The Woman at the Well encounters the Living Water

Hi Everyone,
Here is the sermon I preached yesterday on The reading from John 4:5-42.
I showed the images on the screen as I was preaching - I've placed them at the appropriate point in this version.
Feedback welcome.....
Enjoy!
SB

Before I begin to talk today about this wonderful, familiar story of Jesus’ meeting with the woman at the well, I want to make a point about where this story is situated in John’s Gospel. Often the placement of a particular episode in the Gospel story has theological significance: widening our view and looking at the stories around it can tell us quite a bit about the point which the biblical author is trying to make. So it is with this particular episode of Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman - it is sandwiched between two similar stories. Last week we heard about Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus. As Ted pointed out in his message about this passage, Nicodemus is one of the heavies of the Jewish temple: a Pharisee. A man well placed to understand the arguments that Jesus is putting forward. And yet when Jesus tells him that a man needs to be born “again” in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven, Nicodemus doesn’t truly “get it”, at least at this stage – although as Ted pointed out he will later become one of Jesus’ staunchest followers. At this stage, though, he does not really understand Jesus’ message about who he says he is.

This section of the story includes two groups having an encounter with Jesus: firstly the woman at the well and secondly the disciples.

Jesus is tired and sitting by the well. He is tired from his previous night time encounter with Nicodemus. Jesus is “spiritually” tired because he has found no one to believe in him. He is also tired from his long walk from Jerusalem into Samaria. The disciples have gone off to buy food and he is left sitting in the glaring heat of the noon day sun.
Image: Woman at the well 1.
Jesus is sitting beside Jacob’s well and he is thirsty. The mention of Jacob and Jacob’s well alludes to the story in Genesis chapter 29. Jacob tells the shepherds they should roll back the rock from the mouth of the well so that Rachel’s sheep could drink. The shepherds refuse, saying, “We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together” But Jacob goes to the well and moves back the huge stone so that Rachel’s sheep can drink. This background provides an important clue about the outcome of this encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

Another important thing which many commentators point out, is that anyone who knows the stories of the Torah would guess that when there is a man sitting by a well a woman is about to appear. This is true of the story of Rebecca, who became Isaac’s bride: she was found at a well by Abraham’s servant who went in search of a bride for Abraham’s beloved son. Jacob, too, met his future bride Rachel at a well. Likewise Moses met Zeppora, his future wife at a well. For readers steeped in the history of the stories of the Torah this image sets up an expectation: “Ah ha – I’m about to hear a love story.” This opening image has a similar effect as going to see a Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks film might have for us. If Sleepless in Seattle or When Harry Met Sally comes on late night TV we know what we’re going to get. And this certainly is a love story: but it is not going to play itself out in the way the audience might expect. It’s a love story with a twist in the tale.

Who is this woman? The first person with whom Jesus shares the story of who he is, to whom he reveals himself as the “living water”, is not powerful, not rich, not male, not even Jewish. She is a real contrast to the character of Nicodemus. He is a known and named Jewish man of power: a Pharisee and teacher. This woman is unnamed and powerless: the victim of circumstance having been married 5 times. Although we don’t know why she has been married 5 times, nor why the man she lives with now is not her husband, we can imagine how she might feel: rejected, lonely, with a broken self image and perhaps even with deep feelings of guilt and worthlessness. Why would she go to the well in the middle of the day when the sun is at its highest, instead of the cool of the day at sunrise or sunset when the other women might go? It could be of course that she’s just run out of water: but it may also be that she goes to the well in the heat of the day to avoid meeting other women. It certainly seems to me from her reaction to Jesus later that she is indeed a sad and broken woman.

