A Woman's Perspective

Sermon, March 5, 2000

Text: John 4:4-26

As mentioned earlier, the PC(USA) marks today as Celebrating the Gifts of Women Sunday. As mentioned in the special insert this morning, a very strong case can be made that the Christian faith has done more to elevate the status of women than any other force or creed in human history, contrary to what a few disaffected historians and contemporary scholars might seem to believe...and if any would doubt that, I'd ask you to take a look at any culture world-wide that hasn't been influenced by Christianity and observed how their women are treated. I'd like to take a brief detour from our study of the Ten Commandments to review one of our Lord's more well-known encounters with women, the story of the Woman at the Well. This is a fairly typical account of how Jesus interacted with those He encountered. If you remember from last week, while Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were there eating with Him. When the Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" The text tells us, "On hearing this, Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'"

Jesus was always raising eyebrows among the religious by constantly talking with sinners. Note that I said talking with sinners, not talking down to sinners. In His dealings with those who led less than exemplary lives, Jesus never used what a colleague of mine refers to as "Bad Dog" lectures. You know what a "Bad Dog" lecture is. "Look at what you did. Bad dog! Bad dog! Look at the mess you've made. How could you do that?" I'm sure you've heard many a Bad Dog sermon in your day; it's a risk I run of being misunderstood when preaching about the Ten Commandments. "Look at what you did. You broke that commandment. Bad dog! Bad dog!" "Bad Dog" lectures are usually effective for making people cower with guilt, but they rarely effect change. In His encounters with the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, Zaccheus, Levi, Mary Magdalene, and many others, Jesus knew they didn't really need to be convinced they were sinners. Jesus didn't talk down to them; He treated them with dignity and talked with them. And Jesus didn't just talk with them. He had dinner with them, and proclaimed the grace of God to them, and brought them into the kingdom of God. "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." If Jesus used Bad Dog sermons at all, it was with those who were self-righteous, with those who didn't think they were sinners, with those who thought they were quite respectable, thank you. Someone once pointed out that there are basically four groups of people when it comes to the question of salvation.

It was largely to this fourth group that Jesus directed His invective. It was also largely those in this fourth category who were scandalized that Jesus seemed so intent on reaching sinners, as if they believed these sinners would somehow pollute the purity of the Kingdom of God if they ever got in.

With all that said, let's now take a look at this encounter in John 4. As Jesus was returning to Galilee from Jerusalem, He led his disciples through Samaria, which was along the way. Normally, Jews would take a long detour around Samaria; they would not take the road through it. Time won't allow a fuller explanation of the animosities between the two peoples; for now I'll just say that the Samaritans were sort of the distant cousins of the Jews, very far removed. They believed in God, but they were far from orthodox. They had some rather interesting ideas and practices they "imported" from other religions; you might say that their religion was a mix of Judaism and the New Age thinking of their day. One major point of contention between Samaritans and Jews is mentioned in this text; the Samaritans did not worship the way the Jews did by going to the temple in Jerusalem. On this particular day, Jesus and the disciples opted to take the direct route home through Samaria, and as they did so, Jesus sat down to rest by a well outside of a town called Sychar. His disciples left him there when they went to the local Stop and Shop to get some groceries. It was about noon, in the heat of the day, and a Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. We see later in the story that when the disciples returned, they were "surprised" that Jesus was speaking to this woman. Jewish men didn't talk with Jewish women in public during this time, let alone Samaritan women, and certainly not a woman who was of questionable repute. There's so much that can be said about the content of their conversation, but I want to direct our attention to the latter part of this encounter. Jesus tells her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." Jesus' request to call her husband was both proper and strategic -- proper because it was not regarded as good etiquette for a woman to talk with a man unless her husband were present; strategic because it placed her in a bit of a dilemma. She had no husband, and she says so. Jesus responds by saying, "That's true. You have had five husbands, but you're right, the one you have now is not your husband." The next line of scripture is one of the greater understatements in the whole Bible. "The woman said to him, 'Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.'"

Like most people, I believe the text is to be taken at face value: the woman is simply not very good at marriage; she really has been married as many times as Larry King. Also, she's now living with a man to whom she is not married. She is probably regarded by her neighbors as a moral failure, as evidenced by her coming to the well alone, in the heat of the day, probably because the other women shunned her. I think this text wants to underscore the point that Jesus knows this woman, He knows her history, yet He engages her in dignified conversation...which is typical of His personal encounters. Jesus makes no condemning judgments about her because that is simply not His style. He knows her great thirst for something more than what she has had in life, and in this gentle encounter, He doesn't berate her, He engages her in dignified conversation. He doesn't talk down to her, He talks with her. He doesn't chide her for being such a fallen woman, He offers her the grace of the kingdom of God. He offers her the Living Water.

Abruptly, the woman changes the subject, perhaps because Jesus got too close when He started talking about all her husbands. Or perhaps it was because she didn't want to admit she didn't know what He was talking about. It's not uncommon for people to divert the conversation away from their own moral problems or their own ignorance by resorting to a "religious controversy." She said, "Our Samaritan ancestors say that we should worship right here on this mountain. But you Jews say we should worship in Jerusalem." Jesus reply not so much ignores the controversy as it transcends it. He replied, "The hour is coming, and now is here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." Again, there's much more that can be said, but time won't allow. I will just point out that there are those who may try to worship just in spirit without the Truth. "Don't talk about sin and law and commandments and sacrifice, let's just worship in the loving, all-forgiving spirit." It just won't do. However, just to focus on proclaiming the truth without worshiping in the Spirit, doesn't do, either. It is only when we worship in the Spirit and in the truth of God's Word to us in Jesus Christ that we discover our sins are forgiven, our salvation is accomplished, and that we are freed and enabled to be of service to the Kingdom of God in the world about us.

We all have something in common with this woman. Oh, we may look pretty respectable. Most of us pay our bills, hold down respectable jobs, don't beat our kids, and keep our marriages to a minimum. But beneath this veneer we know our souls are not that tidy. To some degree or another we're all "bad dogs." We know we have failed. We know we thirst for something more than what we have. Maybe you have not gone through five husbands, but you have gone through five jobs, five relocations, five weight loss programs, five churches, and still the thirst continues. That's because the thirst is for holiness. And that continual thirst will only be quenched by again and again encountering the Lord who does not condemn us, but Who offers to refresh our thirst as we worship Him in spirit and in truth.