledge each other’s presence, much less speak,” (NIVAC).
Third, not only is she a Samaritan woman, but she is a notorious Samaritan woman. In the Old Testament, when young men are seeking wives, they repeatedly find them at wells: Isaac’s wife, Rebekah, is found at a well; Moses’ wife, Zipporah, is found at a well; Jacob—who is named twice in this chapter as the one who made this specific well—he finds his wife, Rachel, at a well (Gen 24; 29; Ez 2:15-16).
Fetching water from the well was a typical job women performed in that culture, but usually in large groups, and usually early in the morning—you need water for the day and it isn’t hot. But this woman is alone and getting water at high noon. Why? It may have to do with what we learn about later: this woman has had five husbands and is currently sleeping with a man who is not her husband (John 4:17).
Today, if you had this woman’s romantic track-record, you would feel embarrassed. You would see people’s eyebrows go up when they found out. And we live on the other side of the sexual revolution and no-fault divorce. It is hard for us to imagine the kind of social stigma that would have surrounded this woman in an ancient near-eastern context. Just the idea of living with a man out of wedlock would have been profoundly shameful.
And you and I are the by-products of a thoroughly Christianized culture, so we intuitively want to side with the outcast, with the reject, with the underdog and we are so familiar with this story and know how it ends. So our moral intuitions lead us to view this woman in a sympathetic light.
But, if we had lived in that time, we wouldn’t view this woman as a sympathetic figure, or a victim—she would be a villain. And if we were Jews, we would probably say something like: “Well, of course she is an immoral woman; she’s a Samaritan.”
And, in the face of every cultural custom, in opposition to a history of prejudicial animosity that discounted Samaritans as sub-human from the get-go, and contrary to what would seem prudent and decent, Jesus sits down and treats her like a human being. Think of the cost, think of the risk Jesus is taking here? What will people say? If you found out that Billy Graham had met one-on-one with a porn star, what would you think?
This woman was used to being treated as a threat, a danger, or an object. A threat to all of the other women who feared what she might do to their husbands, their sons. A danger to the sexual integrity of men she might ensnare. And if a man did give her attention, it was usually for one thing. But here is another man, not dealing with her in the currency of lust, but with the dignity and respect a person deserves.
Friend, I wonder if you are ever tempted to treat a fellow sinner like they are threats, dangers, or objects? Like they are less than a fellow sinner, made in the image of God? Do you avoid talking to people because of prejudice or pre-judgment? Are you afraid of what other people may think of you if they saw you speaking to that person? We must use some prudence, a discernment of the moment and of our own weaknesses, but it is harder to lust after someone or fear them or resent them if you treat them like human beings, like persons. Discipleship to Christ means we become more and more like Him. Lust reduces people down to objects to be consumed or a danger to avoid. Prejudice treats a person like a threat. Jesus never treats a person like an object, a threat, or a danger.
A Surprising Offer
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.” (John 4:10).
There are two things this woman does not know. The gift of God and Who she is speaking with. Who is she speaking with? The Son of God. What is the gift? It is what Jesus has been offering repeatedly thus far: eternal life. Three times in the previous chapter we were told: if anyone believes in the Son, he will have eternal life. Later, Jesus will tell the woman: “The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life,” (John 4:14). This seemingly magical water that Jesus gives “wells up” to eternal life.
Eternal life does not mean merely the absence of death or decay, as if you continue to live in perpetuity in your current state. It does imply duration (life without end), but not only that. It also implies quality (life to the full). The phrase “eternal life” is literally: “the life of the ages.” In the Bible, time is divided into two ages: the old and the new age. The old is the the time of sin and death. It is the “present evil age” the Bible speaks of. The “new age” is the age of the New Creation, where sin, death, and Satan are eternally destroyed, the world is made new, and—wonder of wonders—God dwells with His people, we see Him, love Him, commune with Him. That is eternal life. And Jesus is offering a mind-blowing deal, a special offer: you can have early access to that age, in the here and now. We still live in the old age of sin. Yet, if we believe in Him, if we ask for the gift, we can be given a downpayment of that special communion with God. How? When we believe God gives us Himself. We are indwelt with the Holy Spirit.
That is what “living water” refers to: The Spirit. And we know that because later, Jesus will tell us:
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:38-39).
The phrase “living water” was an idiom used at the time to describe a brook or river—it meant “running water.” But it is given a double-meaning here: the water is living because it is a metaphor for the life of God, God Himself.
This imagery of “living water” is found in the Old Testament:
for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
- Jer 2:13 (cf. 17:13)
The problem is two-fold. God’s people have turned from the fresh, clear river of God to drink from. And have instead relied on cracked and leaking tanks in the ground to try to drink from. This is Jeremiah’s way of describing Israel’s idolatry, their turning away from God (Jer 2:11-13).
Jesus uses the same imagery in His discussion with the woman. “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life,” (John 4:13-14).
And when the woman, who so far has assumed that Jesus has been talking about literal water, afterwards asks Jesus: “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water,” (4:15), Jesus replies with: “Go, call your husband, and come here,” (John 4:16). Why does Jesus do that?
