Sermon 2: John 4:1-42
* Paganism isn't good enough, but neither is Judaism. The way to God is through Jesus alone.
Are we putting Jesus to people – his claims, his deity, his authority? Or are we putting our own form of Christianity to them, our own religion?
* Through talking with Jesus, we are apt to find out more about ourselves – challenging stuff. Will we still seek him after that?
* In the way that Nicodemus and the Baptist's disciples could not accept Jesus, so this Samaritan woman does accept him, even without firstly understanding him.
* Jesus talks to the disciples about God's work – the hard and easy work of sowing and reaping his word for salvation.
* The Samaritan woman first tells people about Jesus, then brings them to meet Jesus – and they hear for themselves, and know that Jesus is the Saviour of the world.
Sermon 2 words
Who here has played Monopoly? Who can tell me what happens when you land on the Free Parking square in Monopoly? You might be interested to hear, straight from the Monopoly rulebook, “A player landing on this place does not receive any money, property or reward of any kind. This is just a "free" resting-place.” And yet the 'house rule' for receiving tax money is incredibly popular, with as many as half of people asked believing that it is an actual rule of the game. You might even have some other house rules that you have played Monopoly by in the past. Now, there is nothing wrong with playing Monopoly any way you like. But if you teach your children how to play with house rules, say with the Free Parking rules, were they to go to a Monopoly tournament (yes, they exist) they would be seen as not playing by the official rules.
Now, imagine a world where part of your family lineage, part of your national heritage, and part of your cultural identity was wrapped up in how you played Monopoly. The 'Free Parkers' won't allow their kids to play with the 'Station Builders'. Marriage between '$400 GO landers' and the 'Time Limiters' were forbidden. The 'No Auctioneers' had public debates with the 'Money Lenders'. Sometimes these arguments would come to blows. Different players dressed differently, used different language, had different copies of the rulebook. You have to list how you play Monopoly on your CV to get a job. There are those who turn their backs on Monopoly all together, and play cards. Sounds crazy, doesn't it.
Back in Jesus' day, just like today, there are lots of different, competing ways that people seek to get to God, or to achieve spiritual enlightenment, or to satisfy their spiritual nature. Jesus was a Jew, a member of the Hebrew race who worshipped God through what we call Judaism today. In chapter 4 of John, Jesus happens across a Samaritan woman. Samaritans were the result of mixed blood between Israelites of the old kingdom, mixed with other races and religious beliefs. They were of the opinion that the Jews had it wrong, that only the first five books of the Old Testament were scripture, the books of Moses, and that you didn't worship God at the temple in Jerusalem, but at a holy mountain in their lands. Jews of Jesus' day saw these people as outcasts, and treated them like outsiders, foreigners. They would not eat with them or interact with them. So when Jesus is sitting at a well, and a Samaritan woman comes up and he asks her for a drink, they're not just strangers, they are enemies. There were two different types of monopoly played here. Jews did not ask Samaritans for a glass of water.
The Samaritan woman knows this as well as Jesus does, and so she points it out, verse 9, “You're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” But Jesus expected such a response. For him, this conversation wasn't going to be about simply food and drink – nor was it going to be simply about Jews and Samaritans not getting along. He responds with one of those cryptic messages that John was so fond of recording in his gospel, saying that if she asked, he would give her living water. Now, living water is not like Sydney water. It's not living because it's got a bunch of bacteria in it. It's living because it gives life – it is water of life.
Now, if you were here last week, you will remember that Jesus said something similarly cryptic to Nicodemus, the Pharisee of the ruling council. He said to Nicodemus, “You must be born from above,” or, “You must be born again.” Nicodemus didn't understand, thinking Jesus was speaking literally. And so the Samaritan woman's response is the same, not understanding what Jesus says. Jesus offered her water, and she responds that the well is deep, and he doesn't have a bucket, so how can he offer her water? Is he greater than Jacob, the father of the nation of Israel, who dug the well?
So Jesus takes it to the next level, and explains what he means by living water, at verse 13, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” That is pretty clear, right? He's not offering water, he's offering eternal life. Jesus unpacks his meaning for her, to make it clear. But she still doesn't understand. He offers her eternal life, she is looking for comfort in this life. She says, “Give me this water, so that I don't have to come out here every day and draw water.”
