Sermonhelp.Com

| Full Text Sermon   |  Notes on the Text  |  Alternate Sermon Ideas  |   Worship Helps  |

Sunday March 7, 1999
John 4: 5 - 42

Focus Text: "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."
[John 4:10]]

---

Paradise Lost and Found
One The Way:  "A Thirsty Woman"

Have you ever been thirsty?  I don't mean the average thirst where a drink of water sounds good after a long walk or after working in the garden on a hot summer day. I mean really -- really thirsty where your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth and all you can think about is water.

In 1996, a young marine corporal named Joey Mora was standing on a platform of an aircraft carrier patrolling the Iranian Sea.   Incredibly, he fell overboard.  His absence was not known for 36 hours.   A search and rescue mission began, but was given up after another 24 hours.   No one could survive in the sea without even a lifejacket after 60 hours. His parents were notified that he was "missing and presumed dead."

The rest of the story is one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" events.  Script writers would pass it up as "not believable."  Four Pakistani fishermen found Joey Mora about 72 hours after he had fallen from the aircraft carrier. He was treading water in his sleep, clinging to a makeshift floatation device made from his trousers -- a skill learned in most military survival training.  He was delirious when they pulled him into their fishing boat.  His tongue was dry and cracked and his throat parched.

Just about two years later, as he spoke with Stone Philips of NBC Dateline, he recounted an unbelievable story of will to live and survival.  Who would not give up?  He said it was God who kept him struggling to survive.  His discovery by the fishermen makes searching for a needle in a haystack a piece of cake.  The most excruciating thing of all?  Joey said that the one thought that took over his body and pounded in his brain was "Water!"  [NBC Dateline: Nov. 1998]

Have you ever been thirsty?

Joey Mora knows what urgent thirst is.   And Bob Nolan must also have know what thirst is. Nolan, one of the "Sons of the Pioneers" who recorded scores of Western hits, wrote the song, "Cool Water."  Remember the words?  "All day I've faced the barren waste without the taste of water -- cool water.  Old Dan and I with throats burnt dry and souls that cry for water -- cool, clear water.  O say can you see that big green tree where the water's runnin' free and it's waitin' there for you and me -- cool,  clear,   water."

Have you ever been thirsty like that?

Physical Thirst

I just have to share with you a couple of interesting facts about thirst.  Thirst is something we experience when the pituitary gland secretes two hormones in the body.  One causes a physical reaction in the kidneys and the other causes the more complicated activity of the hypothalamus to send signals to the salivary glands to reduce secretions. I discovered many years ago that just thinking about thirst can make you thirsty -- that is cause the hypothalamus to start talking to the salivary glands.

A lot of years have gone by since that summer morning I was the supply preacher in a rural Missouri church. I preached on our Old Testament reading from Exodus. Trying to help the people understand just how desperate the people of Israel were for water, I rather went on and on about how the sun beat down on the people's heads and how it was that at the end of a long, hard day, there was no water to drink.  People were thirsty -- really thirsty and crabby. As though after a couple of hours of plowing the fields in the heat and dust, there was no water to drink.

The bulletins people usually fanned themselves with began to move faster.  Without realizing fully what I was doing, I took a few more sips than usual from the glass of ice water a kind deacon always provided for the pulpit supply. The ice cubes actually did make that crisp, tinkling sound as I picked up the glass.

You get the point.  As people left after the service, one fellow said, "I don't know what you were trying to do up there, but you sure had me feeling like I was trying to eat a pillow full of feathers!"  [If you have a really impish spirit -- embellishing the Exodus story  WILL put people in touch with thirst ! ]

Physical thirst can be excruciating and dangerous. Dehydration will get you into serious difficulty in a hurry. If you have ever been really,  truly thirsty then you will be much more able to connect with the meaning of thirst in a spiritual sense.

Spiritual Thirst

The story is told of a young student who went to his spiritual teacher and asked the question, "Master, how can I truly find God?"  The teacher asked the student to accompany him to the river which ran by the village and invited him to go into the water.  When they got to the middle of the stream, the teacher said, "Please immerse yourself in the water." The student did as he was instructed, whereupon the teacher put his hands on the young man's head and held him under the water.  Presently the student began to struggle.   The master held him under still.  A moment passed and the student was thrashing and beating the water and air with his arms. Still, the master held him under the water.