She says: Jesus, I don’t want thirst anymore, give me this water. She doesn’t realize what she is saying. Jesus isn’t talking about water, about hydration. He is here to diagnosis what is wrong with this woman’s soul, to reveal the “broken cistern” she has been trying desperately to drink from. She has been trying to slake her thirst through romance, through men, through sex, and no matter how many time she tries to draw up a drink, the satisfaction never lasts.
In the Greek myth, Tantalus is punished by the gods to spend forever standing waste deep in a pool of water, directly under an apple tree. Every time he bends down to drink, the water recedes from him; every time he reaches his hand up to grab fruit, the branch lifts away. Forever he is doomed to hunger and thirst for what is just out of reach.
That’s what sin does to us. It promises to satisfy, but leaves us diminished and thirsty.
But notice: Jesus doesn’t criticize the woman’s thirst. He criticizes her source. The problem is not this woman’s spiritual longing; her problem is that she is going to the wrong solution!
Here is how Satan loves to fill our imagination: God doesn’t want to give you water. You can drink water from this cistern, or you can die. You can be happy now, or you can be holy and miserable.
Jesus does not say: “If you are thirsty, shame on you. Join me in the desert where we learn to transcend our thirst.”
Neither does He say: “If you are thirsty, you can drink this water, or my water.”
He says: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37-38).
He offers something better, more permanent, more lasting, more satisfying, purer, lovelier, truer.
In Bruce Marshall’s 1945 novel, The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith, the Catholic priest, Father Smith, encounters a beautiful and seductive woman while walking home. She calls out to him and asks if she can ask him some questions. It is a novelistic recreation of the scene in the book of Proverbs, where the forbidden woman calls out to the men who pass by, trying to seduce them.
He invited her to walk along to his next appointment and ask away. Among many questions, built upon her judgment of the silliness of his faith, she asked about his own sexuality and how he manages to, as she put it, “live without us?”
Easily and confidently, Fr. Smith answers that, in his view, a life of promiscuity “is a poor and boring substitute for walking with God in His House as a friend . . .”
The seductress judges that Fr. Smith’s answer proves what she had always maintained about Christians, “that religion is only a substitute for sex.”
Fr. Smith counters roundly, “I still prefer to believe that sex is a substitute for religion and that the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.”
What you are looking for in the den of lust, in the dark hours of the night, alone, with a glowing screen before you, behind closed doors…it will never be found. You are thirsty for God. And He alone satisfies.
A Surprising Response
The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” 27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him. - John 4:25-30
Did you catch the phrase: “Come, see”? Those are the first words Jesus spoke when calling his first disciples (John 1:39). Those are the same words one of his disciples, Philip, uses to summon Nathanael to join him as a disciple of Christ. And here, this woman uses the language of Jesus, the language of a disciple to invite others to “come and see,” and because of this woman’s testimony, many more people come to believe in Him (John 4:39-42). John seems to be indicating that this woman has genuinely come to believe in Jesus; she “left her water jar” and has come to drink the “living water” of Christ.
Last week we compared and contrasted Nicodemus (who does not yet believe) with his mirror opposite, John the Baptist (who does). They both are Jewish men with public ministries, who admire Jesus, and who take their religious and moral life very seriously. Yet John genuinely believes, while Nicodemus does not (at least not yet). It is interesting to compare.
But what happens when we compare the Samaritan woman with Nicodemus?
There is no overlap between her and Nicodemus. He is a Jewish man. She is a Samaritan woman. He is a Pharisee with an impressive moral code. She is sexually promiscuous. He likely was an honored figure in society. She likely was an outcast. The only overlap these two figures have is: both of them need what Jesus has to offer. But only one of them believes.
Nicodemus is like the ivy-league graduate who has secured investors to support a brilliant start-up in Silicon Valley. And the Samaritan woman is from a trailer park and dropped out of high school because she got pregnant. Which one of them do you assume is going to succeed in life?
So why does this woman believe, but Nicodemus doesn’t?
When the woman earlier asks Jesus “Are you greater than Jacob?” the answer is: of course; Jesus is the Son of God. But think about Jacob at the well. He is there and meets his virgin bride. At the end of John 3, Jesus was called the ‘bridegroom’ who is calling out for his bride (John 3:29). And then, Jesus shows up at Jacob’s well. But this woman is no virgin bride. And yet, she sees and believes. Why? Because one of the ways in which Jesus is greater than Jacob is that He has come to do what Jacob could never do. He has come to redeem His bride.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish - eph 5:25-27
And this woman at the well knows she needs to be redeemed. Nicodemus doesn’t. In the eyes of God, the righteous Pharisee is as spiritually adulterous as the woman at the well. But the woman at the well has the benefit of being so aware of her sin that her pride has not blinded her to her need.
Friend, Jesus Christ has come to save sinners. And only sinners. Prostitutes go into the kingdom before priests because prostitutes know themselves to be sinners, priests do not. What self-righteous is blinding you?
Do you know the gift of God? The only people who do are the people who are aware of their sin, that only Jesus can cleanse them.
What sins do you think disqualify you from coming to Jesus?
What broken cistern are you turning towards?
Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
- Isa 55:1-3a
