The Transformation at the Well

 John 4:5-42  3rd Lent March 12, 2023

 We know that in Jesus time,

Woman at the Well
Wayne Forte

Samaritans and Jewish people were enemies.

Never mind that they share the same heritage

and much the same history as each other.

Maybe those are the worst rivalries.

It’s kind of akin to the hostilities between

Northern and Southern Ireland.

 

The Samaritans were from the Northern Kingdom

and the Jewish people, that Jesus was a part of,

were from the Southern Kingdom. The Samaritans were the people who were 

allowed to stay in Israel in the exile and their culture intertwined with gentile culture.

The Jews believed that the holiest place on earth

was the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

And the Samaritans believed that the holiest place

was on Mount Gerzim. There were other differences,

and hard feelings, but basically, it’s enough to know that

they two groups: Samaritans and Jews disliked each other.

 

So when Jesus was traveling through a Samaritan City

to get back to his home in Galilee, I’m sure all of the

disciples thought it was best for them and Jesus

to keep to themselves.

But Jesus wasn’t one to do that really.

So the person who was at the well was a Samaritan.

One strike against her.

 

We know from other cultures who still

go to wells to gather water, that gathering water is something that is 

usually done by women and girls, and that getting water was and is a communal activity.

Most of the women come to the well at the same time and they use that time to talk and share

information around the task.

And we also know that most people who do this,

do it in the morning so they wouldn't have

to carry a heavy load in the heat and they would want to use the fresh water for the day’s work.

 

But the story says that this woman came out alone to the well,

and it says she came at noon, in the heat of the sun,

when no one else would be there.

And we know is that she is alone at a time when most people didn’t spend much time alone,

they spent it with friends and others in their community.

Maybe she was avoiding the other women.

Maybe they had made it clear that she was not welcome

into their circle of friends.

Maybe they had made judgments about her life and her situation.

 
Even today, in our permissive culture,

we still make our own assumptions about this woman at the well.

Jesus points out that this woman has had five husbands.

He doesn’t tell her to repent or to change her ways,

or that she should be ashamed of her situation.

But lots of preachers today feel obligated to place their judgements 

and assumptions onto this woman.

 

Some say she was a hopeless romantic,

that maybe she was loose, or a seductress.

They suggest that maybe she can’t hold a relationship

together long term.

One modern, Christian preacher actually called her a

“a worldly, sensually-minded, unspiritual harlot from Samaria”

That’s some projecting there.

That probably gives more information about the preacher

who said it, than about this woman at the well.

 

 

The truth is, there is no evidence for any of those things.

Either from what she or Jesus says, or what we know about

marriage and women during Jesus time.

Women didn’t have many choices when it came to marriage,

and marriage choices had little to do with romance, or sex, or love.

Her marriages probably weren’t her own choices.

 

The most likely reason might have been that her husbands

had died and she bore no heirs to carry on the man’s lineage.

In that case, she would have been passed on to her

husband’s brother, and another brother,

until she had a child, then it would be called the child of 

the first husband. It was called a Levirate Marriage,

it was practiced in many patriarchic societies

and it is outlined for Jews and Samaritans

in the book of Deuteronomy.

 

This most likely isn’t a story about an impetuous woman

who can’t control herself. It’s more likely a story about a woman

who has been shuffled around by the system, and then who has 

been shunned by her community and left alone.

 

She was probably by that well in the heat of the day

because no one wanted to be around her.

She had bad luck, or a bad reputation, or whatever.

Two strikes against her.

And yet Jesus still talks to her.

 

And the basic reality of it, was that she was a woman.

Men were not supposed to speak to women directly.

Men were not supposed to  be alone with women.

When the disciples returned from the grocery store,

it said they were “astonished” because he was speaking to a woman.

A Samaritan. A woman. And a person with a complicated past.

Three strikes against her.

There are many levels of judgment

and prejudice that this woman wears.

It would have been in Jesus best

interest to avoid her all together.

It would have been assumed that he would.

But Jesus still comes to talk to her.