Jesus came to offer life, in the full, eternally with God. He came with an offer of forgiveness from God, an offer of eternal life with him in heaven. But you know what most people want? They want to be spared walking to the well every day. Jesus offers the kingdom of God, we just want comfort, security, and easy living. Nowadays, many of us in the west don't need to walk to a well to draw water. We can get a drink whenever we want. Tell me, has sparing us that need to walk to the well every day made us any happier? Are we all ready to come to God and seek his kingdom, now that we can get a drink from the tap? Look at your own prayer life – what you pray for yourself and pray for others. If someone is sick, you pray for them to get well. If someone is unemployed, you pray for them to get a job. If they're studying, you pray for good marks. Those things are all good.
But if you stop there, you actually do not have these people's best interests at heart, or if praying for yourself, your own best interests. Because sick people getting well will get sick again. Unemployed people who get jobs will lose them again. Instead, your prayers should focus on the kingdom of God. Pray that someone gets better from their illness, why? Not just so they have a good time and feel better, but so that God might be glorified, and that in doing so they might come closer to God, and give him the glory. Sometimes, what someone might need is a bit of suffering, a bit of discomfort, some problems or obstacles, so that they rely on God more, or concentrate on putting him first. It might be hard to pray for someone to suffer, but you can definitely pray that they will prioritise God as number one, and that whatever happens, that will be their focus. And you should try and make that your focus – that God will always be number one in your life, regardless of the situation, and regardless of the consequences.
So Jesus' offer isn't clear to the woman, but there is something different between the Samaritan woman and Nicodemus. Nicodemus was convinced that what Jesus was offering, being born of the spirit, wasn't possible. This woman, though she is still thinking in earthly terms of water, does think God can do it, and so she asks for the water. And so now Jesus continues to reveal his power, but in an even more challenging way. He miraculously shows the woman that he knows all about her life – and her sinful past. He points out that she's had five husbands, and now she is with another man, to whom she is not married. Let this be a warning to all of us – living with Jesus can be challenging. He will quite readily point out your flaws, your sinfulness, your wrongness before God. Remember what we said last week – that Christians are not less sinful, we just bring their works into God's light to be exposed so that we can ask for help and admit our failures. Jesus even takes the first step with this woman, by exposing her failures, and that can happen to us too – sometimes that exposure can be personal, where God makes us conscious of actions that we are keeping secret, and sometimes those actions can be made public, where everyone gets to see them. That's confronting to think about. But remember – Jesus knew all this about the woman before he offered her eternal life. Sin is not a barrier to heaven, if you are prepared to admit it, and let Jesus deal with it.
It's not over yet for the Samaritan woman, though. Jesus has spoken to her about eternal life, has sought to clear up her confusion, and has even challenged her sinfulness. But she still has questions – now, about how to worship God. Verse 20, “Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” As I said earlier, there are two kinds of spiritual Monopoly in this woman's mind – the Jewish way of worshipping in Jerusalem, and her people's way of worshipping on the mountain. She still has her prejudices, and may now be trying to stump Jesus, to force him into admitting that if she wants to come to God, she has to give up worshipping on the mountain and come to Jerusalem to worship in the temple. Or maybe she is worried that, even after all this talk, she will be excluded from God, as the Samaritan woman adulteress that she is.
Jesus' answer to her question is incredible. It is difficult to understand how earth-shattering this message is. So I want you to go back to thinking about Monopoly for a moment. What if I were to tell you that, since 2008, Hasbro has been adding a third dice to all Monopoly sets? I'm not lying. It's called the speed die, and it has the numbers 1 to 3, a picture of a bus, and two pictures of Mr Monopoly on it. You're probably wondering, “How does that even work? What does the bus do? It seems to completely change the game, and I don't even understand how it works.” Well, the Samaritan woman is now being told by Jesus that a time is coming when the established religious rules of the Jews and the Samaritans will both be found inadequate. God seeks worshippers who will worship him in the Spirit and in truth. The rules about how people come to God have changed. Playing by the old rules just won't cut it any more – not for Samaritans, not even for Jews.
What does it mean to worship in the Spirit and in truth? She doesn't really understand, but says that she has faith the Messiah will come, the anointed, special one of God, and he will explain such things. Imagine her surprise when Jesus informs her, “I am the one you are talking about.” So what does he mean by worshipping in the Spirit and in truth? In the context of their conversation, I would say Jesus is talking about a time when people don't worship God because they are born a Jew, or raised a Samaritan, or because their culture simply tells them to. They will worship by God's Spirit, who will live inside them. And they won't go to a temple to do it, or a mountain – the book of Hebrews tells us those things are just copies, shadows of heaven, they aren't the real thing. Jesus is the truth, he will say so later in the book of John. By God's Spirit, we can worship him directly, without a temple, without a mountain, without a shrine, without a priest – directly, truly, personally – as directly and personally as the Samaritan woman was talking to Jesus. That is the incredible truth of Jesus' words.
