Woman at the Well | A Sermon on John 4:1-42

Editor's Notes

• #2 What do we do with this story? We continue to go to places like Guatemala, Haiti and Tanzania and invite unfair systems of oppression to “Come and See” the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We continue to acknowledge that even in our own society, there are corrupt and oppressive systems in place that take away people’s voices and people’s rights and people’s dignity. And when we are put in places of privilege and leadership, we use those places of privilege and leadership to shine light on the way of Jesus in the world.
• #4 Introduction of the series “Come and See” –
• #5 last week we saw Nicodemus an “insider” and this week we get to see the opposite end of the spectrum. We are going to look at this text in a NEW way and we hope it will blow your mind and re-orient your world.
• #6 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” 2 —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3 he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4 But he had to go through Samaria.    VISUAL – a map showing where Jesus is Going….and an explanation that “good Jewish people” go around Samaria instead of through Samaria.
• #7 Jesus HAD to go through Samaria for Theological reasons.
• #8 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, Visual – Picture of Jesus and the woman at the well.
• #9 and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The 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.) 
• #11 10 Jesus 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 The 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.”
• #13 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”  THIS is the mind-blowing moment.
• #14 First Visual – First – a picture of how this interaction has traditionally been interpreted. A woman living in shame.
• #15 Here is what the woman’s life very likely looked like. (Explain – she was married five times for one of two reasons. 1) She was unable to have children. Men’s identity was about carrying on their family line and a man could divorce a woman if she couldn’t have children leaving her without property, income, a way to live in the world. 2) She had several husbands die and married the brothers. The youngest brother could have taken her in……. Second Visual- #MeToo - this is more of a Me Too moment than it is a shameful moment. She wasn’t married to five men because she was some kind of prostitute or “woman of ill-repute” – she was a victim of her society.
• #16 Jesus’ tone with her is not one of shame. It’s very matter of fact. He gets it. He continues talking with her and identifies her plight in life. In fact, he gives her a VOICE
• #17 “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 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. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 
• #18 First VISUAL – Steve – can you come up with a visual of the temple – vs. the Kingdom of God when the Spirit is in charge?
• #19 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” First of the I AM statements.
• #20 27 Just 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?”  VISUAL – I think a “Mind blown” emoji would be cool here. Their minds were blown and there was awkward silence. They were literally stunned into silence because Jesus’ interaction with the woman was so revolutionary.
• #21 28 Then 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?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him. 39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They 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.”   VISUAL – “Come and See” – She says the words that Jesus says at the Beginning of the Gospel. “COME AND SEE” She becomes the first Evangelist in the Gospel of John, and the only person in all of the Gospels (is this true?) to be lifted up for helping to build the Jesus movement.   But notice – people don’t believe because of what she SAID. They believe because she invited them to “Come and See” and they saw for themselves. They had that “Spiritual re-birth” that Jesus talked with Nicodemus about.   My uncle always said about sharing the Gospel, “It’s our job to invite people to “Come and See” – it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to transform the heart.
• #23 So you see how MIND BLOWING this story is.   Here’s the reality. We look at this woman, and we realize that from the beginning of creation, humans have oppressed groups of people for the color of their skin, their country of origin, their gender…and the list goes one. Aside from the It is sometimes hard for us, as largely white, middle class suburban Americans to imagine what her life was like. But there are people, WOMEN, all over the world living like this woman was forced to live. There are people the world has forgotten who are ignored, belittled, cast out because of who they are, where they were born, the color of their skin, their gender, their religion, their identity. THIS IS OUTREACH MONTH AND TODAY WE LIFT UP GUATEMALA Here are ways the Gospel is being lived out in Guatemala: VISUAL – Picture of the Women’s retreat – story about who these women are (from indigenous villages, most have had men who fathered their children and then left them for a younger woman) and the voice they are being given by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Pastor Karen is inviting them to “Come and See” – and slowly, slowly, they are being empowered, transformed, lifted up by this JESUS who gives them worth, dignity, recognizes them for who they are – CHILDREN OF GOD whom GOD SO LOVES.
• #25 This is who Jesus was. He pushed every societal boundary in order to show us exactly what he said to Nicodemus last week – “God so loved the WORLD” And “He cam not to CONDEMN the world, but so the world might know God through the SON.” And Jesus shows us the heart of God in this story.      
• #26 What do we do with this story? We continue to go to places like Guatemala, Haiti and Tanzania and invite unfair systems of oppression to “Come and See” the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We continue to acknowledge that even in our own society, there are corrupt and oppressive systems in place that take away people’s voices and people’s rights and people’s dignity. And when we are put in places of privilege and leadership, we use those places of privilege and leadership to shine light on the way of Jesus in the world.
• #27 What do we do with this story? We continue to go to places like Guatemala, Haiti and Tanzania and invite unfair systems of oppression to “Come and See” the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We continue to acknowledge that even in our own society, there are corrupt and oppressive systems in place that take away people’s voices and people’s rights and people’s dignity. And when we are put in places of privilege and leadership, we use those places of privilege and leadership to shine light on the way of Jesus in the world.