Last week we were reminded not only that we are working our way through John’s Gospel, but also that this gospel has ongoing themes and threads that weave in and through itself. In fact, these threads connect and build upon the message of hope and love that we find throughout the whole canon of scripture that is the Bible. This is especially true this week, even though this story stands in stark contrast with last week's text which was the story of Nicodemus, a teacher of the law who came to Jesus under the cover of night. Today we have a woman of Samaria (doubly outcast by Jesus’ contemporaries) who meets with Jesus in the middle of the day.
I’ll say more about that later, but first I want to pull a few more threads to say that this text and the story that it tells builds on the stories of the Old Testament about Jacob and his proposal to mary Rachel and the abuse he takes for it that we find in Genesis 29. The well itself is a call back to that story, and it’s not unreasonable or unfaithful to say that there may be some connection between these stories and the fact that Jesus’ first miracle in the book of John was at a wedding in Cana.
Not only that but in John 3:26 Jesus is called the Bridegroom by John the Baptizer after having told Nicodemus in John 3:16 that “God so loved the world that he that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have eternal life.”
Friends, what we have here is nothing less than an expansion of that promise of love for the world. What we have here is a proposal, dare I say an indecent proposal that Jesus makes to this unnamed woman – but it is also a proposal to you and to me and to the samaritan next door that you and I may have been unwilling to see.
Let’s talk about all that. I’m going to give you my super quick summary of this story. I know we have already heard it, but I want you to listen for the kind of proposal Jesus might be offering us from Jacob’s well today.
I’m going to start back at John 3:26, where we find out that people are making a competition out of the baptisms offered by John and by the disciples of Jesus. The first thing we learn from that is that Jesus does not compete for our affection. He simply is the one who has come to be the lifelong companion of the world.
In John 4:1-6 we see that he had to go through Samaria to get to Galilee. You may recall that he had already caused a fuss in Jerusalem at the temple. Now people were confusing him with John. It was just time to go, and the quickest route was through Samaria. They get to a village around noon. He’s tired. The disciples are tired. James probably needs a Snickers – he always acts like a Prophet of old when he’s hungry – and again, it’s Samaria. Was the food even permissible to eat? Samaritans were descendants from the Northern Kingdom of Israel, but they also included others who had been held captive in Babylon. They were considered to be cut off from the providence of God for their mixed marriages and foreign Gods, but mostly because the center of their worship was not in Jerusalem.
The disciples did the smart thing. They left him at a well outside of the city so that they would be the only ones risking contamination by association with these imposters of the faith. Then what does Jesus do?
In John 4:7-9 a woman, of Samaria no less, comes to get water and he asks her for a drink – at Jacob’s well – when both of them know that is just shy of a marriage proposal! She rejects him based on social code. She’s not dumb. She knows a thirst trap when she sees one.
Then in John 4:10-15, Jesus says, “If you knew who I was you would ask me.” “Really?” she says, “That’s your line? You don’t even have a bucket? Are you going to promise my dad you’ll work form as hard as Jacob did for Rachel?” And Jesus says, “I’m just saying that you’ll never thirst and you’ll live forever.” I feel like she should be really sarcastic now. “Yes, please! Give me some of that water!”
John 4:16-26 is where it gets real. Call your husband. Oh, I don’t have a husband. Oh, that’s right. You’ve had five, and the one you are with now is not your husband. Alright. I’m going to call a quick time out for Biblical historical accuracy. The early church did not make a thing about this. For all we know these marriages were leverate marriages. A husband dies. His brother takes her on, and so on. Regardless of that, this isn’t about her moral redemption. This is about the fact that Jesus knows her and that the offer of living water is not about her. It is for her, but it is about Jesus. It is about recognizing who he is and what he has to offer.
Because he knows her and speaks truth about her she sees him as a prophet, but he needs her to understand that he is more than that. So they talk about worship and what makes it real and true, and she says, “Well, I guess the Messiah will tell us the right answer.” That was quintessential, “I suppose we have a difference of opinion.” Then Jesus says, “Yes. I will tell you.”
Just as she is working all this out the disciples roll up with something very tasty from the Kosher Dely in 4:27-38. No doubt they are giving her the side eye as they offer him some food and she takes off so fast that her jar just spins in place. As Jesus tries to refocus the disciples by telling them that it’s not about him and his needs and not about them and their ability to find good eats and follow the law – it is instead about the movement of God and the role they will play in the harvest that is beginning to grow and bear fruit.
Meanwhile in 4:39-42, the first apostle – the unnamed Samaritan Woman – is evangelizing with this question, “Can this be the Messiah?” and this invitation, “Come see.” Many believed because they came and saw. Now, what does that have to do with you and me? What is the core teaching of this story, and what is the indecent proposal that Jesus makes for us, today? I’m not exactly sure what it means for you in your life, but there are some things we do know about Jesus from this text and there are some things we can say about our lives as followers of the way of Jesus.