The second thing we know about her is that she’s a Samaritan - which means that Jesus has to transgress important racial, cultural and religious boundaries in order to speak to her. The Samaritans are a mixed race: they are partly descended from Levi, one of the 12 tribes of Israel – so they are related to the Jews. They are also descended from foreigners who settled the Northern Kingdom of Judah after its conquest by Assyria. Their land is Mount Gerazim, near Nablus in the West Bank. The Samaritans revere the Torah, the first 5 books of the Old Testament, in common with Jews and Christians. They pray in the Ancient Hebrew language of Aramaic: the language that Jesus used. Today after war and persecution, they are a tiny group of around 750 people. And in Jesus’ day, they were also a persecuted minority: the Samaritan woman would not expect Jesus to speak to her – and she expresses her shock and surprise when he does.

Jesus is tired, sitting beside the well when along comes a woman carrying a water jar. She has the means of drawing the water that will slake Jesus’ thirst. Potentially Jesus is faced with a dilemma: not only is this a woman but she is a Samarian: he cannot possibly accept water from her. Ironically, the woman herself reminds Jesus of his error when she reminds him that he shouldn’t be asking her, a Samaritan woman, for water. Although we don’t know whether Jesus actually drinks the water she offers him, his human need for water is significant as it creates a need which allows a human bond to form between Jesus and the woman – a bond transcending the differences of their race and sex.

Have a look at how Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche community in France, a man who has dedicated his life to the intimate care of the disabled, responds to Jesus approaching the woman for a drink.

Jesus is showing us how to approach people
who are broken and wounded:
not as someone superior, from “above,”
but humbly, from “below” like a beggar.”
Such people who are already ashamed of themselves
do not need someone who will make them feel even more ashamed,
but someone who will give them hope and reveal to them
that they have value, they are unique, precious and important.
To accept and love broken people in that way
is the surest way to help them grow.
We witness this so often in l’Arche and in Faith and Light,
where we welcome men and women with disabilities
who have lost all self-confidence and self-esteem.
What they need to begin their journey of growth
is someone who appreciates, affirms and loves them
just as they are, in all their weakness and brokenness.
Jean Vanier
Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John.


Jesus knows the depth of despair and sadness of a woman who has had 5 husbands. He doesn’t judge her or condemn her, nor does he condescend or give her moral lessons. Instead, he holds out his cup and allows her to serve him water. This is an act of love that says “you’re ok and I would like to be in relationship with you.” This is where this love story is totally different from any this woman has experienced before: Jesus isn’t going to abandon her as perhaps her five previous husbands have done. He is offering her a different, deeper kind of love – one which accepts her as she is and which will free her from the despair of her life thus far.

This too is the way in which Jesus meets us: we do not need to hide our brokenness from him. Instead we are called into relationship with a Jesus who accepts us just as we are and who loves us just as we are. This in turn is the way we are called to witness to others: not in flowery words or powerful language, but by sharing the love of Jesus who meets the woman at the well just as she is and accepts a drink of water from her.

At this point Jesus turns the story on its head by reversing the role of the giver and receiver of water. Now that he has shown that he accepts her as she is, he is now going to offer her a gift of living water. Jesus is suggesting that it is the woman who is thirsty and he is the one who has the means of slaking her thirst.

What is so special about this gift of water he is offering her?



It seems to me if we think back on all of the sermons we’ve heard preached since the start of this year that there has been a heavy emphasis on one symbol or sign: water. We’ve heard about Jesus’ baptism from the different perspectives of Matthew and John’s gospel and now we’re hearing the story of Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well. At a time when some parts of our land are desperately parched and crying out for water, we are only too aware of our need for water.

Let’s think about this symbol of water for a moment. Without it life on this planet cannot survive. Plants wither and die, animal life, human life is snuffed out. Without water we cannot go on. On the other hand, too much water is equally problematic: just ask those in Queensland at the moment. Flooding rains bring destruction of trees and homes, drowning of livestock and destruction of livelihood.

Today’s story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well is third time the writer of John has used water as a symbol in the first 4 chapters. Firstly there is the story of John the baptiser who baptises with water. We heard Brendan preach on this story in January where he drew a comparison between John baptising with water and Jesus baptising with the Spirit. In that story we came to see that water could be a sign of the Spirit’s rejuvenating and cleansing power.

