8-19-18: John -
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I. Me and We
Talking with People we Don’t Know - could start the discussion with the working in the neighborhood handing out popsicles, Talk about how we aren’t comfortable talking with people we don’t know.
Could talk about our desires. The desires of the money changers. Desires of Nicademus. We all have desires.
Looking for love in all the wrong places.
This passage is about life. Water = torah = life. Jesus focused on her THIRST. Jesus brings heave and earth together.
II. God
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized—
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee.
John 4:1
Jesus’ popularity is growing and that is a problem. The pharisees must have been concerned. Since it was not yet his time, he left Judea.
But he had to go through Samaria.
Scholars have puzzled over John’s use of words. He HAD to go through Smaria. Interesting. Jews wouldn’t usually go through Samaria. We’ve been over the hatred Jews had for Samariatans and how that distaste goes back hundreds of years. No Jew would go through Samaria unless, for some reason, he or she had to.
John 4:3
Some scholars believed because of the Pharisees and their concerned, he was forced to go through Sameria to hide out or take the focus off of him. Others, however, point out that Jesus never did anything becuase he HAD to but because it was the Father’s will.
So, is John saying that Jesus’ was feeling pressure from the Pharisees so had to go this route, or is he intimating that something deeper is going on here. Jesus HAD to do the Father’s will. Does he have to go through Samaria becuase God is orchastrating what is about ready to happen?
Jesus had to go through Samaria and when he did, he met a woman.
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
John 4:4-5
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
Jesus initiated a conversation.
John 4:7
The best way is to notice something. He noticed she was coming to the well. She had a water jug. He asked her for a drink.
Other convesational starters: the weather. Something on someone’s shirt. A hat.
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.)
If we think it’s uncomfortable initiating a conversation, what would it be like if we had to deal with centuries of hatred and social taboos. That’s what’s going on here. Instead of addressing what Jesus did, she addressed that Jesus shouldn’t even be talking with her.
Wow. You’re talking to me?
You know, we still might run into the same thing. We feel comfortable talking to people like us…the same economic class. If we throw our classes out and we see each person as one whom Jesus loves and talk with them regardless, they may be shocked as well. They may think, wow…you’re talking to me?
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.”
John 4:9
Jesus didn’t address why he was talking to her. He did let her know that she had no idea who it was that was talking with her. If she did, she would be asking him for a drink.
Jesus’ conversation is really about life. He offers living water rather than stagnet water. The water in the well wasn’t flowing. It was stagnet. Flowing, or living water, is much better than stagnant water.
The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”
The woman misunderstands him. She thinks he is talking about well water.
John 4:11
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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.”
Jesus doesn’t address her misunderstanding. Intead of focusing on what she doesn’t know, he addresses her thirst and need. We will learn that She needs more than to stop coming to this well. She needs a life defined by God’s love.
John 4:13-14
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.”
Wouldn’t it be great to never be thirsty. Thirst in this passage is about deep desire. It is the U2 song, “I still haven’t found ehat I’m looking for.” That angst that dwells within each of us.
We address this desire through various actions. Some turn to drugs, others turn to fame, or wealth. We all have something we turn to which, we believe, will numb the pain (emptiness) deep within us.
We will learn this woman has turned to the promise of relationship. But for right now, let’s sit with our deep desires. Things aren’t the way they are supposed to be. We get this sense that things are supposed to be different. The reality we experience brings us a deep yearning. We don’t even know what will quench this thirst.
No wonder she jumps at the chance.
Notice Jesus though. He is offering something significant to this woman even though she doesn’t completely understand at this point. He HAD to go through Smaeria. Most Jews would not. Sameria was outside their comfort zone.
III. You and Us
It’s one thing to talk to someone we happen to meet. It’s something different to INTENTIONALLY go were we are not comfortable because GOD LOVES the people in that place.
Sometimes we get stagnant. We get stuck. When we break out of our comfort zone, we break out! Right outside of the comfort zone is our learning zone (where we learn best…and also is the FLOW zone (see “Willpower Doesn’t Work.”) Also use stories from the “neighborhood.”