At this point in time, the disciples return (they'd gone to buy food, remember?) and the Samaritan woman leaves, with everything Jesus has said is mulling over in her head. She goes back to her town, and this woman – this five times divorcee, currently living with a man but not married to him, this disgraced woman who has to go and collect water in the middle of the day because she can't go with the other women in the cool of the afternoon – she goes back to her town and tells people about the man she just met, because she wants to bring them to meet Jesus.
The disciples don't ask what Jesus was doing alone with a Samaritan woman at a well in the middle of the day. They do offer him something to eat, though. But unsurprisingly, after his discussion with the Samaritan woman, Jesus wants to turn the conversation to talk about the kingdom of God, so at the same time that the Samaritan woman is trying to convince the people of her town to come and meet Jesus, Jesus is telling his disciples, verse 35, “Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now those who reap draw their wages, even now they harvest 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 labour.”
Even now, as he says these words, the Samaritan woman is telling her townsfolk, vs 29, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.” She is reaping a harvest – people are coming to meet Jesus. But she didn't sow the crop. Who sowed the crop? Well, for the Samaritans, it started with Moses, writing the law. Then the Samaritan priests taught the people about God, about his law, and about a coming messiah. These people were hungry with hope, hungry for a saviour. Do you ever wonder why there was always a throng of people around Jesus? Why, in the book of Acts, thousands of people come to join the disciples? Because God's people had taken years, decades, even centuries, sowing the seed, teaching them about God, about the Messiah's coming, and growing in them a desire to know God better.
Australia has never been much of a country for reaping, either agriculturally or spiritually. It's people are hard-hearted. Many come from generations of people who have always viewed the church sceptically. And yet so many Australian churches use American models of church planting and evangelism that act as if 40% of people already go to church, and are happy discussing religious topics in public with strangers or acquaintances! Thank God that we have a trickle of immigrants coming into Australia who really are hungry to learn about Jesus, because after people live here a while, they get enculturated – that is, they take on the local attitudes – and grow to think that religion is worthless and talking about spiritual things is taboo. It takes a lot of sowing to reap anything for the kingdom here. Building relationships, answering questions, helping with needs, correcting stereotypes, showing understanding and love – these things need to be done so that when people hear the message, they won't ignore it, or blow it off, or misunderstand it.
The Samaritan woman wants to introduce people to Jesus. Her story is far more like ours than that of most others mentioned in the gospels. Most people in the gospels come directly to Jesus, but that doesn't happen much now. People today don't seek Jesus out. The Samaritan woman is not a Jew – neither are most of us. She wants to introduce people to Jesus, like we do. But first, she has to tell them about Jesus, and the impact he has made on her – we need to do the same. It is only then that the villagers agree to come and meet this Jesus for themselves.
This is, of course, our aim – to get people to meet Jesus themselves, to know him like we know him. But most people today will not go seeking Jesus out. They need others who know Jesus to come and tell them about him. Only then, once they have seen the impact he has on our lives, will they come to meet him themselves. When the people from the Samaritan village actually did come and meet Jesus, they urged him to stay for two days, and because they met him, many of them came to believe that he was the Messiah. They said afterwards to the woman, v 42, “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 Saviour of the world.”
Telling people the message isn't enough. Showing them how Jesus has changed your life isn't enough. Even bringing people to church is not enough. The time has come when God does not accept the prayers of Samaritans at their holy mountain – though they still pray there. The time has come where God does not accept the prayers of the Jews at their temple in Jerusalem – though they still pray at the wailing wall. God only wants one kind of worshipper – those who worship in the Spirit and in truth. Later, in chapter 14, John records how Jesus told the disciples about how the Holy Spirit would come to them once Jesus was gone. He said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.” This is the only way people can worship God – by his Spirit, which comes to live within them. Not by race, not by ritual, by God's own Spirit.
Think about that when next you are talking to a non-Christian. Has your focus been to try and get them to come to church? To try and change their lifestyle habits? Or has it been to get them to come and meet Jesus? What they need, what we all need, is to realise that earthly temples and mountains will pass away – churches die, whole denominations fail, but Jesus said he will send us another advocate who will help us and be with us forever – the Spirit of truth. That is where our faith should rest, and that is where we should be bringing people – to meet Jesus, to hear his claims of deity and of authority, and to accept his ways, and to worship God in the Spirit and in truth.
Let's pray.
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