John 4:16-30

01/25/09
John 4:16-30
Hudson UMC

The story of Jesus meeting with and speaking to the woman at the well has been beloved by the church for hundreds of years. So many people have been able to identify with this woman, not only by identifying with the depths of her sin and her stubbornness to receive Jesus, but also by identifying with the rapturous joys of forgiveness and the excitement of becoming a partaker of the eternal life of God. Last week, we first encountered this woman, a Samaritan, someone who has been rejected. We read about how she tended to change the subject when Jesus would offer her good news. We read about how she continually misunderstood the words of Christ but also about Christ’s willingness to stay on track, determined to bless her. Today, we see that, as Jesus continues in this conversation, He begins to be a bit more direct and uncomfortable.

The very last line of our text last week was the woman saying, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” The very first line of our text for this week is Jesus saying, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” How is that for a dramatic change of subject? When the woman was not able to understand the image of eternal life as living water, Jesus changes the subject so she can see that He is not talking about literal water that we all know from our general human experience. When Jesus asked the woman to go and get her husband, she probably would have thought, because she and Jesus both lived in patriarchal cultures, that He wanted to talk to the “head” of her family, the one who can call the shots. However, Jesus was remarkably anti-patriarchal. He already knew that the woman did not have a husband. He was asking her this so that He could reach her with a different approach. When a pure offer of eternal life does not entice her to receive the gift of God, Jesus moves to a tactic that is somewhat more tense.

The Samaritan woman, still not entirely sure what Jesus is getting at, responds by saying, “I have no husband.” In saying this, she might be feeling shame. To be a woman at that time and place with no husband was to be someone without rights. To admit that she was not married would have been seen as a confession that she was not considered to have much value. Though we know that Jesus loves her in spite of her status in the eyes of the world, Jesus pushes further. “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” Up until He said this, Jesus was a nice Jewish man, a little out of the ordinary, but generally pleasant. Once He said this, however, He started meddling. Jesus is highlighting that the woman’s status of being “unmarried” is not the extent of her social problems. She is not simply single, she has a history of promiscuity. She has either been literally married five different times, presumably ending in divorce, or she has simply had a checkered sexual past. In any case, just like today, the stigma for being promiscuous was far worse than that of being unmarried.

So, Jesus not only exposed her status as an unmarried, Samaritan woman, but pointed out her sinful lifestyle as well. Does that sound like Jesus to you? There is part of us, a part that has been raised in the tradition that emphasizes that Jesus loves us, that reacts to this. We have a hard time understanding how this kind of deliberate, cutting exposure of sin could possibly be understood as loving. In reality, it is not the identifying of Jesus with love that is our problem; our problem comes in because we have also been raised in a secular culture that defines love as non-confrontation. We are a culture that teaches people to use love as a means of demanding favor. To us, unconditional love is all too often seen as blanket approval for all we do. If this is indeed what it means to love, than our reaction to what Jesus has said is not only understandable, but it is absolutely correct. If the exposure of sin is fundamentally unloving, then Jesus’ comments here are not only unloving, but almost sarcastic. “Boy, you aren’t kidding that you don’t have a husband!” I believe that we are forced to conclude that either Jesus is not truly loving or that our conception of love is inadequate. I don’t know about you, but I refuse to believe that Jesus is unloving.

I think that this statement is not only compatible with believing that Jesus is the incarnation of the love that God is, I also think that this statement is essential to making a bigger point about this woman than could be made otherwise. I believe that this conversation, including this seemingly harsh statement, was intended, not to embarrass this woman, but to demonstrate to her the unfathomable love that God has for her. Indeed, we might not think that at this point, but I believe that it is the truth. Remember that Jesus has said this because it turns out to be, not only the piece of information that helps this woman understand who He is, but also turns out to be the experience that culminates in her salvation and the salvation of others.

Though our modern culture might respond to Jesus’ comment by saying things like, “Don’t you know that you shouldn’t judge people?” or “You don’t even know me, how can you say things like that?” or, “You are a jerk!” this is not at all how the Samaritan woman responds. She says, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.” This statement is partly a deeper recognition of who Jesus is and the turning point where she begins to see that He is more than just a nice man who met her at the well one day, but it is also partly, as we might imagine, a changing of the subject. It is something of a parallel to saying, “So, how about them Cubbies?” In my claiming that Jesus’ statement was fundamentally loving in intent and indeed was the best thing He could have said to her, I do not mean to romanticize it, to make it seem like it was not also at the same time very awkward indeed. She doesn’t really want to talk about her relationship issues. She’s kind of had a hard time with men and she does not really want to talk about it with this man.

So, in the midst of this change of topic, she even goes so far as to try and discredit Jesus. She brings up a debate over the practice of worship. “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Actually, Jesus has not said this, but He is a Jew and the Jews have often criticized the Samaritans because they do not participate in the Temple rituals; indeed, they are not allowed to do so because they are perceived as impure. Jesus sees this change of topic for what it is: a way to avoid discussing her past, and He uses it as an opportunity to present some spiritual facts to her. “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

The woman is caught up in the debates of her day and she wants to know who is right and who is wrong so that she can know who should be excluded from the love of God. Jesus frankly tells her that the question is being framed incorrectly. The Jews and the Samaritans are both obsessed with their location, believing that one place is better to worship God than another. He says that they are both wrong. It might be true that the Jews have a bit more clarity about what God has commanded in the past, but it is completely irrelevant because of what God is doing now. Jesus is saying, “You know, if you put all your trust in getting things just right, if you are hoping that you will be accepted simply because you worship God here and not there, you are missing the entire point. It is not so much where you worship God as it is how you worship Him. And even in the how, it isn’t about liturgies and orders of worship or the type of songs you sing, but it is a question of whether the worship is being done in spirit and truth or not.” Brothers and sisters, at the end of the day, it does not really matter if you are Methodist or Presbyterian, traditional or contemporary, liberal or conservative. What matters is that we are worshipping God in spirit and in truth. If we are, none of the other things about our lives can stop it from being real worship. If we are not, no amount of doing the “right” things can make our offering acceptable to God.

