As we continue looking at Jesus’ life, we again
pick up the story right where we left off last week. Last week we talked
about how Jesus was gaining more and more followers, that he now had more
people following him than even John the Baptist. Well, the Pharisees
heard about that, and they started to get concerned. So, Jesus left Judea
and went back to Galilee.
Now, understand that Jesus was not afraid of the Pharisees.
There are lots of places in the Bible where we see Jesus taking on the
Pharisees, arguing with them, even confronting them. But this is still
the early days of Jesus’ ministry. If Jesus had gotten the Pharisees too
upset with him at this early stage, they could’ve shut him down, maybe even
killed him then. They could’ve ended Jesus’ ministry before it got
properly started. Jesus knew it was too soon to provoke the Pharisees
into action.
So, he left and headed back to
Galilee. But to get there, he had to go through Samaria. And while
he’s doing that, he meets a Samaritan woman at a well.
As with a lot of the stories
we’ve look at, we don’t know just how this meeting came about. Did Jesus
know this woman would be there? Did Jesus deliberately time his visit to
the well, so he’d meet this woman there? It’s certainly possible, because
again, we’re talking about Jesus here. None of that is said in the Bible
reading, though. The way it’s presented, it looks like this was simply a
chance meeting, that Jesus and the Samaritan woman just happened to be at the
well at the same time. The opportunity arose for Jesus to tell this woman
who he was and he took it.
So let’s look at this situation
from the woman’s point of view. For her, this has just started out as an
ordinary day. She’s going out to the well to get some water. She’s
probably done that a thousand times or more in her life. In fact, my idea
is that this was an every day thing for her--every day, about noon, she’d go
out to the well and get some water.
I want us to notice that,
because it seems like it happens over and over again in the Bible. People
are just going through their lives, living day to day. They’re doing the
things they do every day, the things they’ve done a thousand times before.
And then, in the middle of their ordinary day, God shows up.
That happens over and over
again in the Bible. It happened to Abraham. It happened to Moses.
It happened to Mary and Joseph. It happened to the shepherds.
Ordinary people, doing ordinary things, going about their ordinary lives.
And then, all of a sudden, God shows up. And there’s absolutely
nothing ordinary about their day any more.
So this Samaritan woman--and
that’s all she’s known as in the Bible, by the way. Her name is never
mentioned. She’s always just “the Samaritan woman” or even more simply,
just “the woman”. This Samaritan woman goes out to the well, just as she’s
done a thousand times before, and there’s this Jewish guy sitting there.
That would’ve been unusual, but probably not extraordinary. It
sounds like this well is along the main road by which you get from Judea to
Galilee and back again. And there were lots of Jewish people living in
Judea and in Galilee, so it would not have been that strange to see a Jewish
man there.
But then he talks to her.
And that is unusual, because Jews and Samaritans hated each other.
A Jewish man would not normally even speak to a Samaritan woman.
But then, Jesus asks her for a drink of water. And that was even
stranger, because it would’ve been violating Jewish laws for a Jewish man to
accept water from this unclean woman, this Samaritan.
So they start talking, and
Jesus starts telling this woman that he can give her living water. And
it’s clear that the woman has no idea what he’s talking about. That
raises another question that we’ve talked about before, which is, why did Jesus
so often talk in riddles and figures of speech? Why did Jesus not come
out and tell this woman who he was right away? After all, he’s going to
tell her eventually. Our reading ends with Jesus saying “I, the one
speaking to you, I am he”, meaning the Messiah. Why go through all this
stuff about living water? Why did Jesus not just tell her he was the
Messiah right away?
A lot of times we don’t know
the answer to questions like that, but in this case I think I know at least
part of it. If, as soon as the woman came to the well, Jesus had said,
“Hi, I’m the Messiah”, how would the woman have reacted? She probably
would not have listened to him. She might have thought he was crazy.
She might have run away. I certainly don’t think she’d have
accepted what he said and believed it.
