Everything

John 4:5-42
Third Sunday in Lent

I've known people like this woman all my life, and I bet you have too.  Of course, I work in the church and people like this just kind of show up from time to time.  But I've lived next to them too.  It's always something with them, isn't it?  It's always some new crisis; it's always some new angle that's going to make all of the old problems magically go away... and they never do.  In fact, their problems have a way of piling up in the yard.  If you're not careful, their problems can somehow become your problems.  If you are careful, you can act just interested enough not to be rude, but not so interested that they'll keep talking.  

Yeah, I've known people like this woman all my life.  I've met her so often, I can even hear them talking about her as she comes panting back from the well: “Uh, oh.  Somebody's in a hurry... and she's headed right for us.  How much do you want to bet, she's in love again?”

“Come. See. A. Man. Who. Told. Me. Everything. I. Ever. Did.  Could this... be the Messiah?”

“Hold on. What?”

“Come and see... the Messiah.”

“No, no, no; that middle part.”

“He told me everything I ever did.”

“Everything?”

“Yeah, everything.”

Did they go out to see him?  Of course they did.  They knew everything she'd ever done... and probably avoided her because of it.  He knew everything she'd ever done and welcomed her home; just like he welcomes people like us every day of our lives.  

Come and see the Savior of the World.  Come and see the one who knows everything about you (yeah, everything) and loves you and accepts you beyond your wildest imaginations.  

I don't know that a pastor is supposed to play favorites with Scripture passages... but I love this story.  The first sermon I ever preached was about this woman at this well.  It is, at its heart, a story about not being where you’re supposed to be; it’s about being off of the main highway, as it were.  Jesus leaves the highway on purpose, here in Samaria: in the first line of chapter four, Jesus hears that the Pharisees have started keeping score between him and John the Baptist.  Instead of hearing the Message, or even recognizing that something amazing is going on, they start counting baptisms between Jesus' and John's followers.  So Jesus says something like, “I've got to step out for some fresh air,” and heads off for Galilee.  

But even his departure from Judea gets sidetracked: the gospel says that Jesus had to go through Samaria.  But Samaria wasn’t a place proper people really went.  Proper people believed that Samaritans were, at best, only kind of Jewish.  And the Samaritans didn’t really care for the Jews either: they kept making the audacious claim that the true place of worship was there in Samaria, and not in Jerusalem (the place Jesus just intentionally left). Samaria was a place of dispute; a place that proper people didn’t really go.  

If they had trains back then, the whole of Samaria would be on the wrong side of the tracks.  And yet the gospel writer tells us that Jesus had to go there, and I'm not entirely sure what John means by that: it could be that John is simply making some kind of excuse for this less-than-respectable act on Jesus part.  In other words, it could be that he’s saying, “For what Jesus was up to and where he was going, he couldn't have done this trip without going through Samaria; after all, it was the quickest route.”  

But maybe, it was like when the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted; maybe this was someplace Jesus just had to go.  Maybe one morning Jesus looked at the disciples and said, “Boys, we've got to go to Samaria.”  Now this is just speculation on my part, but I like that idea; that sounds like something my Jesus would do.  That sounds like the Jesus who would go off the main road, into scandalous places, just to show us how to truly love.  

But of course, Jesus is not the only one who's wandered from the main highway in this story, is he?  Soon we meet a woman who is so out there, I have a hard time knowing where to start.  Well, we meet her in Samaria, so why not start there: she is, of course, a Samaritan.  We know this because it comes up kind of frequently in the story.  The gospel writer brings it up a couple of times and even points out that there were specific rules about this kind of interaction.  The women herself mentions it as well. And even the disciples, although they're smart enough to keep it to themselves, at least noticed when they got back from the store.  

Whether we like to admit it or not, when we tell our kids not to talk to strangers, we usually have specific strangers in mind.  And in Jesus' day, the Samaritans were those strangers.  If at all possible, they should be avoided; and you certainly don't want to be sharing their water cups! 

But she wasn't just a Samaritan, she was a woman.  There were similar rules of propriety that kept respectable men from interacting with unknown women.  But of course, Jesus breaks those rules too.  

But then there is that one other thing too.  Leaving behind the bigotries and silly customs of the day, she was still that kind of woman.  This is a fact we don't learn about until later in the story, but Jesus seems to have known it all along.  As the story goes on this point is made all the more scandalous because it's Jesus who starts up the conversation.  He knows who she is.  He knows that she’s a Samaritan.  He knows that she is a woman.  He even knows what kind of Samaritan woman she is… and it’s Jesus who breaks the ice.  It’s Jesus who breaks all the rules of proper, acceptable behavior… and asks her for a drink.  

At this point, I’d like to point out that he never does get his drink, does he?  He never does get his drink of water, but then again, he wasn’t really after water in the first place.  He asks her for a drink, but that’s not really what he wants.  What he wants is really to offer her something.  She came to this well, with all her baggage and a jar to draw water with; what she found was a deeper well with Living Water flowing freely from it.  What she found was Jesus.  

And then something happens: we might otherwise miss it because it seems to happen just about the same time the disciples come back, but something definitely happens.  When this story starts out, these two are perfect strangers at a well. When it ends, this woman is so excited that she leaves without the very thing she came to the well for in the first place.

The way the Gospel writer puts it is, “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could this be the Christ?’”

She leaves behind what brought her there in the first place because she had found something she wasn’t actually looking for; and isn’t that just like Jesus?  Isn’t it just like Jesus to find us, whether we’re looking for him or not?  Isn’t it just like Jesus to find us, to know everything about us, and love us and accept us when we least expect it?  

So she leaves the water, she leaves the jar and she heads back to town with the most compelling testimony any of us can ever offer: he knows me completely; come and see.  And soon, this is no longer just a story about a woman who meets Jesus; it’s a story about a whole town full of people meeting Jesus.  The implications for us are both terrifying and thrilling.  

Christ sees us completely.  Our Savior knows everything about us – it isn’t that he doesn’t see it, he just sees past it – and then he asks us for a drink in spite of all that.  But what he’s really asking of us is that we drink of his Living Water and then take it with us to share with our thirsty neighbors.  What he’s really asking is that we first see ourselves as fully known by him – and therefore fully accepted and fully forgiven – and then let us be fully used by him, calling all those around us to come and see the one who knows everything we’ve ever done.  And when they ask you, “Everything?”  You just answer, “Yeah, everything!  Come and see.”