A Life Changing Encounter
A Sermon preached Sunday, February 24, 2008
by Pastor Terry Davis
First Presbyterian Church, Hartford, CT
In our Lenten series we are looking at people who encountered Jesus. The first thing that I note in this morning’s reading is that Jesus steps way beyond the boundaries of proper conduct not just to welcome this woman, but to initiate this encounter. In Jesus day public contact between men and women, particular contact between men and women who were strangers to one another was considered highly improper, actually scandalous, and this was doubly true for a rabbi, a Jewish religious teacher. We notice in verse 27 that the disciples were astonished that he was speaking with a woman.
Of course the second boundary that Jesus violated was that he had contact with a Samaritan. The woman picks up on it right away and asks with astonishment why he, a Jew would ask her such a thing, Jews and Samaritans didn’t even speak to one another, much less drink out of the same drinking vessel. We might think back to those days in the south when there were separate drinking fountains for white and colored, but we don’t have to reach back that far in history. We have people today who won’t share a common cup for communion because they might catch some disease from someone who drank before them; we have people who object to using a common loaf of bread for communion and insisted that we have bread broken up into cubes. To touch and eat from the loaf of bread that others have touched is not acceptable. Drinking from the same cup or eating from the same loaf is an act of intimacy that we still may avoid. But here is Jesus willing to speak to a Samaritan woman and even drink out of the same cup or jug that she drank out of.
The third boundary that Jesus violated was that he initiated contact with a woman of questionable morals. We would not realize this at the beginning of the story, but Jesus reveals at a later point that he knows that the woman had had five marriages in the past and is presently living with someone she is not married to. Perhaps this is why at the end of the story the men resist giving her credit for bringing them to Jesus, they cannot stand the thought that they have been influenced by a woman, particularly this woman who is living in sin.
We see that Jesus does tell her a bit later that he knows about her living situation, but he never speaks a word to condemn her; instead of experiencing condemnation the woman understand the extraordinary nature of the man she is conversing with and addresses him as a prophet and asks him the most troublesome question whose answer separated the Samaritans from the Jews. The Samaritans worshipped at the ancient holy place for the children of Abraham, Bethel, which means the house of God. Bethel was near where Jacob had his vision of a ladder extending up to heaven. Jewish worship however had been centered in Jerusalem since David brought the ark to that city ages ago. The profundity of Jesus answer still echoes today as he says “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 second thing that I notice in this passage is that Jesus not only initiated the encounter between himself and this woman who all the social and religious rules said he should never encounter, but he offered her a profound gift which he had not previously never offered to anyone else. He offered to her living water. He said , “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.” And also “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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.” At first, just like Nicodemus, she misses the profound meaning of what he is saying to her. He is speaking of spiritual things, while she is thinking in material terms, she would like this living water so she wouldn’t have to keep coming and lugging water jars of water home day after day, but that is not what Jesus is offering to her.
But what is this living water that Jesus is offering? In Jerusalem some time later he explains more clearly what this living water is. In the 7th chapter of John we read “On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
Jesus is offering her the Holy Spirit. He is offering her a direct and living relationship with God that leads to eternal life. Isn’t that something that we all want? Isn’t that what we are really seeking when we come to worship week after week, some kind of living encounter with God? He says that the spirit will well up inside the believer and bring eternal life.
We see that the woman is overwhelmed by this encounter with Jesus and comes to accept that he is the Christ, the Messiah of God, and she runs back to the village, now an evangelist bringing others to Jesus.
What can we learn from this life changing encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well? Does it offer us the hope that we too might have a life changing experience?
Just as Jesus reached out to the woman at the well, so also Jesus is reaching out to us. Despite everything about us that might make us feel that we are unacceptable to Jesus, despite our sins and failures, despite our insignificance and unworthiness, Jesus reaches out to us and invites us into fellowship and relationship with him. Jesus also challenges us to reach out to others who we might find unacceptable or frightening or strange and to enter into relationship with them.
Just as Jesus offers to the woman living water, so Jesus offers the living water of the spirit to us, if we are just willing to receive it, to enter into a living relationship with God, to have a life changing encounter with God. We only need to open our heart and receive what Jesus is seeking to give to us, the Holy Spirit to flow into us and become a fountain gushing up to eternal life.
Finally, just as the woman became an evangelist and a witness to Jesus, so also we are invited, even called to be evangelists and witnesses to the life changing good news of the Gospel of God’s love for all of us.
Romans 5:1 - 8
1Therefore,
since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, 2through
whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we£
boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
3And
not only that, but we£
also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
4and
endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5and
hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
6For
while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7Indeed,
rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person
someone might actually dare to die.
8But
God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for
us.
John 4:5 - 30 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A 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.) 9The 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.) 10Jesus 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.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but 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.” 15The 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.” 16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” 27Just 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?” 28Then 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?” 30They left the city and were on their way to him.
John 4:39 - 42 39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They 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.”