John 4:1-15

00:00:00:45 – 00:00:25:01
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for being with us again as we continue through the Gospel of John, kicking into the fourth chapter today. An extended story that the first time, I think that we’re going to see John devote most of a chapter to a particular story. John likes to do this. He, he is a fan of long involved stories.

00:00:25:01 – 00:00:56:19
Clint Loveall
And then he usually works some wrinkles in and out of them as well. So we may be on this one for a day or two or a couple days probably, but we’ll get into it today, starting with first verse of chapter four. Going on here a little bit. Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John, although it was not Jesus himself, but his disciples who baptized, he left Judea and started back to Galilee, but he had to go through Samaria.

00:00:56:24 – 00:01:19:46
Clint Loveall
He came to the Samaritan city called seeker, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, could give me a drink. His disciples had gone into the city to buy food.

00:01:19:51 – 00:01:39:34
Clint Loveall
The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. 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 give you living water.

00:01:39:39 – 00:02:01:09
Clint Loveall
The woman said to him, sir, you have no bucket. The well is deep. Where do you get this living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and flocks drank from it. Oh, we stop there, Michael. So, a little bit of background stuff here that John is kind of telling us without needing to tell his readers.

00:02:01:13 – 00:02:30:28
Clint Loveall
Jesus is taking the direct route. He is leaving, Judea. As attention has been drawn to him. And we see this in all of the Gospels, when the the Jewish people, particularly Jewish religious leaders, get focused on Jesus, Jesus often relocates. And that’s the case here. John adds a strange detail about the he’s getting more disciples than John, so maybe there’s some discomfort happening.

00:02:30:41 – 00:03:01:45
Clint Loveall
We don’t exactly. I don’t at least know exactly what that means. But Jesus is going to return to Galilee and to get there, he’s going to take the direct route, which takes him through Samaria, Samaria, and the Samaritans and Jews. Though they share a lineage. Had long before this had a split over some theological and some genealogical differences, and the short version is that they really don’t deal with one another if they don’t have to.

00:03:01:49 – 00:03:32:31
Clint Loveall
As a rule. Jews and Samaritans held some animosity toward one another. The Jews didn’t trust the Samaritans. They considered them kind of an impure part of the Jewish line. Kind of, kind of outside of the family. Thus, the Samaritans rejected Jerusalem as the holy place. And so there was tension here ethnically. There was tension theologically, religiously.

00:03:32:36 – 00:03:40:27
Clint Loveall
And and Jesus finds himself in this place instead of going around. Jesus, interestingly enough, goes straight through.

00:03:40:32 – 00:04:06:27
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. So the fact that Jesus has chosen this path where we’re really not given a real explanation for it, other than this language that we have here. That he is, going because of, Excuse me. The text says verse four, he had to go through Samaria. That that could be in the Gospel of John.

00:04:06:32 – 00:04:27:33
Michael Gewecke
Purely logistical note. It could be that Jesus, is, for sake of time and energy, wine to make a three day journey instead of a longer day journey. On the flip side of that, in the Gospel of John, he has to go through Samaria may be a kind of pre awareness of this encounter that he’s going to have with this woman along the way.

00:04:27:39 – 00:04:50:34
Michael Gewecke
This this is very importantly, Clint, a story that we have framed now at the idea of happening around noon. We see that here in verse six. And of course, we’ve just had an encounter with Nicodemus that is at night. And now we have an encounter with this woman that’s happening, where the sun is now high in the sky.

00:04:50:36 – 00:05:17:58
Michael Gewecke
It’s a well lit scene. Another detail that the Gospel of John, shouldn’t be missed. Here, we just have this this sort of growing, budding moment in which Jesus encounters a woman that he should have never met. He’s having a conversation with a person he should have never talked to. He is exploring a history which is disagreed. Disagreed upon by both parties.

00:05:18:03 – 00:05:40:10
Michael Gewecke
At the end of the day, and now there’s going to be this cryptic language that we’ve already seen about the idea of the water itself and this utilizing a trope that we’ve already seen numerous times here in the gospel where, like, how am I going to be born again? Jesus will here. If you can give me living water, how are you going to do that when you don’t even have a bucket?

00:05:40:10 – 00:06:20:42
Michael Gewecke
Where where are you getting this water? Where is your water coming from? Another classic example where Jesus says a thing that is taken literally but is intended to have multiple meanings of of deepening spiritual world depth. And here Jesus is of course going to come to answer this. But before we get to those kinds of conversations, I just want to note, isn’t it fascinating that this text begins in verse one right here with this language about the baptizing, about about this moment of repentance, about, in this case, the question of, you know, Jesus baptizing more than John.

