Jesus and the woman at the well

I was at a meeting recently and we were asked to describe what people thought of the Church in Wales. The answers included some positive remarks such as ‘a lifeline for some people’ but also some more challenging answers such as ‘dependable’, ‘people know where we are when they need us’ along with ‘irrelevant’ from someone….

Our readings this morning though really challenge some of those negative comments – if the God of Moses who could bring water from a rock exists then that God is someone people need to know… That’s what we heard in the reading from Exodus (17:1-7). And Paul had met that God powerfully in his own life and his life had been completely transformed and in the reading from his letter to the Romans (5:1-11) we hear a passage full of praise as he celebrates the power and love of God…

And then we come to the gospel reading (John 4:5-42) and we have this incredible meeting between Jesus and the woman at the well… And one of the things we can’t fail to notice is that none of this speaks of just being dependable and certainly not of irrelevance…

The first point to show that is that Jesus was in a Samaritan city and went to speak to a Samaritan woman at a well. Not too extraordinary for us, but the Jews detested the Samaritans, they regarded even the water from their wells as unclean, and they would certainly not enter into any sort of dialogue with a Samaritan woman. Immediately people hearing this account would have alarm bells ringing. 

But Jesus, as we examine his earthly ministry was never bound by what people thought he should do – he never spoke to just the people others thought he should – he spent time with little children, he spent time with people like tax collectors, with women, with people outside the respectable society and here, he ignored the 500 year-old hostility to talk to this woman… 

And this wasn’t just any woman – we’re told that she had come to the well at noon when most women would have come early in the morning or later in the day to avoid the heat; and also that she came alone when most would have come with a group. This was a woman who was trying to avoid others – perhaps she was a social outcast or perhaps she was trying to make some new and perhaps unsavouryconnections at the well…  

So immediately alarm bells are ringing about this woman but as she approached the well Jesus would have been expected to move away to a respectable distance of at least twenty feet, but he didn’t move. He waited and then he spoke to her !

And it’s a reminder that, as Christians, we are called to be welcoming, compassionate and living out the love of Jesus through our words and actions to all. Jesus spent time showing that his love and compassion wasn’t restricted to people like himself – he made no distinctions about who his message of salvation was for. 

It’s a wonderful example but one which is all too easy to overlook. Often even in our churches we look around and see a lot of people like us – and we like it that way – we like the comfort, we like the fellowship, we like the way we do things – but to do things in a way we like just to please ourselves and our own taste is to run a club of like-minded people. 

We’re not called as Christians to be comfortable but to know and share the peace and love of God – and that isn’t always going to be comfortable. We may well not like the analogy of the church as a club, we may well not think it’s fair, but it’s a perception a lot of people have. 

And then we move on a little bit in the gospel reading as Jesus talked to the woman about ‘living water’ – he shared the knowledge of that gift with her straight away. And that too is a great message for the church – sharing good gifts, sharing good news is what we should be all about. A lot of people talk about faith being a private matter but Jesus never gave us that right. 

His final earthly command was to ‘Go out and preach the gospel to all nations’ – he reminded his followers that he would always be with them – but he didn’t say ‘those who feel called to be outgoing “go out”’, he didn’t say those who are ordained, or evangelists, or any other category of people – he told us all to go out and preach the gospel. 

And we may do that in all kinds of different ways using all kinds of gifts, but we are to do it because Jesus said so !

And one of the ways of doing it is by being enthusiastic – the church is meant to be a community of believers – a family gathered together and people with enthusiasm draw others to them. People with enthusiasm help to light up the lives of others… What’s our enthusiasm like ? When we talk about God do we just talk about church ? Or when we talk about God do we talk about our lives being changed, transformed, renewed ? Do we talk of peace and of love ?

If we’re taking it seriously our faith is exciting– justified by faith, we have peace with God, who pours his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit… This is good news… 

We worship a God who loves us and who, in his eagerness to show his love for all sends his Son not just to die and rise again for us, but to live and talk to people like this woman at the well who others wouldn’t talk to – isn’t that good news ? – to know that whoever we are and whatever we may have done God loves us and wants a relationship with us… 

This woman responded to Jesus as she went off and told other people, leaving her bucket at the well – she had found something more important than the water that would sustain her for a bit, she had found someone to sustain her forever… 

So the meeting with the Samaritan woman teaches us quite a bit but I think the second part of the reading is even more dramatic in some ways – his meeting with his own disciples. 

It was another occasion when they didn’t really understand what Jesus was doing, and I think we can all sympathise with them on that. Here he was in a strange place, speaking to a strange woman, at a well with what they believed to be contaminated water in a really bad city… 

You can almost imagine them shrugging their shoulders once again – ‘It’s Jesus, who knows what he’ll do next !’  And so they moved on to practical things – he needed to eat. It was a good thought. It was what friends would do for someone. 

But Jesus replied, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say “Four months more, then comes the harvest?” But I tell you, look around and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting…’

Practical things often get in the way of our relationship with God – maybe we’re too busy, maybe something has happened in our lives, maybe we need to spend a lot of time talking about the church roof, maybe we need to spend a lot of time wondering about whether the service in church is exactly as we like it… But practical things should never take us away from the focus of our faith. 

We don’t come to be part of a club but to be part of a family – and when we think about that we see a much bigger picture which worries less about the small things in church, and more about how we are celebrating and sharing God’s love with each other and others. 

Jesus asked questions of people and he asks them of us… How we are sharing the gospel ? how we are living out the gospel ? how our services and buildings are inviting others ?… 

We’re at an interesting point in the history of the Church in Wales and tough questions are being asked and will be asked in the future… We’re not here to preserve an institution but to celebrate and share the love of God – We need to dream new dreams – because dreams with God’s power can become powerful dreams and incredible reality.

So, to think of some of the lessons we've considered - firstly our church must, like Jesus was with the Samaritan woman, be open and welcoming to all, speaking to everyone in our community of the good news of Jesus. 

Secondly, Jesus spoke about living water reminding us that we have a great message that we must be sharing so we need to share it, and finally, the disciples allowed practical things to get in the way of a bigger picture. Our bigger picture must rise above the often trivial things we think about in church and must focus on how we are celebrating and sharing the love of Jesus with all.

We can look around us and see all kinds of people in need – In need of love, in need of support, in need of fellowship, in need of peace, in need of hope, in need of good news – perhaps even some of us feel we’re in that category, and we must help to meet that need with the guidance, power and love of God which transforms us daily if we allow it, and will transform others and even the whole world as we allow ourselves to be used as enthusiastic disciples of Jesus in the world today. 

To finish I’ll offer the words of Teresa of Avila who wrote, 

‘Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.’

May God open our hearts to his service as we recognise his love and respond with our lives. AMEN