Lent: The Samaritan Woman at the Well
John 4:5-26 Common English Bible
5 He came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, which was near the land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from his journey, so he sat down at the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 8 His disciples had gone into the city to buy him some food.
9 The Samaritan woman asked, “Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.
10 Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and the well is deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave this well to us, and he drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will never be thirsty and will never need to come here to draw water!”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, get your husband, and come back here.”
17 The woman replied, “I don’t have a husband.”
“You are right to say, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus answered. 18 “You’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn’t your husband. You’ve spoken the truth.”
19 The woman said, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you and your people say that it is necessary to worship in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you and your people will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You and your people worship what you don’t know; we worship what we know because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the time is coming—and is here!—when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth. The Father looks for those who worship him this way. 24 God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth.
25 The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I Am—the one who speaks with you.”[a]
GATHERING FOR SUNDAY
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Greetings everyone,
For most of my adult life, I’ve been helping adolescents with various behavioral and mood issues. Reflecting on those experiences, I sometimes wonder if that might have been some of the most important work I’ve ever done. Their need for support and the honesty with which they responded to my suggestions was incredibly raw. I encouraged them to remember their past with kindness. The single most transformative idea was suggesting that the patterns of today didn’t have to be the path of tomorrow.
I think about those young people when I read Exodus 17:3-7 and John 4:5-26. I imagine those scriptures describe a people and a woman who had real concerns, true issues, and actual needs. They wrapped their words and actions around the life they’d lived. Patterns and tragic moments are very human, and I wonder if some of the texts we read and quickly summarize as “forgiveness” or “rebuke” might be better understood differently. I wonder if my experiences with young patients remind us to acknowledge what’s true, see the past that made the patterns grow, and imagine a life unshackled once we meet God face to face. We’ll see you this Sunday as we read our texts with an eye towards how God invites us to grow.
Peace,
Zach