Jesus “Had” to Go to Samaria???

For the last three months I have been writing a series of posts on discipleship. We started this series off by saying that a Christian disciple, at its core, is a person who is living out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Certainly there is more that can be added to that, but it cannot be less than that. To be a disciple of Christ is to be a person who is committed to loving God, loving others, and making disciples.

Discipleship starts with illumination, a combination of knowing and studying the Scriptures, and God adding to that knowledge the conviction that it is true, seeing the beauty and awesomeness of God, and seeing holiness as desirable, and therefore sin as undesirable.

That illumination leads to incarnation. Knowing the truth leads to practicing the truth.

That incarnation moves to impartation. If loving God and loving others is the thing God wants us doing, one of the most loving things we can do is help people, in both big and small ways, to love God and love others. Loving God and loving others moves us to make disciples.

Discipleship, we have seen, is a way of life. It is relational. An intentional relationship that we pursue with Christ and with others.

Over the past several weeks we have looked at some of the things we should expect as we disciple others. We should expect it to look like an apprenticeship. We need to approach that relationship with both humility and grace. Last week we looked at the importance of understanding that discipleship can get messy, confusing, and perplexing.

All of this we can see in our passage for today, John 4:1-42.

Because Jesus knew the Pharisees were aware of His baptizing and making disciples and that it was now exceeding that of John the Baptist’s, He left Judea for Galilee (4:1-3).

Verse 4 says Jesus had to go through Samaria. Had to go through Samaria??? True, it was the fastest and most direct route. But it wasn’t the only way to get there. In fact, for a good Jew and certainly for a Rabbi, it was the most undesirable way to get there. Such was the level of ethnic, religious, and political animosity between the Jews and Samaritans at that time that it was the practice of the Jews traveling from Judea in the south to Galilee in the north to add a day to their journey and go around Samaria rather than to “defile themselves” by going through it. Just by this simple act of stepping into Samarian territory Jesus was doing what no respectable Jew or the least respectable Rabbi would do.

Once they arrived in Sychar, Jesus stops to rest and sits on the well (4:6) and sends the disciples off into town to get some food.

So here is Jesus, sitting on a well by Himself at noon, when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. (4:7). The awkwardness of this scenario is often lost on us today because our culture is so different. But hearing of this in that Middle Eastern culture would be shocking.

First there is the awkwardness of finding a Jew sitting on a Samaritan well.

Things get more awkward when Jesus does not move away. Had Jesus followed the custom of the day, seeing that a woman was approaching the well, He would have gotten up and moved a good distance away to let her know that he was not a danger and that she did not need to fear him. He ignores this, and just watches her approach. Jesus was on the well and not getting up or moving away.

It was also weird that she was coming at noon to fill her water jar—the hottest time of the day—and it was stranger still that she was alone. Women typically went to fill their family water jars in the morning or in the evening, and they went in groups, both for the protection the group offered, and because lifting a full water jar on to your head by yourself was no easy task. Simply said, she should not be there. The only reason for being there at that time and by herself was that she was trying to go when no one would have been there (showing that she was ostracized for having done some bad things), or to interact with travelers (which would mean she was looking to do some bad things).

For Jesus a man and a Jew to continue sitting on the well while this strange and questionable woman was right next to Him to draw water, with no witnesses around was very unorthodox to say the least. Both Jesus and the woman were doing things that would be looked down upon by Jews and Samaritans alike.

If things were awkward now, they were only about to get more so. Jesus speaks to her, Will you give me a drink? (4:7). This is something no Middle Easterner would do then or now. She was a woman. She was a strange woman. She was a Samaritan woman. She was an immoral woman. This would be like a tired and penniless Billy Graham standing in front of a vending machine and watching a prostitute walk up, get herself a Pepsi, and then asking her if he could have a sip.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (4:9). Her question both expresses surprise and is a bit provocative. It expressed surprise in that Jews would not share or use vessels together with Samaritans. To ask for a drink from her bucket with her cup was unheard of.

It is a bit provocative because the word Samaritan here is feminine—it by itself means a “Samaritan woman.” But in the Greek two words are used, the word for a “Samaritan woman” and the word for “woman.” Her question put unusually strong stress on her gender. There is no reason to say it twice and it was plain that she was a woman. It seems that she was probing to see what His intentions were…after all He had not done the proprietary thing of moving away…

Whatever her meaning, Jesus ignores her question. And tells her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water (4:10).

Wells did not have buckets attached, you had to bring your own. She sees that Jesus does not have any means to draw water of any kind, living or no. Basically she sizes Him up and says, “Right…and how are you going to do that? You don’t have a bucket. Do you know who gave us this well? Our father Jacob! You think you are greater than him?”

Now any self-respecting Jew would have taken offense at that. How could a Samaritan claim Jacob as their father? They had intermarried with Gentiles for so long, how could they possibly claim Jacob as their forefather? This was both a racial and political jab.

Again Jesus ignores her question. He does not get into a racial or political argument. He simply replies, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks 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 (4:13-14).

It is interesting that she says Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water (4:15). Jesus offers water that wells up to eternal life, but all she seems to have heard was, “you will never thirst.” She is basically saying, “If there is really such a thing, how great would that be for me? To never thirst. To never have to carry water back and forth. To not have to subject myself to the humiliation and shame of coming here alone to draw water. Yes, if there is such a thing, I would like that!”

We’ll finish the overview of this passage in tomorrow’s post.