Reflection on John 4:5-42

 

John 4:5-42 (NRSVue)

⁵ [Jesus] 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, 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.) 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.”
  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!” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “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.” 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.”
  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?” 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.
  ³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. ³⁶ The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷ For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
  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.”

Reflection

Clay jars were a common sight in the ancient world.  In a way, they were one of the most important items in the house because they were not only big enough to carry the water for the day, but they could also store it and keep it cool.  Every day someone (often a wife or a daughter) used to go to the well and fill the clay jar for the rest of the family.  The clay jar was an essential item. 

And with that blatantly obvious and completely irrelevant piece of information, you can now go home feeling that your life is complete.

But I beg you to wait a second or two before you start adding to the shopping in your mind and listen to an astonishing thing about the clay water jar in this story.  The reason I gave you this blatantly obvious and rather mundane information about clay water jars is because the Samaritan woman in this story from the gospel of John ran off and left hers behind. 

Why would you do that?  You need water for the day.  You need water to survive.  These large jars, which everybody had to have, were essential to daily life.  But the Bible says that “the woman left her water jar and went back to the city” (John 4:28).

This woman had obviously discovered in Jesus something wonderful enough and freeing enough to cause her to leave her precious jar. 

Tell me, what might God do for you that would cause you to leave your car sitting in a parking lot?  Now, I am assuming that you have a car worth caring about.  Growing up, my family owned Ford Pintos.  The Ford Pinto was the paper plate of the automobile world.  They were nearly one-use vehicles that you pitched in the garbage after a drive and then you just picked up another. 

But assuming you have a nice car, tell me what it is that God might do for you that would cause you to run, leaving your car in the parking lot, while you go and tell your neighbors?  What have you been lugging around in your clay jar that needs to be lifted from your life?

The Samaritan woman had a few things in her jar weighing her down as she walked through life.  The first seemed to be her own self-worth.  How do I know?  For starts, the Bible says that when the Samaritan woman encountered Jesus, “it was about noon” (John 4:6).  It was noon.  It was the hottest time of the day, and that time of day was not when women went to the well to draw water.  They took their journey in the morning or in the evening, when it was cool.  But the Samaritan woman intentionally came at a time when she knew that she would not encounter anyone else.  She intentionally came at that time, when no one would see her and whisper and talk.  She held something shameful about herself in her heavy jar of life.

The shame becomes tangible when she suddenly finds that she is not alone.  Her lack of self-worth becomes painfully obvious when she refuses to allow a potentially romantic scene at the well to play out. 

Now, you need to know that in the ancient world “young woman” plus “young man” plus “well” equals “romance.”  Though I am certain that Jesus did not have any romantic intentions, as far as a classic romantic story is concerned, Jesus appeared to start off the romantic scene correctly.  "Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’" (John 4:7).  Just for your information, that line in the ancient world was the equivalent of; "Do you come here often?"  And she opens this romantic scene with a stellar response, "’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)” (John 4:9).  

She puts up a wall to the attempted connection.  She throws up a wall of shame to push him away.  Her shame would scream, “Can't you see I’m only a Samaritan?"  “Can’t you see I’m only a woman?”  “Can’t you see I am only the enemy.”  “Can’t you see that I am only me.” 

The thought weighed her down.  Have the words, "I'm only…" ever come out of your mouth?  What preconceived notion of who you are and what you are capable of weighs you down?  What negative self-talk of “I’m so stupid,” or “I’m so lazy,” or “I’m so weak?” invades your daily activities?  Who has stacked a heavy rock of “You are only…” on your shoulders? 

Have you ever encountered that person who stared at the dance floor as a teen, hoping that someone would come over and ask for a dance, but somehow knew it would never happen?  Worthlessness makes your jar very heavy.  Being alone in the world is a heavy thing to carry.

Jesus said to the woman, “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” (John 4:10).  “I'll give you water that is better than worthlessness” Jesus promised.  Worthlessness is an unhealthy drink.  Jesus promised to give her “living water” (John 4:10).