 

And when he does, he sees into her and somehow

knows her whole story and gives it back to her.
She is the woman who has had five husbands.

No judgment, no scolding, or shaming.
No calling her an “worldly, unspiritual harlot.”

Just the reality of her life and situation.

 

Now, the gospel of John was written about 30 years after the 

three other gospels and scholars have said that the gospel of John

seems to comment on things that were said in the other gospels. 

In each of the three gospels, in Matthew, Mark & Luke,

the Saducees ask Jesus a question to trick him.  They say:

"Teacher, Moses said, 'If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.'

25  Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother.

26  The second did the same, so also the third,

down to the seventh.

27  Last of all, the woman herself died.

28  In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be?

For all of them had married her." 

This is obviously outlining a Levrite marriage

 In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus tells the Sadducees

basically, that their question is ridiculous and irrelevant,

that God is the God of the living, not the dead.

 

 But John’s gospel, is not interested in answering this theological

minutia at all. John’s gospel is interested in the anonymous woman 

that the Sadducees are asking about.

 

When faced with a woman who is married five times,

passed around passed around from man to man,

The religious leaders would have asked

- In the end, who’s possession is she?

 

But Jesus shows us that the right question is posed to her:

Woman, aren’t you thirsty?

Don’t you want something that lasts forever.

Love that won’t die or leave you alone

or give up on you or go away after a little while?

At this point in your difficult life don’t you need

God’s love, acceptance, and grace?

Don’t you want living water?

 

That’s the question that Jesus would ask about a woman

who was shuffled off from husband to husband.

Jesus would find the woman and talk to her,

and engage her in her own theological conversation.

 

We live in a world that can be cold and unforgiving.
That can be sterile and hurtful we live our lives in systems in this 

world that doesn't care who you are,

where people are a checked box, a string of numbers,
a statistic, a vote, a dollar amount, a credit rating,

And if you don’t fit neatly into one of those categories,

you can be left behind to suffer alone.

And Christians have sometimes been the worst offenders

We have tried to cram people into our cold theological

judgments and rules. We have tended to be a force of division.

But like Jesus says to this Samaritan woman at the well:

“The hour is coming when we will worship God in Spirit and truth”

The hour is coming when these petty things like where we worship, or we’re married to, or what gender we are,

won’t separate us.

 

The truth is that God’s love is stronger than anything.

God’s love has the power to overcome any obstacle that is

put in front of it, even if the church puts it there.

We can’t forget that God’s love

is the spring of water that gushes up to eternal life,

The water that we can drink and never be thirsty again.

 

Christ is the living water,

and in him we are given the power over and over again,

to die to our old selves and rise again.

To die to our past, whatever was done by us -- or to us,

and rise to a new life a new reality.

But it’s not like those life experiences are just washed away.

They are transformed.

What the world counts as an insurmountable obstacle,

God counts as a benefit, God uses it to reach others.

 

Jesus offered the Samaritan woman

the living water of God’s love.

And afterwards, this woman leaves her water jug

goes to the center of the village that has brushed her aside

and tells them that she has met the Messiah.

And she is believed.

 

 She dies to her old identity:

(whisper) “the woman with five husbands.”

And now she has a new identity:

“The Woman With Five Husbands!”

The woman with a fascinating past and

a first-hand story of God to share.

 

She goes into the streets and tells everyone,

“Look this is the one. He told me everything about myself!

He can’t be the Messiah, can he?”

She is the first evangelist. The first preacher.

 

And just as Jesus came into this woman’s life

and transformed her, so it is with us.

The body of Christ - the love of God incarnate -

comes up to us at our well. Where we stand alone.

Across all of our obstacles and burdens.

Through whatever we’ve done or had done to us,

and reminds us, that that is not what defines us.

What defines us is God’s love.

 

The living water—God’s love—has the power to transform us.

In it, we can take our past and all those things

that once held us back, and use them

as a testament of how great God’s love and grace is.

 

And now our past is an asset, a strength, a witness.

This is how we die to ourselves and rise with Christ.

This is how God gives us new life.