“Faces In The Crowd - A Prophetic Women”
Scripture Reading: John 4:1-28
Sermon Transcript for September 24, 2006
By Pastor Nancy Blevins
I suppose the first prophetic woman that I had ever heard of, her name came from the lips of my grandmother. Grandma was pretty interested in things like fortune telling and prophesies of some woman that you might have a long time ago seen her name in the checkout line at the grocery store. She would prophesy in the sense of fortune telling and in the future say, “This is going to happen”, or “Disaster here” and that type of thing related to political, who was going to win the races for President. Her last name was Dixon. Her first name was Jeanie. Jeanie Dixon.
Until I was about 35 that was the only woman prophet that I had ever heard of other than what we think of perhaps you in the Bible might know of as Deborah and Miriam, etc. But there was another woman I learned about in my seminary career. As a child I pretty much stopped at Leviticus when I was reading the Old Testament; but in seminary they made us go a little bit further. So I had to go over to II Kings one time and I was reading and there I found another prophet. They called her “prophetess”; and her name was Huldah, good strong name. She was in the time of Josiah, the King. Now I have this image of her as this woman who used to advertise Eveready batteries. She swung a flashlight that was about this long, a big, strong German woman. And I thought, Grandma would of liked her. Even though she didn’t forecast the future, but she had this ability to tell the people at that time what was wrong and that they needed to amend their life, the people of Israel.
So when you compare her to the folks that we have been seeing in the last two sermons, there was the bleeding woman, there was the woman who appointed Jesus’ feet, neither of which had names. And then we come to the woman today, the woman from Samaria. They were known not by a name; they were called something. And this woman is called “the woman at the well” most often, a woman of Samaria. But I think that we can also view her as a prophet. She goes back to her village and says, “Come and see.” But she doesn’t start there, does she. Just like many of us. Particularly this morning you heard about those of us who did not start at our own villages proclaiming the gospel. She starts there at the well with feelings of insignificance. She comes in at noon--now that’s not a good time to draw water out of a well in that village. In fact she had walked almost a half a mile away from her village because she didn’t want to hear the whispers, to see the stares of those who knew her reputation. She’d had five husbands and just as we might wad up a piece of paper and toss it away, five husbands had tossed this woman away. At that time they could say to her, “You’re divorced, you’re divorced, you’re divorced”. And that was her new state as though she were property; she was discarded. So she was avoiding the whispers.
And she may have barely glanced across the well as she came up to it; just recognizing a body not getting specific enough to see, until a few moments later, that it was a Jew. By his features she knew him. Possibly she thought, “Well, look who is lost today. What would a Jew be doing in Samaria?” And then, “Maybe he needs directions. Another lost Jew. What, a drink from me? You must be kidding? Man the suns got to you. I’ve only got one water bottle and I’m not going to let you drink from it. You’re a Jew!” Out of her anger, out of that abuse that she has suffered, out of revenge, perhaps, and resentment, she reacts to him. It is deep hurt that makes her spew forth what she has suffered. It is what we suffer that we often replay upon others, isn’t it? Jesus though didn’t respond like you and I might. Sometimes our knee-jerk reactions are to respond how we are treated. And He as easily could have spoken to her with one word and cut her down, but doesn’t. Jesus responds to this woman with compassion.
Yes, this story indicates to us Jesus’ humanity, his weariness, that he was thirsty. But there is something more that you might not have caught in this story. Jesus had a plan for this woman. It says that he “had” to go to Samaria. He was leaving one place and going to another and he took this particular pathway, this particular road. But just like here particularly, our intersections and such there are many different ways of life that will lead you to the same place. Whiteland, Indianapolis, Highway 31, I65—there wasn’t just one road to Samaria and through Samaria. But Jesus took that road. It wasn’t required for Him to end up where He wanted to go. He was leaving Judea and going back to Galilee. And then that Verse 4, “He had to go by way of Samaria.” It wasn’t about a geographical thing; it was about a theological, a mission thing. See, Jesus was out to break down a barrier. That’s what He does. He becomes a bridge. He was breaking down a barrier and he was knocking down the norms of religion that day. There was an old feud between Jews and Samaritans. It goes all the way back. And by the time that Jesus is confronting this woman at the well, four hundred years had passed with this hatred brewing and brewing and brewing because the Samaritans had intermarried. And they were not viewed as clean by the pure Jews, even enough to help build the Temple. They had volunteered in Nehemiah’s time that they would help build the Temple and they were rejected, scorned.
