No More Shame

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John-- although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. (John 4:1-6 NIV)

Jesus' next encounter is not going to be with someone who was raised in the church like the rich young ruler.  He is not going to encounter a teacher of the law who knew the Scriptures well.  His encounter today is going to be with someone who isn't really interested in walking together with God.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." (John 4:7-15 NIV)

Samaritans were people of religiously mixed marriages.  They lived in the northern kingdom of Israel and had settled in with the people who lived in that land before.  As a result, they knew about the Jewish God as well as the other gods of the land.  Rather than rejecting foreign gods in their lives, they had incorporated them - breaking the very first of the ten commandments.  This is why Jews didn't normally associate with Samaritans.  Samaritans were rejecting God right out of the gate.

He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." (John 4:16-18 NIV)

The woman speaking with Jesus wasn't very concerned with following God either.  God clearly taught the Israelites that sexual immorality was wrong and that divorce was not allowed.  This woman had gone through five marriages and was now living with a man who was not her husband.  Jesus knew it and still had this conversation with her.

"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." "Woman," Jesus replied, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth." (John 4:19-24 NIV)

She pulls from her mixed theological background, recognizes Jesus as a prophet, then asks a good question that would have been a part of her reality: where is it ok to worship God?  Samaritans would worship in their territory up on the mountain, while the Jews worshiped at the temple in Jerusalem.  Jesus calls her out, though, on her sin.  He points out that true worship has nothing to do with the place.  It has to do with walking by the Spirit and living God's truth.  In other words, for her, as for all of us, worship will mean aligning her life with God.

The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you--I am he." (John 4:25-26 NIV)

This religiously mixed woman living a lifestyle of sin is important to Jesus.  He takes the time to listen to her, answer her questions, and point her straight to the Messiah.  He wants her to be reconciled with God.

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?" Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?" "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don't you have a saying, 'It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor." (John 4:27-38 NIV)

When his disciples returned, Jesus picked up his conversation with them and continued teaching them more about God's kingdom, the Messiah, and God's plan to reconcile us all.  Jesus was at accepting people where they were and then empowering them to grow.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world." After the two days he left for Galilee. (John 4:39-43 NIV)

Jesus' quick stop for a drink in the middle of the day turned into a two-day ministry.  It began with a woman who was far away from God, but willing to engage in conversation about God.  It continued when she was convinced that Jesus was at least a prophet and possibly even the Messiah.  It included training his disciples more while ministering to this woman and her neighbors.  Finally, it became a ministry that brought many Samaritans to the understanding that Jesus is the Messiah.

How about you?  Where are you in your path with Jesus?  Who is Jesus to you?