00:06:20:42 – 00:06:42:09
Michael Gewecke
But it’s not just Jesus, it’s his disciples. Well, baptism happens in water. And it’s striking that John pairs this with a story about living water, about the fact that here it is. Jesus who’s offering you this woman something more than just water that meets the eye. And I think these are paired together for good reason. So it’s intentional.

00:06:42:14 – 00:07:11:46
Clint Loveall
John likes. We’ve already seen this in the Nicodemus story, the preceding chapter. John likes the idea of misunderstanding. It’s one of his primary techniques of storytelling. And so here he has Jesus talking to a woman who misunderstands him. She misunderstands why he would be talking to her. Then she misunderstands what he’s saying. And, because this is an important story, because this is an unusual story, it’s gotten a lot of attention through the years.

00:07:11:51 – 00:07:36:39
Clint Loveall
Some scholars point out things like it would be unusual for this woman to be coming to the well by herself. This is well outside of town, as opposed to in town. It it is conjectured by some, or it is guessed by some that she is avoiding people and given where the conversation is going to go, perhaps that’s true.

00:07:36:39 – 00:08:04:00
Clint Loveall
Perhaps this woman wanted to be by herself, and Jesus, finds himself confronting her in her very attempt to avoid embarrassment or avoid others in the middle of the day, which is the hottest part of the day there. There are a lot of, I think, a lot of places you can dig into these details and begin to ask, what is John saying behind the things that we’re reading?

00:08:04:01 – 00:08:32:10
Clint Loveall
So here, I think at this point in the story, it’s important to know that the woman is confused as to why Jesus would be speaking to her. She’s confused again by Jesus’s words that if he if she knew who she was talking to, she would be asking him for water. But a living water, a spring water would, water that would come up naturally.

00:08:32:15 – 00:09:03:39
Clint Loveall
And so then this conversation continues. Just a couple more verses here. Then Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks the water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I give them will become a spring of water gushing up to life eternal. And then the woman said to him, sir, give me this water, that I may never be thirsty, and have to keep coming back here to draw water.

00:09:03:39 – 00:09:24:58
Clint Loveall
So again, a misunderstanding. Jesus says this thing that is spiritual in nature, and just as in the case of Nicodemus, she hears it as a thing that is physical in nature. Well, that sounds great. I’d love to have that water. Then I wouldn’t have to come out to the well in the middle of the day and get the bucket and do all the work.

00:09:25:03 – 00:09:51:34
Clint Loveall
Give me that water. And what this does, I think in light of the rest of the story we’ll look at tomorrow, it sets the stage for a reality that Jesus has in mind a much deeper conversation. And Jesus is leading this woman through this misunderstanding, to consider something more spiritual than she’s been aware of.

00:09:51:39 – 00:10:20:58
Michael Gewecke
I think that maybe a modern reader struggles to find some of the meaning of this text. If we are unaware of the substantial depth of the rivalry, the the really unacceptable mingling that’s happening in this conversation, and I think the tone of the woman here in verse 11 really matters, because the two things that follow both reflect a very critical, very judgmental kind of spirit.

00:10:20:58 – 00:10:45:32
Michael Gewecke
The first is you don’t have a bucket, the wells deep, you know, who do you think you are? You really think you’re that great? And then this idea, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob? She’s really sort of bowing back. And she’s launching into an argument that Jews and Samaritan would have on, just the turn of a dime.

00:10:45:45 – 00:11:17:36
Michael Gewecke
This is, the kind of debate that we would have in modern society, you know, are you a Coke person or a Pepsi person? That’s a trite example. But, we can launch into a debate on that thing. We’ve had that conversation before. These are this is well-traveled ground for this woman. And so I think that that matters as we turn our attention to the end here in verse 15, because when she says, sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.

00:11:17:51 – 00:11:47:06
Michael Gewecke
Clint, I think the reader is fairly able to read this with a few different senses. I mean, on one hand you could say that this is somewhat of a factual inquiry. I would love to have the kind of water that you’re describing. It would be nice to not have to come here. I suspect that John would have intended, and it would be a fair reading of this text, that there’s a decent amount of sarcasm, in that tone, that this idea.

00:11:47:13 – 00:12:09:00
Michael Gewecke
Sure. I’d love to not have to do any work. And I think that this woman is in a moment here of both saying a thing that could be an invitation to deeper faith, and also could be saying a thing that represents her resisting it. And both of those might exist at the same time in the text on purpose, because of some of the stuff that’s going to follow here.