The second story, and one we have not heard this year is the story of the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine. In this story, a wedding has been going on and, disaster of disasters, the wine runs out. Jesus’ mother asks him to turn the water in the big stone jars normally used for washing into wine. Jesus does this: but doesn’t just turn it into the second rate wine normally served to guests at the end of a banquet when they can no longer tell the difference: he turns it into the best wine. Jesus does this not to show us he’s capable of the miraculous but to make a deeper point: that Jesus himself is the “good wine” that is left til last. The point of this second water story is that in the person of Christ new life has come: as biblical scholar Dorothy Lee puts it: “the final celebration of God’s divine reign has begun – and the one through whom the new arrives, the guest at the banquet, becomes the host, the giver, the divine self-gift.”

In today’s story, we come to understand there are two types of water: stagnant lifeless water, drying up and unable to sustain life. There is also life giving, moving, oxygenated water which provides sustenance for the growth and development of all which surrounds it.

In this story of his encounter with the woman at the well, Jesus offers this broken woman, a woman who is spiritually thirsty, water. But as he explains to her, this gift of water which he offers her is one that will mean that she will never be thirsty again. Once she has entered into a loving relationship with the “I am”, the Messiah who is speaking to her, she need never be spiritually thirsty again. A relationship with Jesus is like drinking “Living Water.” It quenches a spiritual thirst so that it never reoccurs. The reason it does not reoccur is the nature of living water: it is water from a “spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Only at this point in the story does Jesus finally reveal his identity to the woman.
John Shea, American Biblical scholar and storyteller puts it thus:

“Now she is ready. So Jesus reveals his deepest identity to her. He is the “I am.” He participates in and communicates the very being of God. However, the truth about “I am” is that it is simultaneously a “that you may be.” God’s very being is self-communication. So when Jesus says “the one who is speaking to you,” he is tapping into his ultimate identity as the Word. As the Word of God speaking human words he is putting God’s being and love into her. She is sharing in the structure of his identity. She now knows who is saying to her, “Give me a drink,” and he has given her living water. On one level, the conversation is over. On another level, it continues forever.”
John Shea: On Earth As It Is In Heaven.




Let’s look at how the woman responds to Jesus throughout this dialogue. She doesn’t immediately understand who Jesus is when he asks her for a drink, but comes to realise it slowly as he reveals the truth of his identity to her. When he first asks her for a drink she calls him a “Jew”, recognising the most obvious outward sign of his race. As he reveals his deep and intimate knowledge of her suffering, she sees him as a prophet. And, finally, once she hears his voice when he says, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you”, she grasps this “I am,” she understands his identity. She is filled with love. She has recognised Jesus as the messiah, the one sent by God to give the gift of living water. The woman who I suggested went to the well in the glaring heat of the noonday sun in order to avoid meeting others, now leaves her water jar and goes back to the town a changed woman. She goes to share the story of the man she has met at the well, and to encourage them to come back and meet him too. The love which she has received from Jesus in the form of “living water”, which has transformed her life and freed her from the burden of her past, is not a gift that one keeps to oneself: it is a gift to be shared with those around her.

At this point in the story, the disciples return from their shopping trip with food for Jesus. They beg him to eat it but he rejects it saying: “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” This food, he goes on to tell them, is to obey the will of the one who sent him, and to finish the work he was given to do. The weary Jesus, resting by the well, is now rejuvenated and points to that which satiates him on a spiritual level: by doing the work of God, and building relationships with those about him, Jesus receives the food which he needs. So much so that when the Samaritans come back and beg him to stay, he does so. He stays with them for 2 days and many come to believe in him because of his message.
Just as the gift of Living Water that brought the Samaritan woman into a loving relationship with Jesus transformed her life, so it can transform ours. And, if we share the gift with those around us, it can transform their lives too.