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A Samaritan Woman

To us this looks very innocuous, but to the ancient reader who knew about Judea and Samaria – this is a really uncomfortable scene.

John mentions in a little side note to his readers in verse 9 that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. They did their best to avoid each other because from the Jewish perspective, the Samaritans were half-breed Jews who had invaded their land, corrupted their religion, and had made life worse ever since.

We can read about the Samaritan origins in 2 Kings 17. At this point in history Israel is divided into two kingdoms (North and South) and the Northern half is just terrible. So God brings in the nation of Assyria to conquer them and take them away as captives. It’s referred to as the ‘First Captivity’ because the Southern kingdom will face the same consequences about 100 years later.

2 Kings 17:24 ESV

²⁴ And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.

This was a strategy to help keep conquered people down. Take them away from the home land, strip them of the national identity, and they won’t have a lot of patriotism left to fuel a rebellion.

So now you have people from these five nations intermarrying and mixing in with the local Jewish stock. And they also bring their gods and religion with them.

2 Kings 17:33–34 ESV

³³ So they feared the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. ³⁴ To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.

In the eyes of a pure-blooded Jew, a Samaritan was at best a half-breed invader who had come in and corrupted the pure religion of Israel’s God and had at one time even fought against other Jews returning to their homeland to rebuild the temple of God.

• They’re half-breeds
• Heretics
• And Horrible

And that’s who Jesus is hanging out with. and the one he’s hanging out isn’t even popular among her own people.

This Samaritan Woman

In verse 6-7 we see that this woman came to draw water all by herself at around noon – the hottest part of the day. There’s a good reason that Jesus is sitting down and needing some water!

Most women would have come to get water first thing in the morning while it was cooler. But I doubt this one is welcome among many of the others since we find out in verse 18 that she’s had five husbands and is living with no. 6 who isn’t even married to her.

We don’t know why she’s on man number 6, but anyone who gets to that point is going to come under a lot of scrutiny.

The Opposite of Nicodemus

As Jesus begins this conversation we should notice how completely opposite this woman is of Jesus’ last conversational partner – Nicodemus.

• He was a Jewish man – She a Samaritan woman
• He was a leader of the people – She’s an outcast
• He was a Pharisee who kept himself pure – She was defiled by all the men she had been with

All of those differences would lead anyone to assume that Nicodemus is the obvious candidate for discipleship. But remember that his conversation with Jesus began in the dark and ended in confusion.

This conversation happens in full daylight at noon, exposing her sins, and ends with her bringing an entire town to Jesus who confess him as the savior of the world.

Let’s look at her journey of faith and see if ours is anything similar.

Living Water

Just like Nicodemus being confused about being born again, this woman is confused about how Jesus can give her living water when he doesn’t even have a bucket to fetch it with.

Living water was an expression for flowing water, like from a stream or springs – not what they would have in the well. It was also the kind of water necessary for purification rites. If one wanted to be cleansed so they could be near God for worship – it had to be done with living water.

• This is the third time water for purification has been brought up. The water Jesus turned into wine was for purification rites, some disciples of John were arguing about purification in John 3:25, and now this.
• And just like in those previous instances, Jesus is bringing something better.

John 4:13–14 ESV

¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ 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.”

Broken Cisterns

There are a few really important passages about living water that we could turn to to understand Jesus, passages that we’ll eventually look at by the time we get to John 7 – but I think he has a passage from Jeremiah in mind specifically.

Jeremiah 2:11–13 ESV

¹¹ Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. ¹² Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, ¹³ for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

God’s people have chosen idols instead of the living God! And God compares it to abandoning a fresh supply of water for a broken cistern.

A cistern was the opposite of living water. To make a cistern you dig a big hole in the ground, cover the bottom and sides with plaster, and collect rain water in it. If you want to get water out of a cistern you have to everything you can to get water into the cistern.

And some of those cisterns would eventually start to crack and break down. So the water starts to leak out leaving you high and dry. Living in a dry desert like Israel – you want the spring that provides water every single day. You want the water that never runs out and is always there to satisfy your thirst.

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Israel left God because they thought they could find satisfaction somewhere else – some form of the good life, however they defined it. But all it left them with was one disappointment after the next.

How disappointed with life do you think this Samaritan woman was? Getting married is a big life goal for most people. And you just know that your marriage is going to be one of the good ones! but then it’s not. He leaves and you’ve got nothing but broken dreams to show for it.

But here’s a second guy! Now life can get back on track and she’s happy – until that one ends just like the first.

So maybe third times the charm? Or I guess it’s the fourth. And by number five people are pointing out that you’re the common denominator in all these failed marriages. By man number 6 marriage isn’t even on the table – but you’re still desperate for something to finally give you a sense of fulfillment.

Ecclesiastes 6:7 ESV

⁷ All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.

It may not be marriages for you – but there is something that you are likely chasing, thinking that that’s what will finally make it all worth it.

• The education
• The career
• The toy
• The social esteem
• The personal milestone

Learn from this woman – satisfaction is fleeting and not as satisfying as we wished it were. And so instead of being able to settle down into true satisfaction we go running from one promise of fulfillment to the next.

But if we knew the gift of God we wouldn’t have to look anymore.

Isaiah 55:1–2 ESV

¹ “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. ² Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Everything out there that promises life, or a better one is lying to you. All it does is offer you a band-aid for a gunshot wound.

• The money will run out
• People will forget you
• You accomplishments will fade away
• And you will die

Jesus is offering you something that will transcend death.

The Gift of God

That Living Water, that Gift of God, is none other than the Holy Spirit.