Delving deeper into the murky waters of her jar, Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back” (John 4:16).  Looking down into her jar she saw swirling there her uncertain and chaotic life.  Widowed, she had been bounced around to live with many men, many husbands, none of whom thought that she was worthy enough to keep her around.  As I said before, “worthlessness” filled her jar, but mixed into those waters was a life of instability and chaos as well. 

"I have no husband," she admitted (John 4:17).  

Jesus responded, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.  What you have said is true!" (John 4:17-18).

Do you know what a prophet is?  A prophet is not a fortuneteller who can clearly see events in the distant future.  Rather, a prophet is someone who is somehow able to peer over the lip of your closely held jar and describe the murky water inside.  That is who a prophet is. 

Jesus was this woman’s prophet, and she knew it. 

I would like to propose to you that even in our modern world prophets are still essential.  You cannot let your jar be filled with clean, living water from God, “water gushing up to eternal life,” until you can clearly see that you have been lugging around murky water (John 4:14). 

It is amazing how people will put up with bad water for years and think that it is normal.  It is amazing how little we can see of ourselves.  In a world where we say, "Leave me alone, it's none of your business!" we probably need prophets more than we would like to admit. 

Jesus is a savior, yes, but also a prophet.  And those Jesus sends into our lives are also prophets.  They are the ones who point out the obvious discoloration floating in our jars that for some reason we just cannot see ourselves.  If only we would let others look into our jars?  If only we would look ourselves?  Maybe we are just fine with stagnant, murky water.  Maybe it is good enough.

But what if it is not good enough?  Naming the murkiness in our water is powerful stuff.  Admitting things like fearing that depression has taken hold, or admitting long ignored health problems, or admitting that stress is leading you to a breaking point, or admitting that you hide at work to be free from the stresses at home, or admitting that you live with a constant feeling of worthless, admitting any of that can be hard stuff.  It is hard to admit that we have put up with lugging it around all this time. 

But here is a simple truth: you cannot throw out the bad water until you can see that it is bad water.  You are just going to keep drinking it again and again until you finally can see that it is making you sick.

Even if you see the bad water in your life, I have to admit, it is hard to throw it out.  What will take its place once I throw it out?  Will my jar simply be empty?  Nothing is worse than emptiness.  That is why it is hard to keep people with mental illnesses on their medications, because strange and horrible feelings are preferable to no feelings at all (which is the effect of some medications).  Those of us without mental illnesses are not any different.  Anything is better than emptiness.

But do you know who was willing to take a chance with leaving the bad water behind?  The woman.  Jesus refused to push the woman away, even when she objected, even when it was clear that he knew about her entire sordid past.  He knew her.  This created an opening that potentially allowed some fresh water to flow her way. 

The woman said to Jesus, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet” (John 4:19).  Her prophet was right there.  Jesus, her savior, was right there, ready to fill her up with fresh, living water.  Jesus was right there to assure her that the Messiah had come to proclaim to her.  “I am he, the one who is speaking to you” (John 4:26).  God, the great “I am” was there, choosing to speak to the one who was “only the enemy,” “only a woman,” “only a Samaritan.”

And Christ is right here with us as well.  The Bible reminds us that “where two or three are gathered” Christ is there (Matthew 18:20).  So, we can take the chance and throw out the murky water that does not give life.  We can seek the one who fills us with fresh, living water; water that renews us in such an amazing way that we too leave our heavy jars behind. 

You see, the jars of our old lives are a trap.  You can stare into those jars for too long and never realize that there is a world out there.  But once you are helped to look up from your jar, you see a wonderful new world of opportunity and love and happiness. 

You see that other people are walking around, carrying heavy jars, staring into their jars, and you just want to go and tell them, “Look up!  Don't you see that you are staring down at your own feeling of worthlessness, at the chaos of your life, at the very things that threaten to destroy your soul?”  “Look up,” you say.  “Look up and experience the gift of freedom that Christ has given to me.  It is good.  It is refreshing.  It is “water that gushes ‘up to eternal life’ (John 4:14).  Look up!” 

And they do.  And one by one people are freed from their heavy jars as Christ moves more people to be prophets and proclaimers of Christ’s freedom to each other.  And it is a beautiful sight when you look in front of you and see a huge pile of jars that have all been left behind.  They were not that important after all.