Worship (2)
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Last week we looked at Mary and her expression of worship. This week we are going to look at the women at the well.
I find it interesting that some of the best topics of worship come from those who are deep in sin. The first women was a prostitute and the second might as well have been as she was on her 5th husband. The disciples were hungry so they went to get food. Jesus hung out by this well, which by all rights should have been vacant. Women in this day typically drew water in the morning as it was cooler and water drawing was a lot of work.
This lady, who was talked about more than she was talked too came to the well mid day which means she was the town reject. She was avoiding people, but stumbled upon Jesus. People who are used to fighting are typically the most defensive right.
Jesus asks for a drink and immediately this women comes out of her corner swinging.
The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
She swung but she missed...
And this is why I think I’m more like Jesus than people give me credit because Jesus answers snark with snark.
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.”
So, Jesus swings back, and the women counters
The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
But she is done with this conversation so now she tries hitting below the belt
Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
Here’s where many Christians park themselves.
The women at the well is
Knowledgeably ignorant
We will see this again later, but this Samaratian women knows very specific verses of the bible/historical events, but doesn’t know the entire context of what she is saying. She is claiming to be apart of saved-or a split sect of the Jewish faith, but she doesn’t know enough to know she is wrong.
Knowing the bible is great, but if you take the verses you like the best and leave the rest you will not find salvation.
The idea that God is love floats around and people lean on this in many different ways. But if you separate love and judgement you can’t worship God because you only accepted half of him. So Jesus tells the women
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jesus takes another jab in the offensive, but the women attempts to dodge this jab with another offensive snarky comment.
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Again she displays that she only wants part of what Jesus is selling. She wants her shame to be removed without fixing the situation that brings the shame upon her.
So Jesus calls it out.
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
She says she doesn’t have a husband, Jesus says he knows. She had 5 and is living with her boyfriend.
Listen this women covered in Shame comes to this well in the heat of the day to avoid people. So now she has this Jewish man who things he knows better than her and she isn’t ready to give up and now she counters. We know she is looking for a fight at this moment because of what she says.
The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
She puts Jesus up agains the ropes. It’s an impossible situation. If Jesus falls with the Jews He’s racist. if He agrees with her then he is saying the torah is completely wrong.
And here is Jesus’ response and what it means to worship
You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
The sameritians had zeal without knowledge and the Jews had knowledge without zeal.
True worship is both passionate, but remains in the full truth.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
The Jews had the right information but they weren’t pressing into God. The Samaratians were pressing in, but they weren’t going about it the right way.
There is a right and wrong way to worship. You can not worship God in half truth. You must accept the full authoritative word of God in order to fully worship God. You must take that which you enjoy and that which you don’t and worship God anyway.