Finally, the student was released and shot up from the water, lungs aching and gasping for air.  The teacher waited for a few moments and then said, "When you desire God as truly as you desired to breathe the air you just breathed -- then you shall find God."

Thirst is one of the most powerful spiritual symbols in all of scripture. As dehydration draws the whole of our physical being to a longing for water, so a spiritual void will draw our spirits into a search for deeper meaning for our lives. The Psalmist expressed it this way, "As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God,for the living God." [Psalm 42:1-2]    Or... "I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land." [Psalm 143:6]

We encounter spiritual thirst especially when life has delivered one of those tough experiences when the wind gets "knocked out of our sails." The dehydration is the draining away of meaning in our lives.  The "same old, same old" goes flat, the things we counted on aren't there or the joy has just plain gone out of our living.  Have you ever been there?  In that dry, desert wilderness of the soul?

For some people, it can be this "dryness of soul" that acts as a signpost in their life's journey...  a signpost pointing to a richer, spiritual dimension of living.

A Woman at the Well

It was like that for Mary (not her real name.)   Mary, her husband and two children were active in our church.  They had many friends in the church and most people saw them as a couple with a solid marriage and strong family. Out of the blue, it seemed, Mary's husband left her and moved in with his secretary.  Within two weeks of this, she learned that she had ovarian cancer and had to have surgery.  She had come to my office to talk just before going in for surgery and told me her daughter had just been diagnosed as diabetic.

She was the epitome of devastation as she sat there in tears. She felt totally helpless and hopeless.

"Are you getting any help from your faith?" I asked. 

She looked up. Startled.  "Are you kidding?  I don't even know if I have any faith!" she replied.

Mary felt as though her life had been emptied of everything that held meaning for her.  There was only heartache and fear where there had once been a storybook life. When she really needed a sense of the presence and help of God, there was only a void. She couldn't figure it... "My church experience doesn't feel like it was about God..."  she trailed off and became silent -- seemed puzzled.

What happened next is the closest thing I have ever seen to a modern "Woman at the well" experience. To make a long story shorter¹...  Mary was in serious grief over losing her husband.  It was as though by losing him, she had lost everything and life was empty. Without knowing exactly why, I asked, "If you had to choose between Joe (her husband, but not his real name) and Jesus -- who would you choose?"

"Why would I have to choose?  Wouldn't Jesus want him to come back home?"

"Just IF Mary...  What if you did have to choose?" I asked again.  "Who would you choose?"

There was a period of struggle, but Mary finally comes to the conclusion that no human being can meet all of her needs.  "I suppose -- in light of everything that's happened -- I would have to choose Jesus, but I don't even know what that means."

We prayed before she left and she prayed that God would help her to lean on Christ with all of her ability for all her needs.  It was like the hand of a drowning person reaching out for help. To me it was like the Samaritan woman at the well who didn't have it all together in her intellect, but ran to say to her friends...  "Can this be the Messiah?" ²

When she left, she seemed a bit numb.  She had been on overload for too long.  "Don't analyze anything," I encouraged her, "Just keep 'God I choose you' close to your heart.' "  She went to surgery the next morning.  She was groggy when I saw her after surgery, but a couple of days later, I received this letter.

"Dear Pastor,

I do not have the foggiest idea what is happening to me.  When I woke up the morning of my surgery, I felt something had been lifted from me.  Instead of being afraid, I felt a weird sense of calm.  Not only was I not afraid of the surgery, my spirits actually soared!

I do have some pain, but every day I feel better and stronger and am absolutely convinced that Christ is with me in all of this."

As I read, I remembered the line I'd heard years ago, "You can never know that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have." In the time that followed, she was free from the cancer, her daughter did well and she eventually remarried a prince of a guy who loves God. ³

The Woman at the Well

The story of the Samaritan woman at the well is the longest conversation in the Gospels. It is an amazing story -- not unlike Mary's. It is a wonderful story of the encounter between a physically thirsty Christ with the spiritually thirsty Samaritan woman. There are several "connecting" points between this ancient story and our lives today.  I would encourage you strongly to read and ponder this story during the week.  Meanwhile, here are a few clues to understanding the story.

