Samaritans Saints and Stereotypes
Scripture: John 4
4 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. a ) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ a ?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
[1]
Two weary people converge upon a community well. One is road weary and ministry weary, the other “life-weary” and worn. A life mission passionately drove one and the stop was for physical rest and refueling before going on. The other was wearied by routine, her thirst was showing through and her dissatisfaction was plain, perhaps not to everyone but certainly to this stranger who really should never have spoken to her.
None of his kind would ever have spoken to her. She’d experienced that rejection before.
Perhaps you have experienced the same thing in your life – rejection for some ridiculous reason.
Perhaps you were not advantaged by your birth and maybe the years have actually made you a little bit oversensitive. You have been excluded from gatherings, overlooked. You have overreacted by times and that has only exacerbated the situation.
Just as you have been misjudged by the things that you lack, you have become a judge yourself others who have been blessed. It is a crime to have been misjudged; it is a shame when we do the same thing, when we allow ourselves to be provoked into behavior that we object to. God never intended for us to all have the same things. Some will always be among the poor and others will be rich. He does not intend that the rich should be judged because they have and He does not intend that the poor should be snubbed because they do not have.
When the “haves” snub the “have-nots” this is pride and arrogance over things that tell us nothing about people. What a person gathers in this life and what a person gives will say something about their own character and values but it does not make one better than another. And when the “have-nots” judge the “haves” it is wrong as well. It is pride inverted, self-pity or even jealousy. No better than those who judge us.
This was different even than that. She was not a real Jewess. Jesus kind would have called her a “half-breed”. No matter what she did, she could never be free from the “tainted-ness” that had come through forced intermarriage among her predecessors. It was God’s judgment for a faithless nation and now they were marked and separated.
It had become a reciprocal thing among the Samaritans as well. They had no more regard for the Jews than the Jews did for them.
Still she was surprised. Someone who refused to be boxed in by the prejudices of his people. Someone who was willing to step across the ethnic divide and address her without any detectable awareness that this was anything less than normal behavior. Even the nature of his conversation – he was asking her for a drink of water.
1. Is the Message Muddled? (verses 4-9)
“You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. a )
It’s funny how great the impact is when someone does the unexpected.
I guess we all have our stereotypes. Sometimes inadvertently we create them and too often we reinforce them. The frightening thing is that we are oblivious to the whole process. We would never choose to send the message that we do. On the receiving end it sounds so much different than we intend.
Communication is a delicate process that requires much thought and sensitivity to others and where they are at a given time.
Recently I had some wonderful time with a gentleman who works in a very responsible position. He and his peers are under constant stress and deadlines to be met. In that environment they just don’t have the time to communicate carefully. So they just pour it all out, often uncensored, not for the thin-skinned or those easily offended. One of his struggles has been to shift out of that mode when he is with others in the church who have no experience in the work environment that he has become accustomed to. I admire his awareness and his receptive attitude to compensate in his style of communication styles. Not everyone is willing to do this. It is really the process of seeking to be sensitive to the needs of others ahead of our own agendas and our own pride. Realizing that people are more important than getting our point across is a major step in building relationships that endure and are transforming in their impact.
There is tremendous impact when the church enters this realm as well. Something happens to our message when we do what people don’t expect us to do. Pastor Steve Sjogren of the Cincy Vineyard church wrote a book called the “Conspiracy of Kindness”. He advocates the idea of selflessly serving people in the name of Christ. There is a difference between serving selflessly and doing so with an agenda.
I had a call from some concern the other night. They wanted to give me a gift worth $150 dollars and wondered when I could be home to receive it. I told them that it would be fine with me if they left it with my wife or children or in front of the door or just inside the garage. They said that they wanted to be able to see my face when they gave it to me. I knew that they wanted the joy of witnessing my excitement and gratitude as I received this wonderful gift and felt that this was reasonable. Then I found out that they wanted my wife there as well because they knew that she was going to be extremely happy also. I was sure that this was indeed going to be a significant gift. Then I found out that they wanted to spend an hour and a half with me following the presentation of the gift to make sure that I was able to regain my composure before they dared leave me alone with my euphoria. It was somewhere around this point that I realized that the chance to spend time with Karl was more valuable to them than this $150 gift. My estimation of the worth of the gift immediately was under question. I knew that they had an angle and they were in all likelihood selling something that I probably wasn’t shopping for. I politely thanked them for their thoughtfulness and declined the gift.
Wouldn’t it be something if we could just do something for people because we had decided to love them in the name of Christ whether or not they ever chose to come to our church or even to embrace the faith that we treasure. What if we dared to do the loving and leave the rest with God. You see people don’t expect that. They are looking for the catch. They are wondering when it is coming. And when we do as they expect, as they predict, our message is devalued and ignored.
I share my shameful secret with you worrying that you will condemn me and you speak first of my sin as though you have to remind me that God doesn’t like what I hate as well. You live up to my fearful expectation and I walk away unloved and untouched.
