What the Well Reveals

Big Idea: When culture is allowed to define the church, the mission dies. When Scripture defines the church, even the deepest divides get crossed.

Text: John 4:1-26, with a landing in vv. 31-38

OPENING (3-4 min)

One of the churches that makes up my congregation today was dying. Not because they had abandoned the faith. Not because they had walked away from Jesus. They were dying because for decades, the answer to every question about how to do church was the same: "We've always done it this way." And eventually, the people who said that — good people, faithful people — grew old and died. And when they did, they nearly took the church with them.

What was left was a small, aging congregation sitting in a building they could no longer fill, finally asking a different question. Not "what have we always done?" but "what does God still want to do here?" That question opened a door. We merged our two congregations. The older church found new life. Our younger congregation inherited a mission and a building and a history worth honoring. What tradition had nearly killed, the Word of God — and a willingness to be shaped by it — began to resurrect.

I tell you that story not because I think my experience in Washington State is the same as yours in Kenya. It is not. Your context is richer, older, and more complex than mine in many ways.

I tell you that story because I believe the pressure you feel — the pressure between what Scripture says and what tradition demands — is not unique to Africa. It is not unique to any tribe or tongue or nation. It is the oldest pressure in the history of God's people. And Jesus met it head on.

I want to spend our time together in John chapter 4. And I want to suggest to you that what happens at that well — between a Jewish rabbi and a Samaritan woman, in a place no respectable person was supposed to be — is one of the most important pictures in all of Scripture of what it looks like when the mission of God refuses to be held hostage by the traditions of men.

My question for you — and I want you to hold it through everything I say today — is this:

What is shaping your church more right now: the Word of God, or the world around you? And how would you even know the difference?

Let's look at the text together. Let’s read John 4:1-26 and then vv. 31-38

MOVE 1 — "He Had To Go" (vv. 1-6) | 5-6 min

Point: The mission of God doesn't negotiate with tradition.

The word in v. 4 (had to/ must) is divine compulsion, not geography. There was nothing forcing Jesus through Samaria on a map. There was something forcing him there in the Spirit.

Jews didn't go through Samaria. Generations of hostility, rivalry, shame — all of it said go around. Jesus said go through.

Because here is what you need to understand about Samaria: no self-respecting Jewish man went there. The hostility between Jews and Samaritans was not mild cultural awkwardness. It was centuries of contempt, rivalry, and pain running in both directions.

The wound went back centuries. When the kingdom of Israel split, the northern tribes — centered in Samaria — built their own worship centers, their own priesthood, their own version of the faith (1 Kings and 2 Chronicles). And when the Assyrians conquered them, intermarriage with foreign peoples followed. By the time of Jesus, the Jews looked at Samaritans and saw half-breeds and heretics — people who had corrupted the bloodline and corrupted the worship. The Samaritans looked back with equal contempt. They had their own mountain, their own temple, their own claim to Abraham. Neither side was willing to budge. Centuries of "we've always done it this way" — on both sides — had turned a family dispute into a wall neither would cross.

Good Jews crossed to the other side of the road. They added days to their journey to go around. They had proverbs about Samaritans. They had traditions about Samaritans. Generations of inherited wisdom all said the same thing: go around.

Name it plainly: every church, every pastor, every leader has a "Samaria" — a people, a practice, a conversation they've been taught to avoid. Tradition has drawn the road around it. The mission calls you through it.

Where is your Samaria? Who are the people your tradition has taught you to go around? Which tribe, which family, which part of your community has a wall around it that everyone respects — not because Scripture built that wall, but because history did? Because pain did? Because "we've always kept our distance" did?

Every pastor in this room has a Samaria. Every church has a road that bends around someone. And the question the Spirit is always asking is the same question pressing on Jesus in verse 4: must you go through — or will you go around?

The mission of God does not negotiate with tradition. It never has. Jesus didn't ask the disciples to vote on whether Samaria was worth the trouble. He didn't hold a meeting about whether the cultural risk was too high. There was a dei on him — a divine must — and he walked straight into the thing everyone else walked around.

Here is what I want you to take from this for your own leadership: the traditions that keep your church from its mission are not neutral. They feel safe. They feel like wisdom. They feel like protecting something worth protecting. But if they are re-routing the mission of God around people God is calling you toward — they are not wisdom. They are walls. And walls, no matter how old they are, do not get to overrule the Word of God.

MOVE 2 — "He Asked First" (vv. 7-10) | 5-6 min

Point: The posture that breaks walls isn't power or argument — it's humble engagement.

Look at what happens when the woman arrives. Jesus doesn't preach at her. He doesn't open with a correction. He says:

"Give me a drink."

A request. A need. From the one who spoke the universe into existence.

Every cultural signal in that moment said do not engage. She is a woman. She is a Samaritan. The vessel in her hands would make him ceremonially unclean. Tradition had built a wall here — and Jesus opens with a request. He places himself in the position of need. And in doing so, he opens a door that tradition had nailed shut.

The posture that breaks down walls is not power — it is humble engagement.

This matters enormously for how you pastor people through cultural conflict. When someone is holding to a tradition that contradicts Scripture — visiting the witch doctor out of fear, practicing ancestral appeasement, entering a polygamous marriage because the community demands it — your first move cannot be condemnation. Condemnation without relationship is just noise. They have heard that noise before.

Come the way Jesus comes. With curiosity before correction. With a question before a judgment. "Help me understand why this matters to you. What are you afraid will happen if you don't do this?" Those are not weak questions. They are the questions of a pastor secure enough in Scripture that he doesn't need to wield it like a weapon.