Jesus knew he had to build up
to things slowly. So he starts talking about this “living water” to get
the woman interested. Then, he tells her something about her life that
there’s no way he ought to know. That gets the woman to trust Jesus, to
acknowledge that he’s a prophet. Then, he’s able to tell her more about
God, that to worship God, we need to worship in Spirit and in truth. That
prompts the woman to state her belief that the Messiah is coming. It’s
only then, after all this, that Jesus knows the woman is ready to hear the
truth: that Jesus, the person she’s speaking to right now, is, in fact,
the Messiah.
I’ve said before that, when we
read these stories, a question we should always keep in mind is, why is this
story in the Bible? What can we learn from it? In this case, I
think there are several things we can learn from this story.
One of them is that, while we
need to be willing to stand up for our faith, we also need to know when to
stand up to a confrontation and when to back off. As Kenny Rogers told
us, we need to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. Sometimes
we need to back away from a confrontation. Even if we know the
confrontation will have to come sometime, we need to not provoke it too soon.
We need to know, as Jesus knew, when to withdraw from a confrontation and
deal with it when the time is right.
The second thing we can learn
is to always be ready to take advantage of a chance to talk about Jesus.
It does not appear that Jesus planned this conversation with the
Samaritan woman. Yet, when the chance came to talk to her, Jesus took it.
When the chance came to tell her how to worship God, Jesus took that,
too. And when the chance came to tell her who the Messiah was, Jesus took
that chance as well. We need to be ready to speak up, to tell people who
Jesus is, whenever the chance comes.
Another thing we can learn is
to not take ordinary days for granted. We need to keep our eyes open and
our hearts open on ordinary days, because all kinds of things can happen on
ordinary days. Our lives can completely change on what looks like an
ordinary day. God’s Holy Spirit can come to us on an ordinary day.
We might even meet the Messiah, as this woman did, on an ordinary day.
To God, there’s no such thing as an ordinary day. God chooses
ordinary days as the days for God to do extraordinary things.
And one more thing we can learn
is to approach people slowly with the gospel. Don’t come firing out with
it right away. We do need to get there eventually, just as Jesus got
there eventually. But we need to build up to it. Tell them
something that will get them interested. Do something that will help them
get to know us and trust us. Then, tell them a little more. Then,
when they’re ready, we can give them the full gospel message. Again, we
should not use “going slow” as an excuse to not go anywhere. Jesus did
eventually tell the woman the he was the Messiah. We need to eventually
tell people who the Messiah is, too. We may need to go slow, but we also
need to make sure we’re still moving.
This is the blueprint.
And look at how well it worked. We’re told, first, that the woman
went and told everyone about what had happened. And many people believed
in Jesus because of what she said. They went and listened to Jesus, too.
And when they did that, when they went and heard for themselves, even
more of them believed in Jesus.
Today, as far as I can tell, is
an ordinary day. We came to church. Some of us are going up to Hoven for their Musical Fun Day this
afternoon. Some of us will come to the church council meeting tonight.
Some of us will go home and have a family day today.
Some of us will use the day to get some projects done around the house.
Some of us will take a nap this afternoon. Some of us will go home
and watch the college basketball tournament. Others of us will do all kinds
of other things. We’ll do ordinary things on an ordinary day.
But pay attention.
Because anything could happen on this ordinary day. Literally,
anything. God may come to you on this ordinary day. God may give
you the chance to bring someone to faith on this ordinary day. God may do
something extraordinary in your life on this ordinary day. And God may
give you the chance to do something extraordinary in someone else’s life on
this ordinary day.
The Samaritan woman went out to
the well, just as she had done a thousand times before. Then, God showed
up. And when she came back from the well, her life had changed
completely. She had met the Messiah. And she brought a lot of other
people to the Messiah, too.
God may show up for you today.
May we all keep our eyes and our hearts open to see what extraordinary
thing God may do on this ordinary day.
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