Like the woman taken in adultery. He forgave her and without words of condemnation and midst the dropped and discarded stones of condemnation he freed her from her past. She prayed no particular prayer and never even formally asked for pardon. He dismissed her with merely and admonition to make a break with her past – “Go and sin no more.”
2. Is the Ministry Meaningful?(verses 10-15)
, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
You have met folks like this woman before. Threadbare from the twists and turns and the potholes on the road of life. You just know that, sooner or later, if the road conditions are not favorable or the turn is to sharp or if weariness has its way, this person is going to wind up in the ditch. Maybe it is you. God knows. Jesus could tell to look at the woman that she was there. He knew her past and she did not like that. However, more important than her past, he knew her future. The same is true today as you listen to this message. God knows your past, sordid or spectacular. No one can ever tell God anything about you that will make Him love you less because He already has the total picture. What you were makes no difference. What you could be . . . what you will be is the significant thing.
This is primary concern for effective ministry here at First. God’s grace provides forgiveness for the past and the past then is not of utmost importance. God knows your future today and whatever He has in mind is far better than what is in your mind.
What a perspective to have in approaching ministry!
Church ministries are best designed around people’s needs and focused on their future. This is what makes the ministry meaningful. It is so easy for us in our own lives and in the lives of the church to create ministries that reach no farther than our own concerns. We can wind up doing all of our preaching to the choir if we are not careful.
The order in which we see and deal with people is so important.
A grace deficient Christian will see another’s’ sin first and their need last. A grace giving Christian is sensitive first to need and then to life issues.
When a church is willing to see a person’s need before they see their sin and to respond in the same order, it will become a powerful and impacting force in the community.
When we have sufficiently invested in a person’s life we earn the right to speak to the more disagreeable things. If the motivation that we feel is not sufficiently strong to motivate us to care and to give of ourselves then we do not love. Love will patiently and tenderly wait and watch for the right moment when a person’s thirst is greatest and then pour cool water, living water on that thirst. Ministry is meeting needs in the name of Christ to facilitate an openness in an individual’s heart to hear and respond to the Spirit of God.
3. Is the Master Manacled?( verses 16-26)
20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
People respond unpredictably when Jesus begins to come too close. Some run toward him and others run from him. I would ask you today what you do when Jesus begins to come too close.
This lady suddenly becomes concerned with the difference in belief between Jews and Samaritans. All of a sudden she is more threatened than she is thirsty. As the Christian community gets one foot ahead of the other and seeks to deal with sin before they address need, so seekers want the full blessing of God without allowing Him to deal with their brokenness. Often our sinfulness takes us to a place of brokenness. We call our own shots and set our priorities and wake up in a mess that we have created. Our tendency is to blame God for his disregard for us when the problem is our disregard for Him.
God never leads his children to make decisions that lead to disaster. There are times when he calls us to endure hardship or loss but it comes as no surprise and it is rarely permanent.
Any “No Trespassing” signs in your life today. Does he have full-unreserved access to your life?
Are you looking for the best from God for the bits and bites that you give to Him?
It’s funny as well how people tend to point to the minor things as obstacles when God is calling us on the majors. People come to our own church from many different theological backgrounds. Theology rarely needs to be an issue between believers. But when God begins to deal with people over certain areas in their lives that He wants to access, our arguments or excuses can quickly become theological in their appeal.
When she knew that Jesus could see the depths of her soul, she was ready to make an issue over worship of all things.
In any church where the gospel is preached you will have some who will readily respond to the Lord and others who will only stay around for so long
4. Is the Matter Measurable?(verses 27-30, 38-42)
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony
What a great result of her personal encounter with Christ. The whole town was impacted and it lead farther than people piggybacking on someone else’s experience.
“We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
Would you like for your own relationship to carry that kind of a punch?
A stirring testimony is nothing extraordinary – just a simple report of the reality of Christ in your life.
The reports of our good experience at a car dealership have produced other patrons for these places. How many people now visit your hairdresser because of your satisfaction? Most of us have had influence on others that has affected their choices.
Have you come to the place in your life that you can talk freely of your relationship with Christ?
If Christ were to speak to you today of the fruitfulness of your life would you launch into a theological defense relative to the primacy of being over doing or speak to me of the “invisible, immeasurable” influence of your life that only eternity would reveal. Can’t you imagine the unveiling of your works in heaven someday? We wait breathlessly for the presentation of the masterpiece of your life and the curtain slides back to reveal that the display is empty – someone has stolen whatever it was that you imagined would appear there.
You may not be conscious of the full scope of your influence here on planet earth but there is an awareness of fruitfulness and an awareness of barrenness.
If everyone that you encounter in life is running from Jesus, could it be that they are in reality running from you?
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a Or do not use dishes Samaritans have used
a Or Messiah
[1]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) (Jn 4:1-42). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
a Or do not use dishes Samaritans have used