JESUS with the Unknown woman: break the walls & build bridges
John 4:1-25 (MSG)
Jesus realized that the Pharisees were keeping count of the baptisms that he and John performed (although his disciples, not Jesus, did the actual baptizing). They had posted the score that Jesus was ahead, turning him and John into rivals in the eyes of the people.
Because of this, Jesus left the Judean countryside and went back to Galilee. To get there, Jesus had to pass through Samaria. He then came to Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was still there, so, worn out by the trip, Jesus sat down at the well. It was noon. A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)
The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days would not be caught dead talking to Samaritans.) Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”
The woman said, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this ‘living water’? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?” Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”
The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!” Jesus said, “Go call your husband and then come back.” “I have no husband,” she said. Jesus then said: “That’s nicely put: ‘I have no husband.’ You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re living with now isn’t even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.”
“Oh, so you’re a prophet!” the woman said. “Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?”
“Believe me, woman,” Jesus said, “the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. You worship, guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God’s way of salvation is made available through the Jews, but the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you are called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. “It’s who you are and the way you live that counts before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That is the kind of people for whom the Father looking: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.
The woman said, “I don’t know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When he arrives, we’ll get the whole story.”
“I am he,” Jesus said. “You don’t have to wait any longer or look any further.”
For many years, big walls had separated Samaritans and Jews. They were cultural walls, gender walls, religious walls and racial walls. Jesus had to break down all of those walls. Like us today, Jews and Samaritans developed thick skins not to feel or see the injustices that was happening around them. Just like us, they normalized something that was not normal. The walls that separated them felt normal to both sides, (the Jews and Samaritans). Jesus came and intentionally broke those walls, brick by brick. One has to be intentional to break the walls. There are three things in this text that Jesus used to both break the walls, brick by brick and build a bridge.
1. Jesus connected with this nameless woman as a human being, not as a woman. They both met each other at their points of need. Jesus needed to quench his physical thirst, and the Samaritan her spiritual thirst. In verse eight, Jesus asks: “Would you give me a drink of water?” In verse fifteen, the Samaritan woman says, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!” Right there, the wall between the Samaritans and Jews started to break down and the bridge was formed. It is through vulnerability not power that bridges are built and walls are destroyed. Power destroys but vulnerability builds.
2. Jesus connected with her as a spiritual being: In verses twenty-three to twenty- four, Jesus says: “It’s who you are and the way you live that counts before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. Those are the kind of people for whom the Father looks.” SPIRITUALITY is what they had in common with Jesus.
3. Jesus connected with her as a person: In verses sixteen to seventeen, Jesus tells her: “Go and get your husband,” and she replied: “I don’t have a husband.” I believe that Jesus did not question her to get her. Jesus wanted to know the person behind the woman. In turn, Jesus introduced himself. Then Jesus told her in verse twenty-five: “I am the Messiah. One cannot get more personal than that. Jesus intentionally, not artificially broke those walls everywhere He went. He tore down the walls we use to keep each other at a distance.
Conclusion: It is not the person from a radically different culture on the other side of the world that is hardest to love, but the nearby neighbour whose skin colour, language, rituals, values, ancestry, history, and customs are different from one’s own.