We already looked last week at how often the Holy Spirit is described as water in the Old Testament. In the New Testament it’s also called the Gift of the Holy Spirit. When another Samaritan, Simon, tried to buy the Holy Spirit for cash:

Acts 8:20 ESV

²⁰ But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!

You can’t buy this with money because Jesus is offering it to you for free.

And look at who he’s offering it to. A lonely and dejected woman who was at the bottom of an already socially ostracized people.

He’s offering it to you as well. But Jesus, as the light of the world, is going to expose some uncomfortable truths.

Confronting Sin

Jesus, as the light of the world, is going to make our hidden sins obvious. It’s why so many reject him. We might be right in assuming that this woman is embarrassed by her marriage situation and so immediately changes the subject about where proper worship is to take place.

But before she asks about where to worship, she makes and admission – “I see you’re a prophet.” By admitting that he’s a prophet she’s admitting that he’s right about her – she is in a lousy situation and she doesn’t deny or defend it.

Instead, she presses onto another sore subject between Samaritans and Jews – the place of worship.

One of the reasons Jews considered Samaritans heretics is because they only took the first five books of the Old Testament as divine scripture – Genesis through Deuteronomy. It’s only in the books after those that God gives Israel a command to build the temple in Jerusalem.

The Samaritans held that Mt. Gerizim was the place to worship God while the Jews worshiped in Jerusalem. So which is it Mr. Prophet?

And Jesus at least says the Jews are correct in building a temple in Jerusalem, but there’s an hour coming, and is already here, when neither of these places will be the focal point of God’s worship. Instead, it will be worshiping in Spirit and in Truth.

Worshiping in Spirit and in Truth

This is a popular verse in church of Christ circles, and the point usually trying to be made is that our worship needs to be characterized by two elements:

1. Truth (this is always the one that’s emphasized) meaning that we need to worship according to the pattern of the New Testament. Acapella singing, plurality of elders, appropriate uses of the treasury, etc.
2. And then worshiping in spirit means you need to be happy about it. It’s funny that this same verse used as a proof-text for the way we worship is also used by the Pentecostals!

That’s not what Jesus is talking about at all!

When Jesus says we need to worship in Spirit, we need to remember that Jesus was just talking about the Spirit with Nicodemus less than a chapter ago! With all of the ways this Samaritan Woman is the opposite of Nicodemus it’s apparent that we need to be reading these two stories side by side and let them inform each other.

Worshiping in Spirit means becoming transformed by the Spirit – being born again and made into a new creation! A new creation that looks like Jesus!

As Paul says in Romans 12:1-2

Romans 12:1–2 CSB

¹ Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. ² Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

And it is because we worship in the Spirit that it becomes true worship. The temple and all of its associated rituals, sacrifices, festivals – all of it was pointing towards the worship that Jesus would teach us. As Hebrews points out those were all shadows of the good things Jesus brought.

That’s why Jesus can say that he is the temple of God. He’s not the place of worship, but the model of worship in how he lived his life.

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Thinking that our worship of God in Spirit and truth is committing to the five acts of worship while wearing a smile on our face is a dangerously shallow concept of worship.

But that’s just how so much of the Sunday assembly has been presented. For too many people the Sunday assembly has been what defines them instead of the true worship characterized by being filled with the Spirit. And all their hopes of getting into heaven are based on “What I do Sunday morning” and not being a spirit infused follower of Christ.

Jesus says the father is seeking true worshipers – implying that there are false worshipers. And he’s not defining false worship here as those who don’t take the Lord’s Supper every Sunday or who have fellowship halls. We can be doing all of the things correctly today and know all the reasons why and still be a false worshiper devoid of the Spirit.

For some it might be that today is the pinnacle of their relationship with God. I showed up! I did the thing! And I even said amen at the prayer!

And then you go home, and it’s not that you’re really that bad of a person – but you’re not really putting any effort into being a better one.

• Not mean, but not exceptionally loving
• Not greedy, but not exceptionally charitable
• Not adulterers, but full of lust
• Not murderers but full of mocking and insults
• When people wonder if we’re religious the best answer is “Could be.”

If we’re worshiping in Spirit, the true worship God desires, then our entire lives are going to be upended. We’re going to live everyday with a conscious effort to stay in step with the Spirit, not just avoiding the bad behaviors but working towards the good one step at a time.

Our Sunday assembly is not the entirety of worship. It prepares us for our worship the rest of the week.

2 Corinthians 3:17–18 ESV

¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

You ever see those time-lapse videos of people who will take a daily picture for 15 years and turn it into a slide-show? They start off with the age 12 and age 27 side-by-side and it’s this radical transformation, and then they speed through 15 years of daily photos where you see the ever so slight change until they morph into an adult.

That’s what we strive for when looking at Jesus. That every day we’re just ever so slightly more like him, shifting from from one degree of glory to another.

And as we embrace the waters of life we also begin to offer it to others.

A Spring of Life

John 4:14 ESV

¹⁴ 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.”

If we drink from the living water Jesus has to offer, the Holy Spirit, we become a spring of living water ourselves.

And we see this happening with the Samaritan woman.

She has become the spring from which living water flows. She has joined in with God and is working with him to provide that transformative Spirit to everyone she knows.

As we consider our daily worship in the Spirit we have to wonder about ourselves “Am I a source of life to the people around me?”

• Do you invite them to come and see?
• Do you demonstrate the works of God in your own behavior?
• Are you a refreshing presence when you walk into the room?

God invites everyone to come and drink from the living waters, and we’re the invitation. Come and see what you could be! Come and find fulfillment! Come and have life as it was meant to be!

If you don’t have Jesus – you don’t have the living waters.

If your idea of worship is limited to only what we do on Sundays – you’re not a true worshiper.