Chance Encounter

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on January 21, 2024.  The Bible verses used are John 4:1-26.

            The story we read today is one of my favorite stories in the Bible.  I mean, I suppose I have a lot of favorite stories in the Bible, but this is one of them.  And one of the things I love about it is the sheer randomness of it.

            Now, when I say randomness, I cannot say whether it was random from Jesus’ point of view.  It’s entirely possible that Jesus had this all planned out from the beginning.  Jesus may have known that there was this woman in Samaria who always went to this same well at the same time.  He may have deliberately timed his trip to Samaria so that he would get to the well just before the woman got there, so he could meet and talk to her.  I mean, after all, he’s Jesus.  He told Nathanael that he saw him while he was still sitting under a fig tree, before they’d ever met.  So Jesus can do stuff like this if he wants to.

            But that’s not the way John presents the story to us.  The way John presents the story, this was just a chance encounter.  It’s sort of like one of Wanda’s Hallmark Channel or Great movies, where two people meet by accident and the meeting changes their lives forever.  Except that here, this chance meeting did not just change a life.  It led to people receiving eternal life.

            And certainly, from the point of view of the Samaritan woman, it was a chance encounter.  She had no idea that she’d be meeting the Messiah, the Savior, on that day.  She probably did not expect to meet anyone.  For her, this was just another day.  A day like any other day.  She needed water, this was where the well was, so she went to get water.  Just like she probably did every day at about this time.

            She sees a man sitting there.  She can tell it’s not a Samaritan.  It’s a Jewish man.  As our reading says, Jews did not associate with Samaritans and vice versa.  I’m sure she was quite ready for this man to ignore her, and she was prepared to ignore him as well.  But then, amazingly enough, he speaks to her.  He asks her for a drink of water.  

            She could not believe it.  Why is this man, this stranger, this Jewish stranger, talking to her?  She asks him that.  And just to make sure he understands the situation, she goes out of her way to point out why he should not be speaking to her.  She says, “You are a Jew.  I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink?”  Like, maybe this guy does not see very well or is just kind of stupid or something.  Maybe he does not realize I’m a Samaritan.  I’d better spell it out for him, so he does not get us both into trouble.

            And Jesus answers, “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.”

            Do you think the Samaritan woman knew what that meant?  I doubt it.  But here’s the surprising thing.  She does not cut him off.  She does not walk away.  Even though she’s not supposed to be talking to a Jewish man, there’s something about this Jewish man that makes her stay and have a conversation with him.  She may not have understood what Jesus meant, but she knew he meant something, and it was something important.  She knew there was something different, something special, about this Jewish man.  And so she asks him, where are you going to get this living water from?  Are you greater than our great father, the Jacob of the Bible?

            And Jesus answers, “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.”

            Do you think the Samaritan woman knew what that meant?  It seems obvious to me that she did not.  She’s still thinking of regular water, water to drink.  She thinks, man, I don’t know what that living water is, but I sure wish I had some.  To never be thirsty again?  To never have to come back to this stupid well and draw water every single day, the way I do now?  Boy, sign me up for that!  So, she asks Jesus for some living water.

            And Jesus says, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

            Now, really try to put yourself in this woman’s place here.  You’re talking to this strange Jewish man.  You can tell there’s something different about him, but you really don’t know what.  You don’t understand all this living water stuff, and for all you know it might not even exist.  It might just be a line this Jewish man is giving you.  He might just be trying to make fun of you.  But now, it’s starting to get personal.  He’s asking about your husband, and you don’t have one.

            But then you think, well, he does not know me.  He probably just assumed a woman my age would be married.  So you say, “I have no husband.”

            And Jesus says, “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.”

            Okay, that’s pretty freaky, right?  I mean, here’s this guy you’ve never met, and he knows all this stuff about you.  How’d he do that?  I mean, it’s not like he could’ve looked up your facebook profile.  Has he been to town and heard gossip?  Are people really talking about me all over town?  Doesn’t seem likely.  But how could he know all this?

            And she realizes there’s only one way.  He must be a prophet.  And so she asks him a question.

            Have you ever thought about what question you’d ask a prophet, if you could?  We could probably think of all kinds of questions.  After all, a prophet knows the will of God.  We’d all like to know the will of God, right?  And probably this woman would have, too. She probably had a lot of questions, too.  But she knows she probably does not have a lot of time, so she asks one question, a theological question about the proper place to worship God.  

            And Jesus answers, “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.”  And then, when the woman says someday the Messiah will come and explain it all, Jesus answers, “I am he.”

            That’s the end of the conversation, as far as we know from the Bible.  But then, what does this woman do?  She goes back to town, tells people what happened, a lot of them come out to see Jesus, and we’re told that many of them came to be believers.  Any number of lives were changed, just because of this one chance encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman.  This chance encounter that happened on what, up until the moment she met Jesus, seemed like just another ordinary day.

            So what’s the point?  Well, tomorrow morning, you’re going to get up.  You’re going to go to work, you’re going to go to school, you’re going to do whatever it is you do.  Maybe you have something special planned for tomorrow, but most of us probably don’t.  For most of us, tomorrow is going to be just another ordinary day.

            And maybe it will be.  But maybe it won’t.  Maybe something special is going to happen tomorrow.  Maybe something life-changing is going to happen tomorrow.  Maybe you’re going to meet Jesus tomorrow.  

            And maybe Jesus is going to come at a time and in a way you don’t expect him, just as he did for the Samaritan woman.  You probably won’t meet Him at a well.  But maybe you’ll see Him at the convenience store.  Maybe you’ll see Him at the cafe.  Maybe you’ll see Him at a ball game.  You could be minding your own business, just doing what you do every day, and all of a sudden, there He is.  

You may not recognize Him.  You may have no idea that He’s Jesus.  It may appear to be just a chance encounter with some random stranger.  You may wonder why He’s even talking to you.  You may wish He’d just mind His own business and quit bothering you.  You may even be tempted to ignore Him.

Don’t ignore Him.  See Him.  Talk to Him.  Hear what He has to say to you.  Trust it.  Believe it.  And tell others about it, so they can come and believe.

Does that sound far-fetched?  Well, maybe it is.  But it would’ve sounded far-fetched to the Samaritan woman, too.  She’d have thought there was no way she would ever meet the Messiah, the Savior.  And she’d have kept thinking that, right up until the moment it happened.

I’m not saying you will meet Jesus tomorrow.  But you know, with God, all things are possible.  So pay attention.  There’s always the chance that something could happen on your ordinary Monday that will change your life.  And it might change a lot of other people’s lives, too.