* Christ meets us where we are.  The meeting at the well was a "chance encounter" only for the woman.  With God there are no "chance encounters" -- but only the chance to encounter Christ anytime -- anywhere.

* Christ accepts us as we are.  Jesus didn't come scolding!  In fact he didn't even bring up the woman's living situation until late in the conversation. Even his disciples were surprised to see him talking to a woman -- a Samaritan woman -- in the heat of the day.

* Christ has a gift for anyone who will receive it.  "If you knew who I was, you would ask for living water."  (Water of life -- the kind of water Mary discovered.)

* The only barrier is not knowing who he is.   I wonder sometimes how many Mary's there are out there who have been a part of the church -- even a very active part -- but have missed out on the gift for lack of knowing that Christ is present, and available and wanting to give this gift.

At the heart of this story in the Gospel of John beats an amazing love which will do everything it can to meet us somewhere along the road of our living.  For one rejected woman almost 2000 years ago it was outside of town on a hot and dusty day.  For Mary it was under the pressure of an emotional avalanche.

For you and me?  Anywhere,  any time, any place we are willing to stop and say, "Lord, give me this water that I may never thirst again!"

Notes On The Text

¹ Interesting thing about these "woman at the well" stories.  They are all rather lengthy ... the narrative in our text today is the longest conversation in the gospel of John.

² When looking at stories like the woman at the well or a woman like Mary  whose husband left her, it is important to keep John 20:31 in mind.  "These things are written that you might believe." As Matthew is a "teaching" gospel in many respects -- so John's story narratives are aimed at bringing us to believe. (have faith or trust)

³ Personal note:  I am careful in using experiences like this.  They are rather exceptional and I want folks to know that.  When I've told it in sermons -- I usually mention that God, not only has a sense of humor, but also likes to keep us servants humble.  Lest I get a swollen head and be tempted to open up a "healing of the heart" shop, the next person I suggested this kind of "choosing" prayer told me I was a fruitcake and that if she wanted this kind of advice, she would turn on late night TV and find a "faith healer!"

v. 7-8 The hostility and religious differences between Samaritans and Jews is well documented.  Most Jews would rather go hungry or thirsty than share a Samaritan's bread or water.  The woman came to draw water, so she must have had a vessel with which to draw.  She assumes Jesus, a Jewish male, would not drink from her vessel.  

v.10 Jesus "leapfrogs" the Samaritan-Jewish division and goes directly to offering her the gift of "living water."  (See Jer. 2:13 - God is the "fountain of living waters")  He smashes false barriers.

vv.11-15  The woman has difficulty getting past the physical plane.  That's a whole sermon by itself.   What does it take to get past the physical?  Jesus does not throw up his hands or scold her.  He stays with the topic.  When she does ask for the water -- she is still at a very mundane level.

v.16-20 "Go call your husband.."  This gets her attention.  She would rather talk religion than hear about her personal life. Jesus' insight into the details of her life spoke to her of the gift of prophecy.  Since the Samaritans recognized only the five books of Moses.   Jesus might have been the Moses-like prophet of Deut. 34:10. ("There has not arisen a prophet since in Israel -- like Moses.")

vv.25-30 Some commentators suggest that Jesus had some previous knowledge of the woman perhaps from the townspeople where he had sent his disciples for food. But this would make the remainder of the story a psychological "slight of hand" on Jesus part and the "I am he.." of verse 26 a sham.

In v.27, the disciples are surprised that Jesus is talking with this woman at the well.  It is hard for we moderns to understand just how much Jesus challenged the New Testament world's view of women.  Even St. Paul, who is regularly criticized for this view of women,  was quite ahead of his time.   Additionally, a Samaritan woman would have been even more disdained -- to say nothing of her life situation.  A comment by the second century AD rabbi, Jose ben Yohanan gives insight into the male perspective on women at that time. "Prolong not conversation with a woman."  The editorial comments of the rabbi who preserved the words goes, "That is to say, even with one's wife; how much more with a neighbor's wife.  Hence the wise men say, 'He who prolongs conversation with a woman brings evil upon himself... ' "  [Quoted in FF Bruce:  The Gospel of John, Eerdmans - 1983 p.112]  Consider Jesus' actions in light of that mentality and you see how radical he really was.

v.39 The simple narrative of the woman going back to town and the townspeople coming out to him is one of the best reasons for listening and reflecting between the lines.  Obviously this woman got in touch with "living water" -- in a way that made those who knew her best want to know more.