We know that Jesus was doing things so radical and dangerous that established leaders had to come see him at night. We can guess that the disciples might have wanted to manage him and care for him when they said, “Stay here. Be safe.” but what did Jesus do? He took the first opportunity to risk it all and entrusted the message of welcome to the first outcast (in fact she was doubly so) that he could. If we are to follow the example of Jesus and listen to her question and her invitation (Can this be the Messiah? Come see.) it means that we are going to have to take the same kind of risks as Jesus.
Let me tell you what that looks like in the words of Rev. Rob Fuquay, Sr Pastor of St. Luke's United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, IN – a congregation large enough to need a staff of five pastors and a theologian in residence. In a sermon on their website and also a video on TikTok, he says, “It is blissful to hand out bottles of water to thirsty people, but when we ask why people don’t have clean drinking water then we are going to risk safety. It is blissful to support minority-owned businesses, tutor in low-income neighborhood schools, and help provide housing for minority residents. But to ask why are there disparities in minority housing, education, and business, then we are going to risk safety. It's blissful to hand out snacks to people standing in long lines to vote, but to ask if there is equality in voting access we are going to risk safety. It’s blissful to say we welcome all people, but to say we are going to advocate for the rights of gay and trans people in the church means we are going to risk safety.”
I could be wrong, but I believe that Rev Fuquay’s encouragement toward risky behavior is not too far off from the context of the conversation that Jesus had with his disciples about the harvest that was coming to bear fruit. Faith in God and belief in Jesus as the Messiah is not just something we do for ourselves. It is something that helps us to see what God is already doing in the midst of suffering and chaos and how we might be a part of it.
In the end, what we know is this: Jesus doesn’t compete for our love and companionship because Jesus is the source of life, and he offers us the opportunity to truly live through the risk of loving as he loves. His invitation to love this way is the indecent proposal that calls us to love in ways that are unlimited by the expectations of our tribes and the codes that we build up like walls of a tower. It is when we get beyond these fortresses of familiarity that we are able to worship in Spirit and in Truth. That means living into the question, “Could this be the Messiah?” together, and waiting for the chance to hear someone we least expect it from to say, “Come see.”
I pray that this week offers us all the chance to ask ourselves what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah, the one who offers life in abundance – eternal life that has already begun and continues long after us all – and I pray that we might continue to be a community of love and risk and eternal reward that seeks to offer the wholeness and healing of the presence of God, and that you might receive it today! Next week we’ll continue on the theme of healing and wholeness as we find it in response to the invitation of Jesus to receive him in our hearts and homes, just as those in Samaria did so long ago.
I’ll say more about that later, but first I want to pull a few more threads to say that this text and the story that it tells builds on the stories of the Old Testament about Jacob and his proposal to mary Rachel and the abuse he takes for it that we find in Genesis 29. The well itself is a call back to that story, and it’s not unreasonable or unfaithful to say that there may be some connection between these stories and the fact that Jesus’ first miracle in the book of John was at a wedding in Cana.
Not only that but in John 3:26 Jesus is called the Bridegroom by John the Baptizer after having told Nicodemus in John 3:16 that “God so loved the world that he that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have eternal life.”
Friends, what we have here is nothing less than an expansion of that promise of love for the world. What we have here is a proposal, dare I say an indecent proposal that Jesus makes to this unnamed woman – but it is also a proposal to you and to me and to the samaritan next door that you and I may have been unwilling to see.
Let’s talk about all that. I’m going to give you my super quick summary of this story. I know we have already heard it, but I want you to listen for the kind of proposal Jesus might be offering us from Jacob’s well today.
I’m going to start back at John 3:26, where we find out that people are making a competition out of the baptisms offered by John and by the disciples of Jesus. The first thing we learn from that is that Jesus does not compete for our affection. He simply is the one who has come to be the lifelong companion of the world.
In John 4:1-6 we see that he had to go through Samaria to get to Galilee. You may recall that he had already caused a fuss in Jerusalem at the temple. Now people were confusing him with John. It was just time to go, and the quickest route was through Samaria. They get to a village around noon. He’s tired. The disciples are tired. James probably needs a Snickers – he always acts like a Prophet of old when he’s hungry – and again, it’s Samaria. Was the food even permissible to eat? Samaritans were descendants from the Northern Kingdom of Israel, but they also included others who had been held captive in Babylon. They were considered to be cut off from the providence of God for their mixed marriages and foreign Gods, but mostly because the center of their worship was not in Jerusalem.
The disciples did the smart thing. They left him at a well outside of the city so that they would be the only ones risking contamination by association with these imposters of the faith. Then what does Jesus do?