The fact of the matter is that Jesus’ exposure of the Samaritan woman’s sin and His explaining the nature of authentic worship have exactly the same point in mind. The big point, the major theme in this entire story is that no amount of sin and degradation can separate us from the love and compassion of God. The woman is not simply a woman, she is not simply a Samaritan woman, she is not simply an unmarried Samaritan woman, but she is an unmarried Samaritan woman who has an extremely checkered past, who has been rejected by the rest of her society and, in many ways, does not have a whole lot to live for. And yet, though the world sees her this way, though she might even see herself this way, Jesus makes it absolutely clear that this is not how God sees her and not how He sees her. Her past makes no difference, the question is, how will she live now?

The woman at the well realizes that Jesus is talking about the radical change that would come to pass when the promised Messiah comes. She says, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” She is saying, “Sir, I know you are talking about God’s big plans for the world that will happen someday, but how does that help me now? All those things will be true when the Messiah comes, but what about today?” Jesus’ response is simple, yet incredibly profound. “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” At this moment, the entire tone of the passage changes. No longer does the woman dwell on her failures, no longer does she deem herself unworthy of hope, unworthy of good things. Her last defense against getting her hopes up was her belief that hope only comes someday. After all, she looked around at the world and did not see anything changing. The Messiah had not yet come and she, like those who had gone before her, had resigned herself to be content with the knowledge that God will change things at some point down the road. As long as the Messiah had not come, her life, miserable as it was, could at least continue to be familiar and how it had always been. Now that Jesus has announced that the Messiah is not only coming but is here, now and in front of her, her entire outlook on life has changed.

It is ironic that the disciples only show up at this point. They had gone to get food and they come back just at this moment of transition. They arrive to see their master, this Rabbi, speaking with a Samaritan woman. We read that they were astonished. They had been following Jesus for a little while now, but they had not yet learned that Jesus intended to do away with the system of social classes that hindered the work of God. All they see is this woman listening carefully to Jesus, then leaving her water jar and running off to her hometown. Though they did not understand why Jesus was speaking to such a person, they had enough respect for their master to not say anything. This shows remarkable restraint on the part of the disciples. Usually, they, like us, do not hesitate to stick their feet firmly in their mouths. We will talk about the disciples more next week, but I want to follow up on the woman, in many ways, the star of this passage, next to Jesus.

The woman, renewed by this good news that God has come to save sinners like her, runs off to the city. She begins to tell the people there about her encounter. It is significant, though, that she does not say, “Come and see a man who knows a lot about God” or “who has a great system of morality” or “has a great band at his church” or anything else like that. The words she used to inspire others to believe that Jesus was a prophet and the promised Messiah were, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” Remember, this is not “everything I have ever done” like it was with Nathaneal, when Jesus revealed that He had seen him under the fig tree; this is “everything I have ever done” with reference to promiscuity and social shame. To use Christian terminology, she is saying, “Come and see a man who told me what a sinner I am!” Not what we would probably call an effective strategy for evangelism today, is it?

Now, we begin to see the significance of Jesus exposing the sin of the Samaritan woman. If He had merely told her about worshiping God in spirit and truth and tried to encourage her with those words, she would think that He simply did not know how bad she had been. We love to say “Jesus loves you” but we choke on saying “Jesus loves me” because we are all too aware of our sin. When Jesus came out and declared the sin of the woman’s past, the goal was not to make her feel bad, though that might have happened for a moment. His goal was to show her that the words He was saying to her, the extravagant hope and joy that He was offering her, was not dependant on her having been “good” all her life. In saying what He said, He was making it very clear that there was nothing hidden in her past that could undo the promises He was making to her because He already knew about it. When the Triune God offers us salvation and forgiveness and new and eternal life, God is not confused about how sinful we are. He sees our sin more clearly that we do, and yet it is because He sees it and knows it for what it is that we can trust Him. The only offer of love that can be fully believed and trusted is the one that is made with full knowledge of our sinfulness. The woman was not a “good” woman by the standards of the world, or even by the standards of God, but the compassion and love that God felt for her were not reduced or inhibited in any way. God looks deep into our soul, sees all the things that we would rather He did not see, and declares them to be what they are: evil and destructive. If He were to stop there, we would be depressed and lose hope. However, it is just when we have been exposed as sinners, just at the moment when we feel unlovable that the Lord declares that it is His joy to forgive us, to love us, to redeem us and to bring us into God’s own Trinitarian fellowship.

Jesus showed the love of God to this woman by showing that this love is not dependant on her past. He shows us that same love even today. God knows our sin, He declares it to be evil, and yet His love is not lessened. This is the love that transformed the Samaritan woman and it can transform us even today. Let us give thanks to the God who loves us with a love that will not let us go. Let us pray.

AMEN