vv.40-42  The invitation to Jesus to stay speaks volumes. He penetrated centuries of hate and mistrust.  How painful to stop and reflect on how difficult it is for Christians to break down the barriers within their own ranks!  Philip would return to preach the gospel. (Acts 8:5)

Alternate Sermon Ideas

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Well ~  John 4:5-42

or  God's Way Of Evangelism

There is a great sermon in the personal experience of this woman from a town in Samaria who goes out in the heat of the day (a social outcast in her town and a religious outcast to Jesus' disciples) to draw water.   She returns to town with such a powerful change in her life that the townspeople go out to the well to see for themselves if Messiah has come.  Not only that, the people invite Jesus to stay.  That a Jewish rabbi would be invited to stay in a Samaritan village to teach is more than amazing.

You might explore this lengthy narrative in terms of the principles of evangelism Jesus embodies.

1. The work is "out there".   The task of evangelism is something that takes place as we move out into the world.   It is way more than asking someone to go to church with you.  Can you imagine Jesus saying... "You should come back to Capernaum with me and go to synagogue."   (Tongue is in cheek!)

2. Join them where they are:  The Pharisees and their desire for ritual purity kept them from associating with anyone other than their own kind.  They were hyper critical of Jesus for his associations with "sinners".  Jesus told them in effect, "I go where the need is!"   Effective evangelism will require that we examine the Pharisaic attitudes that sneak into our own spirits.

3. Take time to build relationships:   Jesus didn't argue with the woman.  He didn't impose upon her.  He took the time and had the patience to stay with her -- even when she was "dense" about the spiritual things he was pointing to.  In other words -- be ready for the fact that they might not "get it."  Nicodemus was a highly educated guy and he didn't "get it." (John 3)

4. Don't avoid the spiritual:   Finally, the whole episode is about the "living water" Jesus can give.   A point comes when we have to talk about the meaning of Christ for our lives.   "I am he!"  It doesn't get any more plain than that.

5. Connect the truth with their lives:   "Come and see a man who told me everything!"  How does the good news about Jesus Christ apply to this person's life!  That's the key -- isn't it? It does not matter if I encountered Christ in church, and you encountered Christ during an illness, and my mom encountered Christ at a women's bible study, or Zacchaeus encountered Christ in a tree -- the important thins is that the good news get connected with my life where I am today!  Get it folks! If Zacchaeus had started his own denomination, we might have a group who goes out to the city park every Sunday at 11:00 am to climb into the trees where they expect to experience God!

Additional Homiletical Directions

John 4:30-38  There is a bit of an interlude in John's long narrative when the disciples talk to Jesus about eating.  As the woman didn't "get it" with the water, the disciples don't "get it" with respect to food.

Jesus says that his "food" is pleasing God -- doing God's will.  He talks of God's harvest -- a harvest that is even now happening right under their very noses.  A Samaritan harvest.  They can't see it because they don't see Samaritans as a part of God's concern. (Big mistake! -- Then and now!)

You might take this interlude and develop a sermon along the lines of how it is that we need to teach ourselves to see the spiritual dimension of life all around us.  We are spiritual creatures who have been "bought off" by the physical / material dimension of life.

*******

Exodus 17:1-7  This passage presents a great opportunity to talk about learning dependence upon God.  The people are helpless and they are dependent.  (Yes, they are also fickle and ready to blame anyone for their trials.)

The passage is linked to the reading from John's gospel because of the theme of water.  God literally save the people from perishing of physical thirst.  Jesus meets the woman at the well and offers the water that saves from spiritual death.

The whole point of both passages is a "Declaration of Dependence."  Physically or spiritually, we are dependent upon God.  Self-sufficient is a genuine myth! 

Worship Helps

A Call To Worship   (Adapted from Psalm 95)

Prayer of Dedication

Every good gift is from your hand, O Lord.   May we become more fully aware that the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat are from your hand. The gifts we bring are but a portion of your gifts to us.   Even in our giving, we proclaim that you are Lord of all. Amen!

Benediction  (Based on Romans 5:1-11)

May your faith give you peace and may God's Spirit give you love.
May the grace of God give you hope and may the love of Christ
give you strength. Amen.dgf