Rumours of Another Life

John 4:1-26

THE PROMISE OF LIVING WATERS AT SCHECHEM (aka The Woman at the Well)

Some things seem so clear, so simple that they don’t require any explanation. Like our sermon passage today. You don’t need to be a genius, a child in Sunday School or a non-Christian can get it. If I summarised it in three words: thirsty, water, forever. Right? 
The gospel of John has many scenes where daily items as water and bread convey complex ideas. This passage is one of John’s most famous ones, and has details replete with meaning. We’re going to now watch a clip , because it’s such a highly visual passage. When you watch, please look out for these things: the place, the woman, the promise and the invitation. Those are the things we will use to frame the sermon today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ2pYmKIOOg ( full clip is 6 mins).

As in all parables, we need to put ourselves in the place of the characters ( the Samaritan woman) as well as the original audience of the parable (let’s say, for example, a Jew in John’s day).
(1) The Place
This isn’t a “good” neighbourhood. Jews don’t walk there for fear of defiling themselves. Certainly, there were other routes Jesus could have taken. The Hebrew reader/hearer of that day may have mixed feelings upon hearing the name Schechem.
[On one hand, it was where
- Jacob promised to spare spare Hamor and the Shechemites after Dinah was sexually violated (Gen 17) ( a promise that was not kept to- Gen 37), and
- Joseph’s brother sold him into slavery (Gen 37)]
On the other hand it was also where
- Abraham received God’s promises that “To your offspring I will give this land” (Gen 12:7)
- The Israelites were meant to remember this promise of God’s (see Joshua 8 for the rededication ceremony) (sadly this promise was repeatedly broken by the Israelites).
- Joseph’s bones were laid in a tomb (Josh 24:32), following his request, made from his deathbed in Egypt, that he be returned to the land that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and his father Jacob. [The mention of “Jacob’s well” here would have only strengthened that reference to the Jewish person listening to this story. ]

(2) The Woman
The woman was a Samaritan. Samaritans were descended from 2 groups of people:
(a)The remnant of native Israelites who were not deported after the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC; and
(b) Foreigner brought in from Babylonia and Media by the Assyrian conquerors to settle the land. The Assyrians wanted inhabitants who would be loyal to them.
This resulted in a people who had a mix of pagan beliefs and Jewish practices. These people worshipped, not at Jerusalem like any good Jew, but at their own temple in a place called Mt. Gerizim.
In fact, the Samaritans refused to worship in Jerusalem, supposedly obstructed the Jewish restoration of Jerusalem, and even helped the Syrians in their war against the Jews (2nd BC). There was no love lost between the 2, and in 128 BC the Jewish high priest dramatically retaliated and burned the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerazim.

(3) The Invitation
As a Samaritan, she was an unlikely candidate for what Jesus did. Jesus initiated contact with her, and revealed Himself to her. He must have known she would say , “why are you talking to me”? Jesus had “set her up”, to cause her to ask (v12) “ Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” For, you see, this woman, like the hearer of the day, was fully aware of the implications of the place and the well.
And the heart of today’s passage is in Jesus’ reply, verse 13:” Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, v14 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.” In short, as I said before- in three words: thirsty, water, forever.

(4) The Promise/ The Living Waters
That invitation has been discussed by many Christian writers over the years. St Augustine (AD 354–430) says it describes the spiritual thirst the human heart has for goodness and truth. The original phrase used here “living water” alludes to quick movement (like jumping) on the part of living beings. This is the only instance of its being applied to the action of water. However, in the LXX it is used to describe the “Spirit of God” as it falls on Samson and Saul [Judg 14:6, 19; 15:14; I Kingdoms 10:2, 10 LXX (= I Sam 10:6, 10 English text); and Isa 35:6 (note context)]. This, and other sources, point to the water that “leaps up” to eternal life (4:14) just like it is the Spirit who gives life (6:63).
***

What does it mean to have the eternal life?
The theme of eternal life runs through John’s gospel. He said he wrote "you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (Jn 20:31; cf. 1 Jn 5:13).
One aspect of this is that eternal life, in the present tense (Jn 5:24-26). To have this water of life doesn’t just mean we can live forever (like the mythical beings in modern movies and books). It means that
- we have a new type of life here and now, we live everyday with the experience of being in fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
- we have a new relationship, being now the sons and daughters of God, His beloved and His heirs, and
- we are cleansed from sin, washed clean.

So far I’ve given you the textbook answer of what is eternal life.
But sometimes, textbooks don’t give very satisfactory answers. If your non-Christian friend asked you, “What do you mean, Jesus gives eternal life? Like the vampires in Twilight?”, how would you answer them? Reading the textbook answer won’t help.
In looking at big theological concepts, we need to concretise them, to what they mean to specific people. There are many, MANY aspects to the idea of eternal life, but if we locate our discussion in the current text and to Jesus and the lady, and to what they say, it points us very clearly to two things.