And then notice — Jesus doesn't stay in the position of need. Verse 10: "If you knew the gift of God... you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." He earns the right to speak by first being willing to listen. Then he offers something better than what she came for.

That is your example. Enter humbly. Engage genuinely. Then hold out the Word — not as a correction, but as a gift.

One more thing. The disciples return in verse 27 shocked that Jesus is talking to this woman. In their minds a rabbi of his standing should be served — protected from this kind of contact, not initiating it. The pastor who must always be served, who keeps the wrong people at a distance, has more in common with the disciples in verse 27 than with Jesus at the well. The servant doesn't wait to be served. The servant shows up where the need is.

For pastors: you cannot shepherd people through cultural conflict from a posture of superiority. You have to come to your people's traditions with curiosity before you come with correction. Ask before you condemn.

Jesus models the servant before he models the teacher.

MOVE 3 — "He Refused the Old Argument" (vv. 19-24) | 7-8 min

Point: Scripture transcends every tradition — not to destroy what is ours, but to free us from what owns us.

When she feels the conversation getting too close, she does what people always do — she redirects to the theological tribal argument. (v. 20). This is her tradition talking. This is centuries of inherited religious culture defending itself."Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say Jerusalem..."

Jesus refuses to take the bait. He doesn't argue Jerusalem vs. Gerizim. He doesn’t defend which mountain. He elevates: (v. 23)"A time is coming — and has now come — when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth."

It doesn't belong to Jerusalem. It doesn't belong to Rome or Geneva or America. And I say this as an American pastor — it doesn't belong to me either. The Word of God belongs to God, and it is given to all His image-bearers — a gift to every person, every tribe, every tongue, every nation made in His image.The Word of God is not the property of any tribe, any tradition, any location, any century.

This is the heart of everything I want to say to you today.

The traditions that have shaped your communities — around marriage, around money, around spiritual power, around how a pastor should be treated — they do not get a seat at the table simply because they are old. Simply because your fathers held them. Simply because people fear what happens without them. Every tradition, every cultural norm, every inherited practice must be held up to the light of Scripture and asked: does this belong? Does God author this? Or did we?

And I want to be careful here — because not everything traditional is wrong. Some of what your culture carries is beautiful. Some of it God wove into your people long before a missionary ever arrived. The goal is not to strip away everything that came before. The goal is discernment. Filtering your life, your church, your traditions through the Word — not trying to make the Word fit what you have always done.

That is the difference between a church that is shaped by Scripture and a church that is shaped by culture. One is always asking "what does God require?" The other is always asking "what have we always done?"

The woman at the well tried to hide behind her mountain. Jesus wouldn't let her. He looked past the tradition she was using as a shield and spoke directly to what she actually needed.

Your people will do the same thing. When the Word gets close, when it starts costing something, they will reach for their mountain. Their tribe. Their ancestors. Their tradition. And your job — as a pastor, as a shepherd, as someone who has given your life to rightly handling the Word of God — is to do what Jesus did. Refuse the old argument. Elevate. And keep pointing them toward spirit and truth.

LANDING — "His Food Was the Mission" (vv. 31-34, 35-38) | 4-5 min

Point: The pastor who is shaped by Scripture will be sustained by the mission, not by being served.

Before we close, I want you to see one more thing meant specifically for the people in this room.

The disciples return with food and do what is natural, what is culturally appropriate — they try to take care of their rabbi. "Teacher, eat something."

Jesus says: "I have food to eat that you know nothing about... My food is to do the will of him who sent me."

The one with all the authority in this story redirects every act of service back to the mission. His sustenance is not in being celebrated. It is in the work of God getting done.

I want to say this carefully but clearly: the pastor who must always be served has confused his calling with his comfort. The shepherd who fills his staff with family, who receives his people's generosity into his own pocket, who must be treated like royalty before he will do the work — that shepherd is being shaped by culture, not Scripture. And the sheep suffer for it.

Then look at verse 35. "Open your eyes and look at the fields — they are ripe for harvest."

And verse 38: "I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits."

You did not bring God to Africa. God was here. He has been working in your tribes, your villages, your families long before you arrived. Your job is not to import something foreign. Your job is to hold up the Word of God — which was always meant for your people — and trust that it is enough.

Now — before I close — I want to say one thing carefully, because I think it needs to be said.

What I am not asking you to do is go home and become suspicious of everything. To interrogate every tradition. To make your people feel that nothing from their culture is safe. That is not discernment — that is anxiety. And it will damage your congregation just as surely as uncritical syncretism will.

When your people gather with friends and family to watch football together — that is fellowship. That is joy. That is a gift. You do not need a chapter and verse to justify it. Not everything cultural is a threat to the Gospel. Some of what your culture carries, God wove into your people long before a missionary ever arrived.

The question is not "can I find this in Scripture?" The question is "does this contradict Scripture?" And more specifically — "is this practice pulling my people away from Christ, or is it simply part of being human together in a particular place?"

The traditions that need to be examined are the ones that breed fear instead of faith. That replace Christ instead of reflecting him. That protect power instead of serving people. Those are the ones you bring into the light of the Word — gently, patiently, pastorally — and let Scripture speak.

Everything else? Enjoy the football match.

So I'll leave you where I started.

What is shaping your church more right now — the Word of God, or the world around you?

That question is not meant to make you anxious. It is meant to make you awake. Awake to where Scripture is being quietly replaced by fear, by power, by tradition that has outlived its usefulness. And confident — deeply confident — that the Word of God is sufficient for every one of those moments.

You did not bring God to Africa. But you carry his Word. And the harvest is already waiting.