In John 4:7-9 a woman, of Samaria no less, comes to get water and he asks her for a drink – at Jacob’s well – when both of them know that is just shy of a marriage proposal! She rejects him based on social code. She’s not dumb. She knows a thirst trap when she sees one.
Then in John 4:10-15, Jesus says, “If you knew who I was you would ask me.” “Really?” she says, “That’s your line? You don’t even have a bucket? Are you going to promise my dad you’ll work form as hard as Jacob did for Rachel?” And Jesus says, “I’m just saying that you’ll never thirst and you’ll live forever.” I feel like she should be really sarcastic now. “Yes, please! Give me some of that water!”
John 4:16-26 is where it gets real. Call your husband. Oh, I don’t have a husband. Oh, that’s right. You’ve had five, and the one you are with now is not your husband. Alright. I’m going to call a quick time out for Biblical historical accuracy. The early church did not make a thing about this. For all we know these marriages were leverate marriages. A husband dies. His brother takes her on, and so on. Regardless of that, this isn’t about her moral redemption. This is about the fact that Jesus knows her and that the offer of living water is not about her. It is for her, but it is about Jesus. It is about recognizing who he is and what he has to offer.
Because he knows her and speaks truth about her she sees him as a prophet, but he needs her to understand that he is more than that. So they talk about worship and what makes it real and true, and she says, “Well, I guess the Messiah will tell us the right answer.” That was quintessential, “I suppose we have a difference of opinion.” Then Jesus says, “Yes. I will tell you.”
Just as she is working all this out the disciples roll up with something very tasty from the Kosher Dely in 4:27-38. No doubt they are giving her the side eye as they offer him some food and she takes off so fast that her jar just spins in place. As Jesus tries to refocus the disciples by telling them that it’s not about him and his needs and not about them and their ability to find good eats and follow the law – it is instead about the movement of God and the role they will play in the harvest that is beginning to grow and bear fruit.
Meanwhile in 4:39-42, the first apostle – the unnamed Samaritan Woman – is evangelizing with this question, “Can this be the Messiah?” and this invitation, “Come see.” Many believed because they came and saw. Now, what does that have to do with you and me? What is the core teaching of this story, and what is the indecent proposal that Jesus makes for us, today? I’m not exactly sure what it means for you in your life, but there are some things we do know about Jesus from this text and there are some things we can say about our lives as followers of the way of Jesus.
We know that Jesus was doing things so radical and dangerous that established leaders had to come see him at night. We can guess that the disciples might have wanted to manage him and care for him when they said, “Stay here. Be safe.” but what did Jesus do? He took the first opportunity to risk it all and entrusted the message of welcome to the first outcast (in fact she was doubly so) that he could. If we are to follow the example of Jesus and listen to her question and her invitation (Can this be the Messiah? Come see.) it means that we are going to have to take the same kind of risks as Jesus.
Let me tell you what that looks like in the words of Rev. Rob Fuquay, Sr Pastor of St. Luke's United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, IN – a congregation large enough to need a staff of five pastors and a theologian in residence. In a sermon on their website and also a video on TikTok, he says, “It is blissful to hand out bottles of water to thirsty people, but when we ask why people don’t have clean drinking water then we are going to risk safety. It is blissful to support minority-owned businesses, tutor in low-income neighborhood schools, and help provide housing for minority residents. But to ask why are there disparities in minority housing, education, and business, then we are going to risk safety. It's blissful to hand out snacks to people standing in long lines to vote, but to ask if there is equality in voting access we are going to risk safety. It’s blissful to say we welcome all people, but to say we are going to advocate for the rights of gay and trans people in the church means we are going to risk safety.”
I could be wrong, but I believe that Rev Fuquay’s encouragement toward risky behavior is not too far off from the context of the conversation that Jesus had with his disciples about the harvest that was coming to bear fruit. Faith in God and belief in Jesus as the Messiah is not just something we do for ourselves. It is something that helps us to see what God is already doing in the midst of suffering and chaos and how we might be a part of it.
In the end, what we know is this: Jesus doesn’t compete for our love and companionship because Jesus is the source of life, and he offers us the opportunity to truly live through the risk of loving as he loves. His invitation to love this way is the indecent proposal that calls us to love in ways that are unlimited by the expectations of our tribes and the codes that we build up like walls of a tower. It is when we get beyond these fortresses of familiarity that we are able to worship in Spirit and in Truth. That means living into the question, “Could this be the Messiah?” together, and waiting for the chance to hear someone we least expect it from to say, “Come see.”
I pray that this week offers us all the chance to ask ourselves what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah, the one who offers life in abundance – eternal life that has already begun and continues long after us all – and I pray that we might continue to be a community of love and risk and eternal reward that seeks to offer the wholeness and healing of the presence of God, and that you might receive it today! Next week we’ll continue on the theme of healing and wholeness as we find it in response to the invitation of Jesus to receive him in our hearts and homes, just as those in Samaria did so long ago.
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