The Message for the Samaritan Woman
These two things are, firstly, cleansing from sin; and secondly, our relationship with God.
 Because the woman has told him the partial truth about her adultery (“I have no husband”), Jesus calmly reveals the rest of the truth and shocks her into saying that he is a prophet. From there, it seems a strange transition in the conversation ( v19) to suddenly talk about worship, but it might like how some people want to discuss theology or salvation when they realise you are a pastor or a seminary student.

 This leads us to the second aspect of eternal life that surfaces here- that we have a new relationship with God. What is different about it is that it is not limited to the idea of physical worship, to issues of physical locations and procedures. This was at the very heart of the Samaritan- Jews’ bitter theological debate (v20-“ Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claimed we must worship in Jerusalem.” )

In the debate of “Is Location A better that Location B”, Jesus now says “neither”. It’s not about special places, special structures, special music, instruments, days, animals ( and the list goes on), not about the exterior but instead about the interior, or the spirit, or our hearts.

 To worship God “in truth” means to worship Him in accordance to what He has revealed to us; in other words, as per His instructions/revelations. This includes, for example, no “vain” worship, or meaningless gestures when our heart is not right, or ignorant worship ( not knowing or not caring who God really is or what He asks or us), or “carnal” worship (which sounds or feels good to man, but is not what God has asked for). John Calvin says that worship should start with a sound understanding of God, and should start and end with Him ( in contrast to starting and ending with man). Among other things, God has told us Jesus IS the way, the truth and the life, so our worship of God should be Christ-centred and mediated.
[A point to note might be that (as Calvin indicated), this is not to say Jewish worship was wrongly done(for this was always spiritual); however the spiritual nature and substantial truth of the worship were veiled and obscured. Thus, when the substance and spiritual nature was revealed more plainly and fully, it is viewed as if new. ]

 Jesus is also alluding what is called a redemptive-historical shift. That fancy word means that Jesus is alluding to the shift from the Mosaic to the New Covenant. In the New Covenant, Jesus is here, He is the Messiah, and things are changing right before her eyes.
[Jesus is not saying here in John 4:22 that Israel's worship was always exemplary when he says "salvation is from the Jews" or "we worship what we know". He is stating that Israel was the chosen nation through which the Scriptures came that instructed them in their proper worship (even if they did not obediently comply) ( see also the phrase used in Romans 9:1-6).]

However, the "time was coming, and was now here"!. Things were changing and even the Jews who were worshipping at the Temple on the mountain in Jerusalem, that at one time was the correct place of worship, NOW were to worship only in and through Jesus Christ and "in spirit and truth". This is a BIG change for the Jews to accept, and it is a recurrent message in the Gospels. As Jesus showed with the Temple in Jerusalem (Jn chapter 2), the glory of God was manifested in flesh, in the person of Jesus. Because God was present with Israel in the flesh now, the glory of God was no longer limited to the Temple. God was with them! This message would have been a powerful one to the Samaritan woman, as they were then at the foot of Mt Gerazim, the site of the Samaritan temple, the source of bitter theological arguments between them and the Jews.
 
Application and Conclusion
Emmauel, God is with us too!
So in this passage, we’ve learnt that:
- Jesus offers the woman (and the Jews, and US!) water which never runs out
- which means eternal life
- which means (at least while we are on this earth) the gift and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
- which means, in the here and now, God is with us.
That is the message to the Samaritan lady and that is the invitation that continues to go out today.

In his book “ Rumours of Another World” (subtitle: what on earth are we missing), Philip Yancey speaks about people in the so-called “ borderlands” of faith, who don’t go to church, aren’t Christians, but yet have this feeling there is a different spiritual reality out there. They may get this feeling from encountering people, from seeing the beauty in this world, from music and art and other things through which they have glimpsed something of the spiritual. These all create for them, “ Rumours of Another World”. [As the X-files tagline goes- The Truth Is Out There!]

I’ve borrowed his phrase for the title of this sermon “Rumours of Another Life”.
Because today, as we speak of eternal life, and wonder how to explain this to our non-Christian friends, we want to tell them there is another life out there for them. NOT in the sense of doing a makeover, changing their appearance, or their job, or moving to another country to do something radically different. NO.
That other life is from within, and the source of that life is Jesus Christ. Because of this wellspring of life within us, because of the fellowship of the Spirit and the mediation of Christ, we can approach and worship God directly. And all this never ends! That is the promise of Christ in Jn 4 today.
I started with 3 words: thirsty, water, forever.
I’ll end with 3: longing, Emmanuel, forever.
(2100 words )

References:
Barackman, F. (2001). Practical Christian Theology: Examining the Great Doctrines of the Faith (4th edition) . Zondervan, MI. page 355.
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2010/06/25/shechem-its-archaeological-and-contextual-significance.aspx#Article
http://executableoutlines.com/jn/jn4_20.htm
http://www.freedominchrist.net/Sermons/Worship/CHAPTER%2012--Worship--An%20Analysis%20of%20John%204--24.htm
http://wrs.edu/Materials_for_Web_Site/Journals/16-1_Feb-2009/Dyck--Calvin_Worship.pdf
http://www.reformationtheology.com/2007/03/worship_in_spirit_and_truth.php
http://www.reformationtheology.com/2007/03/worship_in_spirit_and_truth.php