So Jesus is breaking tradition even to come across and converse with this person let alone the fact that she is a woman. A rabbi speaking in public to a woman could be disassociated as a holy person; a holy man would no longer be worthy to be considered such. And then there was this woman’s reputation. It says elsewhere in the Scriptures that “a good name to be had is better than riches”. She didn’t have a good name in the town. We don’t know why she went from husband to husband to husband, but it is potentially because there was no way of survival without being married. She requested that living water from Jesus. And I don’t know, I think sometimes we get too far removed from reality in churches. That was one great thing about John Wesley. He said, “You know, it’s not just about the social works and it is not just about teaching and preaching the gospel. But let us join those together.”
This woman was tired of having to go to the well to get water. How many of you have ever pumped water the old fashioned way? When I was a kid I thought it was fun. You know, get that old thing going at Grandpa’s. Sometimes you had to prime the pump and get it going. Well there, there was no priming. You hauled it up. And she says to Him, “Hey, give me a little bit of that living water then I will never be thirsty. I won’t have to come here to draw again.” She doesn’t know He is talking about spiritual things. So Jesus stuns her. He lets her face herself. It’s great, isn’t it, when you have someone who just cuts to the chase? Jesus had been speaking these terms and she had been trying to dialogue with Him. “Well, this is a holy man. Let’s throw a little religion talk back to him. You Jews, you worship up there at Jerusalem but we’ve got the real Temple.” Because they had built their own; they had kind of adjusted history, the Samaritans had.
Jesus spins her into the truth about herself. You see there are two things that happen in Christianity. First you face God and you realize who He is, who God is. And then you have a revelation of yourself. And Jesus spun her around figuratively speaking to look at herself, to realize like we might that there is sin here. She wanted to know how He knew. She couldn’t persuade Him to look at other things. And He looks into her heart and He says, “You know, you are capable of telling the truth because you have had five husbands.” And she suddenly realized, like we do, there is one who knows us, our innermost thoughts. And yet Jesus didn’t despise her. Jesus didn’t say, “I shouldn’t be talking to you.” Maybe her real question was, “If you know that I am sinful, can you tell me where to go to find God? Where can I offer sacrifice? Where can I be forgiven of everything you know about me? You’re the teacher, you’re the prophet, tell me?”
And Jesus’ answer to her is still the same today, “No place special.” You see folks, you don’t have to come in to the sanctuary to be forgiven of your sin. Jesus is sitting at this well with this woman in a foreign country to Him and He says, “There isn’t a holy spot, only one in the world that you can come to and be forgiven of your sins. There is one person who can forgive your sins. And guess who there is sitting in front of you.” We don’t expect to meet Jesus day by day at our watering holes do we? I suppose there are a few; I’ve seen them, I think, on the main street here in Franklin—a few watering holes. I’ve been in a few of those.
What we want to know and understand about God is we have a God that meets us where we are with what we bring. And I suppose that is part of the lesson for us today. This woman just didn’t pick out pieces of truth. She went, “Come and see.” Not just a God that is a loving, wonderful God. “Come and see someone who knows me.” An intimate relationship! Thank God for Jesus Christ! Amen! Because He is the bridge, He is the connector, He is the forgiver and He stood before this woman and He said who she was expecting, a Messiah, a prophet, a teacher. And He had it all rolled up there in one big package for her. “I am He.” Those are the same words that God spoke to a man named Moses, “I am that I am. I am He.”
I suppose, like the woman, we might have a couple of different reactions to that word. “Well, I couldn’t go to my village, I couldn’t go to my sphere of influence, I couldn’t go to my school, I couldn’t go to my community. You don’t expect me to go down to the watering hole do you and tell people about Jesus?” No, I just expect you to go down and tell them that someone changed your life forever. This woman discovered who that was. I guess the question is, “If you discover, will you tell who changed your life?” See the instinct of the one who has discovered something, like a child, come and see! Look what I found! It’s as simple as that. This is the woman, this is a prophetic woman saying to every one. And she gives us a witness of an example we all can follow, man or woman, child. We can all say, “Come and see. Let me talk with you. Let me tell you what Jesus is all about in my life.” But you have to start somewhere. And that woman said, “Come and see someone who told me.” That’s a start.
Will you take that step today? Is the Lord calling you to get closer to Him, to be come excited and renewed in Spirit again, to put yourself beneath that flowing fountain once more and say, “Fill me up, Lord. My throat is parched?” Or “Flow through me. I don’t have a word to say, but I trust that you, the living water, can flow through me.” If so, we offer a time where Bob and I will be available to you. Just come up to us and let us know. We will be at the back As we sing our closing song, listen to the words and let them speak to you.
E-mail Comments to: Pastor Nancy Blevins