00:12:09:00 – 00:12:26:52
Michael Gewecke
And I think when I was young and as a child read stories like this. Clint, I think I always read it in its most simplistic sense that, oh, yeah, she’s saying, I’d love to have that water, but I think it is helpful to slow down when reading scripture and to see that sometimes these characters are actually pushing back.

00:12:26:52 – 00:12:40:09
Michael Gewecke
Sometimes they are resisting the thing that Jesus is revealing. And this story is interesting for how it’s going to continue. But up to this point, I think that’s a fair reading, that there may be more layers to this than that.

00:12:40:13 – 00:13:15:36
Clint Loveall
I think this is one of those stories that we can easily miss some of the details. Jesus is breaking some significant social and religious convention here. First of all, he’s traveling through an area that most Jews would avoid. Secondly, he’s speaking to a woman which would have been questionable. Third, and to add to that, he’s speaking to a woman who a Samaritan, which would have been largely unacceptable for his people.

00:13:15:41 – 00:13:51:40
Clint Loveall
So Jesus is is breaking these norms. And I think it’s important. And John is perhaps the most comfortable with this, with Jesus, who would do that, who would not be hindered by the kind of social, cultural, religious expectations that were placed on him. And when we see that, that Jesus is willing to break those rules or those guidelines to engage this woman in a real conversation, we see that she does not yet understand the depth of where that’s going to go.

00:13:51:45 – 00:14:22:12
Clint Loveall
She thinks that Jesus is talking about water. Either she really thinks that, or to your point, Michael, she’s maybe maybe pushing back with a little sarcasm, but she does not yet understand that the things that Jesus wants to talk about are not the things that will make her life easier. They’re not conveniences. They’re the spiritual reality of her brokenness and the condition of her her life.

00:14:22:17 – 00:14:51:29
Clint Loveall
And as we make that turn tomorrow, obviously that is not going to go where this woman anticipates it going. And I think that’s part of the power of this story, is she thinks they’re talking about one thing, and she’s about to find out that with Jesus, that conversation is never on the surface. It’s never lighthearted. There’s always going to be something of depth and meaning and challenge to it.

00:14:51:34 – 00:15:15:38
Michael Gewecke
Well, and I think that’s perfectly encapsulated here in verse 14, Clint, the idea that the water that I will give, Jesus says will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. So what is the eternal part of that of that telling? Is it either that the water will eternally be coming it’s a never ending water supply?

00:15:15:43 – 00:15:47:25
Michael Gewecke
Or is it something about the eternal life which is to go beyond the the horizon of life that we see? This woman is firmly caught in this earthly encounter with this Jew, breaking all of these boundaries. She’s fixated on what’s wrong in this social encounter and in her fixation. It seems clear that she’s completely missing the revelation of the God who’s standing in front of her when he promises eternal life.

00:15:47:25 – 00:16:16:51
Michael Gewecke
He’s not promising water that bubbles up from Jacob’s well for eternity. It’s not land locked to time in that way. What he’s promising is that if she might even partake of the the water of his baptism, the waters of Christ, then then she will experience a kind of life that knows no end, life that she cannot, even in the midst of this conversation, comprehend, because she can’t get beyond the struggle and the blockage right in front of her.

00:16:16:51 – 00:16:52:00
Michael Gewecke
And I do think a woman like this is, if you understand the context of this story, understandably struggling to understand what’s happening, what is amazing is that Jesus is not giving up on her and the story. We have more story to go. There’s more time that Jesus is going to invest in. What this woman understands about what’s happening here, and if we, the reader, can stick with it along the way, I think we too are going to to see some interesting things unfold as we go.

00:16:52:04 – 00:17:21:52
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I, I agree, I, I think that the second half of this story deeply informs the first half. And so it, I hope you can be with us tomorrow as it sheds some light on not only this woman’s personal circumstance, but more broadly, what it means to be thirsty and what it means to be quenched, and what it means that life would well up in us.

00:17:21:52 – 00:17:37:21
Clint Loveall
And, this woman, on this unnamed day in the middle of the day at a place she thought she was just going to go get water, is going to be surprised what else she receives here.

00:17:37:26 – 00:17:44:54
Michael Gewecke
I think that’s a great segue. Certainly if you found this conversation of part one helpful, give it a like subscribe for tomorrow’s conversation and we look forward to seeing you. Then.